The history of Skyline Ritterburgs and 6th armored.

[Colonel32]

The history of Skyline Ritterburgs and 6th armored dates back to early 2005.
As most of Lego collectors, I was having my "dark ages" at that time. (in my case they started in 1996 with massive juniorization of town and train sets), but once in a while I stopped at a toy store to see the new Lego sets looked. And most often I returned with just disappointment. But that one January day, something happened differently. Since my birthday was soon coming up, so I was a bit less resistant to the temptation of buying something. And maybe it was a chance to finally beat the daemon that was following me through my whole childhood - the fact I never had two same freight train cars.

You see, when I was young, my parents were often making the decisions what was the best for me - even with toys. And I assume that many parents still do that nowadays. But when I was given an opportunity to select a set in the store to be bought for me, and I pointed to something I wanted, I was told "You already have one of these. Why don't you choose something else". So although I've always seen trains with many same cars, the only two same cars I ever had while I was young were the two passenger cars that came together in set 7715.

So back to 2005. I was standing there, in a Lego store, fascinated with 10017 Hopper Wagon so much, that before I knew what was going on, I was leaving with two of them. At home I built them and I was so fascinated with them, that I decided I want another one. I remembered they had a few more at the store, so I returned there, only to find that they got sold out in meantime. Not expecting to get restocked.

At that time, I already knew about the internet, but still did not fully understand it's potential. I just googled through Czech advertisement sites, placing adverts to buy specific train sets on all of them. Including this forum. Since the adverts have proved themselves quite unsuccessful, I have returned to this forum about a week later, to find a thread called "Buying Legos from foreign countries over the internet". Yup. My first post on this forum. Asking for further experiences and suggestions. That post actually changed the way my life was heading - from today's point of view - forever.

I became more and more interested in Legos. Took out all the bricks from my childhood and starting organizing them. For the first time ever, instead of having them in big boxes, I started sorting them by color and shape. And when I was finished, for a change, I built a small castle from almost all of my black and gray parts.

[Colonel32]

About that time, I started buying on eBay. At first from United Kingdom, but I soon changed to eBay.de - cheaper shipping charges, better selection and often better prices as well. The main comparison was the legendary crocodile engine 4551, which usually cast around $300 in the rest of the world, while only around 100 EUR in Germany. I wanted that set so badly all my childhood. Just browsing the catalogs, dreaming of owning it once, but certain that I never will - because it was impossible to buy used Lego sets that time. Everybody just claimed they are "keeping it for their children...".

Well, internet surely changed everything. And so I started buying sets I wanted, the crocodile engine was obviously one of the first, but followed by many others. At that time, PayPal was not working in our country yet, and due to the greediness of Czech banks, bank transfers were about $15-30. It was actually cheaper to send the money in a letter then from a bank account. And so I borrowed EURO bills from my parents. A bit for this, a bit for that, and before I knew, a realized I owned them about 1500 EURO.

I have decided, that this obviously couldn't continue at this pace much longer, and I have changed my approach. Instead of buying a pack of sets for 100 EURO and keeping all for myself, I have bought a pack for 100 EURO, kept half, and sold the other half set by set... for about 100 Euro altogether. There were many people who were not that brave to try eBay themselves, and rather paid more to get it from a local source. My main focus were two themes. Town (with a bit of trains) and Castle. I wanted Town for myself often, and castles usually sold really good. But as the first castles arrived, before selling them, for unknown reason I decided to play with them a bit. I took out all my original knights from my childhood and organized a raid on the sale-intended castle. And I took a photo of the knights. I know it is terrible quality, but it is the only one I have.

[Colonel32]

And I started thinking. The childhood memories... I actually had just a few castle sets, because the possibilities of getting a big one were always consumed by the primary themes: town and trains. And as my parents kept telling me "You cannot have everything", I had to give up castles at that time. But there were 3 thing I loved about the few castle figures I had: the barding (a cover for a horse made of fabric - or plastic, in this case), the dragon helmet with dragon plumes... and the breastplate armor. I had only 2 of them. I could have had 3, but I was forced to get a king instead of a knight because "I already had one". Damned. *

And so I started thinking, that maybe I could get myself a knight or two. With breastplates, of course. To make up for that lost part of my childhood. And I always liked the lion and dragon bardings in the catalogs... some maybe a few bardings as well. Can't remember the exact date, but I really kept a few small castle sets from the next batch. And started building an army.


*) Lesson learned. The most important task parents have is to teach their kid to make his own decisions. And to take responsibility for them.