This will be a quick one since it is a polybag set. I bought this from eBay from a seller who had not responded to my question by the the auction ended. The scene for this set is a Thanksgiving feast. Here is a look at the polybag packaging. It has the standard bright yellow.
The larger pieces are in loose form, the smaller pieces in a smaller separate polybag. The instructions as usual are in the form of a booklet.
I must say I bought it mainly because it was full of those accessories. Certainly it was not for the minifigures where are really plain vanilla one which one can find any Lego City set. Of course their faces are better than the classic ones found in the modular sets but really, nothing is very special about the 2 minifigures.
Next are the 2 cats. Sadly there are no printing on them. Makes them look a bit like zombie cats. If we start talking about the accessories, oh my there are a lot to talk about, not even sure where to start so I will mention the more prominant ones. The trans clear wine bottle has the ship printing that can be also found in the PoTC Captain Log Cabin. The pie was first found in the CMF series 5 Small Clown so it an uncommon. The full turkey with 2 drumsticks is an uncommon item as well.
So of course without hesitation, my first thought would be which modular building would be fitting for it? The first set to come to my mind was the Green Grocer. Thankfully there was enough space to put in the big table into it though it was a slight snug fit.
Overall a nice set to add some accessories to any dinner table scene in your Lego build. For SGD$15 bucks, it is of course horrible in terms of price per piece but one must remember most of the 46 pieces are mostly those accessory parts which are not that easy to get and are the prime reason to get this set. Plus it is not available in Singapore so the price is pretty reasonable. Actual retail if it can be found in US is USD$7.99. So the guy who sold it to me maybe made a profit margin of 3 dollars from me? Which is not too bad because on must also consider the shipping costs.
To close off, we are getting close towards Thanksgiving and Christmas. This set is like a appetizer for the month of November and leads into December. I have bought some Seasonal sets and cannot wait to build them at the start of December.
My friend happened to be at Toy Station over at Serene Centre. Incredibly, the shop had restocked the polybag set Springtime Scene and it was still pricing it at SGD15.00. This set is found at much higher prices elsewhere.
The cover art shows the set which features 3 separate builds namely a tree, a bench with a couple on it and a water cooler with a frog on it.
The unique things about this set to me is the abundance of the flower pieces, part number 33291, officially called Plate, Round 1 x 1 with Flower Edge (4 Knobs). They come in dark pink and bright light orange in this set. Interestingly I found out that this piece is not really a new piece and actually comes in quite a variety of colours just that previously it was found mostly in sets like Scala and Belville which are sets targeted towards girls. Those sets had pieces which were not the commonly found 4 colours that we see today of bright light orange, bright green, dark pink and reddish-brown. But okay enough with my fetish for this piece... Here is a shot of what is in the polybag. An instruction pamphlet, a small polybag for the smaller pieces of this set and the rest of the pieces are loose in that polybag.
The other part that it feature here in abundance is the red cherry pieces. Part number 22667 or 71842, Cherries are commonly found in red or lime. Older Lego sets have them in a dark pink as well. Here is a parts list shot of this set and the lower right features the extra parts that are leftover from the build.
The above 2 pieces to me make up the essence of conveying spring time in this set. Let us look at the first build to see the flower pieces that I am ranting about. This set comes with 2 minifigures. Nothing that special about them and will fit well into Lego City that anyone owns. They feature both front and back printing on their torsos if that is any form of bonus. The build features quite a bit of vegetation like the plant with stem on the left and the plant with 3 bamboo leaves on the right. The plant petals in this case are using the flower pieces instead of the normal petal pieces and I favour this approach as these flower pieces can be used on their own as well. This is rounded off with a bench and the 2 minifigures on it. Overall a quick and simple build.
Next we have the water cooler build. The central feature, the water cooler is a very simple and yet quite elegant microbuild. Of course Lego had to ruin that by having a frog take a sip from it. On the lower right features the same technique of using the flower pieces as the petals. Marvellous. A little fence rounds out this set. Again simple but looks really neat and quite special with that water cooler microbuild.
Finally, the last build is the tree which basically carries the main theme of spring in its leaf branches. The 4 leaves on the tree are identical in the arrangement of the pink flowers and red cherries. I am sure that I will be more free in my build of the second set on hand to toss in some variety. The tree build is topped off with 2 fence pieces. Actually I do not know why there are fence pieces in this set. Could probably do without that and with some brick build bushes or some small animals like hedgehogs or something.
Here is the set fully assembled and arranged artfully into a pile of organised builds. Looking at it from an eye level side view will not reveal much but an overhead view will show how awesome it looks compared to a "standard" tree. Heh.
So this set is 88 pieces and at SGD15.00. Is it worth getting? Well if you have some spare cash lying around and want to enhance your scenes or building sets, I would say yes, after all you cannot really go wrong with adding trees, benches or water coolers to your existing buildings and pavements. In fact buy a whole bunch of them and make a forest of pink and red like cherry blossom or sakura season in Japan! In fact, I planned in the future to get more of the flower pieces to brighten up all my modular buildings. That is when I got some cash lying around. If not, one can skip this, not that it is not good but that the price per piece ratio is not that good. Usually only large builds have a better ratio. The other down side to this set is the 2 minifigures are pretty plain Jane. So this set is not a must get but it is not the kind that feels like a filler. It is more of an enhancement set.
