Ressurecting The Skull's Eye Part 1: Developing The Parts List

A key aspect of any resurrection project is understanding the different categories that a set's parts fall into.  There are three categories which, in my mind, describe each of the pieces in a set. 

The Basic Pieces
The Mid-Range Pieces
The Exclusive Pieces

The basic pieces are those that are common in both type and color.  A prime example of these are bricks and plates, the foundations of any set. 

These will be availible in almost any Bricklink store or lot of loose pieces on eBay.  On a resurrection project they are the parts you won't have to worry about finding or paying an arm and a leg for.   

The mid-range pieces are a little more difficult to find than the basic ones but are still fundamental to the set.  A great example of these types of parts are hinges.  Most Bricklink stores will have hinges, but there are so many differnt types and colors that the exact combination you need is often a bit harder to find and may not exist in a single store.  

The final category is the exclusive parts.  These are the ones that, whether in type, color or both, only came with a few sets and therfore there are less of them floating around.  Due to the limited supply the price for these parts goes up accordingly.  An example from the Skull's Eye is the compass. 

 
My approach to shopping for parts (which I will describe in detail in a later post when I get to that point) is to figure out where I am going to get all the exclusive parts and see how many of the pieces in the other 2 categories I can get from those stores.  Most of the time it is 95% of them or more depending on how many exclusive parts there are.  For now I need to figure out which parts are in which category.   

In the case of the Skull's Eye I identify the following pieces as being exclusive and for the following reasons:

1. The compass shown above (only availible in Pirate themed sets).
2. The printed 4x3 panel on the back of the ship (the piece is common but the printed skull and crossbones is exlusive to this set alone... already dreading the price on that one).
3. The green flags wich cover the cannon ports on the sides (a common piece but very rare in this color).
4. The blue palm tree top pieces that make up the bottom of the lanterns (I only know of one other set that these came with in that blue color: 6271 Imperial Flagship from 1992, my guess is they were included here because they had been overproduced for that earlier set).