BlueBrixx Western Saloon Set 103410

BlueBrixx's Western Saloon is a BlueBrixx-Pro model built from 3,840 blocks, measuring 26 × 27 × 26 cm assembled. Age 14+, released 2020, with a printed instruction manual.

This one was designed by Xingbao

Worth knowing, because it explains something about BlueBrixx that is not obvious from the outside.

BlueBrixx does two different things. It develops its own sets — the Blaustein castle, the architecture models, the Stargate range — with named in-house designers, and it also licenses and distributes designs from Chinese manufacturers under its own name. This saloon is the second kind: the design is Xingbao's.

That is not a criticism, and BlueBrixx has never hidden it. It is how the company built a catalogue of thousands of sets in a few years without an army of designers, and the quality control and parts sourcing are still BlueBrixx's. But it does mean the same model may exist elsewhere under a different name, and it explains why the design sensibility varies across the range.

If you care about supporting original design specifically, the in-house sets are the ones with a designer's first name attached.

The saloon as a building

The false front is the detail that makes a western building recognisable: a flat facade rising a storey above the actual roofline, hiding a small structure behind it.

It was not decoration. Frontier towns were built fast and cheap, usually single-storey, and a false front made a building look substantial from the street — which mattered to a business trying to appear permanent in a town that might not be. It also gave somewhere to paint the name large enough to read from horseback.

In the BlueBrixx range

Sets 103411 and 103412 are further Wild West buildings designed to stand alongside this one.

Specifications

Pieces: 3,840 · Series: BlueBrixx-Pro · Design: Xingbao · Age: 14+
Model dimensions: 26 × 27 × 26 cm (10.2 × 10.6 × 10.2 in)