Thanks To My Benefactress - Hypno Cruiser 6492

Yours truly has been the humble beneficiary of yet more free Lego. Once more Lunarossa has proven herself to be a Lego friend of the highest order and has passed on an old Lego set to me rather than see it fall into the anonymous hands of a second hand shop salesperson. I can only gratefully accept with much hearty thanks and reiterate my promise to buy said beneficiary a coffee of magnificent proportions should our paths every cross in the real world.

This set came from Lego's 1996 range "Time Cruisers" which I don't think ran for very long. It's a very quirky series and I don't think it ever really caught on which is a great shame... but, of course, these were the days before Lego saw the advantages of the TV tie-in theme. Attempting to generate fanatical interest in your own made-up themes is always going to be a dicy marketing strategy and one that, in the case of Time Cruisers, didn't really pay off.

Hence I did not previously own any models from this series. I was in fact largely unaware of its existence - this despite my regular poring over the contents of the Ultimate Lego Collector book that contains details of every set Lego have any released. Naturally I have gravitated my investigations to eras and models that I loved as a kid and those new lines that attract my interest now.

Hence the 6492 Hyno Cruiser is an unexpected gift in every sense of the phrase. It's a really charming model that utilizes a very simple elastic band "motor" to spin the propellor blades and the swirly patterned discs on the side of the vehicle. It has bags of humour and character and makes for a very tongue in cheek counterpart to the Death Star 10188 beneath which it currently resides...!

The Force is strong in this one... be it only a lacky-band!

Geonosian Fighter 4478 And Cyber Saucer 6900

Sometimes you come across Lego in the most delightful ways. These two models came to me via my obsession with blogging. A kind hearted blogger out there by the name of Lunarossa found a couple of old Lego sets at the bottom of her son's wardrobe and wondered if I'd like to give them a good home.

Well, my doors are always open to Lego and though things are getting overcrowded I'm confident I can squeeze in another couple of year's worth of collecting before we either have to buy a bigger house and / or get a loft extension and / or my wife chucks me out.

The 4478 Geonosian Fighter is a real treat as it was issued in 2003, a good couple of years before the Lego bug re-bit me and I recommenced collecting in earnest. Thus anything pre-2005 is very unrepresented in my collection. I certainly didn't have any Geonosian minifigures before this set arrived through my letterbox. As you can see from the photo below, this set is the forerunner for the 7752 Count Dooku’s Solar Sailer set released last year in 2009. I'm obsessive enough to like to have timelines in my collection so to acquire the 4478 set was a real boon.

The second set that Lunarossa included in her Lego-aid package (which you can see in the top picture) was the 6900 Cyber Saucer set. This was originally released in 1997 and was a curious tangent in Lego's eclectic space range - a line was simply entitled UFO. I didn't previously own any of the models from this line so to have this one makes me very happy - mainly because it is the "classic" flying saucer that the whole range was based around.

All I've got to do now is find somewhere to display them properly! Once again, many thanks to Lunarossa... and if there are any other bloggers out there who bought a Lego set for Christmas and not for life and want them adopted or fostered out, well, I make a great Lego parent. Feel free to email me via the "Lego Wanted" link on the right sidebar! ;-)