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I am giving away my entire BrickLink inventory for FREE including free shipping to anyone within Europe. The store password is "allforfree." I only have two conditions for this transaction: You take the entire lot as is.You can keep, give away or resell any of the items but you cannot throw any of them away.Anyone interested can feel free to post a comment or PM me. Pro tip: the collectibles are mostly generic but the promo CDs and the Lhikan Greatswords are a steal so better hurry up.
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It recently dawned on me that there's a very obvious discrepancy with the way collectibles were distributed and advertised in the first few years of BIONICLE. The truth is, I've always felt there was something off but never managed to put my finger on it until just now. That's what happens when you're bad at math but your mild obsessiveness gets the better of you. So check this out. Of all the collectibles (and subsequently projectiles) released by LEGO as a BIONICLE accessory, 5 types were packed in conjunction with another type—a total of 3 packs with 2 types of collectibles in them. Those were namely: 8559/8569 Kanohi (Silver and Gold) and Krana8597/8598 Kanohi Nuva and Krana8599/8600 Kanohi Nuva (Silver/Protodermic) and Krana-Kal At first, that seems normal enough, until you consider the total number of collectibles available through each pack (not counting rares or misprints; just the advertised ones) and the ratio between them, which is as follows: 8559/8569 12 Kanohi and 96 Krana (1:8)8597/8598 36 Kanohi Nuva and 96 Krana (3:8)8599/8600 6 Kanohi Nuva and 48 Krana-Kal (1:8) It's common sense that you won't get all of the collectibles right away and you will most definitely have a huge surplus—but that's the entire sales pitch, so it's fine. The problem comes from the unequal surplus resulting from the ratio between the two types of collectibles. Basically, to get every collectible from each type of pack you would need to buy a hypothetical bare minimum of: 8559/8569 32 packs (with a minimal surplus of 52 Kanohi)8597/8598 32 pack (with a minimal surplus of 28 Kanohi Nuva)8599/8600 16 packs (with a minimal surplus of 26 Kanohi Nuva) Hold on, does that sound right? 52 Kanohi!? That sounds like an awfully huge surplus just in theory, let alone in practice. Now this might just be me, but it seems like common sense that if you offer your consumers a product that they know will result in a reasonable amount of surplus, depending on how determined they are to obtain a full collection, that's absolutely fine, as long as the ratio is 1:1. The way I see it, there are three criteria by which any surplus can be deemed "okay": If the total number of obtainable collectibles is divisible by the minimal number of necessary packs (e.g. 36 packs of 8525/8530 Kanohi to obtain a full collection of 72 Kanohi; not considering the 6 types of eye pieces as collectibles).If the ratio between different collectible items is exactly 1:1.If the complete list of available collectibles is openly displayed on the packaging, or at the very least advertised inside. Collectibles are a gamble and that's entirely fine because you have your consumer's unspoken consent that they won't get a full set of anything from the first attempt, but they can at least feel free to try. Getting them, however, to (knowingly or otherwise) consent to a huge surplus by design is pretty darn questionable. Take the very first instances of collectibles like BIONICLE's, namely the 8508 Slizer/Throwbots disks (proto Kanoka) and the 8515 RoboRiders wheels. The former had a total of 48 disks in packs of 5 (minimal surplus of 2; no big deal), while the latter had a total of 128 wheels in packs of 4 (no surplus). Neither had a full (or at least comprehensive and not in any way misleading) list of every collectible, available inside or on the actual packaging. All in all the only exemplary pack of collectibles were the original Kanohi, as they covered all three of the criteria above. Unless of course you count the 14 misprints, which were a mistake; the infected Hau, which wasn't advertised; or the Vahi, which was suggested on the packaging but ultimately never included. But I consider all of those deviations not necessarily in violation of any of the criteria. And what was the deal with the Kanoka anyway? Was there ever a complete list of all the disks you could get anywhere? Never mind the surplus (I don't think there was one). The Rhotuka were also fine, I think; there wasn't much to them. Everything from then on was all projectiles. Tell me what you guys think? Am I making any sense? I'd love to start a discussion out of this.
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