5810 pirate corsair

[cachalote]

i just got a 5810 pirates corsair today, originally an american set now available in europe.

i was very disappointed with it. 

after assembling it, it looks o.k. if you look at it from a distance - the hull color scheme is o.k. and the skull printed in its bigger sail looks nice. 

but it is a sad boat, too quick to assemble, with a very limited quantity of parts. 
there is almost no string rigging attached - no sheets on the boom, no halyards on the gaff, no forestay.
there are very little sailing accessories, no blocks attached to the clews, no bell, no lantern.
there is only one cannon (shooting sticks instead od balls) leaving one of the sides of the ship naked.
there are no buckets, no extra rifles, no monkeys, no parrot, no rowboat, no food, no axes, no crane. only a treasure chest.
the anchor is made of plastic (i think it floats).
there are no stickers to decorate the stern of the ship.

i read somewhere that hans beck's favourite set was the first 3550 pirate ship. 
the second one, the 3750 came filled with extras and it was wonderful to assemble it and to look at it at the end.
i remember buying the american crew (it had 2 versions) and a few extra items for it on ebay and the joy i got from over-crowding it.
the path seemed then to get a lot more form every new set.
with the 3810 i will have to buy a lot of stuff just not be sad with its poor contents.

hans beck would not be pleased with this set, i am sure. 
i know i wasn't. 

[Gustavo]

hans beck would not be pleased with this set, i am sure. 
i know i wasn't. 

We might ask him ... Does he speak any English?

Well, Lars could ask'im!

Gus

[Gepetto]

Well Cachalote,

I guess that ship was not a very good 'ketch'!   Bad pun, couldn't help myself, I know since I have been on eBay that I am more excited by all the little extras one can come up with for your existing fleet (except the viking longboat) than the main item itself.


Gepetto

[Justindo]

I have this ship and while I don't think it's a great set, it's not bad for the price ($25-$30 in the U.S.).  The colors aren't great, but they're not terrible and while there aren't a lot of extras and the canon and sails are awful, these can  be added and/or changed, which is what I have done.

[Sir Gareth]

Hi Cachalote,

  I got this set a few weeks ago here in the UK and my thoughts on it are the same as yours. There are very little accessories to what we would normally get, the ship seems to be unfinished, like a used set off Ebay missing a few parts.

Still, when your a collector of a theme you have to get them all, the good, the bad and the ugly.

This is a bad set for quantity and if it was a child's 1st set it offers very little play value. It is just a plastic bath toy with 3 figures, that may sound a little bit harsh but we all know Playmobil can do a lot better.

[Martin Milner]

Sorry to hear you were so disappointed, cachalote.

My feeling is that it's deliberately stripped down to keep the price low. You can add those extra parts if you really want them, barrels, cannon, rigging etc., with other sets in the theme, but I suspect for most buyers this is not a concern.

Cutting $10-20 dollars off the shelf price to make it more competitive is more important to Playmobil at this stage in the American Market.

I object more to the pirate skull & crossed swords on the sail, and on lots of hats. Generally pirates aren't too keen to advertise their status until the right moment; any decent lookout is going to give this sloop a lot of sea room.

I've been avoiding the 5736 Blackbeard's Ship because I don't like the furled sails or the big bertha cannon (in a ship), but now it's no longer available direct from Playmobil, am wondering if I should snap one up, because it has a different hull shape to the rest of my fleet, and the sails could be replaced.

[cachalote]

i have always felt that the secret of playmobil's success resided in its "heterotopian" qualities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterotopia_%28space%29). 

it is important to me to feel that in a playmobil set you can discover an alternative-like small world, different form the one that surrounds me but, in a way, equally "complete".

i had trouble doing it with this ship.

it doesn't have to be "totally" complete but it must feel alive when you look at it and i like to think that it goes on living while it rests alone in the shelf.

cutting out the number of pieces is just the wrong way to look at cost/benefit management.
playmobil should instead see if they could produce designs so attractive that people would buy it for an extra 10 euros or dollars instead of the opposite.

if you look at the way hans beck managed the evolution of pirate ships, you never see a down-sizing of parts (quite the contrary).

kids like to have a lot of things surrounding them in bathtubs but i think they understand that a playmobil ship is better "played" in a dry environment.

i can find no excuses for this sad set except for the stupidity of some new manager that has no feeling for what playmobil toys can and should be.

the way i see it you can always produce, as an example, 2 kinds of rugby balls: very poor quality ones that you try to sell cheaply by the millions and very good and lasting ones that are more expensive (these you cannot and should not expect to sell by the millions).

maybe geobra is not understanding what it wants to do. 

[Martin Milner]

maybe geobra is not understanding what it wants to do.[/font] 

I think Geobra know exactly what they're doing, but it's not in line with what you personally want from them, Cachalote.

There are lots of Pirate sets which have figures but no ship. If a child can save, say, $10 month, then s/he can have the pirates, than add the ship later. I'm assuming here that the child is wisely saving up their pocket money, and buying sets they want when they have the necessary funds.

No need for the extra figures, barrels, etc, with the ship, as they already have them. If the sets are too high in price, then the child may never be able to afford them, or may spend the money on other, lesser toys (Mega Bloks Pyrates ugh yuck). Even I am thinking several times before spending £30-60 on another pirate ship set.

Some sets do work nicely in isolation, but to me they're always part of a larger theme, and sometimes 2 or 3 sets need to be combined for the best effect.

[sbblabotw]

  Yeah, me again, same old question.  Would any owners of this ship be willing to submit plans to PlaymoDB?  Then once it's inventoried we can all see exactly what's in it.  I'm missing a box-back picture, too.  Thanks!

5810 - Pirate Corsair