
Lego Saturn V - altro
https://ideas.lego.com/blogs/1-blog/post/137
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owenversteeg
For those that are surprised that it's "so expensive", LEGO is usually very
expensive (and totally worth it.) This is only 119 euros/dollars (same for
both) and I know I'll be buying it both for myself and as a gift for my best
friend (unless she gets it for herself first.)

LEGO sets have an average price per piece of around 10 cents, which has been
pretty stable since the late 70s [0]. With 1969 pieces (which is a fantastic
number) you'd expect the set to cost $216.59 at the current average of 11
cents per piece, so this is a fantastic deal.

It's also a meter high (about 3 foot 4 for the Americans) which is really
fantastic.

[0] [https://flowingdata.com/2013/02/07/analysis-of-lego-brick-
pr...](https://flowingdata.com/2013/02/07/analysis-of-lego-brick-prices-over-
the-years/)

~~~
btown
For anyone curious why the price for a piece of plastic is so high, the molds
are built to ridiculous tolerances for the plastic industry.
[https://www.wired.com/2013/02/retired-lego-mold-
reddit/](https://www.wired.com/2013/02/retired-lego-mold-reddit/)

~~~
johansch
Well, there's also that 32.8% LEGO Group operating margin...

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sbuttgereit
Yes, they deliver value for money and profit from it! Great and more power to
them! It's a show of how much greater in value their product is to their
customers than the sum of its constituent parts/labor (or, put another way,
its cost).

Whenever someone goes out of their way to complain about the profit someone
makes (as though its dirty somehow) I always wonder... have you ever
calculated your own profit margin? Having a job is rarely free and, unless you
you're just living off prior earnings/trust fund/etc. this is a figure you can
come up with. Most people I've known, including myself over time (I've for
worked everything from minimum wage to very healthy salaries), have done
pretty well in the profit margin percentage area as compared to the 32.8%
markup you cite.

To be fair, you certainly didn't register a complaint per se in your comment,
but something to think about before making that complaint.

~~~
086421357909764
+1 Making money isn't bad.

~~~
mwfj
-1 Off-topic.

(I just explained why Lego is expensive. Nothing else.)

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rorosaurus
Can you imagine how large and expensive this would be if it were minifig-
scale? The minifigs that come with it are maybe half-size. That just goes to
show how incredibly massive Saturn V really was!

Edit: Imagination no longer required.

> Ryan "The Brickman" McNaught, one of only 13 LEGO Certified Professionals,
> has built an 18.7 foot (5.7 meter) tall Saturn V with launch umbilical tower
> using 120,000 bricks. It took him 250 hours to build.

[http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum16/HTML/000764.html](http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum16/HTML/000764.html)

~~~
DanCarvajal
Holy crap, I've seen a Saturn V and but it took this to make the standing size
sink in.

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tostitos1979
As an adult who has had to deal with a Lego addiction, my suggestion is IF you
have an addictive personality and not money to burn - please .. don't start. I
sunk 1-2 grand into sets - for me it wasn't worth it. The old legos were a lot
better. Reusable pieces that make them an investment. The newer sets often
have special purpose pieces and instructions to just build 2-3 models. I
thought I was learning about mechanical stuff - differential steering, inside
of an engine, etc. Frankly, watching Youtube videos is a much more cost
effective way of learning. What is the worst thing of it all - artificial
scarcity. I'd buy sets I didn't really care for because I was afraid they
would go out of stock. This has happened to some of the popular sets where
scalpers charge 10x. They even have web sites where people do this full time.
Just say no.

~~~
dsr_
If you want to learn mechanics with LEGO, you don't want a particular set --
you want a book.

You want the Unofficial LEGO Technic Builder's Guide:
[https://www.nostarch.com/technicbuilder](https://www.nostarch.com/technicbuilder)

which is an excellent reference for how to build steering mechanisms,
differentials, transmissions, suspensions... and Sariel usually offers two or
three different ways of accomplishing any given goal.

Highly recommended.

~~~
shaftway
The Mindstorms kits, a few pounds of technic parts are also pretty good for
dipping your toe into robotics. The Mindstorms have instructions on building
line-following cars and a variety of other things.

I have fond memories of hacking together a 10 dpi photocopier using the light
sensor and a few motors.

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michaelbuckbee
There's a bit of an easter egg if you check out the number of pieces in the
kit.

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Uhhrrr
It's neat to think of the buildmasters coming up with a part count of (say)
1985 and realizing, "Hey, we could..."

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Tomte
I have an ongoing moratorium about buying Lego, but extraordinary
circumstances require extraordinary measures.

I will have this set.

~~~
giarc
This is the first set I've ever heard about pre-release. I imagine it will be
pretty popular.

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zerr
I never understood Lego kits... The whole point of a construction set is to be
able to build many different things, possibly unimagined to the producer. But
the Legos are usually limited to one or two predefined models.

~~~
usefulcat
Although that's strictly true, I'd say it's definitely more true (closer to
true?) now than 30-40 years ago. The proliferation of specialized pieces has
definitely had a negative effect on their reusability IMO.

My concern is that, due to the much greater number of unique pieces, the
increased difficulty of organizing a collection, or finding the piece you need
in an unorganized pile, or even just being able to visualize what it is you
want to build will tend to discourage kids from making their own creations.
Hopefully I'm wrong about that.

~~~
thesuitonym
I think you're overestimating the number of specialized pieces out there. This
is easy to do when you walk down the toy aisle at Walmart and see thirty big
box Star Wars models, each with one or two unique pieces. But Lego actually
makes so many models that don't use any specialized pieces. When I started
looking at their website I was surprised to see that the boxes you see at the
toy store seem to be the exception--probably because they sell so much better
if they can pull off that iconic look that one or two cover pieces provide.
I've been buying the Creator Expert series for a while now (Really cute
rowhouse style models) that iirc don't use any uniques.

~~~
usefulcat
I can believe that there's less of a difference when mainly comparing models
of buildings. My opinion is based on comparing my Lego collection (primarily
Expert Builder/Technics, Legoland Space, and general purpose Creator-like sets
from ~30 years ago), and my son's collection (not as large, no Technics,
mostly vehicles), which is at most a few years old. There is definitely a very
big difference between those two collections. Also, my point (which I realize
now I didn't convey very well) was not that there are so many _unique_ pieces,
it's that the diversity of non-unique pieces has greatly increased.

~~~
DanBC
But you can still buy the creator sets, and they use general purpose pieces?

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usefulcat
Yes, they do, there are just a lot more different kinds of "general purpose
pieces" than in the past.

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run4yourlives2
It has 1969 pieces. Seriously? Who worked that one out? Kudos.

~~~
giarc
I can imagine the builders getting to 1968 pieces and having to find one more
to fit in somewhere.

~~~
shaftway
The plates for under those minifigs are suspiciously unnecessary....

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baldfat
I have had zero desire to personally own any Lego set till now.

I MUST HAVE THIS! I am afraid when my birthday comes around it will be sold
out.

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Theodores
I built one of these as a kid complete with lander and orbiting module.
Colours were accurate too.

Around that age I also built a bomber plane with cruise missile. I was
inspired by Greenham Common and the news! My parents did not think that was so
good.

All the adults were impressed by our creations, plus our child view of the
world. So that Saturn rocket would be subtly on show rather than thrown in the
box. We had feedback on our creations and played to the crowd.

I am sure brick economics would have me not getting every piece optimal,
however there would be few spare bricks. I doubt our version would compare to
this fancy kit version though. Therefore the original mega project would not
have been attempted had the new kit been available, it would enforce a
requirement to have the special bricks rather than be extra resourceful.

Yes I will buy this for my sister in memory of those happy times, to be a
familiar object on the shelf for her newborn to eventually play with. It will
be there ready.

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Malic
Ok... One - Do want, yes. Two - Might there be an accompanying launch pad
gantry set in the future? :)

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52-6F-62
It would be so much more difficult to display well... but god I hope so.

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mstade
I'm definitely buying this.

I've got a yearly pass to Kennedy Space Center, but I don't even live in the
US. Still, I've been there more than four times just this year, and even
watched a rocket launch from the LC-39 gantry. I've been to the Apollo/Saturn
V center a number of times and the sheer size of the rocket gets me every
time. I watch rocket launches all the time on the web, and am constantly awed
by what engineers can accomplish, not least with SpaceX landing rockets like
parking a car these days. I'm a total space nerd.

This package is epic, even down to the number of pieces. I _need_ it.

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VLM
Usually traditional toys experiencing a boom in expensive collector behavior
means the crash is coming up. Look at greatest gen / early boomers and
baseball cards. So that part is sad, when lego is gone because a generation of
kids grew up where its too expensive to play with I'm going to miss it. But
time moves on. Hard to predict exactly how much my kids will pay for Minecraft
memorabilia when they're in their 40s... bet it will be near $119 inflation
adjusted LOL as per this article. Maybe 2040 will have a re-release of the
original iphone.

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olivermarks
[https://www.amazon.com/Bandai-Tamashii-Nations-Vehicle-
Chogo...](https://www.amazon.com/Bandai-Tamashii-Nations-Vehicle-
Chogokin/dp/B00C4MDDAG/ref=pd_lpo_vtph_21_tr_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=5CM0CE8F2A2RF779N87F)

I prefer real scale models over Lego

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bcaulfield
Beats the crap out of the Saturn Vue model.

~~~
bcaulfield
[https://thelegocarblog.com/tag/saturn/](https://thelegocarblog.com/tag/saturn/)

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JustSomeNobody
I'll probably get ridiculed for saying, but i just don't think Legos look very
much like Legos anymore. They don't have that blocky Lego shape/look.

This is a beautiful model. Looks like a model though and not a Lego set.

~~~
btown
Websites don't have that blocky '90s shape/look now either. There's an eerie
parallel where both the Web and LEGO have moved increasingly from a place of
"limited aesthetic suggestions so you can build anything you want" to "it's
gonna be much easier for you if you play/watch/live within a walled garden
with highly scripted interactions from the entertainment/advertising
industry." It's interesting that Minecraft has risen as a reaction to this
trend.

~~~
overcast
Huh. Everything on the web is just blocks. Simplified, minimal block layouts,
that are mobile focused. Even rounded buttons are gone.

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wdr1
Do these go onsale at midnight on 6/1? Are Lego sellouts common?

~~~
mcv
I know the Research Institute sold out several times and was often hard to
get.

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katamaritaco
Dang I'm excited for this. After not being able to get a lego curiosity rover
for a reasonable price, I'm hoping these won't sell out instantly...

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odonnellryan
Yeah. I hope I will be able to pick one up for roughly the price they
announced here. I could see this getting bumped up to $300+ from people buying
just to resell!

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sand500
Where can I pre order?

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criddell
The best you can do is set up a bot to buy it as soon as it's available.

~~~
086421357909764
They also have a few days of early release on some sets via Lego.com VIP
program. They don't always announce them. The brickheads were this way for a
while.

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Darthy
Fwiw, there is an untrue statement in the article:

"With 1969 LEGO elements the 21309 NASA Apollo Saturn V rockets its way into
LEGO Ideas history as the tallest LEGO Ideas set, as well as the one
containing most elements."

The last part is incorrect, the Lego set with the most pieces was Taj Mahal
with 5922 pieces, way more than this:
[http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/10189_Taj_Mahal](http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/10189_Taj_Mahal)

Edit: I misread that, thanks for the clarification.

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Osmose
They weren't claiming it had the most pieces of any Lego set, but that it had
the most pieces of any Lego Ideas set, Ideas being the program for fans to
submit their own designs for sets.

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anorphirith
what's the best way to insure I can get one of these ? without spending hours
writing a bot for it ...

~~~
post_break
Go to a lego store after they launch, buy it. Even the rare porsche was widely
available. There hasn't been a lego set I "missed" because I didn't order it
the second it was available, and I even have the "ultra rare" 4x4 remote
control car.

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52-6F-62
I want that.

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iwintermute
Costs like a rocket - Kerbal Space Program would be much cheaper and much more
interesting present/purchase

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jitl
Compare the size and piece count to something like a large Star Wars model
like the Mellenium Falcon
([https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00WI0PJE2/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00WI0PJE2/)),
$120 for ~1300 pieces. I'm surprised this model's MSRP is so low! I would
happily pay ~$200 for this.

Kerbal would likely be more expensive due to licensing fees -- the Saturn 5 is
public domain.

~~~
dtparr
I think Kerbal being cheaper = buying KSP itself is cheaper/more interesting,
not a model of a KSP rocket would be cheaper.

