Collectible Minifigs, Sportscards, and Packsearching

[LegoCityMann]

While in my LEGO dark ages I was a huge sportscard collector. One of the biggest problems in Sportscards Retail sales is pack searching. People feel up the packs searching for autographs or game used cards. They also use digital scales to feel the difference in weight say , a piece of a players bat might make in the weight of a pack of 12 cards. Many companies use "Decoy" cards, extra thick blanks or ads in the backs. There's a lot of different techniques that go into pack searching. If you discuss pack searching on many sportscard message boards you will be severly chastised and there are stories upon stories of people chasing pack searchers out of target/walmart or calling security on them. This biggest issue is that the cards are randomly inserted, can be worth BIG money, and most techniques actually damage the other cards in the pack.

However with the Lego Collectible Minifigs, not only is pack searching condoned on most messageboards, many people will give you tips on how to feel out for certain parts. Now with Lego it "shouldn't" be an issue of breaking them. I've actually given my "dot sheets" away to several mothers who were looking for certain minifigs for their children and shown them how to read the dot codes.

If Lego was actively worried about pack searching they could easily move from a Foil bag to Black Plastic Carded packaging similar to Hotwheels "Mystery Cars". However I would assume that the type of packaging suggested would increase production costs thusly raising the end consumer price.

Here is an example of what I am talking about.

However I would assume that it would lead to the same issues of the Hot Wheels Mystery packs as people routinely slice the top open to see what car is in it.

I am torn on the issue. With the CMFs I can see both sides of the packsearching issue.

What I would like to know is how does the rest of the community feel?

~LCM

[Zeya]

This is an interesting perspective. I think the fact that there is a near-uniform distribution of figures when compared to the rarity of a special baseball card makes it sort of a different animal. I would get angry and jealous too if there was a special figure, say a chrome gold C3P0 that was in one out of 200 packets and people were "farming" those. That type of thing would make me stop buying CMFs altogether, or just curb it back to buying a couple here or there from resellers.

I think TLG has a disincentive to go the hard-plastic-hotwheels route; they would likely see sales drop. Hotwheels probably wouldn't do packet packaging because of the fact that the cars are made out of metal (punctures the bag) and possibly because I assume a hotwheel car costs more than a minifigure. It's very unfortunate that people just crack the case on the store shelves. Shame.

If TLG were to package in plastic like that, I would stop collecting the CMFs. If they make it any harder to get what I want, I'm out. I already use the technique of buying ~60 packs, identifying my 16 or so figs and thus returning 44 or 40 of the duplicates that are unwanted. I do feel a little dirty, I admit. But all I want to do is get my set of 16. I'm not turning a profit or screwing over an eight-year-old's birthday party with that.

Again, if there was a more extreme rarity distribution, the combination of the hassle and my resentment at the marketing technique would drive me from buying any of them.

[Aanchir]

However I would assume that it would lead to the same issues of the Hot Wheels Mystery packs as people routinely slice the top open to see what car is in it.

This is perfectly true. It is part of the reason that with the BIONICLE collectible packs in late 2003 (set 8580 Kraata), The LEGO Group had a plastic canister for these sets-- the previous collectible masks and accessories had been in either cardboard boxes or polybags, and there had been problems with people breaking into them. However, since collectible packs didn't sell too well to begin with, they couldn't make up the cost of this extra security.

For the next four years (2004-2007), TLG returned to using small cardboard boxes for collectible accessories, although from this point forward the collectibles were always in the form of "ammo" for the launchers included in larger sets, rather than being actual building components, and many people considered them inferior to the collectible masks from previous years. The 2006 and 2007 packs stopped having randomized contents, and after 2007 the whole idea of separate accessory packs was dropped since the sales never really met expectations.

In general, I'm probably a bit biased since I am one of those people who feels the packaging of collectible minifigures to determine the contents. It's a very reliable method, and mostly a fair one-- anyone can do it, although some people might not be able to recognize tactile shapes as easily and thus not everyone can do it. Store employees have never given me any flak about it, and since I only get one of each fig I like (rather than building armies and thus more significantly upsetting the balance of figs available in a store), I don't feel much guilt for it.

Perhaps I would feel more guilty about it if I were in a locality where the figs ran out more quickly, but I go to college in rural New England, and the main store I frequent for these figures takes a long time to run out of any series. Even the figs considered to have a higher demand (like "army-building" figs) don't run out too quickly. If I were in a community where boxes of figs would be emptied of higher-demand figs by pack-searching in a week or less, I would probably feel worse about it, even if I'm not "singling out" figs to buy multiples of.

The main aspect of pack-searching I look down on would be in the case of individuals who cherry-pick high-demand figs from stores, and then resell them online for exorbitant rates. But people do that for any set with any kind of scarcity-- even a new set that's not yet available worldwide-- and really, if I don't stop my own pack-searching then I'm not in any place to condemn those who use the same technique for monetary gain.

Also, I really disliked when many people complained about TLG removing the individual barcodes from the collectible minifigures after Series 2. However, this was not a problem I had with the pack-searching itself (I wouldn't have hesitated to use the barcodes if I weren't more comfortable with just feeling the packaging), but rather the sense of entitlement (as if TLG were doing a bad thing by trying to eliminate loopholes in the blind-packaging that they were aiming for in the first place). If TLG made it so that I could no longer feel the bags for collectible minifigures I wanted, I'd probably buy fewer-- I don't like getting duplicates-- but I wouldn't hold it against TLG for enforcing their own market strategy.

[Modulex Guy]

NO TO CARDED PACKS!!!!! I Effing hate those nightmares on the pegs.

As a Diecast car collector as well the mystery cars are, yes popular with kids, but a nightmare with collectors and most likely a nightmare for the stores because many of these get torn open right on the shelves and get damaged way more than a plastic packet.

I have seen so much hassle and travesty with the Mystery packs by both Hot Wheels and Johnny Lightning. Every time I go to a store, these are always torn apart, cars laying outside the packaging, or people buy them, heat off the glue, and repack crappy cars into them. The cardboard blister is the WORST thing that could be done.

[Peppermint_M]

A repeat on the no carded packs.

"Dot Code" is even more of a nightmare. When series 3 first came out, I had decided against getting a full box again, as such I printed the code and went to the shop. There were at least six kids and their parents trying to find specific figures (not very successfully) when I removed my dotcode from my bag and settled it above the shelf of figures.

As some may have noted, the Chief and the Samurai have similar codes. I was personally blamed when an impatient kid didn't take my advice to feel the bag for an identifying part (Headdress or armour, it's not hard!) I had to hand over my samurai to avoid any problems!

Since then I have just felt for parts, usually it is pretty quick and easy, I grab a bag, feel a part and call out the name (if in a busy area of others who are looking) when I don't want that figure, but keep it if I am looking for it. Knowledge and familiarity helps a lot and in a full box I can always find which ones I seek.

The major difference between sports cards and CMFs is there is no rarity factor, sometimes there are two more figures in a box than others but it's not a case of 1 in 1000 or anything like that. The "big money" doesn't really come into it either, sure some figures are more popular than others but right now no one is going to pay £200 for one of them. I haven't encountered the scalper issue at all. It seems Wales is empty of AFOLs and bricksellers!