Subject:
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Re: "Lego Minifigures"?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:34:56 GMT
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Viewed:
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22209 times
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In lugnet.general, Brian Kendig wrote:
> Thanks! So these weren't (officially) available in North America, then? Seems
> weird to do a regional release for something like this.
No, they were. There was a European polybag and a different North American
polybag. The two sets of bags came with two different secondary barcodes, so if
you had the US codes and bought some random minifigs from Europe, you wouldn't
be able to use it to determine which minifigs you bought.
Anyways, the potential demand for these was grossly underestimated in North
America, so they tended to sell out within hours whenever they did show up. To
further complicate matters, the only two retailers that I know of that have been
confirmed to have carried these in the United States are ToysRUs and the LEGO
stores (also both websites). So, if you didn't live near either of those, and
you don't shop online, you missed out. If you blinked, you also missed out. If
you were driving into a modest headwind, you probably also missed out.
Anyways, Series 1 (yellow bags) came out a few months ago, and right now your
cheapest option for getting a complete set (much less lots of extras of any one
type) is probably to buy from Europe, even with the increased S&H fees, because
word is that they can still be found in stores over there, where here we were
told that the last North American shipment was actually in transit during
Brickworld in June (specifically, the Northbrook store said they were getting
their final shipment the day after BW closed). Series 2 (blue bags) are
reportedly just starting to show up in the US. Word is that there will be a
_slightly_ increased supply of these in North America for S2. Now, Steve Witt
was able to confirm during Brickworld that they will continue to release these
as long as they keep selling. He also said that even at that time they were
already working on Series 5 for next year. That means that there will be three
batches released in 2011. The good news is that they should have some of those
supply issues worked out next year (especially since some of the other retail
chains just figured out that these are plastic gold and want in on the cash
cow), but the bad news is that they also found out about the barcode trick and
will be removing the secondary barcode from the packaging. Where currently any
minifig bag will have both a standard UPC barcode that's common to the entire
regional series (one UPC for NA, one for Europe) and a smaller barcode with no
printed numbers that's unique to that specific minifig design, going forward
from Series 3, the only barcodes you'll find anywhere on the polybag will be the
regional/series UPCs. And all that will be able to tell you is which side of
the pond it was packaged for and which series it came from (though you could
more easily figure that out by looking at the Series badge, or the bag color).
A few other interesting things to note are that there are a few minifigs that
have painted legs, and some (the Cheerleader in S1, the
Weightlifter/Spartan/Surfer in S2 for sure) have paint deco on the _outer_side_
of the leg, so if you view the minifig from the side you'll see painted detail
there. To my knowledge, the only other minifig that has received that treatment
is the LEGO Club Max minifig (has cargo pants pockets painted on the sides of
the legs, but nothing painted on the front of the legs assembly). As far as S1
is concerned, there doesn't appear to be a single painted design that's not
unique to the Collectible Minifig series. Every face was new for S1, every
painted design on the torsos and legs was new for S1, and the only painted
design that appeared to be a repeat (the Native American feather) is oddly
unique in that it was painted on only one side of the feather (white w/ black
tips from one side, solid white from the other) where the original Natives from
the Western sets had their feathers painted on both sides. There are S1 faces
that have been repeated in S2 (the Skateboarder face was used on the Surfer),
but don't expect to see them used outside of the Collectible Minifig series.
They've already stated that some parts will remain unique to this line, or if
they do ever get used in a regular set, they probably won't be released in the
same color as used in this line. So, while the Skateboarder's hair was used in
brown for LEGO Club Max, it will probably never be used in black (Skateboarder)
or tan (Surfer) on any minifig that's not part of this line. And some of the
accessories (Nurse's needle, Spaceman's retro raygun, Cheerleader's pom-poms)
probably won't see any use at all outside of the Minifig line.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: "Lego Minifigures"?
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| (...) Thanks! So these weren't (officially) available in North America, then? Seems weird to do a regional release for something like this. (14 years ago, 29-Aug-10, to lugnet.general)
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