Gomek

"Am I against limited edition stuff" is a good question. I'm an old school collector so the model has always been that things are available for a limited time. Be it Lego, Comics or toys in general. So to a degree I guess I do very much support "Limited edition" merchandise. I mean almost everything Lego produces is a limited edition to an extent. Personally I feel if you have good market research and a good marketing team, you should be able to roughly gauge the interest in your products and determine your production runs. Will there be mistakes? Absolutely. But I also don't believe vastly under-producing an item at the expense of consumers is something that is imperative to the success of a business. My gripe is basically Lego is trying to appeal to the collectors market, and to a certain extent the completists, and then they are turning around and supporting marketing practices that exploit them. You can certainly say "it's just business" but it's a business and marketing model that is not there to help collectors, and being a collector, I don't think it's something to feel good about.

Well, like I said, I'm old, so this started long before Lego was considered "collectable". This was a regular practice with action figures and comic books and they were called 'retailer intensives'. Like I mentioned, it was really just a way to take advantage of collectors. And of course I believe there were also a number of products that probably were under produced by mistake, but when manufactures saw what kind of hype the secondary market could generate, this led other companies to do the same thing on purpose. I can tell you Nintentendo is often accused of doing this, though honestly I'm not really involved enough in that market to have real opinion of their marketing.

In the days of the chase figures vendors absolutely ordered more so they could get exclusives that they could turn around and sell for 10 or more times the value of any of the 'common' items. In Lego's case they believe people will but more figures (by mistake?) looking to complete a collection, which is now twice or three times as hard. While some of us are good at feeling blind bags others are not and frequently wide up with doubles.

Yeah, I definitely remember artificial rarity opening the door for the knockoffs. Specifically the Green Arrow figure was the first one I remember coming out of China where AFOLs were actively buying the knockoffs as a infinitely cheaper alternative to the real thing. And that initial support of course opened up the whole can of worms with the knock-offs.

Every once in a while Lego makes a curious decision to create artificial rarity among some of its products. I would like to appeal to my fellow collectors to be a little more vocal against these practices and not so accepting of this ‘status quo’ practice in the toy industry. These practices do NOT benefit us. First, I’ll start off by admitting I’m on the older side, so I’ve seen some of these practices evolve. The value of anything is, of course, based on supply and demand. Back in the day the collectable toy market came about by the natural attrition of toys. Kids played with (and damaged) toys and parents through them out and thus they became ‘rare’. The ones that were sought after then became valuable. Fair enough. Some industries, in particular the comic book industry, benefited greatly from this. All of the sudden it was acceptable to collect comic books because they were ‘valuable’. Then some marketers got a ‘great’ idea to incentivize retailers into buying more product by including ‘chase’ items which the retailer could charge premiums for. This is important because it needs to be made clear that this is not a practice invented for the benefit of collectors. It’s a practice meant to exploit collectors. The same collector who would have been perfectly happy to collect #1 to #16, now felt the need to collect a special #10a and pay a premium to a dealer to get it. Of course other collectors who would have also been otherwise happy with their collection now had a hole because they were not willing to pay the unnaturally inflated prices. Still other markers were too impatient to wait for the natural attrition and increased value of their product. They purposely created artificially rare products to increase the value of their products and create hype. Again, a practice used to manipulate the market and to get the highest possible price from collectors. There has also arisen a very vocal minority who winds up benefiting from some of these scenarios. For instance a convention goer who is given a $200 dollar minifigure will defend the practice to no end because he or she has benefited from the practice. It doesn’t matter that the same figure could have easily been a poly bag that they could have picked up at Target for $4. They are perfectly happy to be a pawn of the marketing game for their own self-interest and self-entitlement, despite the fact that their own collecting community gets price gouged on the secondary market the very next day. The whole ‘golden ticket’ fallacy is another instance of artificial rarity that I find deplorable. A great market scheme (I guess) but it does not serve the community in any way. We all love Charlie and Chocolate Factory but in the story we all got to follow Charlie as he gets the golden ticket. How many of us would have been happy to read the same book where Charlie does NOT get the golden ticket. Yet as collectors that’s where 99% of us found ourselves after getting ‘The gold finger’ from Lego with “Mr. Gold”. Lego collectors will also find themselves susceptible to other secondary issues because of artificial rarity, as Lego is not all that difficult to counterfeit. For the most part counterfeiters have been very good about identifying their products as such, but as these items move into the marketplace that will not continue. If a collector gets fooled into buying a fake version of a $3 Ironman figure it’s no big shake. Paying $100+ for a fake version of a figure one thought was real is another story entirely. And again had these figures been released at numbers that equaled their market demand, this would not be an issue. So, in closing I just want to make it clear that I love Lego. Mostly I feel the Lego Group does a fine job of developing products that interest both me and my children. Artificial Rarity however is NOT a beneficial practice for anyone and should never be supported.

Artificial rarity is my single biggest grip with Lego. It's just awful and a really deplorable practice. If they're going to do figures that apeal to collectors that's great, but then don't turn around and #$^# them with shortages.

No more exclusive figures please. Mr. Gold is by far the single rudest thing Lego has ever done, and that includes convention exclusives, which are extremely heartbreaking. Convention exclusives will kill brickheadz. Why anyone one would want to collect these knowing they can't complete their collection is beyond me.

I was speaking to one of the operators today at Bricks and Pieces and she was saying that they are getting very strict on not selling licensed parts. It's unfortunate, and for some some strange reason this now includes Ninjago, despite the fact that this is a Lego owned property.

I'm infinitely more excited about the prospect of the heroes from the Super Friends party as I would be in more batsuits.

Mr. Gold was possibly the the most insensitive thing Lego has ever done. Building up a lot of kids hopes and then crushing them over and over. And the fact that they limited it so badly the prices sky rocketed was just a slap in the face to everyone who loves minifigures. and not to mention a big ^@#$ U to completists. Lets not do that again.

100% true

Just curious, why are you hoping for this? I don't get why people enjoy paying $150 for a minifigure on ebay? Enjoy having holes in their collection? Enjoy paying a hefty price for a convention ticket so you can stand in line for a figure you may or may not get? Are any of these things better than walking into the Lego store at your leisure and buying a $26 set with 4 new figures in it? I'm really not trying to be a jerk. I genuinely don't understand why anyone who loves mini-figures would support this practice.

DC: None None Marvel: None None At some point fans will backlash against this awful practice, and Lego will understand it's not polite to line pockets of scalpers and cause loyal fans and completists to get fleeced on the secondary market.

I much prefer the knock-off Rhino figure as well.

The stay puff marshmallow man doesn't agree: It's not the most disliked trailer in YouTube history for nothing.

You realize there is a Ghost Rider set coming out soon right?

i think it would have been cool if the pirate and camper had almost the same map, but one had a red x and the other had modern icons. it would have been a nice Easter egg.

I agree. This would be a super crappy move. personally, if they are going to do a $400 set, they really should not put ANY mini figures in it so they don't imply that anyone looking to have a complete collection needs to put down $400 for Lego. As a life long collector of Lego I can tell you there has definately been a huge shift. I knew some adult builders in the 90's who had been in contact with the Lego company, and they had the same story.. The Lego company use to view Adult collects as a little bit whack-o. I think the internet proved adult fans were in far greater number than previously believed. Licensed themes revitalized Lego and strengthened its place in the collectables world. And then... The modular buildings. To me, this was Lego's first real admission that they are now making toys for adults. But I'll still say $400 is way to much for a set.

Monsters are never stupid (unless they come with guitars as accessories). I could use another monster series right now as a matter of fact.

didn't work for me. I just got a form field. I assume there was supposed to be an image, but none showed up.

My worst experience is to have a complete set of figures and then Lego decides to do a limited convention run of some figure (of a character from my childhood), and then my collection is incomplete unless I want to pay $200.

When the TEAM GB figs came out they were not that hard to come by via bricklink. At the time regular CMF were $3 USD and I got Team GB for $4 USD per plus I think $10 shipping. Assuming I can get a similar deal off brinklink I will get a set.

Question.. with everyone's want lists.. how long will it take for the Chinese knock off companies to make the figures everyone wants? And will the Chinese ones have molded heads for the Incredibles, because I might just have to buy those too. -c

I've always wore my Lego fandom on my sleeve, so I've met quiet a few AFOLs over the years (and ironically I'm not in a LUG, so I really haven't met any there). I don't know that any spend what I do, but a few have impressive collections. I also only know one kid who really has a 'collection'. Many of my kids friends (and admittedly, I don't really talk to them about it), but they only have a few sets and that's it. Anyway, I'm not saying it's a large percentage, I'm just saying I believe it's a larger percentage than the Lego Group thinks it is. I also have to think that the percentage of the people who bought a $500 Millennium Falcon set have to be damn near 100% AFOLs. But then again, half the reason I think the bubble will inevitably burst, is because I don't think there are enough AFOLs and wealthy parents to buy up all the sets that people are hording, when they decide to sell in future. All that supply will out weigh demand at some point. I think it will very closely follow the comics market. You'll still have sets that were way under produced or had overly short runs be worth money, but the popular sets that people are hording, those will be in much higher supply than demand. Well the good news is I don't see the USC MF as dropping. That's a set no one horded given it's hefty price tag. The $20 licensed sets on the other hand, I'm convinced are being stock piled in some collector's basements.

I can't argue that they care, but it 100% does affect sales, and what affects sales, affects them. When people see prices rising they view things as an investment and buy more.Also a re-release would take next to no design work as the set is already designed. Lego did an experiment will re-releases a while back, but it lasted less than a year. I remember Main Street and Metroliner got re-released. It would be very interesting to find out why that stopped. I remember at the time Lego was starting to become worth money and I did wonder what that was going to do to prices.