Just based on the concept alone, the Old Fishing Store is one of my favourite IDEAS sets to be produced from the major Danish brick maker and subsequently cloned. Upon seeing the initial set, I really admired the aesthetic. I remember as a lad I’d make buildings that sometimes used mixed brick colours, but overall I always tried to keep random odd colours out of my brick walls. I wanted a clean, fresh, new-looking town for my Legoland! But, with the Old Fishing Store, the designer has embraced the patch and repair appearance of many an old coastal wooden structure. The effect is quite stunning. Props to the IDEAS designers of this set. If you can afford the brand name original, get it.

Also, look for and support his other seaside village buildings on the Danish brickmaker’s Ideas site. Sadly, he’s had several other incredible designs reach mass acceptance of supporters only to be turned down for being made into a retail set. Maybe he should try working with Xingbao, the manufacturer of many an AFOL-designed and licensed set amongst the world of Chinese bricks. At any rate, the designers here have captured very well the sort of building that lines many coastal regions.

Having lived in several island and rural villages in Alaska, I’ve been very well acquainted with buildings whose roofs and walls are patched in various mismatched materials, whose wooden siding hangs by one or two rusty nails, whose lights flicker and fade, and whose stairs are creaky and missing nearly as many planks as remain. To all those lovely old buildings full of character, this set pays homage.

The set is 16050, cloning the Danish brand’s set number 21310. With just over 2,200 pieces, we’re lucky this set includes numbered building stages. Many older clone sets do not, which of course means you’ve got to sort a couple thousands bricks before the building commences. I don’t hate sorting, though I know some do. But here, we get to dive right in (get it?).

To start, the box is pretty much a complete copy of the major brand packaging. The instruction booklet is printed on nice paper and the colours are generally true to the bricks, though there’s always going to be some variation between the printed colour and the plastic colour. Our build is started on a tan baseplate. I usually find any brand of large baseplate to have a little bit of warp, and this one did as well, but generally (and here) I find that the weight of the bricks gets that flattened out by the end.

One of the coolest parts of the build comes early, and becomes mostly invisible once you get the building completed: a giant spider lives in spaces between the piling underneath the old fishing store, on a giant web. It’s a cool touch that adds some whimsy and also realism (aside from the size of the spider). The entire foundation of the building is built on piling and rock formations as you might see along a coast. Also fairly early on we begin to use a bunch of printed wooden plank tiles. The printing on these pieces is clear, crisp, and beautiful. There’s tons of them in this set, as well. If you designed a build that calls for lots of wooden planks, brown tiles, or sand green tiles, this set is a great way to get bunches of them inexpensively. The brown tiles that are not printed come in several shades, adding to the rustic, patched-up appearance of the store.

The four mini figures included are of generally good quality. The waders of the fisherman are painted on, and perhaps a little less crisp in appearance. But aside from that, all the mini figures look like the long-lost twins of their counterparts that live in a much more expensive parallel universe. We have a lady shopkeeper with a vest full of fishing lures, a fisherman with a knit cap and hip waders, a young boy in a white ball cap and hoodie, and Anton, the crusty proprietor of the Old Fishing Store, with his cable knit sweater perfect for the brisk weather along the coast.

The interior of the shop features a tiled floor in dark green and tan 2×2 tiles, and lots of display space for all the equipment one needs for a day out on the water, or under the water. Fishing rods, nets, dive suits and tanks, hooks, buoys, life rings–you name it, Anton’s got it. The shop is laid out just like pretty much every small old shop I’ve been in: somewhat crowded and haphazardly. It really is perfect.

In addition to the shop floor, there’s a small office in which Anton can catch up on the latest edition of the News from clone land, and ladders that lead up the observation tower and out to a deck complete with a telescope. To play inside the shop, one need only open the rear wall and remove the roof. The rear wall opens in two sections, like a Dutch door, which works very nicely.

This set has tons of fun details that you’ll encounter along the way. There are signs, fish hanging up, fish mounted above the doors, crates full of fish and lobsters (complete with clear wedges that serve as ice), maps and notices on the wall, and a busted-out window covered with newspaper and wooden planks. Lots of printed pieces here include the cash register, the 100-stud notes and 5-stud coin on the counter, a small calculator, boxes of hooks, maps, seagulls, and more. The printing on all pieces looks great. Those signs that are printed on decals blend in well with the brick colour they get pasted onto. The metal patches that are printed on stickers are on a brown background that doesn’t perfectly match the tiles, but it’s a pretty minor thing over all and hardly noticeable. We do have one sticker with a typo (FLSH for FISH), but besides that, the spelling is fine. The tires that hang over the side of the stairs for docking a boat are a bit plasticky, rather than being rubber, but I doubt that should matter much given their use here.

Practically the entire exterior of the building consists of the aforementioned sand green tiles. Many of them are mounted crookedly. This effect is achieved by mounting them on only one vertical stud. The building exterior without the siding mounted looks a bit odd with a bunch of exposed studs. But I love the large quantity of modified bricks with studs on 1 side (1 stud, 2 stud, and 4 studs on the side) included in this set, which allows for custom siding to be installed. Again, if you’re designing a MOC building that requires some sort of fancy siding, the pieces in this set will be very useful to customizing your own exterior.

For building experience, I’m going to give this set high marks. There is very little repetition, and each stage introduces some clever technique or another. The accessories add lots of realism, as does the random nature of the exterior boards and patches.

I’ve photographed the old fishing store with an optional Lightailing LED kit, costing about $17 USD. It definitely adds a lot of ambiance and character to the set, which is already full of both.

As far as play value goes, this set has lots of it: with the four characters, many accessories, and easy access into the shop, it’s a great kit for creating your own adventures. Just add some boats and sharks (not included with this set) and your mini figures are ready for adventures on the high seas.

For display, I love this set as well. The nice tan baseplate works great for a sandy beach along the coast of whatever you do for water (check YouTube and other sources online for some great ideas on how to build realistic-looking water). But even if you don’t try to build an entire seaside, this set looks great on its own, especially with the LED kit. If you’ve got a fishing buff in your life, this would be a fun gift to get them for display in their man cave, their office or cabin, or maybe even on their boat. I’m really pleased I added it to my collection. It was great fun to build and I enjoy the uniqueness of it amongst other buildings I own.

Get it today from our friends at BuildingToyStore.com At 73 USD, it’s a fun build at a great price, with an outstanding final product. You’ll be happy you did!

Our friends at Building Toy Store are offering a coupon for $10 USD off your order, exclusively for readers of Alt-Blocks, in addition to other discounts on their site. Just go to BuildingToyStore.com using this link, create an account (which gets you a 10% discount), and use coupon code K7CXYREL. You may also find a coupon code on their site for an additional 5% discount.

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