#6260 Shipwreck Island
It’s time for a new theme! #6260 Shipwreck Island from 1989 was my only Pirates set. One of my best friends had quite a few in their family, ships and all, so my fond memories of childhood LEGO pirate play are all from their place.
This was my first and only set to include the new more detailed minifig heads with facial hair and eye-patches. In fact this set was in the very first wave of those new designs released by LEGO—before ’89 every minifig carried that same simple facial expression.
When building I found some pieces had been lost, including the Jolly Roger flag, the gun, the cutlass, and a couple of gold coins from the treasure chest.
The other white flag piece for hanging down over the cannon was still around… but with a broken clip. Fortunately, a couple of quick domestic Bricklink orders brought me replacements and I could finish the build. I suspect I will find more and more pieces missing the older the sets we get to here on the Hyggebygge blog.
The baseplate at first seems to have potential for many uses, but the island is actually so small it’s hard to fit any real structures on it. I remember trying as a kid, but I always ended up with just the palm tree—that is gorgeous by the way. LEGO used this type of palm tree for Pirates, some Town, and many Paradisa sets for more than 10 years.
To me, the highlights of this set, apart from the palm tree, was the pirate minifigs, the monkey, and parrot. The cannon can fire round 1x1 bricks over some distance, but it’s really hard to aim properly and I remember worrying about loosing pieces! As a matter of fact, I just counted my old black round 1x1’s and I’m missing three—they’ll have to be replaced in my next Bricklink order.
The backside of the instruction booklet shows three alternative builds, that actually look very random–I never built any of them. The only helpful tip among them would be to put the cannon’s wheels under the treasure chest instead for easy transport. That sloping cart in the third picture is just weird, what were the LEGO designers thinking?
Whichever way you build this set, I feel sorry for the two shipwrecked pirates, stuck on such a small island with no food or fresh water to be found. Yes, they may have their gold, but they likely won’t be rescued if they insist on pointing that cannon at anyone sailing close!