Where are the Collectible Minifigure Reviews?

If you’ve spent any time on my site, you’ll notice there is a link for set reviews where I delve into a bunch of sets that interest me. One of those areas are the Collectible Minifigures which you can find my earliest review of series 15 from early 2016. I’ve reviewed every series since then until recently.

©2020 LEGO Group.

The second set of Harry Potter minifigures was released back on 1 September 2020. There are 16 minifigures in total and they retail for $4.99 each in the US or 3,99€ in Europe (today’s exchange rate puts it at $4.82 for a comparison).

I was able to get a bunch on sale at Smyth’s here locally back before Christmas time, but Germany has locked down and stores are closed. This puts the bag feeling technique out of limits. I ordered a few from Shop @ Home for the full retail price, but have ended up with doubles and triples.

Unfortunately, the Christmas time rush made them go out of stock in the US and I don’t think they are coming back. As a collector, I didn’t want to be forced to pay for specific minifigures on BrickLink or eBay.

I found some new and unopened in Germany for around $4.30 after the exchange rate so hopefully that will allow me to complete the set. They are on their way to me in the next few days so more to follow.

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Series 21 (#71029) was released on 1 January 2021. With only 12 minifigures in the series, I figured it would be easier to get all 12.

The LEGO Ideas Vintage Car (#40448-1) was a gift with purchase on 1 January and I decided to try and get minifigures and to get the car. Shop @ Home in the US had a restriction on 1 January of only buying three minifigures (it has since been lifted). Shop @ Home in Germany allowed you to buy 20. So I went with both.

My German order shipped quickly and arrived fast. With 20 minifigures, I figured I would be close to getting all 12 if not getting them all. Boy was I wrong! Every bag I opened seemed to be a repeat. I ended up with only six of the 12 after opening all 20. I sent a note to Customer Service saying they need to mix them up or sell the boxes. They sent me a note saying that it was part of the fun to not know what you are going to get (or part of the profit plan?).

My order of three minifigures arrived from the US a few weeks later. There was one repeat from what I ordered from Germany and then two of a separate one. So 23 minifigures later and I only have 7 of the 12.

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In conclusion…

-It is getting harder for me to complete a set as I can’t go to a store to test bags

-I don’t have any complete sets of the last two series yet

-Buying in bulk without discounts is getting more expensive than it is actually worth

-I think LEGO needs to sell the proposed box of 36 with 3 complete sets or not at all

What are your thoughts? Does LEGO need to change up how they sell the Collectible Minifigures?

Set Review - #71027: Series 20 Collectible Minifigures

I just posted my review of #71026: DC Super Heroes and now once again I am late to the game. Series 20 was released back on 19 April 2020. The packs retail for $4.99 each. As I mentioned previously, I don’t want to pay that much so I have been waiting for discounts. I bought a few from LEGO.de here in Germany. The price here is 3,99€ so the few that I purchased there worked out to be around $4.30 to $4.50 after the exchange rate kicked in. Not the best price, but I’ll take the slight discount. I then found some locally for $3.45 and then Amazon.com had them for $3.44.

The bottom line is if you enjoy collecting the collectible minifigure series sets that LEGO produces, be patient with your purchases and you can get them at lower prices.

I’m not going to spend time talking about each minifigure. Instead I will give some overall comments.
-I’m a fan of the non-licensed collectible minifigures and I like the creativity that goes into them and the ability to use them in MOCs or with other sets.
-The costumed minifigures have been great through the years and LEGO didn’t disappoint with Series 20.
-I’m still frustrated with the dispersal of minifigures and how it always seems like you get extras of the ones you’d want least. I don’t need that many Super Warriors!
-Good to see that half of the series is female characters. As a kid, I remember arguing over who got to play with the few female minifigures that we had because they just weren’t made a lot. Now we have a bunch which is awesome!

That’s it on this one. I look forward to a late review again on the next collectible minifigure series.

Happy building!

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Piñata Boy and Drone Boy

Viking and Tournament Knight

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Martial Arts Boy and 80s Musician

Breakdancer and Athlete

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Pajama Girl and Brick Costume Guy

Super Warrior and Pirate Girl

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Sea Rescuer and Space Fan

Llama Costume Girl and Pea Pod Costume Girl

Set Review - #71026: DC Super Heroes - Collectible Minifigures

This series was released on 1 January 2020 yet I’m releasing a review in late July 2020? Why the lag?

The retail price was too steep for me at $4.99 per bag. No thank you!

As the series nears retirement (I assume), the sales have started. I picked some up from Amazon.com with a limit of three for $2.99 and a limit of 27 for $3.44. I also found some locally for $3.45. If you’ve held off, not is the time to start looking for sales. Avoid paying the full price. If you paid full price, wait for the price to drop for future Collectible Minifigure series so you can avoid shelling out $5 each.

The series contains 16 minifigures. The packaging is still the larger bags versus the original smaller bags. Additionally, some of the minifigures have parts that come in a separate plastic bag. For a company striving for sustainability, this doesn’t make sense to me…

Before I go further, I will fully admit that I am not a Super Heroes fan whether they be DC or Marvel. I am not into comic books, I rarely collect the LEGO sets, and I have only seen a few of the super hero related movies that have been released… well ever. So my review will focus on the minifigures themselves versus how well they depict specific characters or who the character exactly is in what theme.

Of note for this series, each minifigure comes with a 1x2 black jumper plate and the poseable clear piece to put your minifigure in different positions while on display.

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Metamorpho is definitely a multicolored figure with orange right hand, reddish/purple left hand, clear left leg, and brownish right leg. I’m sure someone creative can figure out how to reuse these parts. The giant hand has a space to clip it onto the minifig hand so it is a standard minifig arm just holding that piece. Not much else going for this minifig.

Green Lantern comes with the lantern and a clear holder to hold a green 1x1 circle tile. The lantern is quite large as compared to the minifigure, but I guess it has to be in order to fit into the LEGO world.

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Bat-Mite comes with a 2x3 tile of a comic book. he has a small cape and mask too. The interesting thing about this figure is it comes with the poseable piece, but since he has the small legs, they don’t bend so it limits his poses.

Huntress is next. She comes with a crossbow and black cape. The mask is printed on her face and the face has 2 expressions (mouth opened and mouth closed). She also has a utility belt and the package came with 2 so you can use the second one elsewhere. I like the darker purple color.

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Mister Miracle has two capes along with a large gray chain and the set comes with 2 handcuffs. Of the purchases I made, this one seemed the be the rarest one from my limited subset. I only got one of these in multiple orders.

Star Girl comes with an interesting translucent orange sparkly piece mounted on a gold colored staff. She has 2 facial expressions as well (mouth opened or closed. Her utility belt is printed on the outfit versus separate. Not sure how LEGO decides what to print versus how to outfit a minifig. Anyone?

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We’ve seen a lot of both of these so did we have to include them again? Joker has a giant pink beehive (I know, it is not really) and then a 1x2 joker playing card tile. Batman comes with a long rope and a batarang in blue. I would have rather seen some other figures than these again, but as a non-fan of DC Super Heroes it doesn’t matter what I think.

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Bumblebee comes with a set of wings and two yellow lightning bolt type things to hold. She has 2 facial expressions (mean and smiling). I don’t recall seeing a hair piece like that before either. I like this minifigure!

Flash has a fun hat and then this bolts coming out the back as he runs along. Nothing super exciting about this character as presented.

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More repeats we’ve seen before although I’m sure a big fan will correct me and say we have not seen this exact Superman or Wonder Woman in these specific forms. Superman comes with a copy of the Daily Planet which I think is new. Wonder Woman has her lasso which has appeared before.

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Cyborg has an interesting helmet and oddly printed head. I wonder if this costs more to build pieces that aren’t used elsewhere? He comes with a small purple chain.

To quote “The Big Bang Theory…”

“Aquaman sucks!”

I don’t know what he should look like, but the giant oddly green fish along with the Fabio hair and slightly unshaven face makes him look somewhat ridiculous. The left arm doesn’t do anything to save him. Sorry LEGO.

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Sinestro appears similar to Green Lantern with the over-sized lantern and a yellow 1x1 circle tile. Nothing too exciting here.

Cheetah comes with a green money bag. She has 2 facial expressions… both look mean, but one has an opened mouth. Replace the face and this becomes a fun costumed minifigure.

As a collector of these minifigures, my series is complete, but overall I am not impressed. Come up with something better next time LEGO!

It's Time for a Change to how Collectible Minifigures are Sold

I’ve been a huge fan of the Collectible Minifigures or CMFs as we’ve abbreviated them ever since Series 10. Before that I thought it was a crazy idea to buy individual minifigures. Then I bought a few from Series 10 and I was hooked. I enjoy the non-licensed ones where they come from a range of themes and can go with various existing sets or MOCs. I’m okay with the Licensed themes for the most part.

I have purchased CMFs so far up to the DC Super Heroes series. I’m not a big fan of the DC or Marvel lines to begin with so that might be part of it, but the increase in price from $3.99 to $4.99 in the US finally caused me to stop. I don’t want to sit and feel for the minifigures at the store (especially now with COVID-19) so I usually just buy a bunch from Shop @ Home or Amazon.com. I’ve waited for sales from the last few CMFs to make it even more worth my while, but I have yet to see any deals posted yet.

The LEGO DC Super Heroes CMF series

The downside to buying a bunch at random… you get doubles quite often. It takes a few orders to get the full amount. As someone with a Bricklink store (that will be open again in a few years), I don’t mind selling the extras, but I don’t want to pay $5 for doubles, triples, or quadruples.

I happen to have access to a loophole. I can purchase LEGO in the US or in Germany. The current price in Deutschland is 3,99€. I placed an order this past weekend for 14 of the Series 20 minifigures and it worked out to $4.34 each after the exchange rate took effect.. Still not a great price, but for a purchase of 50€ or more, it came with a Speed Champions polybag (#30342-1 shown below, going for $5 in the US at places like Walmart). We’ll see how many of the 14 are duplicates (or more).

Series 20 Minifigures

#30342-1: Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo EVO

So LEGO Company, here’s what I propose…

1 - Instead of having people going to stores and feeling up packaging during a global pandemic, sell the packages with labeling or provide a way for consumers to select the ones they want. That way we can get what we want and it would be worth paying the $5 each for what we want.

2 - Produce similar amounts of each figure. Instead of having extras of the ones we don’t want and a few of the ones we do want, just produce the same amounts of each. This should help with concerns about doubles/triples.

3 - During the initial sales period (before the next CMF set comes out), place limits in Brand Stores and on Shop @ Home for the number of minifigures you can purchase. Perhaps one or two of each. Then later on when you are looking to get rid of inventory, sell them unmarked and at a lower price. Perhaps even discounts for those who buy in bulk. Perhaps sales at partner stores can continue as they are now, but at a lower price since packages would be unmarked.

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Okay, those are my thoughts. What are yours? How should LEGO adjust sales to provide a better experience to consumers while ensuring the value of the product matches expectations?

Thanks for your thoughts and Happy Building!

Set Review - #71025-1: Series 19 Collectible Minifigures - How to Buy These Things

Okay, so you’re not even thinking about Series 19 anymore. They were released back on the 1st of September 2019 and the new series is about to be released in a few days. So why post a review of this series now when they are sold out on LEGO.com? Well this set of 16 minifigures retailed for $3.99 per pack in the US. The next set coming out in a few days is going to be $4.99 per pack. What?!?!?! They were originally $2.99 per pack. The $1 increase… okay. But $5 a minifigure? My wallet can’t justify that.

How can you get around these prices? Well, our friends at the big retailers like Amazon.com have been running discounts. Amazon.com sold Series 19 minifigures for $2.99 throughout its shelf life. The original limit was around 30 minifigures. During the Cyber Monday rush, the minifigures were at a limit of 3 on Amazon.com so that doesn’t help much. We’ll see if that sticks. Meanwhile on LEGO Shop @ Home, the minifigures were discounted to $3.19 each on Black Friday and with double VIP points, that wasn’t so bad.

So what’s the take away? Buying these things on the release date is going to continue to be expensive and not worth it. LEGO and its major retailers understand that and will continue to run sales to move inventory. With the ceiling about to be $4.99/pack, I expect the discounts to change so they can bring in more profit.

The bottom line…

LEGO, without a discount, I will no longer be buying the collectible minifigures. So expect more late set reviews from me as I wait to pick them up on clearance.

What are your thoughts? Will you buy at the new high price or will you wait for sales?

Oh… the set review… I thought series 19 was great. I prefer the original series versus the licensed themes so this one was great. Some of them weren’t my favorite of all time, but I think they are trying to appear to a large audience base and this series did the trick. My pictures are below…

Happy building!

Programmer

Rugby Player

Bear Costume Guy

Jungle Explorer

Gardener

Galactic Bounty Hunter

Fright Knight

Dog Sitter

Fox Costume Girl

Video Game Champ

Mummy Queen

Shower Guy

Mountain Biker

Monkey King

Pizza Costume Guy

Fire Fighter

Set Review - #71024-1: Disney Minifigures, Series 2 - Collectible Minifigures

The Disney Series 2 minifigures were released back on 1 May 2019. While most the the big fan sites have covered these a long time ago, I am a normal fan and it took a while to get all 18. I finally got them all and here is my review. So sorry it’s late, but I don’t get a free shipment from LEGO or go out and buy them right away to have the first review out there.

As mentioned previously, LEGO has limited the purchases you can make from Shop @ Home to 18. With that being said, you can go to a LEGO Brand Store and buy as many as they have in stock. The retail price is $3.99 per bag. I purchased mine from Amazon and they were $3.92 at a time. In checking today, they are listed at $2.99 each. I’m not sure if it’s an ongoing sale or a permanent drop in price, but sweet! Walmart shows the same $2.99 price as well. Hopefully this will become a trend and you can take advantage of waiting to get the minifigures by getting them at lower prices.

The bag size matches the larger size used for #71023-1: LEGO Movie 2 Minifigures.

Onto the review…

Next up is Hercules and Hades from the cartoon movie “Hercules.” Unlike Ursula from series 1, Hades has a bottom half and top half versus a larger bottom piece that the torso fits in. Another change is that Hades hair piece is permanently attached to the head piece. I initially was shocked that the hair was attached and thought it somehow became assembled during shipment. Then I realized it was permanent. Odd… Hades was one of the lease popular in the orders I made.

I had to make sure I got it right. Chip has a brown nose and Dale has the red nose. These weren’t as popular in my purchases. I think I got one extra of Dale only.

Series 1 Disney had Genie and Aladdin. This series includes Jafar and Jasmine.

The last bunch are Scrooge McDuck, Dewey (blue), Huey (red), and Louie (green). I had to look them up to verify I got them all right. These were the least popular in the orders I made and I was concerned I wouldn’t get any. It did bring back some good memories of watching “Duck Tales” as a kid. Anyone else remember that cartoon?

I have never seen “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” but this series includes Sally and
Jack Skellington. Sally comes with two black flowers and Jack comes with a gift with 1x1 round tile snowflakes inside. In my purchases, these were not hard to find, but I did not get a lot of extras.

The LEGO Ideas set has some that are slightly different than Vintage Mickey and Vintage Minnie. I think the steering wheel is a bit too big and the life raft looks more like how I see it used regularly… as a toilet seat. There were a lot of extras of both of these minifigures in my purchases.

I don’t think they could get away without doing Anna and Elsa from “Frozen.” They already appear in the Disney sets, but these are the first in true minifigure form. These minifigures were very popular in the purchases that I made and I got a lot of extras.

The last series had Mr. Incredible and Syndrome. This one includes Edna Mode and Frozone. Edna is my favorite in this series. I like how they did the giant glasses that make her eyes look bigger. It’s a great representation of the movie character in my opinion.

Overall this is a decent series. The representations of the actual characters in minifigure form were done well. In my opinion, it’s a good mix of characters from the Disney universe and I’m sure in a year or two we’ll see Series 3 with even more if the license with Disney continues.

If you’re a sucker for collecting these sets like me, the lesson learned here is to have patience and wait for better pricing. Hopefully this will become the trend and companies like Amazon and Walmart will cut the price to $2.99 or lower after a while. If you are going to buy them, you might as well wait for them to be at a better price than go through LEGO and their higher pricing. When the LEGO Movie 2 minifigures were discounted on Shop @ Home, they were only $3.19 so still a better deal to get them elsewhere.

Should there be a Series 3 or should they just move on? I’m hoping we can have more original minifigures versus licensed ones, but the licensed ones probably sell better. What are your thoughts on this series?

New LEGO® Shop @ Home Rule for Collectible Minifigure Buys

I went to order some of the new Disney Series 2 minifigures from Shop @ Home. The maximum limit per order was listed as 18. While placing that order, I figured I’d throw in a few more of the LEGO Movie 2 minifigures. I added 5 to my order. A little while later I received an email from LEGO stating that my order was cancelled because I “went above our purchase limits” for the LEGO Movie 2 minifigures. The message went on to state:

“We sometimes put limits on popular sets so as many LEGO fans as possible can get their hands on them. Although you won’t be able to buy those sets right now, we regularly change and remove purchase limits, so it’s a good idea to keep an eye on our website over the next few months.”

WHAT?!?!?!

So I contacted LEGO Shop @ Home customer service. The answer I got was:

“As we want in the beginning to let every LEGO® Fan have the chance to buy the Minifigs without loosing [their spelling, not mine] all stock straight away there is a limit per household of 18 for Disney Series 2 and 40 for THE LEGO® MOVIE 2. So if you reached this quantity in multiple past purchases, every future order which has these sets included will be cancelled by the system.”

Well thanks for letting me know that! I realize not everyone buys that many, but I like to have some extras for my collection and then to sell (when my store re-opens). Apparently I will not be able to use Shop @ Home for that any longer. There are only 18 minifigures in Disney Series 2. What are the odds of ordering 18 and getting the full set? Not very likely is my guess.

Customer service pointed me to LEGO Brand Stores. I was told that I could buy full boxes of Collectible Minifigures (40 in a box) from the stores and that they don’t have limits there. That would be nice if I had one nearby that was easily accessible.

So if you want more than just 18 Disney Series 2 sets, where can you go online from the US (at the time of this posting)?

Amazon.com in the US has the following:
-LEGO MOVIE 2 - Can order up to 30 minifigures for $3.92 each.
-Disney Series 2 - Can order up to 30 minifigures for $3.92 each as an add on (you need to purchase something else and add these to the order)

Walmart.com in the US has the following:
-LEGO MOVIE 2 - Can order up to 12 minifigures for $3.92 each.
-Disney Series 2 - Not Available
-Harry Potter Series - Can order up to 12 minifigures for $3.99 each

Target.com in the US does not appear to sell collectible minifigures online.

Are there any other online locations that you can buy them without a ridiculous mark up?

Obviously you can just go to a physical store to buy them too.

Happy building!

Set Review - #71023 - LEGO Minifigures - The LEGO Movie 2

I fully admit, I am way late to the game with this review. All of the major fan sites have released their Disney series 2 collectible minifigure reviews and here I am just wrapping up the previous set. Better late than never I guess.

This set was released on 1 February 2019 in the US. It takes me a little over a month to get small packages (read USPS Retail Ground) over here in Germany so hence the delay. I don’t want to pay the exchange rate and VAT here so I wait for the cheaper minfigures I order from the US. Like previous Collectible Minifigures, these are $3.99 per bag. There are 20 minifigures total in the series.

A few changes this time:
-The size of the bag the minifigures come in is slightly larger in size from previous versions.
-A number of the figures have a clear plastic bag with parts inside the main bag. In most cases, the minifigure itself was in the clear plastic bag. Then that was inside the main bag with the instructions and any accessories on the main bag.
-The instruction sheet and minifigure picture list is folded up much smaller.
-This is just from my limited experience, but in the orders I placed with Shop @ Home, they all arrived with a wider variety of minifigures. In the past, I’d open up the first 10 or so and already have a lot of duplicates. This time I felt like I’d open up 10 and they were all different. I’m curious if LEGO made an effort to disperse the minifigures a little more or if it was just by chance with my orders.
-The base piece is white. While not the first time it’s been different from the black bases, it is the first time it’s been in white.

Onto the minifigures…. and keep in mind that I have still NOT seen the movie as of the writing of this post. Hopefully that doesn’t qualify me for banishment from the AFOL community.

Hula Lula is the minifigure with the light green hair. She has a vinyl record and a microphone. Her grass skirt is a fabric piece that you have to insert into the leg studs while assembling her.

Candy Rapper has pink hair and is holding a microphone and cassette tape. She has the skirt similar to many others. She’s also giving an eye wink. I’m a fan of the different colored hair pieces on both of these minifigures.

Kitty Pop comes with a guitar and microphone. Her hair piece has ears and she has a tail.

Flashback Lucy has a microphone and gold record award plaque for “Everything is Awesome.”

Apocalypseburg Abe has the steampunk look and comes with an ax. His outfit is pretty creative and i like the goggles attached to his top hat.

Sherry Scratchen-Post & Scarfield are repeats from the first LEGO Movie minifigure series only in Apocalypseburg style this time. Scarfield’s mohawk haircut style is great.

Again, I have yet to see the movie yet so I don’t know why the “Wizard of Oz” crew is in this series, but we have the Cowardly Lion with his bravery award and the Tin Man holding his ax and his heart.

And then we have the Scarecrow with his certificate and then Dorothy Gale & Toto.

Awesome Remix Emmet with his overpriced coffee, smart phone, and headphones.

Vest Friend Rex comes with his mini-velociraptor.

Gone Golfin’ President Business has the standard yellow hand and then a hand with what I assume would be a golfing glove. I’m waiting for someone to make a golf course with the club from this minifigure. Or maybe a mini golf putt-putt course

Apocalypse Benny has a mech arm and a tool box. Other than that he looks the same as the last movie.

Battle-Ready Lucy has a brown hood with goggles. She has some arrows in her quiver and is holding binoculars.

Uni Kitty comes in her happy form versus Angry Kitty.

Swamp Creature is holding a whip and has a fun print on his chest. The head piece is pretty cool too.

Watermelon Dude is holding a slice of melon and has an over-sized slice on his head. This one ranks right up there with many of the costumed minifigures from past sets.

And finally, more costumed minifigures!

Giraffe Guy is holding some leaves and has a giant giraffe head costume on.

Crayon Girl is holding a 2x2 tile drawing of a minifigure head.

Both of these are great. I’m a big fan of all of the costumed minifigures. I think it’s partially because you can easily mix them into a larger city scene display as Easter Eggs for people to find.

Overall, I think LEGO didn’t disappoint with this series. The characters from the original series were done up well, the Apocalypseburg style is fun, the costumed characters are a win in my book, and the “Wizard of Oz” gang look pretty good too. My preference is the more free form Collectible Minifigure Series sets versus the ones attached to a licensed theme, but I think this time LEGO did a good job of matching the theme and giving the fans a bit more.

I’ll be back (late) with the Disney Series 2 in a few months!

Happy building!

Brick Harry Potter is Back

Harry Potter themed LEGO sets first appeared in 2001 and new sets last appeared in 2011. In case you’ve been living under a rock or maybe you’re like me and you’ve been through a move, Harry Potter is back in brick form, but there are some new things that haven’t been seen before.

First off are Brick Headz. I haven’t talked about this theme at all on the blog yet and this is my first step into the theme. I personally have not been impressed with the theme thus far. It appears as though LEGO has just taken all of its licenses and used this building method to sell more items that collectors might be interested in. You can collect from sub-themes like Disney Brick Headz or Marvel Super Hero Brick Heads or even try and get them all. These 5 are the first ones that I’ve build. They are 41621 Ron Weasley and Albus Dumbledore (245 pieces, $19.99 in the US), 41616 Hermione Granger (127 pieces, $9.99 in the US), and 41615 Harry Potter and Hedwig (180 pieces, $14.99 in the US). I did not get any of these on sale although Amazon.com had 41615 for 20% off recently (after I purchased it from LEGO Shop at Home for full price). My guess is there will be a Black Friday 2018 sale and then they will go on sale at Amazon.com or elsewhere towards the end of their shelf life similar to many of the other Brick Headz sets.

I am not going to go through the builds of these like I often do as they are all pretty similar. They all use some SNOT techniques to come up with similar designs. Other than some of the original or creative ones like the Valentine Bee (40270) or Easter Bunny (40271), these are all fairly similar. To be honest I’m rather disappointed and I don’t think I’ll be purchasing any more Brick Headz sets.

Is anyone else into Brick Headz? What do you like about them?

Part 2 is the Harry Potter Collectible Minifigure series (#71022) that came out in the US on 1 August 2018. They retailed for $3.99 each and there are 22 minifigures total in the set. The Collectible Minifigure series used to always have 16 each so it is interesting to see LEGO adjust the number in a series. I haven’t found anything on the reasoning yet.

Another difference in this series is in the break up of the minifigures. The movie “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” is supposed to come out in the US in November 2018 which is probably part of the reasoning for the return of Harry Potter in LEGO form. There are 6 minifigures from the Fantastic Beasts series of movies while the remaining 16 are from the original Harry Potter books/movies.

The first 16 I’ll discuss are from the Harry Potter books/movies.

I was trying to pick out which movie these are from, but it is a mix. For example, Luna Lovegood is introduced in “The Order of the Phoenix,” but Cedric Diggory is from “The Goblet of Fire.” Dobby the House Elf is introduced in “The Chamber of Secrets” and Professor Flitwick is first in “The Sorcerer’s Stone,” but his appearance like the minifigure isn’t until “The Chamber of Secrets” (thanks Google). So the minifigs are from a smattering of movies in the Harry Potter series.

The complete list of minifigures are (from front to back and left to right from my picture) Harry Potter with Hedwig, Professor Flitwick, Harry Potter with the invisibility cloak, Hermonie Granger with her cat named Crookshanks (another score for Google), Professor Albus Dumbledore, Cho Chang, Neville Longbottom, Cedric Diggory, Luna Lovegood, Professor Sybill Trelawney, Voldemort, Dean Thomas, Ron Weasley with Scabbers, Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody, Dobby, and Draco Malfoy. In my opinion, it’s a pretty decent set of minifigures across all of the movies. There are a few key ones missing, but I guess that opens it up for LEGO to do another set. Maybe include Professors Snape or McGonagall, Hagrid, some of the Weasley’s (Ginny), Beatrix Lestrange… the list could go on for a while. It will be interesting to see if LEGO does another series or not.

Next up, the Fantastic Beasts minifigs.

I have seen “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” only once and I have not read the book. There are 6 minifigs from this movie and besides Newt Scamander (center front in the picture, I am not familiar with them all. So from left to right, front to back, there are Percival Graves, Newt with his Knarl, Tina Goldstein, Jacob Kowalski, Queenie Goldstein, and Credence Barebone.

Overall, I think this is a good set of minifigs between the two movie themes. It gives a good variety of minifigures, the accessories that come with them are good, it adds some new characters/elements not seen before, and it does a decent job of capturing the likeness of the movie characters. If you are a Harry Potter/Wizarding World fan, I recommend getting these. If you’re a glutton for punishment and LEGO has sucked you into collecting all of the CMFs since series 10 (or earlier for some of you) like me then plop down your funds for 22 of these. Locally in Germany, I have not seen these out much. Either they sold fast or the retailers don’t have them. I had no issue getting them online and am looking forward to being able to sell my extras in the store once it re-opens in a few years.

I have a few reviews of the Harry Potter sets on the way so stay tuned.

Happy building!

Brick le France - with beaucoup de retired sets

If you’re an American AFOL, you’ve probably glanced at notices for new sets and have seen pricing in other countries listed. You’ve probably also seen AFOLs from around the world complaining about how sets are priced in their country as compared to US prices. As an American AFOL living in Germany, I figured I would take a look to see what I could learn.

Before I go into a specific example, I wanted to point out a difference in taxes. In the states, depending on where you are, you pay a sales tax. This tax is priced in after you make the purchase. So LEGO sets its retail price (or Walmart, or Amazon.com, etc.) and then you pay an additional percentage at checkout. In Europe, from what I’ve seen, the Value Added Tax or VAT is built into the price. Your receipt tells you how much the item actually was and what you paid in VAT. So keep that in mind for those Americans who forget the sometimes 8% to 10% sales tax that gets added onto purchases.

Back to my main point… I stopped at a Cora store in France a few weeks back. For those of you in the US who have never been, Cora is kind of like a Walmart only the one I went to was much nicer than a Walmart. While there, I of course had to check out the LEGO selection.

First off they had a lot of retired Collectible Minifigures, but not the current Harry Potter Collectible Minifigure series.

As you can see from the pictures, they had the Ninjago movie minifigures still on sale for €3.99 each. These were released back in August 2017 in the EU and apparently they still have them at retail price. Next you can see the Batman Movie Series 2 minifigures. These were released in the EU on 1 January 2018 and Cora had them for €3.50 which is less than the original retail of €3.99. Finally they had the Series 18 minifigures for €3.50. They were released back in April and again Cora had them for less than retail. I’m wondering if this is a trend in Europe or an anomaly. At Walmart or Target, usually collectible minifigures go fast so I was surprised to see so many options

Next up were a few City sets.

You can see #60104-1 - Airport Passenger Terminal - Retired in France in November 2017. Retail was €99.99, but selling for €94.99. Also #60051-1 - High-Speed Passenger Train - Retired in France in June 2018 and selling for €10 under retail. #60052-1 - Cargo Train is right next to it. It retired in June and they still have it selling at the original retail price. The last one I’ll mention is #60103-1 - Airport Air Show which retired in France back in January 2018. I have no idea on pricing from the picture I took because the label does not match the set. Anyways, interesting to see some retired sets still out there.

I didn’t go nuts taking pictures of all of them and I didn’t buy any either, but one that stood out was #75105-1 Millennium Falcon. It retired in France back in January 2018 and was done in the US back in November 2017. It was still at Cora and there were multiple copies. I know I have seen the price of that set going up on BrickLink.com and I may have been one of the sellers of those a few months back.

If any Americans are reading this, should I have bought some of the retired sets you can’t find in the states anymore? Even with the exchange rate of around $1.20 to the Euro, would it be worth it? What do you think?