So last weekend, I was asked to join James Wadsworth and Tim Courtney on LAML radio episode #43 to talk about LUGNET...
It was a good show... and it's got me thinking... and then I realized that I've been with the on-line LEGO fan community for 10 years now. My anniversary was Feb. 16th, 1998, the date of my first rec.toys.lego post. Pirate LEGO was being clearanced out at my local TRU & offered to buy sets for anyone looking. Steve Jackson ended up taking me up on my offer...
Showing posts with label RTL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RTL. Show all posts
Friday, June 6, 2008
Monday, March 20, 2006
The Evolution of the Lego Marketplace
Back in the day, when the Lego community was a lot smaller, the Lego marketplace consisted of trade-deals (on RTL), selling Lego (also on RTL), e-mail based auctions, and Auczilla. This was in the very early days of eBay... before BrickLink...
I think as a community, we learned quickly about snipe-ing. And the evils of eBay. Even back then, it was hard to get a real good Lego deal on-line unless someone misfiled an item in the wrong category. There were several proposals for Lego auction site that would work against snipers... but I don't think they ever took off with much following.
BrickLink emerged as the defacto standard for buying/selling of Lego. Before that, it was Todd's Auczilla. With Auczilla, you received an e-mail with parts, quantity, color, description and opening bid. You bid by placing an 'X' by the lot you bid on and e-mail a copy back to the server. Scripts would run against all received e-mails and negotiated bid amounts. At the end, you would be e-mailed out the results... at that point, you could up your bid or not.
Thinking back upon it, it was a lot of work. Michael Ulring and myself had licensed similar e-mail auction software from Steve Demlow and ran a highly successful auction... but it really ended up being so much work, that we never had a second one... It was fun... It was exciting... But things got busy and by the time we considered doing another auction, BrickLink (or then named BrickBay) had appeared on the Lego scene...
I think as a community, we learned quickly about snipe-ing. And the evils of eBay. Even back then, it was hard to get a real good Lego deal on-line unless someone misfiled an item in the wrong category. There were several proposals for Lego auction site that would work against snipers... but I don't think they ever took off with much following.
BrickLink emerged as the defacto standard for buying/selling of Lego. Before that, it was Todd's Auczilla. With Auczilla, you received an e-mail with parts, quantity, color, description and opening bid. You bid by placing an 'X' by the lot you bid on and e-mail a copy back to the server. Scripts would run against all received e-mails and negotiated bid amounts. At the end, you would be e-mailed out the results... at that point, you could up your bid or not.
Thinking back upon it, it was a lot of work. Michael Ulring and myself had licensed similar e-mail auction software from Steve Demlow and ran a highly successful auction... but it really ended up being so much work, that we never had a second one... It was fun... It was exciting... But things got busy and by the time we considered doing another auction, BrickLink (or then named BrickBay) had appeared on the Lego scene...
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Out of the Dark Ages
Building on yesterday's post, I emerged from my Lego dark ages back in 1998. Shortly after Christmas, I was walking through a Kohl's with my sister and niece. As we happened through the toy section, I noticed pirate Lego sets on clearance and I thought to myself, "hey... wouldn't that be cool to stick up on my desk at work..."
Looking at the Lego pirate sets, I had realized a few things: Lego was no longer just primary colored bricks... there was green, brown, and shades of gray; Lego was no longer about just bricks... there were minifigs (as I later came to know what they were called), cannons, horses, plants of different shapes and sizes, etc.; and Lego was about themes... castle, pirate, space...
I honestly don't remember what the first Lego set that I bought after coming out of my dark ages... I'm thinking it might have been a #6249 Bandit Ambush, but I could be mistaken. Or it might have been some castle set... I can't quite remember... I took to the internet with my new found love of Lego... found rec.toys.lego (RTL) and eBay... worlds opened up to me... found that I missed the 'golden-years' (in my opinion) of Lego (1980~1988) -- most of the sets I found most interesting came out during the '80s. Found out that people had scanned instructions and posted them on-line for others to build from. Found people were hosting part auctions, like AucZILLA. Found people who posted pictures of their own Lego creations called MOCs. It was a whole new strange, wonderful world filled with people like me -- Adult Fans of Lego (AFOLs).
Looking at the Lego pirate sets, I had realized a few things: Lego was no longer just primary colored bricks... there was green, brown, and shades of gray; Lego was no longer about just bricks... there were minifigs (as I later came to know what they were called), cannons, horses, plants of different shapes and sizes, etc.; and Lego was about themes... castle, pirate, space...
I honestly don't remember what the first Lego set that I bought after coming out of my dark ages... I'm thinking it might have been a #6249 Bandit Ambush, but I could be mistaken. Or it might have been some castle set... I can't quite remember... I took to the internet with my new found love of Lego... found rec.toys.lego (RTL) and eBay... worlds opened up to me... found that I missed the 'golden-years' (in my opinion) of Lego (1980~1988) -- most of the sets I found most interesting came out during the '80s. Found out that people had scanned instructions and posted them on-line for others to build from. Found people were hosting part auctions, like AucZILLA. Found people who posted pictures of their own Lego creations called MOCs. It was a whole new strange, wonderful world filled with people like me -- Adult Fans of Lego (AFOLs).
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