I tested for you: LEGO Ideas 21313 Ship in a Bottle

It was an idea, LEGO made it a set. Is it absolutely necessary to make a set of all the ideas that find their audience on the LEGO Ideas platform? Nothing is less sure.

Initially, there is Jacob Sadovich, a LEGO fan who uploaded a project of bottle with a ship inside. The realization is not perfect but the idea is there. The project brings together the 10.000 required supports, it is validated by LEGO and therefore goes into production.

The result: the set LEGO Ideas 21313 Ship in a Bottle (69.99 €) with its 962 pieces, its bottle and its micro-galleon proudly displaying a coat of arms which nevertheless closely resembles the logo of a Strasbourg brewery.

Everything has already been said about this set. I will therefore content myself with raising a few points that seem important to me. For the guided tour, you will find dozens of reviews to the glory of this box elsewhere.

Let's get rid of the price issue right away: it's far too expensive. There it's done.

The purists of this art of building a boat IN a bottle should take no offense, here we build the boat BEFORE putting it in the bottle.

You can always try to convince me that this boat is successful, that it's LEGO, that it's because of the scale of the bottle, and that if I don't like it, I just have to build another one, etc ... It's crude and barely the level of a good polybag with this too rigid wing.

In fact, LEGO has reversed the rules of the game: in general, you put a pretty boat in a lambda bottle that simply serves as a case through which you can see the result of a particular know-how. Here, it's the opposite, the bottle is successful, its content is much less.

The LEGO designer who took over the file admits himself, the bottle of the initial project was too big. Its size logically dictates the scale of everything else and the boat pays the price.

When the micro-vessel is assembled, it is then a matter of fixing it in the bottle before closing the latter. Nothing complicated, this set will not require any special skills at this stage. It is when it comes to closing the bottle that things will get a little tough.

Further in the assembly phase, we therefore find the bottom of the bottle with the vessel firmly fixed to the wall and the upper part with the neck and the stopper that will have to be fixed to close everything. It's a bit laborious but you end up doing it with a little patience and not following the instructions that recommend fixing the neck before joining the two halves of the bottle.

Nice stopper by the way, with a wax seal which we will talk about later.

Watch out for fingerprints and scratches ...

The fourth panels 6x6x9, which are back in the LEGO inventory here and which form the top of the bottle, are delivered loose in the box without bag or protection. This results in some unsightly marks and traces that will annoy the most perfectionists.

Before finalizing the assembly of the bottle, do not forget to add the water, the waves, the waves. This crucial step here is simply to pour 284 round 1x1 plates, or nearly a third of the contents of the set, into the bottom of the construction.

Can pouring a set of parts into a container be considered a construction technique? It's up to everyone to decide, especially since this process has always been used by many OMCs. I find the technique very lazy even if I understand the intention on the part of LEGO to leave these elements their mobility to better embody what they represent: water.

Should it be specified that the bottle is not waterproof? If some hoped to be able to really fill it with some liquid, this is obviously not possible and it is normal.

The support which accommodates the bottle is successful. It is stable and the bottle is perfectly maintained. It is also the only element of the set with the stopper which brings a little construction pleasure thanks to some well thought out techniques that the buyers of the set will discover.

The only regret, once the bottle is in place, we no longer really see the compass (obviously fictitious) which is however the central element of the base which supports the construction. This compass is a good idea, but it is in the wrong place. So much pad printing effort for something barely visible, it's a shame.

It should also be noted that the wax seal attached to the ingenious cap bears the initials ... of the LEGO designer Tiago Catarino who took over the project.

Jacob Sadovich will not have had the honor of seeing his idea greeted by this detail. It's a shame, he deserved at least to leave a personal mark in this set, beyond his signature on the packaging on the occasion of different events that allow to meet him and the page dedicated to him in the instruction booklet.

It will remain "the one who had the idea"and he will be able to console himself with the royalties on the sales. Flattering his ego in a nice way was not on the program.

In short, you will understand, this set leaves me a little indifferent even if I welcome the originality of the product which has its place in a range called LEGO Ideas. Bravo for the bottle, very realistic, too bad for the boat. I wish I could have said the opposite.

I note in passing that the assembly areas of the transparent parts hinder the visibility of the contents of the bottle from certain angles. You will tell me that this is normal, because it is LEGO and not glass. And you will be right. It's up to you to find the perfect place to display this set, with the right lighting.

I am not a collector of references from the LEGO Ideas range, nor a retired former sailor, and the concept developed here will therefore never find its place in my living room. Even though I'm a LEGO fan, this set is still way too kitsch for me. I will skip the same way if LEGO one day offers us a stuffed boar's head to hang on the wall because I don't have a chalet in the mountains or a hunting cabin.

For those who will acquire it, this set is also a good starting point to do something sexier. At the cost of some modifications, the fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean saga can for example try to give a little cachet to the whole by transforming it into a beautiful tribute to the Black Pearl:

It's up to you to get creative, the bottle can accommodate whatever you want: another micro-boat, micro-spaceship, minifigs on a micro-raft, etc ... As long as it fits.

You can even extend the experience by filling the bottle with different layers of 1x1 plates in different colors for a more modern effect on the Ikea dresser. It's up to you.

Otherwise, you can also prank your friends in the evening:

Note: The set presented here, supplied by LEGO, is included in the game. To participate in the raffle, simply post a comment on this article before the February 10 at 23:59 p.m.. You have every right to disagree with me, it is not eliminatory ;-).

Update : The winner was drawn and was notified by email, his nickname is indicated below. Without a response from him to my request for contact details within 5 days, a new winner will be drawn.