PI003 and Others Missing...

[Jack Sassy]

Hello, everyone!

 

I am not sure whether this is big enough for a topic of its own but I will create one regardless.

 

I like to browse Brickset database to find first few minifigures from specific themes, for instance, CTY0001 (City), SW0001 (Star Wars) and so on. However, there is one theme that I was surprised to find a missing minifigure from - Pirates.

 

PI001 is Admiral Woodhouse (without the plume):

 

PI002 is Captain Redbeard (with plain hat):

 

Then the next entry is PI004, being Governor Broadside:

 

Ye might notice that I skipped PI003, reason for that - it doesn't exist. Of course, there are others that are missing further in the list - PI007, PI012 and way down PI067 and PI071. There might be few more, but I didn't notice any (list becomes more complete further down).

 

Note that PI001 was first released in 1995 so numbering doesn't indicate that the figure was released in 1989 (I am not sure what they take into consideration when labelling these figure by numbers). I am just curious, what happened to these missing figures and why are they missing? I have checked both BrickLink and Brickset, in both these minifigures are absent.

 

What are yer theories about their absence? I would love to hear some interesting ideas and perhaps, if someone has more additional info. 

 

Jack Sassy

[zinnn]

Interesting observation, probably something you could email TLG about?

[Jack Sassy]

23 hours ago, zinnn said:

probably something you could email TLG about?

Perhaps, though I don't believe they could provide me with the needed information. We don't even know if the said list of minifigures is oficially by TLG. 

[Aanchir]

6 hours ago, Jack Sassy said:

Perhaps, though I don't believe they could provide me with the needed information. We don't even know if the said list of minifigures is oficially by TLG. 

Yeah, TLG couldn't help with this. These are not "official" ID numbers of any sort, but rather fan-created ones from the BrickLink reference catalog, which Brickset pulls their minifigure data from.

If I had to guess, these "missing" ID numbers are probably ones that were probably created early in the BrickLink database's existence, but later either changed to identify them as "variants" of another figure with a different ID number, or deleted due to being figures that never actually appeared in sets (like having the incorrect color legs, incorrect/missing headgear, an incorrect/missing neck accessory, or some sort of one-off production error like a misprinted torso). After all, since BrickLink originated as a site for buying and selling LEGO, a lot of the database entries would've originated from used lots which could easily have included mis-assembled figures.

I wasn't active in the online LEGO fan community during BrickLink's early days, so maybe somebody who was already an AFOL back then might be better equipped to answer this question? I wouldn't know who to ask, though. I tried checking Archive.org's Wayback Machine, but unfortunately I wasn't able to confirm anything that way.

[Jack Sassy]

13 hours ago, Aanchir said:

If I had to guess, these "missing" ID numbers are probably ones that were probably created early in the BrickLink database's existence, but later either changed to identify them as "variants" of another figure with a different ID number, or deleted due to being figures that never actually appeared in sets (like having the incorrect color legs, incorrect/missing headgear, an incorrect/missing neck accessory, or some sort of one-off production error like a misprinted torso). After all, since BrickLink originated as a site for buying and selling LEGO, a lot of the database entries would've originated from used lots which could easily have included mis-assembled figures.

That be a rather good theory (which I didn't think of meself ). There are quite a few parts that have been marked for deletion on BL, due to a newer, more accurate entry. This could be a similar case or something else.