Week 30 Roundup

Some interesting purchases this week including a used set which I rarely buy. The used set also encouraged me to do some building for a change (the only way I could check if the correct pieces were there)!

What have I been buying this week?

• Mega Bloks - Call of Duty - Desert Tank
• 2016, #DPB59, 848 pieces, 3 figures
• Bought sealed set from eBay seller for £50 plus shipping
• I have more than 50% of all COD sets but at the moment I'm only looking out for certain sets that I need when listed at discount prices, and £50 was a great price for this set

• Mega Bloks - Dinobloks - Stegosaurus
• 1993, #9712, 415 pieces, no figures
• Bought set with sealed bags from eBay seller for £74 plus shipping
• I will shortly have all Dinobloks sets and will then publish a post on the whole Dinobloks theme which was one of the first Mega Bloks themes
• The Dinobloks theme just happened to coincide with the first Jurassic Park movie released in 1993 :)
• The very first Mega Bloks sets containing 'micro' bricks were launched in 1991. Initially they were branded Mega Micro Bloks which became simply Mega Bloks in 1992. I can't find any evidence that any Dinobloks (or Fantasy) sets were branded as Mega Micro Bloks but the first Galaxy set 9501 was a Mega Micro Bloks set so Galaxy was probably the very first Mega Bloks theme. 

• Mega Bloks - Dinobloks - Parasaurolophus
• 1993, #9722, 175 pieces, no figures
• Bought used set from eBay seller for £16.50 including shipping
• Since I have 4 of the 6 Dinobloks sets with sealed bags, and new sets appear for sale very rarely, I decided to buy the last 2 sets used so that I could review the whole theme
• This set arrived in very good condition i.e. no damaged or discoloured pieces. It was missing 4 brown 1x1 round pieces but these are easily sourced from later sets. Unfortunately, it contains the color changing alligator rather than the sea creature as expected (the alligator was included in some of the other Dinobloks sets) but that mistake might have happened in the factory since they are easily mixed up.

• Mega Bloks - Power Rangers Super Megaforce - Micro Action Figures - Series 2 blind bags
• 2014, #05666, 10 pieces (varies), 1 figure
• Bought 3 sealed blind bags from US eBay seller for £19.48 including shipping (A15*, A17*, A17*)
• I again got these blind bags for the 2x4 bricks
• I had a go at removing the printing from one of the silver bricks (from A17*) since I now have 3. I tried lighter fluid which I use to remove labels. This failed. I then tried to scrape off the lettering with a blunt knife. This removed the printing but left scratches. I then tried using an old pencil eraser I had which did eliminate some of the scratches I made. I've now ordered a selection of new pencil erasers to try on the next brick.
• The silver brick photos below show a brick with printing and the test brick that I removed printing from

• Mega Bloks
• Bought a sealed bag containing 2 baseplates from Vinted seller for £11.83 including shipping
• The seller indicated that they were from a Spider-Man 3 set but I can't determine which set contained both a tan and a metalic dark gray baseplate? The #2005 Final Battle set seems to contains the tan baseplate but it looks like it has road printing on it and that set doesn't seem to include the other baseplate. If anyone knows which set contained both baseplates without printing then please leave a comment.

What am I building at the moment?

• Mega Bloks - Dinobloks - Parasaurolophus
• 1993, #9722, 175 pieces, no figures
• Since this set was used, I gave all the parts a wash which wasn't really necessary in this case, and then built the main build
• All of the Dinobloks sets contain more parts than is necessary for the main builds allowing a variety of alternative builds to be done
• The instructions booklet gives steps for 2 alternative builds and the back page gives ideas for 5 others
• It's interesting to note that 1993 Mega Bloks bricks were well made with good but not too much clutch power. These were produced in Canada in the original factory. The only downside I've noticed on other bricks from that period is that some of the colors do fade when exposed to light. This set obviously wasn't on display for any extended period since none of the bricks suffered from fading.
• The final image shows the parts list I compiled when I sorted the pieces :)

Final Comments

I'm waiting for one more Dinobloks set to arrive before I do a full review of the Dinobloks theme. I've also become very interested in the early 'vintage' years of Mega Bloks (1991-1999) as a result of looking into the Dinobloks sets, so expect to see more purchases from this era soon! :)