Comment by FinnKuhn
2 months ago
You can argue this for their sets targeting children and I don't think anyone minds stickers on those.
On display sets for multiple hundred Euros however it just looks cheap due to different surfaces and colors - especially as no one is ever going to disassemble these sets.
I think that's fair, though I'm sure we would disagree on plenty of edge cases in the definition of a "display-oriented" set.
It just feels to me like AFOLs poopoo on any set for having stickers, without considering the advantages stickers have from the POV from the POV of a child with few LEGOs and fewer dollars.
In my case I think we can agree that the Lego Icons series is mostly display sets I think. At least those are what I was thinking of and that is how Lego markets them as well.
They do tend to use printed graphics on those, right?
My #21334 is technically Ideas, not Icons, but it's in that same aesthetic sphere and it uses printed bricks.
My #10266 is the most "display-ish" set that has stickers, but it's also well within the gray area between "plaything" and "display piece."
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stickers > just looks cheap due to different surfaces and colors
They are cheap!
To print on a piece you must run the inkjet assembly line, do QC on it.. With early Collectable Minifig series, I heard they outsourced that. I imagine inkjet lines that run all day for one piece type (maybe having changeable jigs.)
It's cheap to print a whole sheet of stickers!
Another approach that isn't so cheap is: in-mold transfer printing sheets. I learned about this at plastics shows around 2000; Apple used it on the all-in-one spotted iMac in 2001-ish.
Now since Lego ships perpetually ships 1x4s and 1x2s with black smileys or such, I guess carbon black in-mold transfer must be cost-effective. (That's a guess)
I know we're gonna be arguing taste in stickers forever.
I have some of those display sets and I think the stickers look fine. Yeah it's less convenient than printed pieces, but I think the complaints are significantly overblown.
I have one since a few years (it's a display set) and you can clearly see the stickers now as they haven't aged the same being subjected to sunlight.
I also have a set from another manufacturer that prints everything and there you don't have this problem.