Odd Size lego boxes

[vinceharry]

Hello everyone, new to the site. Just wondering if anyone has any info out there about some variant sized Lego boxes. There was the oddest situation, some years back I was at a Target store and was checking out the Lego aisle and noticed all of the boxes on all of the sets had changed sizes. Mostly gotten smaller. I mean all series. Star Wars, Harry potter, Pirates of the Caribbean and so on, Oh I suppose this was around 2011-2012. Anyways, I was a bit disappointed to be honest, didn't care for the new smaller size and thought maybe Lego was trying to down size the boxes for cost or environmental reasons, but I bought a few sets anyways, and thought so these were going to be the new normal sizes. So over the next couple days I was at some different Targets and NONE of them had these smaller new box sizes. I went back to the Target I originally got the smaller sized boxes (2 days later) and EVERY box on the shelves were back to the normal sizes and all the smaller sized boxes that were there were gone. I thought I was in the Twilight Zone or something. I have never been on a Lego forum before but I have searched the internet to find some kind of info on these odd sized boxes, but have found nothing. Does anyone out there have any info on these smaller boxes? I am posting a picture of one of them I have available now (rest are in storage somewhere), but the official Brick Set measurements for this set are

19.1 x 14.1 x 4.6 cm
(7.5 x 5.6 x 1.8 in)

This is for set 4191 Pirates of the Caribbean The Captain's Cabin

My set is

14.2 x 12.4x 4.6 Cm

Sorry no Picture, won't accept my file type. But again, appreciate any insight on this

Edited May 31, 2023 by vinceharry

[Mylenium]

That info is not much use without the actual production codes. The assumption would have to be that you simply ended up with a batch from a different factory like a palette of European sets having found their way to the US. Perfectly possible. Another hypothesis to throw around would be that they re-printed those boxes at a different local print shop when they ran out of stock on their regular formats. Printing machines, especially specialized ones for card board have size and weight limitations and clipping off a few centimeters and fitting the designs could be necessary if you're going e.g. from a 1.6 m wide to only 1.4 m wide. I'm sure there's a real reason to your mystery, but i doubt you'll ever find out unless you look it up into LEGO's internal systems or ask a production manager who was around at the time...

Mylenium

[vinceharry]

Thank you for your insight Mylenium.