Lego, Halloween, Area 51, Barf Bags and The Most Listeners Ever!

More Listeners Than Ever
October was a great month for The Collectors Show (www.webtalkradio.net) with over 19,000 individual downloads. We had great news and guests. But in case you missed them here is another look at who was on this month.

Lego Collecting
Will Reed from Brick Blogger was the guest the last week of October. I’ve never seen a group of people more engaged or passionate about their collections than people who collect Lego. They are in a league by themselves. The hobby transcends age groups and other demographics. You can visit Brick Blogger at (http://thebrickblogger.com).

Lego connects with collectors and fans in an interesting way as we learn this week on The Collectors Show.

Halloween Collecting
Halloween is the 2nd most important “holiday” in the U.S. when it comes to economics. The 3rd week of October we welcomed with the man who owns the website http://www.halloweencollector.com and is the author of an incredibly informative and beautifully illustrated book called “Vintage Halloween Collectibles” now in its 3rd edition. Mark B. Ledenbach has been all over television including a segment on Martha Stewart Living, HGTV and all of the major print publications. Most all items for Halloween were made to be used once and thrown out and that is what most people have done since the early part of the 20th century. Mark has made much of those that survive.

Vintage Halloween Collectibles is now in its 3rd edition. The writer, Mark B. Ledenbach is the guest on The Collectors Show this week.

Area 51
Karen Green is the Senior Curator and Director of Exhibits at the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada. The National Atomic Testing Museum is a repository for one of the most comprehensive collections of nuclear history. As part of its mission, the National Atomic Testing Museum seeks to collect and preserve a wide variety of materials and artifacts relating to atomic testing, the Nevada Test Site, the Cold War, and nuclear and radiological science and technology. The current collection includes thousands of rare photographs, videos, artifacts. They also have an exhibit from the super secret Area 51. (http://www.nationalatomictestingmuseum.org)

Collecting Barf Bags
Another first for us here on The Collectors Show, because one day this man opened his eyes and thought “I know – barf bags” . Steve “Upheave” Silberburg is the owner and curator of the Air Sickness Bag Virtual Museum where his collection of over 2500 airsickness bags are on display. His web site is exceptionally well organized are all listed alphabetically and are annotated with other information relevant to each respective bag.

The Admiral Akbarf bag made available for queasy riders at the Star Tours ride at Disneyland.

(www.airsicknessbags.com)

Our first show for November welcomes Daniel Pickett of “Action Figure Insider”. Daniel has started a campaign to persuade Toys R Us to reinstate the sale of the Breaking Bad Action Figure to their stores and he has lots of good reasons for wanting that outcome. I invited representatives from Toys R Us to respond, but they did not return phone calls or answer e-mails.

It’s too bad when a company abandons the news media the way TRU has. The day will come when they want coverage for something. I wonder how reporters will react? OK, I’m not wondering I know exactly what they will do.

Lego Collecting With Will Reed of The Brick Blogger.com

This week on The Collectors Show (www.webtalkradio.net) we meet Will Reed of The Brick Blogger.

Collecting Lego with Will Reed of Brick Blogger

I’ve never seen a group of people more engaged or passionate about their collections than people who collect Lego. They are in a league by themselves. The hobby transcends age groups and other demographics. So this week on The Collectors Show we welcome Will Reed from Brick Blogger

Lego connects with collectors and fans in an interesting way as we learn this week on The Collectors Show.

(http://thebrickblogger.com).

Will says he is never too busy to talk about Lego! Brick Blogger has volumes of material on Lego though Will says his is one of the smaller sites. There are entire web sites with much more material posted than Brick Blogger. Brick Blogger is a great entry into the hobby for the beginner.

Where To Start With Lego?

So to get started with Lego, first decide what are you interested in? What captivates your interest? There are plenty of opportunities with Lego and if not you can invent one. He and his wife started with Castles because they liked the medieval genre. They went on to Ninjas and super heroes. But the advice remains that starting with what you like is the way to go, because once you start the hobby will take on a life of its own.

It was also interesting that his wife participates with him in the Lego hobby as I would not have thought there were many women interested. Boy was I wrong.  The only other things that come close to this level of hobby and collecting involvement is remote control vehicles, science fairs and board games, which Will and Mrs. Reed also collect and design. Will, is a freelance writer often gets paid in Lego sets that he gets to play with and write about. What a cool job!

Lego Ideas

But what is so appealing about Lego? Is it building? Maybe. Lots of people gravitate to the end product. Fans can submit ideas for others to vote on for Lego sets the company will make and sell. According to Will these always sell out.  The latest Ghostbusters Lego set is an example of an idea that was submitted by a collector, voted on by fans and accepted by the company. The winner gets 1% of the take from the company which is probably a lot. I’m thinking of a way to enter the competition. Will also says you have to market your ideas to other Lego enthusiasts as a way to get them to buy in. Creativity, ideation and marketing all from a single, collectible hobby!

Lego works very hard to engage with fans. For example, Local Lego User Groups (LUGS) are invited by Lego to go online and talk directly with the company. The Ideas are but one way.

The Red Darth Vader

Plumbers are the best source of lost Lego parts. But that seems a little random. Finding a specific part for Lego is not. Brick Blogger can help, but Brick Link (http://www.bricklink.com) is a better site for finding stray Lego stuff. Will characterized the site as the eBay of Lego. “It’s a world market,” he said. “Parts, instructions, boxes are all available from Brick Link.”

Counterfeits?

There are other businesses that make Lego parts that the company will not. For example, Lego will not make anything that is not what they deem “family friendly”. So these companies make military uniforms, weapons, etc. that the Lego company itself will not make. There is a whole industry that has grown up around Lego. So there is no real need for fakes, someone will make it for you.

Movie Tie-Ins and Cross Marketing

There were very few cross market tie ins for Lego until the mid-1990’s. The company was not doing well and decided to try a Star Wars tie-in. Since the Star Wars movies were reissued in the ‘90’s it was good timing. Will says that most recent Lego devotees started because of the Star Wars sets. Lego is also making sets based on the cartoon shows and are very excited about the next movies that will be coming from Disney.

Extremes

Certified master builders are artists who have an agreement with Lego to make museum type displays from Lego. Some have toured the world as parts of art museum displays. Some “civilians” have made battleships, skyscrapers, and the tower from Lord of The Rings that was 8 feet tall. These take tens of thousands of pieces and hundreds of hours to build. Some of these people use their vacation to do this work. A Seattle woman is on record for making the worlds largest Harry Potter structure at 10 feet tall. Wow!

Relationship Challenges

There are lots of couples who pursue the Lego hobby together. But the hobby can also strain relationships when one half of the couple is way into the hobby and the other not. Will says that those couples drift apart naturally. He was not aware of any divorces that occurred because of Lego, but I am betting there are!

Brick Blogger encourages fans of all ages to come to the site and write about their creations. They have engineers that write about just the basic brick. One factory worker writes about clutch power, stamping process, colors that were tried, etc. and he is only one of the contributors to the site. “We want people to start a conversation about what they like about Lego,” Will said. Brick Blogger manages the flow of information about Lego as well.

They only post one news story per day, so the audience can keep up with the news. “Some sites post dozens of stories a day, but we think that is too much for anyone to keep up with,” he said. They target teens for their site, who are ignored by so many others.

Whose Idea?

The founder was encouraged by her husband to start a blog about Lego so he did not have to hear about it all the time(not a fan). She took a course on blogging and the rest is history. By targeting teens and younger adults they have a nice blog site that is a great entry point for collectors and for a demographic ignored by so many others. Brick Blogger is an affiliate of Lego and gets a percentage of sales from the company. Brick Blogger also shares information with Lego about traffic and interest in the site from users that the company pays for. Sweet! “The best way to connect with collectors and users is by starting and participating in the conversation with Lego collectors, Will concluded.”

Shipwrecked Legos and Rare Recordings On The Collectors Show

Comic-Con 2014: Heath Ledger’s Joker Immortalised In Lego

The late Heath Ledger‘s iconic Oscar-winning performance as The Joker in the 2008 film The Dark Knight, has been commemorated in Lego form.

Batman and Joker from the 2008 motion picture in Lego form.

The new Lego line based on Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy will be unveiled this week at San Diego’s Comic-Con and will be the first time Heath Ledger’s take on the notorious villain has appeared in Lego form. The Lego mini-fig portrays The Joker with the distinctive, disturbing face make-up central to Ledger’s role.

Also included in the new line is a mini-fig of Christian Bale‘s Batman and will be part of a set that allows builders to recreate the “Tumbler” version of the Batmobile from Nolan’s films.

The set contains 1869 pieces and will sell at a retail price in the US of $199 when it arrives in stores in September, after it is previewed at Comic-Con. Fairfax reports, the release of the Lego set coincides with the 75th anniversary of the Batman character. Other commemorative events planned by US studio Warner Bros, which owns DC Comics, include the DVD release of the 1966 Batman television series, and the debut of new television series, “Gotham”, which will feature origin stories for many of the Batman franchise’s key villains. The stars of the 1966 Batman television series, Adam West (Batman), Burt Ward (Robin) and Julie Newmar (Catwoman), will also be special guests at this year’s Comic-Con.

Lego Reinvents Itself Successfully

LEGO logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A few weeks ago we did a program about Lego Mini Figures. I was impressed with how the people who run Lego had navigated their way around the video game market and remained relevant in an era when actual, tangible toys were struggling. This ad reinforces the fact that Lego is well run, knows what its doing and are brilliant communicators.

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/did-lego-already-win-christmas-fantastic-father-son-ad-153644

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