Why hello there! It’s been a while, right? Although our new home still has no internet (I’m writing this post from my phone–seriously), it’s thankfully been a very slow couple of weeks for LEGO news, so I haven’t missed out on covering too much. But something finally popped up today that I definitely wanted to talk about. We’ve known about a certain promo since last winter, but hi-res photos of what’s sure to be one of the most popular free promos of 2015 have now appeared: it’s the LEGO Classic Pirates 5003082 set coming free to LEGO Stores in August 2015!

In some ways, United States collectors have a big advantage when it comes to LEGO sets. We tend to have far lower prices than our international counterparts, and sometimes get promos and polybags that never appear overseas at all.

But from time to time, items launch weeks or even months earlier internationally than they do here in the U.S. Such is the case with the hotly-awaited LEGO 5003082 Classic Pirates set, which won’t appear in U.S. stores until 8/1, but has already begun to be given out in Europe! And thanks to the Gnaat Lego Flickr page, we’ve now gotten our first really good looks at the upcoming promotional set!

Last year’s Classic LEGO Spaceman promo set was one of my absolute favorite free promos of 2014, so I’m thrilled to see this type of promotion extend to another year and another theme. Even better, the packaging for the set is almost identical to that of last year’s White Spaceman set! They look great together, don’t they?

This set includes 24 pieces, which is 25% increase over last year’s classic promo set, which only contained 19 pieces. That doesn’t sound like a whole lot of pieces, but…

Once you have the set assembled, it really looks like more than just 24 pieces, doesn’t it? You get a cute mini-terrain base with barrel and palm tree, a shark figure with printed-on eyes, and a barrel with pirate flag and a Pirate minifigure in it. Not bad for a free promo, right?!

I would assume that this minifigure is a recreation of a classic Pirate minifigure released waaaaay back in the early days of the original LEGO Pirates theme, but I can’t ID him specifically off the top of my head. Can any of you, dear readers?

And not only do you get these brick-built free items, but a paper Pirate hat and some Pirates stickers are also available!

Even the interior of the box for this set feels special, as it features artwork of a Pirate Captain minifigure in the center, as well as including an instruction booklet for the included set and a booklet detailing the timeline and evolution of the LEGO Pirates minifigures released over the years. As far as freebies go, this is one really classy item!

The 5003082 Classic Pirates set will be available via the LEGO Shop online and brick-and-mortar LEGO Stores from August 1st 2015 to August 14th 2015 (or until stores run out of stock–which could very possibly happen early with this set). The $75 qualifying purchase price to obtain this set is definitely an expensive one, but with all of the Summer 2015 sets released by August, I think most collectors aren’t going to have a very difficult time spending 75 bucks in one go.

Having seen the hi-res photos of the 5003082 LEGO Classic Pirates set, what do you think of this free promo, Pirate lovers? Will ye be walkin’ into the LEGO Store and dropping 75 dollars worth of gold Doubloons next month, or are you not impressed enough with the Classic Pirate set to sail that particular ship?