Some Statistics

Unfortunately, Boston has been cloudy since I've been home, so today's post may be a bit more boring than it might have been in the weather had felt cheerier. Of course, I'm talking about statistics today, so it's possible that no amount of pictures would make that better. On the other hand, I don't think I would have decided to talk about some statistics if I had pictures...

Anyway, you've been duly warned.

I've been using Excel to keep a record of my LEGO collection for some years now. I had a paper record ca. 2000 that listed when I acquired all of my older sets, which remained current until about 2003-4ish (just before the Great Take Apart), and the current Excel document was started in 2007, so it's a mostly accurate record of when I acquired my sets, a completely accurate record of what sets I have, and has also developed into a bit of a statistical chart, as I keep track of the "ratings" my sets get.

Each set is evaluated on five criteria (developed on Classic-Castle in the course of reviewing Castle sets on the official review threads): Parts, Playability, Figs and their Accessories, Design, and "Nostalgia." Obviously, these are all open to subjectivity, and since the point of the whole exercise is more or less to figure which sets are my favourites, that's not really problematic. It's been interesting to compare where sets line up with Lugnet's rating system, and it would seem that (for the most part) once you average out my five criteria, you end up with fairly standard assessments. "Nostalgia" is the trickiest of the five, because while the other four aim for objectivity (while admitting it's a biased process), Nostalgia is there specifically to provide a category to account for sets that I really like (or dislike)... and can't give any good reason for.

On the basis of these statistics, I've also calculated the averages for each subtheme. The numbers are less fair here, since I've only evaluated sets that I own, so a theme with two small (and often mediocre) sets in my collection will probably not rate as well as a theme with 15 sets ranging from small to large, which in turn will not rate as well as a set with only one or two of the largest sets (which often get the best ratings from me). However, as a measure of "favourite," I think this list is fairly accurate, and it's as good a way as any of listing them.

Some other day I might go into a discussion of my favourite or least favourite sets, but for today we'll just look at the favourite and least favourite themes in my collection. Starting at the top, my favourite themes according to this criteria are:

1. Adventurers-the Egyptian Subtheme from 1998, with a 9.85 rating
2. Black Knights, ca. 1992, with a 9.3 rating
3. Designer (the large house sets from the 2000s-2010s), with a 9.25 rating
4. Imperial Guards, 1992-5, with a 9.0 rating
5. Legoland Castle, ca. late 1980s, with a 8.94 rating

The interesting thing about this list, is that the only theme from the 3rd Millennium is the Designer line, probably reflecting the fact that the earlier sets have a higher nostalgic quotient. Indeed, both the Black Knight and the Imperial Guards have been looked at as "Ones That Got Away," and Legoland Castle and the Egyptian Adventurer line would have counted as the same if I had not, in fact, caught them.

At the bottom of the list (of 86 distinctly considered themes--not including Bionicle, Technic, or Duplo) are the following:

82. Alpha Team-Mission Deep Sea, from 2002, with a 7.35 rating
83. Soccer, from the early 2000s, with a 7.25 rating
84. Aquasharks, from 1995-8, with a 7.25 rating (technically a tie with Soccer)
85. Xtreme Island Stunts, from the early 2000s, with a 7.15 rating
86. Junior Pirates, also from the early 2000s, with a 6.4 rating

I do not think it is coincidental that the bottom bunch of sets tends to hail from the early part of the 2000s, nor that Junior Pirates is so abysmally below the rest--Jack Stone would probably be there too, if I'd ever got a set from that line. The Aquasharks are perhaps unfairly in the bottom five, mostly due to the fact that I have only got two sets, and one of them is the abysmal Super Sub, also know as The Aquashark Dart, which has a 6.6 rating.

All of this only goes to show, perhaps, that I am either too much of a nerd or have way too much time on my hands... or both. But I doubt I'm the only one out there who has done anything like this.

Favourite Sets: 1491 Dual Defender

Rounding out the Black Knight theme that has occupied my thoughts around here of late, is a "favourite" set, 1491 Dual Defender, which was also the fourth LEGO set in my collection, and since it was a Christmas present, it rounds out my first year of LEGO, which began the year before, at Christmas 1992.

Dual Defender is a catapult set, one of MANY the LEGO company has made over the years. I'm not at all sure how realistic it would be considered, but it's more aesthetically pleasing than my most of the catapults that were released in the decade of the 2000s, and because it was my very first catapult, I'm more fond of it than of pretty much any other.



A reader familiar with the set will note from this picture that the minifigs have been slightly modified. That is, instead of having blue legs with black hips, they now have white legs with black hips. This is a post-Great-Take-Apart decision. In light of their honoured status in my LEGO collection as the first two Black Knights--indeed, for close to a decade, they were my *only* Black Knights, and the soldier on the left who does not have a re-glued sword was the first Black Knight king in my collection. The white legs is an honour, because it ties them into the colour-scheme of the knight from 6086 that I've designated the king of the Black Knights.

The set also differs from its original form in that the extra pieces it came with are long, long since gone. It's a pity, too, since those extra pieces were another sword and a light grey clip, like the ones holding the spears to the back of the catapult. However, I suppose I shouldn't complain; presumably the extra pieces served their purpose: that's why I still have two clips and two swords with the set, because I had an extra one of each to lose.

Back around the turn of the millennium, this set would have looked significantly more cluttered, as other elements were added to my Black Knight collection, mostly from 5135 Castle Accessories, including the crown, the dragon plumes, the red flag on short flagpole, and the oval Black Knight shield. They also eventually picked up a black horse and red saddle from 5394, the horse and saddles accessory set. Add to that a homemade cape not unlike the one currently worn by the current Black Knight king, and this set was as suped-up as I could make it, and these two swordsmen were as prepared for battle as any ten-man army I had.

Favourite Minifigs: 6086 White Knight

Keeping with the theme of my last post about the Ones That Got Away, today's offering of a favourite minifig is a Black Knight--even though I've titled this post "white knight." He's one of the four knights who come with 6086 Dungeon Master's Castle, and I've called him the "white" knight, because he has a white pennant and dragon plumes. Possessed of a barding and a full set of "euro armour," he's a fine, full-armoured knight. The picture below shows him as he came in Dungeon Master's Castle:



As the elusive white-tinged Black Knight, I've long considered this fellow to be the king of the Black Knights, and in his role as such in my collection, he's been slightly modified to fit this new role, as seen below.

Ones That Got Away-Part Four

Back well over a month ago now, when I started writing posts about the "Ones That Got Away," I made it through three of the four "classic" themes of LEGO: Castle, Pirates, Town, and Space. Well, it's my list of classic themes, because in my formative years, "classic" LEGO was 1992-1994. Aquazone was an honorary fifth, but an assiduous reader of my Aquazone Breakfast News comic will note that it's never had quite the same love from me as the big four. Nonetheless, I am aware that even older fans may not see Pirates as a "classic" LEGO theme on par with the others, given its younger age.

In any case, although I talked about my "Ones That Got Away" with regards to the Pirates, Town, and Space themes, I have yet to address Castle, which is a case of saving the best for last, since Castle is my favourite branch of LEGO System.

Black Knights were the first LEGO theme I ever spent hours looking at in catalogues, and the first set I ever saved up for was 6086 Dungeon Master's Castle. Also known as "Black Knight's Castle," this set is still my all-time favourite LEGO set, if you rate things on a purely nostalgic scale. The main reason, in addition to being one of the most aesthetically pleasing castles LEGO has ever produced, is because, although I saved up for it, I never got it as a child. Nope. Instead, my parents picked up 6081 King's Mountain Fortress when they went shopping with my money while I was in school. At the time, I was just happy I had a LEGO Castle--and my third set, to boot--but I knew it wasn't the one I wanted, and as the years passed, I would wonder what it would have been like if I'd managed to get it instead.

Well, for one thing, my Lions would have been more badly outnumbered in those early years than my Black Knights were. A couple months after getting King's Mountain Fortress, I got my fourth LEGO set, 1491 Dual Defender. Those two guys would be the entirety of my Black Knight army until 2002 or so, when a partial knight in a bag of garage sale LEGO would be fleshed out with an accessory pack to bring their total up to three. As a result, the Black Knights became fearsome warriors, the best-trained soldiers in all the LEGO kingdoms. After all, how else were they to win any battles?

Unlike the other "Ones That Got Away" stories, this one has a fairly happy ending. I would eventually get Dungeon Master's Castle in 2006, thanks to Bricklink, making my Black Knights not only an iconic faction, but a true powerhouse in my LEGO universe. However, because I was out of high school and about to leave home by then, I still consider the theme as a whole, and that set in particular, to be one that got away from me... though I did catch it in the end.