LEGO Collectable Minifigures Series 27. Rumors and discussion

[Lion King]

On 2/13/2025 at 8:40 PM, zoth33 said:

I totally agree.  But some people are greedy and just in it to make profits.  I don't sell my lego.  I actually buy it to build with it and create new figs.  I know it's a business for some but a lot of these resellers just take advantage.  

 

On 2/13/2025 at 8:40 PM, zoth33 said:

I totally agree.  But some people are greedy and just in it to make profits.  I don't sell my lego.  I actually buy it to build with it and create new figs.  I know it's a business for some but a lot of these resellers just take advantage.  

Well, I’m not a greedy person when I sell my lego or duplicated minifigures at a very fair price.  Not $20 for a Beastmaster or even  $50 for Classic Spaceman.  I’mjust trying to be generous myself. 

Anyways, i just got another 6-pack CMF box. I got three duplicated minifigures that i already got from the previous 6 pack. But i got Cat Lover, Boogeyman and Pteranodon Suit Fan. 

My quesiton - is that cat suppsoed to be a Persian ca?  Or a geneic long-haired cat/

[zoth33]

3 hours ago, Lion King said:

 

Well, I’m not a greedy person when I sell my lego or duplicated minifigures at a very fair price.  Not $20 for a Beastmaster or even  $50 for Classic Spaceman.  I’mjust trying to be generous myself. 

Anyways, i just got another 6-pack CMF box. I got three duplicated minifigures that i already got from the previous 6 pack. But i got Cat Lover, Boogeyman and Pteranodon Suit Fan. 

My quesiton - is that cat suppsoed to be a Persian ca?  Or a geneic long-haired cat/

Yeah that's why I said I know it's a business for some people but there are always people that will take advantage.  At least you have some restraint and aren't just being greedy.  

[Kit Figsto]

Hit a LEGO store and scanned probably 60+ CMFs, as well as a Barnes and Noble that had about 15 out, still no luck on the Beastmaster.  

The problem that I think I'm having is that I'm either finding places that are well-stocked, but are only putting out a few at a time (the B&N had them in the checkout aisle, so they only had a small area of shelf space for them), or are putting out full cases, but they're instantly getting pillaged.  The issue with that is that it seems that big-box retailers aren't constantly refreshing them - Target near me is basically one and done, so that leaves stuff like LEGO stores, but the problem there is that I both live too far to be consistently checking the one near me, and you're going to get the hardcore LEGO fans there who know how to scan them and are going to be specifically looking for the desirable ones.

I'll probably just have to suck it up and buy a box online or something, since I just refuse to give the resellers money on this one.

[Roebuck]

5 hours ago, Kit Figsto said:

Hit a LEGO store and scanned probably 60+ CMFs,

Did you ask if they had a unopened box in stock, maybe they could have found 1 for you there 
I wonder how many wolf-pack figs they could have sold if they let people buy the ones they wanted online. People that want a army of them are most likely not buying random figs in shops anyway so the overall sale there would not be much affected, maybe even scalpers would stop buying them in shops so kids could get them (if they wanted them).

[MAB]

6 hours ago, Roebuck said:

Did you ask if they had a unopened box in stock, maybe they could have found 1 for you there 
I wonder how many wolf-pack figs they could have sold if they let people buy the ones they wanted online. People that want a army of them are most likely not buying random figs in shops anyway so the overall sale there would not be much affected, maybe even scalpers would stop buying them in shops so kids could get them (if they wanted them).

If you could buy as many as you want online to build an army, then resellers could also buy as many as they want to do with whatever they want to do with them. As supply is limited, then eventually (and presumably quite quickly) they will run out of the desirable figures. I really doubt it would change behaviour as the desirable ones will still disappear from stores as well as online. The only way to combat it is to have unlimited supply of the in-demand figures, but that is something that LEGO does not appear to want to do.

[Karalora]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

If you could buy as many as you want online to build an army, then resellers could also buy as many as they want to do with whatever they want to do with them.

This goes back to something I keep saying, which is that any method ordinary folks like us could use to get the figures we want, scalpers could use to hoard the figures we want so that we only get them on the scalpers' terms.

You want this to be fair, and to keep the would-be scalpers on our level? It has to be truly blind packaging. No bags to feel or codes to scan, no ultrasound devices or microgram scales. The packages are kept behind the register, even the clerks don't know which minifigs are in which packages, and there are strict limitations on how many you can buy. Then at least you have a fair shake at getting your Wolfpack guy or whatever the army-builder du jour is, secure in the knowledge that he hasn't been preemptively snapped up along with all his brothers by an unscrupulous secondary market dealer.

There's no way to have both certainty of your purchase and integrity of the process at the same time. But people don't like hearing that.

[Wolfman_Bricks]

I got lucky in my small town, CVS Pharmacy but out a new box and I was able to find a Beastmaster. 

[MAB]

2 hours ago, Karalora said:

You want this to be fair, and to keep the would-be scalpers on our level? It has to be truly blind packaging. No bags to feel or codes to scan, no ultrasound devices or microgram scales. The packages are kept behind the register, even the clerks don't know which minifigs are in which packages, and there are strict limitations on how many you can buy. Then at least you have a fair shake at getting your Wolfpack guy or whatever the army-builder du jour is, secure in the knowledge that he hasn't been preemptively snapped up along with all his brothers by an unscrupulous secondary market dealer.

Personally, I wouldn't want limitations on how many someone can buy, and I doubt most retail stores would either. Stock is for selling and they don't care who buys it and it is significantly cheaper for them to sell 100 to one person than 1 to 100 people. Plus the extra staff time to deal with one particular product would push the prices up further.

Even if kept blind behind the counter, they'd also need to have a no returns policy even if unopened as there is always some way of examing the contents. They would also need to stop online sales where there is a legal right to change your mind as again there is a way to return unwanted ones after identifying them.

The bagged solution without barcode or bumpcode was probably the fairest, as at least it made it harder (slower) to examine each one. 

Selling sets of 16 or 12 also appears to be fair, but it is only fair to those that want a complete series in one purchase and not army builders or people that want an impulse buy toy. But they could sell both sets and singles but that is extra product lines. Similarly selling boxes appears to be fair, but has a very high entry price.

[Karalora]

20 hours ago, MAB said:

Personally, I wouldn't want limitations on how many someone can buy, and I doubt most retail stores would either. Stock is for selling and they don't care who buys it and it is significantly cheaper for them to sell 100 to one person than 1 to 100 people. Plus the extra staff time to deal with one particular product would push the prices up further.

With no quantity limitations in place, a scalper will just show up at opening time on Day 1 while the rest of us are at work and buy all 100 minifigures. In combination with the no-returns policy, they will then amortize the cost of their purchase by jacking up the resale price even further on the highly desired figures, and we'll have to pay it if we want them since they've cornered the entire market.

In any case, it's hardly unheard of for LEGO to place limitations on purchases of CMFs when they are first released.

Quote

Even if kept blind behind the counter, they'd also need to have a no returns policy even if unopened as there is always some way of examing the contents. They would also need to stop online sales where there is a legal right to change your mind as again there is a way to return unwanted ones after identifying them.

Good point...but see above.

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The bagged solution without barcode or bumpcode was probably the fairest, as at least it made it harder (slower) to examine each one.

But gross. I always hated having to rummage through half a box of pre-creased bags (especially knowing that the creases likely signified the unavailability of certain figures).

Quote

Selling sets of 16 or 12 also appears to be fair, but it is only fair to those that want a complete series in one purchase and not army builders or people that want an impulse buy toy. But they could sell both sets and singles but that is extra product lines. Similarly selling boxes appears to be fair, but has a very high entry price.

So you agree with me that there's not really a perfect solution to this problem.

Edited February 19 by Karalora

[Artanis I]

Scalpers only hoard things if stock is limited & it's likely that the price will go up afterwards (otherwise you just get speculators or resellers that run off small margins). This typically happens when demand is greater than supply.

Clearly, there is more demand than there is supply. Some of that demand is 'artificial', ie buyers that are only buying because of the demand, expecting it to lead to quick or large profit (same reason house prices skyrocket).

 

I don't know what a decent solution would be, but I never had this problem getting hold of multiples that I wanted in the past. (Besides series 1 where supply was extremely low due to humble sales expectations by TLG)

[Kit Figsto]

33 minutes ago, Artanis I said:

Scalpers only hoard things if stock is limited & it's likely that the price will go up afterwards (otherwise you just get speculators or resellers that run off small margins). This typically happens when demand is greater than supply.

Clearly, there is more demand than there is supply. Some of that demand is 'artificial', ie buyers that are only buying because of the demand, expecting it to lead to quick or large profit (same reason house prices skyrocket).

I don't know what a decent solution would be, but I never had this problem getting hold of multiples that I wanted in the past. (Besides series 1 where supply was extremely low due to humble sales expectations by TLG)

Same here.  Even with some of the other popular ones from previous waves - the Dragonborn Paladin, the anniversary Policeman, the Ice Planet Explorer, the Falconer, the S20 Viking, even the S2 Spartan, though that one was so long ago that I don't think reselling was the same "thing" that it is now - I never had a problem finding at least one.  I'm at probably 100+ boxes scanned and nothing.

21 hours ago, Roebuck said:

Did you ask if they had a unopened box in stock, maybe they could have found 1 for you there 

While scanning, I was sort of making conversation with an employee standing there about it, and I was like "I'm just looking for the Wolfpack fig" and he said something to the effect of "Yeah, they've been going really quickly."  I asked if he thought they had any and his response was basically "Given the amount that you've scanned, I'm guessing probably not," so I don't think they had extras, even though I didn't directly ask.

[Roebuck]

15 hours ago, Karalora said:

You want this to be fair, and to keep the would-be scalpers on our level? It has to be truly blind packaging. No bags to feel or codes to scan, no ultrasound devices or microgram scales. The packages are kept behind the register, even the clerks don't know which minifigs are in which packages, and there are strict limitations on how many you can buy. Then at least you have a fair shake at getting your Wolfpack guy or whatever the army-builder du jour is, secure in the knowledge that he hasn't been preemptively snapped up along with all his brothers by an unscrupulous secondary market dealer.

For those prices Lego demand I an not willing to blind buy so then I would stop, buy a box or buy them from resellers
 

17 hours ago, MAB said:

If you could buy as many as you want online to build an army, then resellers could also buy as many as they want to do with whatever they want to do with them. As supply is limited, then eventually (and presumably quite quickly) they will run out of the desirable figures. I really doubt it would change behaviour as the desirable ones will still disappear from stores as well as online. The only way to combat it is to have unlimited supply of the in-demand figures, but that is something that LEGO does not appear to want to do.

There could be a limit of say 10 of each fig per order online, Lego manage to mostly meat demand for sets (there have been issues in the past like in the pandemic) so they could just make more figs if they wanted.

Yes resellers would still buy them, but scalpers probably would not (if I have understood the difference right).

[Karalora]

I mean...I guess another potential "solution" would be for LEGO to stop putting nostalgic and other really cool figures in the CMF waves, but does anyone really want that either?

[MAB]

13 hours ago, Roebuck said:

There could be a limit of say 10 of each fig per order online, Lego manage to mostly meat demand for sets (there have been issues in the past like in the pandemic) so they could just make more figs if they wanted.

Yes resellers would still buy them, but scalpers probably would not (if I have understood the difference right).

I cannot see retailers accepting such terms from LEGO though. LEGO can place limits if they want but customers will just buy elsewhere. 

[Roebuck]

9 hours ago, MAB said:

I cannot see retailers accepting such terms from LEGO though. LEGO can place limits if they want but customers will just buy elsewhere. 

I was talking about Lego selling known individual figures online, anyone else including Lego stores could just sell as normal. A lot of people would just buy the figs they want online instead of hunting them in shops and it would not be much point for scalpers clearing out stock since most of their potential customer would just buy them for retail price.

[MAB]

2 hours ago, Roebuck said:

I was talking about Lego selling known individual figures online, anyone else including Lego stores could just sell as normal. A lot of people would just buy the figs they want online instead of hunting them in shops and it would not be much point for scalpers clearing out stock since most of their potential customer would just buy them for retail price.

OK.

Doing it probably wouldn't make sense to have them as blind collectables any more. They would need to have each one as an individual set for sale on their site, plus a further numbered set for the random ones to be sold elsewhere. If they are doing that, why not just make them all identifiable through the set number no matter where they are sold rather than one type of set for LEGO and blind boxes for general retailers. Anyway, they would still be cleared out online by resellers with multiple accounts or family accounts, etc. Plus it weakens the idea of being a collectable series.

What can help is if they sell something similar but not necessarily the same. For example, in the past they have done sets like the caveman, the bunny etc, using similar parts but not quite the same but usually after the event. If done at the same time, that is likely to reduce pressure due to army building. If there was a slightly different wolfpack figure in a small set with a different cloak and maybe a different colour or print wolf, that would reduce the demand from the army builders.  There will still be demand for variation, but people would be less likely to pay way over the odds for the cmf if a very similar figure is available elsewhere. And at the same time, it keeps the cmf special/ unique to those that care about exclusivity in that series.

I still find it a bit surprising that they don't do such combination sets like the Halloween and rock stars they did a decade or so ago. It seems there is money on the table for something like a warrior pack of similar print but not quite the same figures to recent castle style figures, or ancient warriors, and so on. But for whatever reason, they seem not to do it.

I remember buying the Halloween pack with zombie, witch and ghost back in 2012. It was £10 for three figs plus some parts at a time cmf were £2. I would imagine now that a four pack of popular figres plus a few parts would sell well for £20 or $25. Even if it came out a year later, if done regularly so people get used to knowing similar figures will come, it could help keep down demand for specific cmf.

[Kit Figsto]

Finally tracked down the Wolfpack Beastmaster today!  I was off work early and figured that I'd check the LEGO store at my local mall (different than the one that I checked last weekend), since it was a weekday and maybe I'd get lucky if they put more out and haven't been crowded yet.

Instead, I didn't even need to check the figs at the LEGO store, because the Barnes and Noble that I cut through on my way into the mall had a near-fresh box out at the cash register lane.  I had assumed it was already picked through, because the top layer was missing about 8-9 figures, but the bottom layer had 3 Beastmasters on it.  I bought two for myself and left the last one in there.  Very excited to finally get it, the torso and shield are great, but I think what stood out to me was this cape, I had no idea that they made capes of this softer material and it looks great.

[Black Falcon]

On 2/19/2025 at 5:26 AM, Kit Figsto said:

Same here.  Even with some of the other popular ones from previous waves - the Dragonborn Paladin, the anniversary Policeman, the Ice Planet Explorer, the Falconer, the S20 Viking, even the S2 Spartan, though that one was so long ago that I don't think reselling was the same "thing" that it is now - I never had a problem finding at least one.  I'm at probably 100+ boxes scanned and nothing.

I think more people learned of the value of it and probably some people that have nothing to do with Lego are even doing it now, to make some quick bucks on ebay. Also, I don´t think that it was that different with the Paladin already, just that overall there were more desirable figures then than now, so a fresh box was faster on the shelves whereas now the emptied boxes are sitting around for a longer period.

On 2/18/2025 at 2:13 PM, MAB said:

If you could buy as many as you want online to build an army, then resellers could also buy as many as they want to do with whatever they want to do with them. As supply is limited, then eventually (and presumably quite quickly) they will run out of the desirable figures. I really doubt it would change behaviour as the desirable ones will still disappear from stores as well as online. The only way to combat it is to have unlimited supply of the in-demand figures, but that is something that LEGO does not appear to want to do.

I think the only way this would work is if they would make a second production run and let people preorder for that one - and produce all figures people ordered then - of course likely they would put some sort of maximum there but at least that way most people could get the number of figures they wanted.

On 2/19/2025 at 3:08 PM, Karalora said:

I mean...I guess another potential "solution" would be for LEGO to stop putting nostalgic and other really cool figures in the CMF waves, but does anyone really want that either?

For sure not - and overall it would also hurt the CMF series overall, as the complete series would also be less desirable.

[fordtruckin]

It's insane how difficult it has been to find the Wolfpack Beast Master. Right after release resellers were already asking $15 per figure for them. Between my wife and I, we were checking the local stores as often as we could with no luck until a few days ago. Finally found a few unopened boxes and was able to get some. Hopefully Lego takes note of its popularity and brings back more castle sets. This is the 2nd CMF that I wanted to get multiple figures. The other being prison suit Joker from the Lego Batman series 1. Would have love to get a bunch of the hazmat guy also, but that was in my dark ages.

[karrit]

Finally scored some Wolfpack Beastmasters in the wild yesterday.  They were in the Easter Basket stuffers display in a local Walmart.   I think I was the first to find them since it looked to be a full box was in the bin.  All three of the Beastmaster were still there.  Been looking for them for so long I had no restraint and bought all three.  

[williejm]

2 hours ago, karrit said:

Finally scored some Wolfpack Beastmasters in the wild yesterday.  They were in the Easter Basket stuffers display in a local Walmart.   I think I was the first to find them since it looked to be a full box was in the bin.  All three of the Beastmaster were still there.  Been looking for them for so long I had no restraint and bought all three.  

The series has been out a fair while, so no restraint was merited 

[Westbrick]

Went into the London Battersea store today and they didn’t have and CMFs out at all. I even asked to make sure they weren’t just tucked away. 

[williejm]

Guess this is the best place to bump this, just in case 

[Artanis I]

Last week I found a new box in a supermarket, there was 1 packet gone from the top and everything looked nice and neat. I scanned the top packets and there were no wolf men there (I hadn't found any anywhere previously). I removed the 'shelf' to see that there were 2 packets gone from the bottom layer. No wolf men in the box, after I'd thought it was finally my lucky day. Then I checked Bricklink and saw that the minimum local mark-up on these is $10 per minifig...

Today I found a not-so-new box in a different supermarket that had been picked over, and had several packets gone. It was next to an almost empty box that had been there for weeks. I scanned all of the packets and found 3 to my great surprise. I didn't want to hoard them all, but I did want to have at least 3, so I thought I'd leave one behind on top and grab it if it was still there when I came back later. I hope everyone else after them can find some.

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Artanis I said:

I removed the 'shelf' to see that there were 2 packets gone from the bottom layer.

I've only found three in the wild and two on the bottom correlates with my experience.  The first ne I found was not in a green box, they were spread out in a large plain cardboard box. But the second two were in the bottom layer of a CMF box another store kept on their toy department sales counter so I guess hadn't been scanned. I have another six arriving thanks to the previous post to yours with me swapping two wolves and some other animals, so I'll have a group of nine along with a wolf.