LEGO Collectable Minifigures Series 27. Rumors and discussion

[karrit]

Went to my LEGO store before my monthly LUG meeting yesterday.  There was an almost full box sitting on the counter so I asked if it had been picked over already.  They opened up a drawer & handed me one of the coveted Beastmasters.  They pull them out of the big boxes so they can limit you to one per customer if you know to ask.  Also scored DaVinci's flying machine for 10% off due to damaged box.

[Renny The Spaceman]

  On 3/16/2025 at 3:26 PM, karrit said:

Went to my LEGO store before my monthly LUG meeting yesterday.  There was an almost full box sitting on the counter so I asked if it had been picked over already.  They opened up a drawer & handed me one of the coveted Beastmasters.  They pull them out of the big boxes so they can limit you to one per customer if you know to ask.  Also scored DaVinci's flying machine for 10% off due to damaged box.

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That's interesting. I don't know if there's ever been a CMF demand issue as intense as this one (ignoring the obvious Mr Gold) aside from maybe the series 2 Spartan. Wonder if they were even remotely expecting this

[Kit Figsto]

  On 3/16/2025 at 5:18 PM, Renny The Spaceman said:

That's interesting. I don't know if there's ever been a CMF demand issue as intense as this one (ignoring the obvious Mr Gold) aside from maybe the series 2 Spartan. Wonder if they were even remotely expecting this

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I can't remember one being this hard to get.  With the Spartan, it was a while ago, so my memory isn't 100% clear, but I don't remember it being as hard to get, because you had to either decipher the bump codes (which were tricky, since you had to hold the pack just right to get the light to reflect a certain way), or feel the packages (which only hardcore collectors were going to take the time to do).  The anniversary police minifigure was a chase figure, if I remember correctly, but even then, I didn't have any issue finding it, probably because you had to feel for it.

This seems to be a major downside of the boxes, as we haven't had any figure since transitioning away from bags that's had this kind of demand, and now it's way easier for anyone to figure out what's in the box.  S24 had the Falconer and brown Spaceman, but they were bagged, S25 had the Goatherd and the Basil the Batlord, but Basil wasn't a figure that people necessarily would want to army build (and I don't think Fright Knights has the same popularity as Wolfpack) and the Goatherd was basically just desired for the goat itself, not the figure (it's actually still only $5 on BL, which is significantly less than I would've expected).  

The Beastmaster has basically everything going for it - a new animal mold, a popular faction, and a cool looking figure.

[williejm]

  On 3/16/2025 at 6:52 PM, Kit Figsto said:

I can't remember one being this hard to get.  With the Spartan, it was a while ago, so my memory isn't 100% clear, but I don't remember it being as hard to get, because you had to either decipher the bump codes (which were tricky, since you had to hold the pack just right to get the light to reflect a certain way), or feel the packages (which only hardcore collectors were going to take the time to do).  The anniversary police minifigure was a chase figure, if I remember correctly, but even then, I didn't have any issue finding it, probably because you had to feel for it.

This seems to be a major downside of the boxes, as we haven't had any figure since transitioning away from bags that's had this kind of demand, and now it's way easier for anyone to figure out what's in the box.  S24 had the Falconer and brown Spaceman, but they were bagged, S25 had the Goatherd and the Basil the Batlord, but Basil wasn't a figure that people necessarily would want to army build (and I don't think Fright Knights has the same popularity as Wolfpack) and the Goatherd was basically just desired for the goat itself, not the figure (it's actually still only $5 on BL, which is significantly less than I would've expected).  

The Beastmaster has basically everything going for it - a new animal mold, a popular faction, and a cool looking figure.

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The Spartan was still in the initial era of barcodes, but it was also only series 2 of CMFs, so I don’t think the hype or expectation was there from collectors in any way the same level. 
As I’ve said before, I think the Beastmaster is a new paradigm for CMFs, having a desirable army-builder figures, with a desirable army-builder animal - plus it is very appealing to the casual collector or kid (kids still get these right?) as one they’d want. 

[MAB]

  On 3/16/2025 at 6:52 PM, Kit Figsto said:

The Beastmaster has basically everything going for it - a new animal mold, a popular faction, and a cool looking figure.

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And a hood to go with the Nazgul parts sold on PAB.

[Renny The Spaceman]

  On 3/16/2025 at 7:03 PM, williejm said:

The Spartan was still in the initial era of barcodes, but it was also only series 2 of CMFs, so I don’t think the hype or expectation was there from collectors in any way the same level. 
As I’ve said before, I think the Beastmaster is a new paradigm for CMFs, having a desirable army-builder figures, with a desirable army-builder animal - plus it is very appealing to the casual collector or kid (kids still get these right?) as one they’d want. 

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Yeah, 100%. I think the Spartan looks tame in comparison as back then the scalper market wasn't nearly as big. This one by nature of being a cool action character with a unique animal probably is especially popular with kids which makes the situation sadder.

 

  On 3/16/2025 at 6:52 PM, Kit Figsto said:

I can't remember one being this hard to get.  With the Spartan, it was a while ago, so my memory isn't 100% clear, but I don't remember it being as hard to get, because you had to either decipher the bump codes (which were tricky, since you had to hold the pack just right to get the light to reflect a certain way), or feel the packages (which only hardcore collectors were going to take the time to do).  The anniversary police minifigure was a chase figure, if I remember correctly, but even then, I didn't have any issue finding it, probably because you had to feel for it.

This seems to be a major downside of the boxes, as we haven't had any figure since transitioning away from bags that's had this kind of demand, and now it's way easier for anyone to figure out what's in the box.  S24 had the Falconer and brown Spaceman, but they were bagged, S25 had the Goatherd and the Basil the Batlord, but Basil wasn't a figure that people necessarily would want to army build (and I don't think Fright Knights has the same popularity as Wolfpack) and the Goatherd was basically just desired for the goat itself, not the figure (it's actually still only $5 on BL, which is significantly less than I would've expected).  

The Beastmaster has basically everything going for it - a new animal mold, a popular faction, and a cool looking figure.

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Yeah, the police guy was a chase and he was easier to get. 

[williejm]

  On 3/16/2025 at 7:56 PM, Renny The Spaceman said:

Yeah, the police guy was a chase and he was easier to get. 

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I feel like kids didn’t care about that figure though - making it more easy for AFOLs to snag

  On 3/16/2025 at 7:56 PM, Renny The Spaceman said:

Yeah, 100%. I think the Spartan looks tame in comparison as back then the scalper market wasn't nearly as big. This one by nature of being a cool action character with a unique animal probably is especially popular with kids which makes the situation sadder.

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Yeah, I know horses for courses and all that - but if I find a ‘full’ box early on I deliberately leave at least some of the desirable figures in the vain hope that some bairn has a good day. At this stage in the release though - I’d take what I found in open boxes 

[Karalora]

  On 3/16/2025 at 9:38 PM, williejm said:

 I deliberately leave at least some of the desirable figures in the vain hope that some bairn has a good day.

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You're a kind soul.

[Kit Figsto]

  On 3/16/2025 at 7:03 PM, williejm said:

The Spartan was still in the initial era of barcodes, but it was also only series 2 of CMFs, so I don’t think the hype or expectation was there from collectors in any way the same level. 
As I’ve said before, I think the Beastmaster is a new paradigm for CMFs, having a desirable army-builder figures, with a desirable army-builder animal - plus it is very appealing to the casual collector or kid (kids still get these right?) as one they’d want. 

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Ah, I couldn't remember if the bar codes were still around for S2.  So it must've been S3 that they transitioning to the bump codes, because I do seem to recall looking for the fisherman using the bumps.  Maybe my memory is wrong there too 

Either way, though, you're correct, I don't think the collector hype really existed.  I also think that Instagram/Reddit has made army building more of a thing (especially in Star Wars) and has brought that to other themes.  I feel like if someone was army building S2 Spartans at the time, it would've been for a MOC or some sort of LUG/convention event.  You've still got people doing that, of course, but there's also contingents of people that literally just buy figures to line them up on a baseplate, which I don't recall being a thing 15 years ago.  

  On 3/16/2025 at 7:56 PM, Renny The Spaceman said:

Yeah, 100%. I think the Spartan looks tame in comparison as back then the scalper market wasn't nearly as big. This one by nature of being a cool action character with a unique animal probably is especially popular with kids which makes the situation sadder.

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I feel like it also doesn't help that this series doesn't really have another super desirable figure.  The rest of the series is okay, in my opinion, but none really stand out as figures that I MUST have.  I might grab the Boogeyman at some point, I really like the book piece with him, and I think the plush pieces are neat, but I don't really know if I'll shell out the $5 just for a couple of pieces.

[Renny The Spaceman]

  On 3/17/2025 at 12:07 AM, Kit Figsto said:

Ah, I couldn't remember if the bar codes were still around for S2.  So it must've been S3 that they transitioning to the bump codes, because I do seem to recall looking for the fisherman using the bumps.  Maybe my memory is wrong there too 

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The fisherman was series 3, so your memory is fine there.

  On 3/16/2025 at 9:38 PM, williejm said:

I feel like kids didn’t care about that figure though - making it more easy for AFOLs to snag

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Yeah, that's probably a notable factor 

[Roebuck]

  On 3/16/2025 at 9:38 PM, williejm said:

I feel like kids didn’t care about that figure though - making it more easy for AFOLs to snag

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Yes that was definitely the most boring fig in that series so no wonder they had little interest in it 

I bought 500+ on sale from that series and just finished selling them 1-2 weeks (so took 6-7 years) ago and the last buyer asked men why I was selling them so cheap With the exception of maybe 1-2 popular figs from each series CMF are hard to sell is my impression. Scanning will save me a lot of money, time and effort selling the figs I do not want from boxes

  On 3/16/2025 at 3:26 PM, karrit said:

Went to my LEGO store before my monthly LUG meeting yesterday.  There was an almost full box sitting on the counter so I asked if it had been picked over already.  They opened up a drawer & handed me one of the coveted Beastmasters.  They pull them out of the big boxes so they can limit you to one per customer if you know to ask. 

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As i said earlier all Lego stores should do that

[Artanis I]

  On 3/16/2025 at 6:52 PM, Kit Figsto said:

I can't remember one being this hard to get.  

...

we haven't had any figure since transitioning away from bags that's had this kind of demand

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I never found any dragon paladins at all

[MAB]

  On 3/16/2025 at 7:56 PM, Renny The Spaceman said:

Yeah, 100%. I think the Spartan looks tame in comparison as back then the scalper market wasn't nearly as big. This one by nature of being a cool action character with a unique animal probably is especially popular with kids which makes the situation sadder.

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While the reseller market wasn't that big, the Spartan was still the first one that was reasonably hard to buy in stores and relatively higher priced on the secondary market at the time than the Wolfpack is now, although this will vary based on region. There were collectors that wanted to get 300 of them. I remember the BL and ebay price at the time was £10-12 (for then a £2 figure) and went to about £15 a year later. It hovered about this for many years and even now is probably only £20-25 for a new one. I had 14 of them, and so tracked the prices for a long time occasionally selling one or two on BL when the price is right.

I think the Wolfpack is easier to get hold of than the Tournament Knight and Viking in S20 were, but that was probably effected just as much by covid restrictions than anything else.

But it is down to timing, getting to the box first. And yes, this is down to the number of people wanting to buy as many as they can, whether they are resellers or collectors. At least now they are available in a wide range of stores.

[MAB]

  On 3/17/2025 at 6:30 AM, Roebuck said:

I bought 500+ on sale from that series and just finished selling them 1-2 weeks (so took 6-7 years) ago and the last buyer asked men why I was selling them so cheap With the exception of maybe 1-2 popular figs from each series CMF are hard to sell is my impression. Scanning will save me a lot of money, time and effort selling the figs I do not want from boxes

 

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Some are really hard. I bought about 400 of Series 5 on clearance at 66p each. Many were for me, and the others sold on. I think the last Fitness Instructor (sealed) sold about a year ago for £2. I think I still have some Ringmasters and Traffic Cops from the original couple of series  somewhere that aren't worth the effort of selling. I imagine that will be the same for the Astronomer Kid and Plushie Collector in 10 years. I don't think I'd buy leftovers on clearance these days unless they were incredibly cheap. Even if they were £1, I think I'd leave them.

[williejm]

  On 3/17/2025 at 6:30 AM, Roebuck said:

Yes that was definitely the most boring fig in that series so no wonder they had little interest in it 

I bought 500+ on sale from that series and just finished selling them 1-2 weeks (so took 6-7 years) ago and the last buyer asked men why I was selling them so cheap With the exception of maybe 1-2 popular figs from each series CMF are hard to sell is my impression. Scanning will save me a lot of money, time and effort selling the figs I do not want from boxes

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Funny that Series 5 was a pretty solid series too - with some great figures, including the first ‘new in a CMF’ animal mould with the baby chimp!I feel like some of the early series’ ‘filler’ figures have a lot to answer for … maybe they should have moved to 12 per series sooner.

I have quite a lot of pretty much all the past series, collected at the time, in storage … and stockpiled some figures. You’re never really sure what you’re going to want / need in following years, and whether any of them will be seen ever again. Have never really been one for selling them, but assume that I’d have the same issues you’ve mentioned.

[Kit Figsto]

  On 3/17/2025 at 8:23 AM, Artanis I said:

I never found any dragon paladins at all

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Strange, I didn't really have any issues finding them, and I'm still seeing D&D figures on the shelves.  Typically, I don't really see CMFs hanging around on the shelves long after the series ended, with the exception of at smaller toy stores or book stores.

[Renny The Spaceman]

  On 3/17/2025 at 8:54 AM, MAB said:

While the reseller market wasn't that big, the Spartan was still the first one that was reasonably hard to buy in stores and relatively higher priced on the secondary market at the time than the Wolfpack is now, although this will vary based on region. There were collectors that wanted to get 300 of them. I remember the BL and ebay price at the time was £10-12 (for then a £2 figure) and went to about £15 a year later. It hovered about this for many years and even now is probably only £20-25 for a new one. I had 14 of them, and so tracked the prices for a long time occasionally selling one or two on BL when the price is right.

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I agree it's definitely the second place but even then it wasn't as bad, people who just bought randomly in stores could get one. I don't think it was like the beastmaster is now

  On 3/17/2025 at 12:08 PM, williejm said:

 maybe they should have moved to 12 per series sooner.

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Nah, I'm glad people can still get older series packs for reasonable prices, every fig is someone's favourite the more variety only did the lines favours. Especially as 12 fig series themselves have a good handful of mediocre ones all the time.

[Roebuck]

  On 3/17/2025 at 9:09 AM, MAB said:

Some are really hard. I bought about 400 of Series 5 on clearance at 66p each.

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Lego must have made an error and put an extra 0 at the end of how many of series 5 they should produce, the marked was drowned in them for a long. I am glad I mostly bought dwarfs from the huge pallet of them the local store had

  On 3/17/2025 at 12:08 PM, williejm said:

Funny that Series 5 was a pretty solid series too - with some great figures, including the first ‘new in a CMF’ animal mould with the baby chimp!I feel like some of the early series’ ‘filler’ figures have a lot to answer for … maybe they should have moved to 12 per series sooner.

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I think the problem was that the earlier series had lower budget than the newer ones (if they had fewer new moulds?) or maybe they needed to start one place and make moulds that later series also could use (a lot of moulds are used in more than one series so the other times they do not need to use any budget on them)?

[MAB]

  On 3/17/2025 at 11:42 PM, Kit Figsto said:

Strange, I didn't really have any issues finding them, and I'm still seeing D&D figures on the shelves.  Typically, I don't really see CMFs hanging around on the shelves long after the series ended, with the exception of at smaller toy stores or book stores.

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I had the opposite. I only ever saw 1 DnD CMF box on a store shelf. Not a box of sets, just one set! Someone near me must have really wanted them. I could have bought full boxes online, or sets online at lego.com but they don't interest me enough to pay up for random sets.

[MAB]

  On 3/18/2025 at 6:29 AM, Roebuck said:

Lego must have made an error and put an extra 0 at the end of how many of series 5 they should produce, the marked was drowned in them for a long. I am glad I mostly bought dwarfs from the huge pallet of them the local store had

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I was also able to buy S1-4 on clearance at low prices (the lowest was S3 for 50p) but not in such huge numbers. Similarly I bought 4x boxes of 60 of S6 at £1 a figure. After that it was harder to find heavy discounts in bulk for me, so possibly that is when collecting became more popular. I could often buy the remnants of a box, but not 100s at a decent discount. I don't know if S5 was produced in higher numbers or if it wasn't so well received. At the time, stores here were quite strict about clearancing them as the next series came out and as that was a new series of 16 every 4 months, it might have been overload for some collectors. We also had Team GB at about the end of S6, which added more shelf space pressure in 2012.

 

I felt S5 was reasonably strong. I kept the dwarves, the royal guards, gladiators and the mafia guys and some of the Egyptian queens. The graduates were sought after every summer on BL. The lizards and boxers also sold well. The snowboarder, fitness instructor, little clown and zoo keeper hung around for a while but 1/3 of a series hanging around is pretty average. The others sold OK.

 

It does amaze me how much they cost now and that is part of why I no longer collect them all. By stacking regular discounts (especially WHSmiths privilege club) , I used to buy them for about £1.20 each so now they are about 3x the price. Sure they have better accessories but when it is just a generic figure, I wouldn't pay that much but that might just be that I have enough generic figures for any builds I make. Yet these days, people clear stores out if they see an "excellent " 10% off.

[williejm]

  On 3/18/2025 at 6:29 AM, Roebuck said:

I think the problem was that the earlier series had lower budget than the newer ones (if they had fewer new moulds?) or maybe they needed to start one place and make moulds that later series also could use (a lot of moulds are used in more than one series so the other times they do not need to use any budget on them)?

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There has also been an explosion of Lego themes and types of sets in recent years, and the range and diversity of minifigures has grown exponentially. That was not the case accompanying early series, so they probably filled more of a hole at the time than they could in retrospect. Certainly also used to be the case that big retailers in the U.K. sold CMFs at competitive discounts even from the start of their run, you don’t see that now. I think people are more discerning about which figures they want for a bunch of reasons, not least the financial outlay as @MAB says. 

[DonQuixote]

I have never found a Dragonborn and Beastmaster with scanning. That system doesn't work. By the time I go to the shop after work, they are all being scalped by dirty scalpers who were there in the early morning. So I think it's best to get rid of the bar codes. It only works for scalpers. 

[MAB]

  On 3/18/2025 at 1:23 PM, williejm said:

 I think people are more discerning about which figures they want for a bunch of reasons, not least the financial outlay as @MAB says. 

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For me, cost was and is a factor but not necessarily the biggest factor. I stopped collecting them all about S14-15, as I realised that I didn't like a lot of them at that stage. I had always collected them all and collected army builders of interest to me up until then. But after too many repeats and boring figures, I decided why bother displaying what I don't like. When you have that many on display, you lose the detail and they just look a bit of a mess. And that led to me selling off all the ones from past series that I didn't really like and also not actively seeking out ones I didn't like in new series just to be complete.

[Kit Figsto]

  On 3/18/2025 at 2:51 PM, DonQuixote said:

I have never found a Dragonborn and Beastmaster with scanning. That system doesn't work. By the time I go to the shop after work, they are all being scalped by dirty scalpers who were there in the early morning. So I think it's best to get rid of the bar codes. It only works for scalpers. 

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I think that there's never going to be a good solution.  I want some method of figuring them out, and I think that LEGO knows that if they get rid of this method entirely, sales will probably drop quite a bit.  You'll still get people who go for the random blind-bag draw, but a lot of hardcore collectors will probably either stop buying them, or will start buying out stores and returning them after getting the ones that they want.  In a perfect world, they just bring back the bags.  Personally, I'm unsure why they can't go to the paper bags that they use for the magazine gifts.  I've only ever bought one of these (I'm in the US, so we don't get them here), but the paper seemed pretty robust, and I don't think it's an issue of theft prevention, because the cardboard would be just as easy to rip open as the paper bag would.  

I agree that the scalping with the boxed series has definitely gotten worse, though, between the Beastmaster and Dragonborn Paladin, whereas previous desirable figures in sets could be tough to get, but usually didn't require going to 5 stores just to find one.

[jonwil]

Would a paper bag (like the ones they have now moved to for polybags) hold up to the "feel the bag" trick as well as the old plastic ones did?