I've recently gotten back into LEGO and I'm trying to restore old space sets (late 80's era) by buying parts on Bricklink. I've noticed that some of the hinge pieces are extremely expensive (e.g. parts 4275 and 4276), often making a single hinge assembly cost over 5$ if using "new" parts.
It seems that Lego has discontinued these parts some time ago, so I was wondering the following:
- Why were the parts discontinued? Were they prone to breaking?
- Which newer parts can be used to substitute these and are they really better? I don't mind if they don't look exactly the same as long as there is functional equivalence.
- I'm assuming that there is no substitutions possible for the old canopy hinges (e.g. part 4315)?