Blog entries tagged with "toys"

Yesterday, two weeks after assembling them, I got around to taking photographs of the Lego sets that had been stored in the roof. They are available for all to see in a Flickr set.

The technique I used for the photos was near a window with sheer curtains drawn and on top of some off-white paper. I ended up using the flash as there wasn’t quite enough light. I’m thinking about getting (probably make one) a lightbox to make it a lot easier to take photos like this. And a tripod. I tried to take all of the photos from the same angle and a tripod would really have been appreciated.

What I have photographed so far is only the discrete sets that we had. There is a lot of older mixed bricks that could be used for anything, and don’t forget my Technic sets that have been (most of them) on display (of sorts) since I last played with them.

While I was taking photos continued on and photographed all of my father’s die-case Dinky Toys that had been brought down from the roof. They are also available in a Flickr set with (usually) three shots per toy.

The challenge with these ones was identifying what each one was. dinkytoys.ch was a huge help with most of the toys. For others a google image search with various keywords eventually turned up a reasonably confident answer.

As these will all be packed back up and returned to the roof (for the time being at least), the photos will help us know what is actually up there. And by making them available it should help others identify their own toys, in addition to existing resources of course.

As part of a larger cleanup, many of my old toys have been brought down from the roof where they have sat untouched for many years. (Except for the Transformers that is…)

In order to sort out the LEGO (excluding the Technic sets that were never packed away) it was decided that the best way would be to assemble as many sets as possible. So that was what I spent some of last night, this afternoon and much of this evening doing.

One big problem that I found early on was that the instructions for the castle was not with the other instructions. Fortunately the internet comes to the rescue and the first site I found was Brickset, a guide to all of the LEGO sets.

By browsing through the Castle themed sets I found the Knight’s Castle set. From that page I was able to get the instructions which enabled me to assemble the set. With only two pieces missing! While browsing through Brickset I came across the King’s Castle, a bigger more elaborate castle, that I remember wishing I had.

I was also able to assemble the Blacksmith Shop, Black Knight’s Treasure, and Prisoner Convoy sets. However, I couldn’t find enough pieces for the Supply Wagon. Specifically the horse hitch piece.

I also had a number of small Town sets and managed to assemble Highway Patrol, Tactical Patrol Truck, Road Repair, Road Rebel, RV with Speedboat, Tanker Truck, Fire Copter, and Snack Bar sets.

I still have more to sort through. Not to mention all of my Technic. Which I think I will reassemble some of them into their alternate designs.

Something else of mine that was brought down is all my old computer magazines. Nine boxes worth. Paper boxes, the ones that hold 5×500 sheets. All of which are worthless and will be going out in the recycling.

A slashdot article earlier this week prompted a fairly long discussion at work about Transformers and what toys each person had.

As a followup to this I dug around in the roof this afternoon to confirm my memories of which Transformers I had. So what do I find? Two triple changers, two cars and two mini vehicles:

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