new gold "pieces" vs. old

[medib]

The new Castle line has 4 sets with Gold "Pieces".

70400 Forest Ambush
and
70401 Gold Getaway sets have gold colored 1x1 round tile

70403 Dragon Mountain
and
70404 King's Castle sets have both a gold bar and 4 gold coins


hmmm..... a strategy by set designers to induce the public to buy the $50 and $100 sets vs the cheaper ones.
I would have rather that they came out with rare minifigs like more Black Falcon troops.

[AK_Brickster]

The gold bars are cool, but I think I actually prefer the gold 1x1 tiles to the coins. They are more useful in applications other than as money.

That said, the old chrome gold coins are tough to beat! (Chrome gold trumps most things, lol)

[andhe]

As a kids those chrome gold coins were like... well... Gold dust! It was always exciting getting them in a set, and cramming as many as you could into a chest (did anyone else keep the sprues as 'ingots'?).

I never quite understood why they weren't more compatible with minifigs eg clipping into their hands.

So that all said, I quite like that the cheaper new sets have the gold tiles, as they are more versatile. And as these are the sets I'm most likely to purchase!

Some of the POTC sets were produced with chrome coins/bars, and others (of the same set) had pearl gold coins and bars, so it is surprising not to see the pearl coins used here instead of the tiles.

I'm guessing the chrome stuff also costs more to produce?

[RichardAM]

I find it sacrilege that anyone prefers pearl gold over chrome cold- the former is an awful, cheap-looking colour and I really wish TLG would stop using it for parts.

That said, I do like the gold-bar mould, so I don't think there's any harm in having a mixture of loot. Throw in some jewels and the Sun Disk and that's a nice bounty of treasure. As andhe suggested too, the ingot sprues are awesome too!

[OverLoad]

I find it sacrilege that anyone prefers pearl gold over chrome cold- the former is an awful, cheap-looking colour and I really wish TLG would stop using it for parts.

I find that pearl gold is a much more subtle color, and I think that works better for gold rather than in your face flashy chrome gold. I can't find any of my really old chrome coins, so I've taken to using pearl gold 1x1s for them. Plus, there are so many parts in pearl gold, vs very specific parts in chrome gold.

That said, I do prefer chrome gold swords (like the chrome gold greatsword) to pearl gold swords (KK2 knight sword in pearl gold). Same with crowns, although I don't believe there has been a pearl gold crown. At least, not to my knowledge.

[AK_Brickster]

It was always exciting getting them in a set, and cramming as many as you could into a chest (did anyone else keep the sprues as 'ingots'?)

Pretty sure we had exactly the same childhood, lol. We always were trying to totally stuff a chest full of coins, and the sprues were great for helping to fill in the bottom of chests to make them look more full, without feeling like you were "cheating".

[Trademark]

I remember the interior of my Royal Knights castle being full enough of those gold pieces and their connectors that the king could dive in just like scrooge mcduck in the ducktales.

[SSchmidt]

It was always exciting getting them in a set, and cramming as many as you could into a chest (did anyone else keep the sprues as 'ingots'?)

Absolutely! The more you had in a chest, the more rich and powerful you were. Those sprues were awesome as ingots. We would value them higher than the actually coins and use them as currency too.

It's hard to imagine all the gold and headgear accessories you would get in each set.

As far as the gold goes, I absolutely adore the new gold tiles, but I don't know that anything could ever replace the coins with sprue.

[Aeridian]

Mmm, that's hard to say. I really like the shiny-ness of the chrome and how real it looked. But with all the pieces in pearl gold you can incorporate into building more easily... and that's already been said. I gotta get me some of the new gold bars and coins...

[evilnailman]

It was always exciting getting them in a set, and cramming as many as you could into a chest (did anyone else keep the sprues as 'ingots'?)

Absolutely! The more you had in a chest, the more rich and powerful you were. Those sprues were awesome as ingots. We would value them higher than the actually coins and use them as currency too.

It's hard to imagine all the gold and headgear accessories you would get in each set.

As far as the gold goes, I absolutely adore the new gold tiles, but I don't know that anything could ever replace the coins with sprue.

I must have been really cheap, back in the day I used to use the round centre sprues from the yellow and white flowers from http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=6317-1 as silver and gold coins.

Agree with the chrome gold being miles better than the washed out look of the pearl bricks. Not all that glitters is gold, but if it doesn't glitter, it definately isn't gold.

[Quickblade22]

I prefer the chrome gold coins and ingots as opposed to the pearl gold. However, the pearl gold round tiles are way more useful for things other than as currency. That's pretty much stating the obvious, but do see the reason behind going pearl gold instead of chrome (cost being the most obvious). The only way I'd be cool with the coins being non-chrome is if they started releasing them in various colors. Copper, Pearl dark gray, pearl light gray, or metallic silver would be great. As a matter of fact, metallic gold might be a better choice than pearl gold. I just hope we have both available for years to come. I wonder if they will start putting chrome gold for licensed sets and non-chrome for non-licensed sets.