You may recall Jonas Kramm has decided to curate monthly lists of cool parts available from “Bricks & Pieces”, The LEGO Group’s service for individual new LEGO® elements, to save you checking the price and availability of the wanted pieces one by one. He's so nice! Here is his February update.
After receiving great feedback on my January list I have now added the highlights of Bricks & Pieces in February. As always you can find it on:
BnP.jonaskramm.com
For the first time it includes parts suggested by readers. Thank you for making use of the “Your Suggestions” sheet! I also added automatically generated links to BrickLink to make comparisons easier.
This month’s colour highlights feature Sand Green and Olive Green. Thanks to the recently released Apocalypseburg set, there were some great additions in these colours.
In general there weren’t as many additions to the Bricks & Pieces selection compared to January so I used the time to add another category especially for the February list: “Monochrome Figs”. Here you can find all unprinted heads, torsos, legs and hands.
I later realised that 10265 Ford Mustang is available from 1st March, so here's a hot tip for New Elementary readers – most of the awesome new parts I pointed out in my Mustang review are available too!
I hope the lists help you and feel free to leave your feedback and your parts suggestions. The next update is coming on 1st April.
This isn’t sponsored, recognised or supported by The LEGO Group in any way.
This opens up an interesting can of worms. I'd been meaning to bring this up somewhere, and I guess this post gets first crack. It's been noted that the CMF packets have changed, but aside from cost savings on cheaper material, nobody has been able to suggest why. Someone I know accidentally tipped me off to a significant change that has gone largely unnoticed. As of the Harry Potter CMF series, all CMF packets state quite clearly that all parts are made in China. Right around the same time, they released the Unikitty packets, which were very different from any previous CMF. Where all CMF packets have been sealed top, bottom, and a flap down the back, the Unikitty packets are sealed on all four edges with no flap on the back. The assumption was because they aren't actual minifigs, they had to change the size of the packet. And who knows, maybe that's true. However, it's worth noting that the contents are now listed as being made in Denmark, Hungary, Mexico, China, and the Czech Republic. There's some disagreement over whether or not the Unikitty packets even count as part of the CMF theme. They're listed as a retired product on S@H, and I can't remember if they were included under the Minifigure theme or not, but they do have the Minifigure meta tag which suggests they were.
ReplyDeleteNow, we get to TLM2 CMFs. There's no arguing that these aren't part of the CMF theme, and they have a third packaging style. It's about 50% larger than the old CMF packet, the top and bottom seals look the same but the back is an overlap seal rather than a flap, the hanger hole is now over an inch wide to accommodate multiple different hook styles, and the components are again made in Denmark, Hungary, Mexico, China, and the Czech Republic. For the first time, CMFs are not exclusively made in China. Why does this matter? Well, look at the minifig parts. There's one torso showing, with Element ID #6256593. The only source for that element is the TLM2 Crayon Girl. Yes, that's right, for the first time a CMF-exclusive part is not restricted to the CMF packets. In the past, if you had a problem with a CMF part, they had no way to offer you a replacement because 100% of the production of CMF elements went into CMF packets. Now, with some portion of the CMF contents being made in Europe, Billund actually has the ability to overproduce them and hold on to the excess as replacement stock.
What about hotdog guy? That ended up in regular sets too...
DeleteNot really the same thing. The hot dog costume _has_ appeared in regular sets, where the Crayon Girl torso has not. Someone managed to pitch the idea of making the costume available for regular sets. Once it ends up in a retail set, it's going to be overproduced so they can send replacement parts. The fact that this torso only appears in one of the TLM2 CMFs, but is also available on Bricks & Pieces is a game changer. CMF-exclusive parts used to be more restricted than Q-elements (or so Kevin Hinkle told me). Even the model shops couldn't order them, and for sure they wouldn't let people buy them in bulk lots like this.
DeleteI have a question hopefully someone can answer. I was putting an order in and some of the parts I wanted were 'Out of Stock'. Does that mean that that is it for inventory or will LEGO eventually replenish the part stock?
ReplyDeleteLego do replenish their part stocks but not necessarily all of each part - if you know a certain part is available in a current or recent set (last year or two maybe) then you will probably see that piece become available again soon - but if that part hasn't been released lately then it might not be available again until the next wave of sets, or even longer. that's why with each new set that is released, I check to see what parts are in it. Those parts may appear on bricks and pieces soon after, but if that particular part is available in several sets then they may be out of stock until they can make some to cover production and have some spares left over. Hope that helps.
DeleteThanks so much for that feedback. Makes total sense. I know now to check immediately after releases of new sets!
DeleteThank you, this is great! Thanks for all your hard work :)
ReplyDeleteWe love Jonas!
Deletethank you for this!!!
ReplyDelete