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| From left to right: Allegra (#8317) - Nepol (#8320) - Aquart (#8319) - Nepol & Shimmel (#8321) - Jens (#8312) - Nick Deluxe (#8313) - Nick (#8310) - TDN Module (#8315) - Gorm Deluxe (#8314) - Euripides (#8324) - Ooni (#8318) - Kek Powerizer (#8316) - Gorm (#8311) and Tager (#8325). |
I'm one of the few that actually enjoys the theme, and I have quite a few duplicates in my collection. I don't feel ashamed to own sets like Jack Stone, Galidor, Znap, Clikits or Scala - because I buy them on purpose to expand my LEGO® knowledge to understand that from these so-called failures (which are all actually quite underlooked if you ask me) came the strongest factors for the company to become the largest toy manufacture of the world. I also have fun in collecting these, consider the rare elements and colours that came with them. Not many people know that the ratcheted joints came from Galidor. You can say whatever you want about Galidor - without we would probably never seen the successful colour Dark Green (so no 10242 Mini Cooper in that colour), a proper EXO-FORCE or Jurassic World and your beloved Smaug being sturdy. The same things can be said about the other "failures" as well, or specific era's in the LEGO® timeline - but that's for a different moment to explain.
Due to having multiple joints in most (not all) of the available limbs, you can get some nice posing. But if I'll be honest, posing these figures might take some time, but you can get some pretty sweet poses if you manage to (see the group image above to spot Aquart doing the infamous Iron Man pose). See below in the spoiler for one cool pose you can do with Ooni (#8325).
Though I've had this retailer collection complete for a year now, I still lack the McDonalds promotions that started the series. Ironically, for the price of the cheapest Galidor figures, you can get more than ten of these promotions (I'm just too lazy to order). In addition to that, the value for an entire Galidor collection - is worth more than most of the individual Comic-Con figures. Blame Tager and Aquart for being so overly rare and expensive. Geez.
Was Galidor really that bad? A lot of fans would say "yes", but I think there are still a lot of good things to say about these. Most of the "yes, Galidor was bad" arguments can be narrowed down to a subjective point of view. On an engineering perspective the sets are quality-wise surprising for "just a toy" and that the manufacturing costs for these pieces would go through the roof due to the amount of (manual) assembly, printing that wraps around various shapes, multiple-injection moulding (often a mix of different plastic types) to a few pieces and metric tolerance these would require.
Anyway, Galidor pieces are hard to age and stay in a very good condition even after a decade. It's difficult to distinct new from used Galidor pieces, unlike most other (System) pieces. The sets are pretty indestructible and you really need to go far in order to break any of the pieces. The prints are like any other printed LEGO® pieces and will probably last for decades. The second most common backfire to Galidor's parts selection is the fact that the rubbery pieces "becomes a nightmare" as they catch a lot of dust and "become dirty". It's not that rubbery pieces in LEGO® sets are exclusive to Galidor anyway - nothing a good rinse can't fix.
But what's the most common backfire, you ask? "All the Galidor pieces are way too specific to be used anywhere else and they can only be attached to the ratcheted joint system!" While I understand that view, just don't forget that the "limited" use of pieces is only limited by your imagination.
That's it for today! I'll see you guys next post!
Wow! I'd really like to get a hold of Aquart and Tager. It's been difficult to find either one for sale anywhere.
ReplyDeleteAny place you would suggest checking to get these two? I have almost all of the Galidor sets, but I mainly need these ones to top it off.
thanks!
Hi theBolderBoulder!
DeleteYes, I agree with Aquart and Tager being difficult ones to find. The main reason why this blogpost was made is to show others all of the main Galidor models next to each other, as apparently not many people have an actual complete Galidor collection, let alone have a picture of them together.
Unfortunately Aquart/Tager are really expensive (as you've seen it yourself, according to your Youtube message) because there aren't many of them around. It's not that they sell well, or that there are many Galidor collectors out there. They're just priced "accordingly" for what Galidor collectors pay for them. Bricklink is probably the only way to get them, which sucks. I would not recommend using Ebay as unlike Bricklink, it has no community policy which makes it easy to fall for possible scams and too-good-to-be-true auctions. Fortunately there aren't really Galidor bootlegs as far as I can tell, so it's safe to assume that any Aquart or Tager is the real thing.
I managed to find my Aquart and Tager in a Galidor lot on a local classified advertising website, which the lot was from an old Galidor collector who had no idea how much those two were worth (or he just had little patience and wanted to quickly sell them). That is why I have most of the Galidor sets in duplicate, as they came packed with a lot of the other Galidor sets. I probably would've gone the Bricklink route if it weren't for him, though.
As for getting your hands on Aquart and Tager, there's only really one way: keep on searching and be willing to pay the full price... It definitely won't hurt to use the "Wanted List" feature of Bricklink, which gives an e-mail when a new listing of Aquart/Tager appears. Although everyone who has subscribed to this feed will get an e-mail, so it's a matter of early bird gets the worm...
There's another route called "parting out" which you might be familiar with, which is getting all the individual parts on Bricklink and then completing the set once you've got them all. This isn't just a popular technique with expensive aftermarket models (such as the Modular Buildings, UCS sets), but it's also one of the few ways to get a complete #8522 Spark (which is an infamous Slizer model among Slizer collectors) or other of those "rather obscure LEGO® sets that certain people collect but are surprisingly difficult to get your hands on". Here's the problem though: because there aren't many Aquart and Tager sets made, you can't really find any of the pieces on Bricklink as of now...
Either way, good luck with your search! It's probably going to be more challenging to get your hands on Aquart though. Based on searching experience, Tager is indeed the most expensive Galidor out there (until the prototypes of Mokarr would ever be auctioned online, which I honestly doubt would ever happen), but Aquart is the one that's even more difficult to find than Tager, despite being approx. half the value of Tager himself.
PS. Don't forget to consider handling/border fees and shipping costs when using Bricklink! I've made that mistake a handful of times.
i think im the only person with 4 tagers and 4 aquarts all bought from local classifieds i think there are more of these guys here in Australia.
ReplyDeleteI owned several Aquart and Tager, even sealed. But I have only owned 1 Makarr ��
ReplyDeleteTager and Aquart were exclusive to Europe and Australia for some reason.
ReplyDeleteHuh, that's interesting. From what I could tell back then, none of the Galidor were initially sold (or planned to be sold) in The Netherlands (or Europe for that matter). Only the US LEGO® website had a theme page for Galidor, as there was no European website for it. There were no advertisements for Galidor stuff here either. No mention in the catalogs (aside from the corresponding video game that was supposedly to come out), nothing regarding the TV show. Only the video game saw a couple of physical releases here, but that was years after Galidor ended.
DeleteIt took several months after its release in the US that a large bulk of Galidor (leftovers) was shipped from the US to Europe, to be sold at a large discount. This happened without notice and I accidentally stumbled upon several Galidor sets at my local toy store as a kid, which was to my disbelief at the time given the whole US-only thing. I bought one of each set that I could get my hands on, but I couldn't find any Tager/Aquart, or the TND Module and Nepol (basic figure). What sets were available did change every few days, so I did regularly check the shelves. Most of the sets that were available seem to have only been sold in a low amount of stock (i.e. less than three per set at best). I have been told later by other AFOLs in retrospect that the stocks did vary between toy stores when discussing the availability of these sets in Europe. But I haven't heard about Tager/Aquart being located in The Netherlands - it wouldn't surprise me if it was sold somewhere, just not in my region or country.
That makes me wonder if any of the Tager/Aquart sets were shipped to the US to begin with, if the exclusivity part is true. As they were part of the second wave of sets (which would've included Mokarr if he didn't get axed), it wouldn't surprise me if they skipped shipping them to the US and just spread them locally in Europe/ship them to Australia. Assuming that all of the Galidor sets were manufactured in Europe, that is, as that's something I'm not completely certain of either.
As an Australian, I too found a Tager and Aquart in a local marketplace ad for Galidor, from someone who collected all the figures back in the day. I even have the instructions for them which don’t seem to be easy to find. Mokarr does show up once in a blue moon for sale, but expect to pay more for it than all your other sets put together lol
ReplyDelete