Lego Adventurers "Mike's Swamp Boat": No Gators or Crocs But One Very Cool Pterodon!
Written: Jul 15 '07
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Pros: Nice small swamp boat, Mike figure, part of a combo set.
Cons: No longer made, can be hard to find in mint packaging.
The Bottom Line: If you are a fan of the Adventurer series and want to get your hands on an awesome flying dino, then this is the set for you.
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| Freak369's Full Review: Lego Adventurers Mike's Swamp Boat 5912 |
As much as I love the castle and medieval sets from Lego, the Adventurer series has been something that I have invested a lot of time and money into over the years. It is also one of the longest running series or themes for Lego. It all started back in the late 90's when designers wanted to introduce something along the lines of Indiana Jones but something that could eventually branch out to include a myriad of themes. That was the birth of the Adventurer series and since then it's grown to include sets for India, Mount Everest, Dino Island, Egypt and more. From an educational standpoint, the entire series is phenomenal and if you are homeschoolers you can use the sets to teach kids about geography, history, dinosaurs, would events and other cultures.
Mike's Swamp Boat 5912
The main focus of the set started out as the small mini swamp boat but most people bought it for the Mike figure and the flying dinosaur. The boat is small but easy to build and will accommodate one Lego figure of your choice. The back propeller is nice and there's even a steering wheel in the front but the figures hands aren't able to grasp it. That was always something that confused me about some of the elements. If they are too small for the figures to put their hands on, why bother having them in the inventory at all? Even so, this was a low cost set when it was first introduced and allowed parents to test the waters to see if a child would be into the theme and if it was worth buying the larger sets in the series.
The swamp boat is cool, getting a Mike Lego figure is nice but the main reason to buy this set is the Pterodon. As much as I hate to admit it, when I posted this on a Lego message board more than a few people asked me what it was and why I was talking about a video game maker. Rest assured, the Pterodon is a type of flying dinosaur and the one that you get in this set is well worth the cost of it. The Pterodon has only been in five sets so you can imagine that there is a demand for these in the resale market. Even though they came in several different colors, the dark orange one is the one that looks the best.
How much can you expect to pay for this set? It's no longer being made but you can still get it at online toy stores or from private sellers. I got these and others in the series for a dollar a box at KB Toys several years ago and am really kicking myself for not getting more of them when I had the chance. Stupid me figured that they would 'always' be there. The lesson from that is when you see something on sale, you buy it and don't blindly think that it's going to be there the next day or week. The average selling price for this set now is about four to six dollars, a little more if you want something that is in a mint [perfect] box. There's nothing all that 'special' about this set meaning that you can have an Adventurer scene without it but the Pterodon is really sweet to have.
If you were lucky enough to get all four sets in this mini series then you have all the elements you need to build a small but cool combo vehicle. You will need the following sets to build it as well as the comic book sheets that came with the sets:
5911 - Johnny Thunder's Plane
5912 - Mike's Swamp Boat
5913 - Dr. Lightning's Car
5914 - Sam Sinister And Baby T
These sets are classified as part of the Dino Island theme of the Adventurers but with a little fiddling around you can use them with pretty much any set in the main theme. Lego toyed with the idea of doing small combo sets like this but these days they are more into pimping the larger sets rather than creating things with high replay value. From a marketing standpoint, the idea of the combo set is ingenious. It prompts kids to bug their parents to get more sets and urges collectors to invest in more sets that they might otherwise have no interest in
The Bottom Line
With the handful of pieces that you get in this set you can build a couple of nice little things but the real fun begins when you add it to other vehicles, boats and scenes. That is one of the most awesome things about the entire Lego system, when you get bored with something you can rip it apart and make something else from it. I really wish I would have grabbed more of these when they were a dollar a box but I learned a valuable lesson from my shopping ignorance. This is a nice fun set but it is small, if this is the only set a child has to play with, expect the fun to last about ten minutes.
Name: Mike's Swamp Boat
Set Theme: Adventurer / Dino Island
Set Number: 5912
Piece Count: 18
Age Recommendation: 6 and older
Difficulty Level: Easy
Build Time: 2 minutes
Price: 1.00
As always, thanks for the visit…
~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~
© 2007 Freak369
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Amazon Ancient Ruins
The Lost Tomb
Treasure Raiders
Spider's Secret
Adventurer Accessories
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1.00
Type of Toy: Blocks
Age Range of Child: Whole Family
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