Review: 40223 Snowglobe
Posted by Huw,
For the past few years LEGO has offered a highly desirable gift-with-purchase over the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend, and this year is no different.
This 40223 Snowglobe is free with purchases over $99 this weekend and next in USA/Canada and in UK/Europe it will be free with a €65/£60 spend between the 25th of November and the 10th of December.
Not only is it a neat set, it is chock-full of rare and interesting parts...
Box and contents
The thin cardboard box proclaims that it is a limited edition set but unlike previous years' sets, the year of release is not indicated.
Parts are distributed across three unnumbered bags. Already you can see there are some cool pieces included.
Here are a few that caught my eye:
- 4599452 (Wall Element 4X4X6, Round - Tr, design: 46361, colour: Transparent)
- 6093714 (Dish Ø64X9.6 Tr., design: 18859, colour: Transparent) (unique to this set).
- 6003056 (Window Frame 1X2X2 2/3, design: 30044, colour: Earth Green)
- 6123809 (Brick 1X2X1 2/3 W/4 Knobs, design: 22885, colour: Medium Stone Grey)
- 6136412 (Bracelet Upper Part, design: 33291, colour: Light Royal Blue) (appears in only two other sets).
- 6093908 (Profile Brick 1X2 Single Gro., design: 98283, colour: New Dark Red) (contains 25 of them).
A full set inventory has been published already by LEGO.
Construction
Construction is in three parts. First the base: a 8x8 square 'house' with windows on three sides and a hole at the front for a drawer.
Next, the snowglobe itself is added to the top, complete with Santa minifigure and Christmas tree inside.
The 'snow' is comprised of fourteen 1x1 white round tiles.
Finally, the drawer is built, to look like the front of the house. The yellow bricks look a bit out of place. They are not seen, of course, once the drawer is in-situ, but a better matching colour would have been preferable.
The completed model
The drawer slides neatly into the base..
Once the drawer has been pushed in, the house looks delightful.
The transparent quarter circles seem to hold an electrostatic charge easily which has attracted all manner of detritus: cat hairs and bits of fluff, as these pictures testify.
Verdict
This is an imaginative set, the likes of which LEGO has not produced before. Real snow globes are filled with liquid thus facilitating a snowy display as the white glitter inside descends slowly back to ground after being shaken. I do not recommend attempting to fill this one with water, though, so you will have to make do with it behaving more like a rattle. Nevertheless, it will still look great on your mantle piece.
If you still have LEGO shopping to do before Christmas, now would be a good time to do so in order to secure one of these sets for free. This is one of the best gift-with-purchase at shop.LEGO.com this year.
Thanks to the LEGO affiliate team for sending us one to review. The review is an expression of my opinions and not those of the LEGO Group.
67 likes
32 comments on this article
Wow. That's even nicer than I thought and I already thought it was the best Christmas set LEGO has done.
Flowers in royal light blue I hope are used more. And New dark red? is there old dark red?
Can't wait!
I think I finally understand the word "tchotchke".
Great review. I will be ordering enough Lego to get it (and probably more!)
Is it just me or is Sensei Wu dressed up as Santa?
Looks great! I'm getting one later today. Nice review :-)
Come on Nov 25th.... basket and credit card ready......since about June when we first saw it.........
To me it looks more like Santa has been shut in some kind of dystopian futuristic isolation cell
Cool, I see this comes with Sensei Santa.
In my view they chose the yellow color on the side/back drawer bricks to look like the light of a warm house peeking through the window stiles.
That's certainly a possibility...
This is now available in US right now for VIPs along with double points. I just ordered the Power Functions for my Winter Village Train and the Caterham 7 for my nephew's Xmas present in order to get the snow globe free.
Its cute.
I like the base and the overall style, but honestly, they should've just made it an ornament piece instead of trying to make it look like a snow globe. Since it's missing the thing that makes a snow globe into a snow globe. This'll look 10x better if you just leave the "globe" pieces off.
Awfully elaborate snuff box. Seriously though, no year on the box would indicate to me they may plan on using this set again at some point in the next years (less work to do if the year is not on the box).
Nice set, while the Yellow does look a bit out of place, it is LEGOs flagship color, so I'm guessing why they used yellow brick in the drawer design (probaby saved a bit of cost not using the 1x2 masonry brick to do the drawer). Still waiting for LEGO to do an actual mold of a reindeer though; there is always next year.
Looks explendid.
Will be getting mine on the 7th dec :)
Need to figure out what else I don't need but do need to get the £60 threshold. XD
Lovely set, great pictures. The drawer is a really nice feature. I'm waiting til 1st December to get the winter holiday train as I have a five pound off voucher that was on the back of a catalogue I received a few weeks ago.
I just love this set, looks incredible. Can't wait to get my hands on one.
WOAH
Not much of a globe. But WOAH! I swear every year I promise I'll spend less on LEGO, and then TLG comes out with stuff like this.
Just got this today and not sure whether or not to keep it. This review is pushing me towards the keep it side...
It's a nice set, can't wait for mine! I've not bought a LEGO set for myself all year, so this will be the icing on the cake. Since the snow-globe feature appears to be a bit 'rattle-y" I think I'll try to modify it to spin slowly inside instead!!!
Um, fire under a snow globe? Santa looks like he is trying to hide against the tree from the white pellets. And globe?! This is more like a lighthouse or a curio glass cover. They sell clear sphere ornament balls. Couldn't they do something with that? It looks more like a carnival clown torture contraption. And I love Lego!
Fresh back from the 'Lester' Square Lego Store and London, and I'm not too disappointed I didn't get this Snow Globe because I like the quirkiness of the 24 in 1 calendar I got free (no Lester though, otherwise I would be shouting it from the rooftops!) For a mini-update, availability of the Year-of-the Rooster was dubious - I got hold of one because an assistant walked past and I asked for it, but it wasn't being displayed anywhere.
On the subject of this Snow Globe though again, I'm definitely a fan of those rare parts, particularly transparent or brick ones for buildings. The defining snow-globe feature is a little odd though, having to rattle for parts. I suppose it's the best you're going to get unless you did something fancy at a larger scale with Power Functions and far more white flat 1x1s.
I'll be using the slide out box to stow daily model pieces from the 24-in-1 calendar for my son to assemble. He'll like figuring out to make each one by looking at a picture instead of the assembly instructions.
Is that Master Wu's face on that Santa? It looks like it to me.
is bright yellow bricks perhaps chosen to give the impression of lights behind the 3 windows?
@juulhorst, That's already been suggested in this thread by quixotequest and commented on by Huw.
I realise the snow on the steps serves as a handle to open the drawer and therefore some clearance is required so you can grab it, but having the snow floating there when the drawer is shut looks odd.
So. This looks like all kinds of fun.
When it comes to the UK, if I grab something that's £59.99, is it sensible just to top it up to the £60 with a single pick-a-brick item? Or is that stupid?
@Zander (and others) thank you and sorry, i missed it... i like the model and will try to get it!
Has anybody tried it would be able to hold the water if filled in?
Maybe the yellow on the drawer was to make the inside look inviting from the outside when assembled.looks like they made it fit the window? I've wondered myself in other sets when a color is a bit off but the assembled piece has always looked wonderful.