For the most part, when I get a yellow envelope in the mail it holds baseball cards. However, given that I have yet to buy any new 2017 baseball cards, card trading has all but dried up for me. Luckily, that doesn't mean a complete end to the wonderful yellow envelope parade because I do have a second hobby that I'm also active with: collecting LEGO.
Specifically, I collect LEGO sets and the collectible LEGO minifigure line. These days, I acquire most of my new minifigures by trading on a website called SwapFig. It's easy - and I love their simple checklist system. It's a piece of cake to find potential trade partners based on what I want and what I have available (matched up with what the person wants and has available). The only bad thing about the site is that it is still relatively small which means it isn't always easy to find good trading partners (plus the usual large number of people who ask for the moon in exchange for a common figure).
Anyhow, I recently acquired two more figures for my growing collection. The first is a figure from way back in Series 1: the ninja!
I was completely unaware of the LEGO collectible minifigure line until somewhere around Series 4 or 5. Therefore, it's been tough sledding tracking down a lot of the earlier figures - so I jumped at the chance to add the Series 1 ninja to my collection (even if the ninja himself isn't all that exciting or interesting to me).
I do like the Ninja's hood piece (it has a hook on the backside for storing the ninja's golden blade when that isn't in use as well. The other thing that jumps out at me when looking at this figure is that LEGO has definitely gone above and beyond with quality printing in its more recent sets...back in Series 1 there wasn't much of that (no back printing here nor any leg printing). It's a far cry from Series 17, the most recent release (which I reviewed in its entirety on my LEGO blog here).
The second minifigure that I acquired was from a slightly more recent series, but it still predates when I started actively collecting the minifigures. This is the Tennis Player from Series 3.
Unlike the ninja, the Tennis Player has printing on both the torso and the legs (but still no back printing). Her accessory is a white tennis racquet (without any printing of any sort on it). I would have liked a green tennis ball to be included as well but otherwise this is a rather nice figure.
LEGO has actually released two Tennis Players in its collectible minifigure line-up to date. The female tennis player was first while the male tennis player arrived in Series 7.
I think I prefer the blue racquet of the male tennis player but the pair looks pretty good side-by-side.
If you enjoyed this look at one of my other hobbies, I invite you to periodically check out my LEGO-centric blog called Playing with Bricks. If you happen to have any minifigures lying around (or even just a big bucket of random LEGO pieces) let me know. I am working on a custom LEGO City as well...and believe me, I can use all the pieces that I can get my hands on!
Specifically, I collect LEGO sets and the collectible LEGO minifigure line. These days, I acquire most of my new minifigures by trading on a website called SwapFig. It's easy - and I love their simple checklist system. It's a piece of cake to find potential trade partners based on what I want and what I have available (matched up with what the person wants and has available). The only bad thing about the site is that it is still relatively small which means it isn't always easy to find good trading partners (plus the usual large number of people who ask for the moon in exchange for a common figure).
Anyhow, I recently acquired two more figures for my growing collection. The first is a figure from way back in Series 1: the ninja!
I was completely unaware of the LEGO collectible minifigure line until somewhere around Series 4 or 5. Therefore, it's been tough sledding tracking down a lot of the earlier figures - so I jumped at the chance to add the Series 1 ninja to my collection (even if the ninja himself isn't all that exciting or interesting to me).
I do like the Ninja's hood piece (it has a hook on the backside for storing the ninja's golden blade when that isn't in use as well. The other thing that jumps out at me when looking at this figure is that LEGO has definitely gone above and beyond with quality printing in its more recent sets...back in Series 1 there wasn't much of that (no back printing here nor any leg printing). It's a far cry from Series 17, the most recent release (which I reviewed in its entirety on my LEGO blog here).
The second minifigure that I acquired was from a slightly more recent series, but it still predates when I started actively collecting the minifigures. This is the Tennis Player from Series 3.
Unlike the ninja, the Tennis Player has printing on both the torso and the legs (but still no back printing). Her accessory is a white tennis racquet (without any printing of any sort on it). I would have liked a green tennis ball to be included as well but otherwise this is a rather nice figure.
LEGO has actually released two Tennis Players in its collectible minifigure line-up to date. The female tennis player was first while the male tennis player arrived in Series 7.
I think I prefer the blue racquet of the male tennis player but the pair looks pretty good side-by-side.
If you enjoyed this look at one of my other hobbies, I invite you to periodically check out my LEGO-centric blog called Playing with Bricks. If you happen to have any minifigures lying around (or even just a big bucket of random LEGO pieces) let me know. I am working on a custom LEGO City as well...and believe me, I can use all the pieces that I can get my hands on!
Ok that's a cool second hobby. I've been entertaining the idea of trying to resurrect one of my sons old Bionicles. Just need to find and dig out all the pieces.
ReplyDeleteI just found series 17 at one of my local retail stores. Couldn't find the two I really wanted, the corn guy and the rocket guy, but at least I got 4 new figs. I need to remember the swapfigs site when I get set up at my new house.
ReplyDeleteI purchased my first Lego set (since childhood) about two years ago, but didn't really dive into them until a few months ago. I totally buy and build them to help reduce my level of stress.
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