Friday, May 31, 2013

Thar’s Gold In Them Toyshelves….

Lego minifigures ROCK! What else is there to say about this awesome little blind bag sub-line that Lego has unleashed on us? Surprisingly, I have been able to resist the temptation of collecting each and every figure released and managed to just cherry pick the ones I really want. Plus I decided that it was good enough to live vicariously through my girlfriend’s minifigure collection. For her, it was love at first minifigure, and since that fateful first, she has gotten every single one released…with a little help from her ever supportive boyfriend of course ☺

what happened to series 8???
Anyway, after the 7th series, minifigures sort of got scarce here in Manila. For some reason, toy stores stopped carrying the later waves, or at the very least carried them in very limited quantities which is kind of weird since it’s not like they were back-logged with unsold stock. So in order to find the later waves I had to resort to other means…namely the internet. It’s actually strange though that if you choose wisely, and pick the right online vendor, you actually can get minifigures cheaper than you would at retail.

the lone gold bag....
So as I went through my “toy tour” of the US, finding Lego minifigures wasn’t really a priority…I had bigger fish to catch. But as I was going down the aisles of Target, something shiny caught my eye, peeking from behind a bunch of boxes on the shelves. I looked in closer to inspect and to my surprise I pulled out a lone gold colored minifigure blind bag! It really felt like finding something special because, first of all this was a series 10 blind bag, something I had never seen before and didn’t even know was out yet. Secondly, I had not seen any sort of minifigure display so this find seemed pretty random & out of place. And finally, the thing was colored gold, which just added to the coolness of this find.

A few days later, I checked out FAO Schwarz and it was there where I found the motherload of series 10 minifigures. It was a huge display of little golden goodness that I was helplessly drawn to. As pretty as it was I knew I had to fight the temptation of grabbing numerous bags because since I was a cherry picker, it made more sense to get the specific ones I wanted online, rather than leave it to chance with numerous blind bags.

BUT I managed to reason out that the lone blind bag I got at Target needed *some* company, so after a few minutes of looking like dork trying to identify the contents of each blind bag through feeling through, I settled upon getting 3 more bags. 

Side note #1: Although I try, I am so not an expert at feeling through blind bags. But here in Manila, most toy stores actually have some employees who have mastered the art of feeling through blind bags….It’s quite amazing actually, seeing them rifling through a bunch of blind bags identifying the character inside within SECONDS! And they’re quite accurate; so far they’ve only let me down once. Where I thought I was getting a hockey player but instead got a gnome….

Anyway I guess you’re wondering exactly what I ended up getting huh? Well the blind bag I got in Target ended up being a Parachute guy, whom I found out later, was one of the more common characters in the series. But he looked cool anyway so it was fine with me. The second guy I got was the Biker Mechanic….cool looking dude with a red bandana, shades, tattoos and wrench. The third one was one I was proud to say I successfully identified through touch, the Paintball dude, whose large paintball helmet was a good giveaway. And finally, I got…….ANOTHER biker dude! Apparently along with the parachute guy, the biker is another common character. Well 3 out of four isn’t too bad. In the end the first three made it to my minifigure display, while the extra biker…well I managed to find another home for him as well ☺


Side note #2: Apparently, there is a little bit more to the series 10 gold packaging. Lego has managed to find another way to make minifigure completists go crazy, by introducing “Mr. Gold” to the world. Mr. Gold is as well you may have guessed, an all gold minifigure who looks like the Monopoly guy complete with top hat and cane. Anyway true to his name, they made him ultra rare by producing only 5000 of him worldwide. If you think that’s a big number, think again, they produced over 10 million of the other series 10 minifigures. So yeah, Mr. Gold has been selling on eBay for thousands of dollars. Well I’m not going to wrack my brain or my wallet looking for the little gold dude. You could call it mean on Lego for introducing such a hard to find figure, but they are a business and are out to ultimately make money. And if there are more people out there like this guy I heard about, who cleaned out an entire Toys R’us’ stock of minifigures (over a $1000's worth) JUST to find a Mr. Gold…then it looks like they made a very wise business decision.

Side note #3: You know the guy who spent over a $1000 dollars in Toys R’us on minifigures in the hopes of finding Mr. Gold? Well he didn’t find it……but these guys did