Post by The Hegemon on Apr 27, 2024 1:57:53 GMT
I live in a small western PA city of about 24,000 people. About a decade ago I picked up a very incomplete Battlescape set at my local Goodwill. It had the baseplate, a few bloks, and this silver-gray part:
That's AM03577, and it hadn't appeared in any inventories I'd catalogued, and it wasn't from that Battlescape set either. I posted on the old Bloks Forum, but no one else had seen it. The part number suggested that it came out in 2003, and I suspected Power Rangers, but I couldn't find the part in the instructions for any sets I hadn't cataloged, either. This kind of bugged me, because I like to track each part's debut, at least tentatively.
Fast forward to this past weekend. I visited a local indoor flea market that honestly isn't that great, but I had some time to kill. On the way out, I spotted set 9215 Cactus Railway, a 320 piece bucket from 1996's Western line. Mostly basic elements in interesting, subdued colors, and I don't think the set is complete, but for $5.00 it wasn't a bad haul.
Inside, among the dark red and dark blue bricks, I found this black element:
That's AM03578, which I knew wasn't from the original set, but the consecutive part numbers jumped out at me, and I began my search anew.
I thought again of Power Rangers because of the colors and the likely dates, and it occurred to me that the parts might have come from one of the sets that were exclusive to Asia. To my surprise, I found that the Herobloks site has instructions for a few of these sets, including 4130 Power Ranger Battle Set. This has a lot of overlap with set 5727 Brachiozord Command Playset, released in North America, but I couldn't find instructions for the 5727.
Turns out both of these elements debuted in these sets. For simplicity, parts that appear in multiple sets in the same year are considered to have debuted in the set with the lower number.
The 5727 is a somewhat rare set, and it can sell for a hefty price. But it's weird to me that two parts from that set would show up in two random resale lots in my small town, ten years apart! I want to think that both lots originated with the same seller, but of course there's no way to tell.
Still, it's great to have an answer at long last, and this also explains why I've lately posted a few inventories from the Asia market.
--The Hegemon
That's AM03577, and it hadn't appeared in any inventories I'd catalogued, and it wasn't from that Battlescape set either. I posted on the old Bloks Forum, but no one else had seen it. The part number suggested that it came out in 2003, and I suspected Power Rangers, but I couldn't find the part in the instructions for any sets I hadn't cataloged, either. This kind of bugged me, because I like to track each part's debut, at least tentatively.
Fast forward to this past weekend. I visited a local indoor flea market that honestly isn't that great, but I had some time to kill. On the way out, I spotted set 9215 Cactus Railway, a 320 piece bucket from 1996's Western line. Mostly basic elements in interesting, subdued colors, and I don't think the set is complete, but for $5.00 it wasn't a bad haul.
Inside, among the dark red and dark blue bricks, I found this black element:
That's AM03578, which I knew wasn't from the original set, but the consecutive part numbers jumped out at me, and I began my search anew.
I thought again of Power Rangers because of the colors and the likely dates, and it occurred to me that the parts might have come from one of the sets that were exclusive to Asia. To my surprise, I found that the Herobloks site has instructions for a few of these sets, including 4130 Power Ranger Battle Set. This has a lot of overlap with set 5727 Brachiozord Command Playset, released in North America, but I couldn't find instructions for the 5727.
Turns out both of these elements debuted in these sets. For simplicity, parts that appear in multiple sets in the same year are considered to have debuted in the set with the lower number.
The 5727 is a somewhat rare set, and it can sell for a hefty price. But it's weird to me that two parts from that set would show up in two random resale lots in my small town, ten years apart! I want to think that both lots originated with the same seller, but of course there's no way to tell.
Still, it's great to have an answer at long last, and this also explains why I've lately posted a few inventories from the Asia market.
--The Hegemon