One Hundred Percent

One hundred percent complete. 100%. It's the holy grail for some collectors - a 100% complete collection.  As a huge fan of both LEGO and Star Wars. I decided one fateful day almost exactly four years ago that I'd like to try and collect a boxed example of every single LEGO Star Wars set ever made, and it's been an expensive millstone around my neck ever since.

Admittedly, many of the sets were actually quite easy to track down, through eBay mainly. Some of them were even quite cheap - while they had to be boxed, and all the pieces, minifigures and instruction booklets had to be present and correct, I had at least thankfully decreed that the sets didn't have to be sealed. I was however forced to carefully ponder on exactly what I'd actually meant by '100% complete' and 'all the LEGO Star Wars sets ever made' at an early stage. You'd think it was pretty self-explanatory, but a look at Brickset's listing of all the sets in the LEGO Star Wars theme, which you can see here, soon suggested that things might not be quite as simple as they had initially seemed....

According to the Brickset database, the LEGO Star Wars theme consists of a total of 334 sets at time of writing, although since that total includes 15 unreleased 2013 sets I think it's probably more accurate to say 319 sets, for now at least. So you'd think it would be pretty easy to figure out which sets you'd need to track down in order to complete your collection, right ? Not necessarily.... Take a look through the list of those 319 sets, sort them by set number, and you'll find that after you get past the latest UCS offering, Set 10227 B-wing Starfighter, the set numbers take a big jump into the 20000's and things start to get decidedly less straightforward.

Brickmaster Set 20006 Clone Turbo Tank - rarer than hen's teeth....

Sets 20006 (above) to 20021 are so-called Brickmaster Exclusives; while a couple of them could for a limited time be purchased at LEGO brand stores and via LEGO S@H, most of them were only available via LEGO's subscription-only Brickmaster service which was restricted to folks in the U.S.. Next are a series of sets numbered from 30004 to 30059. These are all small models packaged in poly bags, and their availability has been highly variable, having appeared in some countries but not in others (e.g. to date, Set 30059 MTT has only been available in Japan and possibly Canada). Then there are various set collections and 3-in-1 Superpacks which occupy set numbers in the range of 65081 to 66432; these have only been available from certain retailers (typically Toys R Us) in certain countries. Therafter the set numbers start to get just a little bit silly and you're on to some of the rarer promo sets, starting with Set 2853835 White Boba Fett (below) and beyond this the likes of Set 4521221 Gold Chrome-plated C-3PO; these poly bagged minifigures were given away free by LEGO at various points, e.g. hidden within random retail sets, or given away free with a specified minimum spend at LEGO S@H.

Soon the set numbers run out and you're really in the wild country - sets which don't even have an 'official' number and which Brickset thus somewhat arbitrarily designates with an alphanumeric identifier and lists alphabetically. These sets include CELEBVI, a Mini Slave 1 model only available to visitors to the Star Wars Celebration VI event in August 2012, and COMCON019, a Mini Sith Inflitrator model only available at this year's San Diego Comic Con (below).

The bad news if you're a completist, particularly one who is just starting out now with few if any sets already acquired, is that even some of the 'regular' retail sets from past years are painfully expensive now. Consider for instance Set 10123 Cloud City, released in 2003 at an RRP of $100. A complete, boxed example will currently set you back at least £550 / $1000 plus shipping if you buy through Bricklink. Just to make matters worse, once the set numbering stops and the letters start, you may be looking at an even more serious financial investment if you want to get hold of some of the items. And then there are some rarer items still that aren't even included in the Brickset database and which will cost you literally thousands to aquire, assuming of course that the few who own them would even be willing to part with them. Such obscure items include the fabled 14-carat gold C-3PO minifigure (below) of which only 5 were ever made.

14-carat gold C-3PO minifigure (from Brickipedia)

So for the aspiring LEGO Star Wars collector, where does '100% complete' end ? Is it just the retail sets ? Or maybe it also includes all the stuff like LEGO Star Wars key chains and/or magnet sets as well ? And what about all the rare promo items which don't even have proper set numbers ? Not to mention the set collections and 3-in-1 Superpacks which are just collections of standard sets in a bigger box. Or even the multiple versions of the same sets with the same set number but with different packaging. And do all the sets have to be boxed to count....?

There's no 'right' answer. I've seen these questions debated endlessly on the various online LEGO forums and everybody it seems has a different definition of which sets to include and what it means to be '100% complete'. For what it's worth, and it's not really worth much at all, I arbitrarily take '100% complete' to mean just sets which you can actually build and which were, or still are, available at retail. So not key chains, nor magnet sets, nor rare promo items. Sure, if I can get these ancilliary items without killing myself then that's great, and I certainly do when I can, but they don't count towards my own personal 100% tally. You may well disagree, but that's fine - each to his own, and whatever works for you is good. Just don't tell me that you're 'right'....!

"The damage doesn't look as bad from out here"

Continuing on the recent (and unintentional) Star Wars focus, I've been building another 2012 Star Wars set this week.

Given the wealth of sets old and new which I could have built, it's strange how the selection process works. Despite Set 9490 Droid Escape not exactly setting me alight with excitement, I found myself really wanting to crack open this set because I wanted to take a closer look at a couple of the minifigures within. But more of them later....

Aside from the obligatory 2012 Darth Maul branding and the picture of the minifigures (which becomes ever larger and more prominent every year, for obvious reasons....), there's a simple but nicely staged picture showing the escape pod and minifigures on Tatooine's desert wastes. The back of the box below (for all pictures, click to enlarge) shows a few action shots and highlights the 'play feature' of this set, namely the ability to pop open the escape pod and release the droids within.

The box has thumb tabs for easy opening, but fellow obsessives will no doubt leave these intact and instead stick with a sharp knife to carefully release the contents.... Open the box and you'll find the 38 page instruction booklet, two sealed bags of parts, a sticker sheet and two loose large half-cone parts which will form the body of the escape pod.

Loose sticker sheets floating around inside boxes make me nervous as they often get damaged, but mine (below) thankfully survived intact....

The cover of the instruction booklet (below) is similar to the box art, although the graphic representations of the minifigures are absent, presumably to avoid things getting too cramped.

The building steps were easy to follow, and I'm delighted to report that colour discrimination issues didn't rear their ugly head here at all - black looked like black, and there wasn't any of the confusion regarding black, dark and light bley that I've experienced in the past. LEGO seem to have finally made a concerted effort to nail this colour discrimination issue, as evidenced by the fact that back pieces now have a thin white border around them in the building instructions (below) - bravo LEGO for finally sorting this, and let's hope all instruction booklets going forward get this treatment.

In addition to the 31 pages of building instructions, the booklet also contains an inventory of parts, some advertising for other 2012 Star Wars sets (including the neat minifig gallery I mentioned last week) and even the brief comic strip below....

You can see a selection of parts below (click to enlarge). None of the parts are unique to this set, but the light bley semi-circular bricks have only appeared in 3 sets including this one and the light bley half-cones in five sets. Oh, and for reasons unknown I'm a big fan of the round corner 4 x 4 bricks (big macaronis) which is why they're in the picture...

And so on to what for many will be the highlight of this set - the minifigures. There are four of them, of which three are new. Let's start with the Sandtroopers, which I was particularly looking forward to taking a closer look at. You'll have seen many Stormtroopers spread across multiple sets over the years, and admittedly the Sandtroopers are just a variation on a theme, but what really struck me is the level of detail on these guys.....

I love their sand-staining, which almost looks hand-painted, and the worn, gritty look that it gives them. As you can see above, the figures also feature back printing, printed legs and a pauldron. Even the pauldron has a pattern on it. And under the helmet the minifigure heads are painted. Outstanding.

Next up is C-3PO. I must have scores of C-3PO figures already, but this new version (below) really ups the ante, with painted eyes, wiring visible on torso and more detailed back-printing.

You can see new Threepio below on the left, with an older version on the right for comparison. Evolution rather than revolution, but I think LEGO have done an excellent job improving this figure - thumbs up again.

The final figure is R2-D2; this is the only figure which isn't new, having appeared in a total of 8 sets stretching back to 2008. Compared with the other more detailed figures in this set, Artoo is starting to look a little plain, and has no back printing on his "torso", but he still does the job OK. Quality issues rear their ugly head with the little chap below, however - the head printing isn't level and looks untidy.

Once the minifigures have been assembled it's time to get to work on the Sandtrooper speeder bike; this is a quick and simple build, and you can see the finished product below. I don't recall ever having seen a Sandtrooper sat on a speeder bike during the Star Wars films and therefore don't know what the bikes are supposed to look like; if however they're supposed to look like the speeder bikes made famous by the Endor Speeder Chase scene in Return of the Jedi then this one looks a little insubstantial...

Finally the escape pod. This is a simple but interesting build, featuring a control panel and ample space to accomodate the droids. There are unfortunately a number of stickers to apply, including large panels which need to be carefully applied to the half-cones making up the body of the escape pod. I can see an awful lot of people building this set and winding up with a messy end result on account of stickers not being applied carefully enough. Most probably won't care. I, unfortunately, do care and thus didnt enjoy lining the blasted stickers up and trying to get them perfectly straight. Still, at least there aren't any STAMPs I suppose.

Stickers notwithstanding, I think the designers have done a decent enough job on the escape pod, with key features such as the engines nicely captured, both in number and configuration, although the source material (below) doesn't seem to have a markedly tapered body like the LEGO version.

Image from Wookieepedia

You can see all of the different elements of the set below (click to enlarge); apologies for the lack of a Tatooine-style tan backdrop, but hopefully you get the point.

As you may be aware, there is a previous version of this set; Set 7106 Droid Escape was released in 2001 and is more modest in size, weighing in at only 45 pieces versus 137 pieces for the newer version.

The 2001 version of the escape pod has a nice printed body rather than stickers but is otherwise less detailed than the newer version, which I think is superior overall. Set 7106 cost a mere $6 at the time of its release, as against $19.99 / £19.99 for the current version, but a higher piece count and double the number of minifigures do at least in part help to justify the price hike for the newer set.

Overall I like this set; the minifigures are the clear highlight, with the new Sandtroopers being a personal favourite of mine, and the compact speeder bike and new, improved escape pod add some decent play value. Some folks in the UK were lucky to recently get this set at £8.50 from Asda, a surprising 57% discount from RRP, but given that this deal is I think now gone you can at least pick it up for 25% off RRP here. Folks in the US can buy the set here. No discount for you, although since your RRP is cheaper than the discounted UK price anyway I have no sympathy....

Image from www.retrostarwars.com

Exclusives are Rubbish

OK, time for a bit of a moan.

As a LEGO Star Wars collector, I get really irritated when new LEGO Star Wars sets or items are released which I'm prevented from getting at a reasonable price merely by an accident of geography. It's just not right.

So far this year, I can think of at least 5 LEGO Star Wars items which up until now have only been made available, or will only be made available, to people attending certain events overseas or living in certain countries. There were the Clone Wars Edition Cube Dudes (only available at this year's San Diego Comic Con), the Bounty Hunter Cube Dudes (only available at Fan Celebration V), the white Boba Fett minifig that I blogged about recently and a couple of Brickmaster sets (Set 20016 mini Imperial Shuttle and the yet-to-be-released Set 20018 mini AT-AT) only available to folks in the U.S. via a Brickmaster subscription.

The very cool Bounty Hunter Cube Dude Set.....but you can't have one....    

I'm really hoping that the Brickmaster sets and the white Boba Fett will appear on this side of the pond at some point, but the Cube Dudes are I believe all gone, so it's a case of paying over the odds on Ebay or Bricklink or just doing without. It's frustrating knowing that these interesting and desirable pieces of the LEGO Star Wars jigsaw are out there, but also knowing that I need to jump through hoops and cough up lots of cash in order to ensure that I can add them to my collection.

This isn't a new phenomenon - just check out the resale prices of the 64-piece 2008 Brickmaster exclusive mini Clone Turbo Tank if you want to see the kind of pain that collectors outside the U.S. have to endure, and there are numerous other examples of desirable LEGO Star Wars exclusives which give collectors sleepless nights. Chrome gold C-3PO minifig, anyone ? We should certainly be grateful for the existence of Ebay and Bricklink which at least mean that these rare items are attainable - I have Ebay to thank for my shiny gold C-3PO. It's just a pity you need a second mortgage to afford them !

Huw on Brickset reported yesterday that Brickmaster will be winding down at the end of this year. While that's a big shame for U.S. subscribers, it's one less source of 'exclusive' sets which aren't available to the rest of us. It's demise also raises the possibility that whatever replaces it might be a global rather than U.S.-only initiative which would be fairer, although I'm not holding my breath.

So I'll end with a plea to the LEGO company (who are obviously not reading this, but please just humour me anyway) : I implore you to stop producing limited edition LEGO Star Wars items for the chosen few. It benefits nobody except the Ebay scalpers and puts me in a bad mood.