How much would you pay for Lester?

Well, I think it's more of a money grab. 1500! I know there are only a couple of 100 and that makes it super rare. I think they're only going to get more expensive as more people start posting their Lester to online shops.

I can't believe people would pay that much for a mini figure- I really didn't expect it to have any bids!

Fair do. If idiots are prepared to pay stupid money like that then who can blame someone for selling at that price?

Of course, it might just give TLG some ideas of their own for set pricing....

Well... I wouldn't call it money grabbing if people are actually bidding upwards of 1500 for it. That's their prerogative. 3500 BIN is a bit hefty though :)

That price is totally understandable given the prices of previous limited edition Minifigures such as Mr Gold (Limited to 5,000) whereas this Lester Minifigure is limited to 275. What is a shame is people don't want to hold onto it for memories, I would've held on to one even if I was missing out on that type of cash.

It was a great marketing decision from LEGO as it encourages people to get to the store opening weekend, it's clearly working as I see LEGO trending everywhere! They tried making it 'fair' for consumers but it clearly backfired. I would hope they re-release it as a ploybag for sale exclusively at the store. They hand no problem selling the London Buses for £9.99, I wouldn't be surprised if they sold it in 2017 for £4.99 so everyone can own one.

Imho, the vendors are providing a valuable service. TLG takes full responsibility.

It's just unfair to make so much publicity for a figure customers just won't get in the end. It's SO ridiculous to pretend they couldn't make more (e.g.: they were very well able to make a nice packaging with the number of made Lesters), I don't want to spill words on it.

This situation is different to Comic Cons figures imho. In the first place, there is much less publicity worldwide about the figure. In the second place, there are much more people who are interested in a mascot of one the most important countries in the whole world. So many more fans, but so less figures.

You have to consider too the figure costs maybe half a € to make. The legs are plain, the head and torso just need a printing like TLG make probably millions from and just the hat needed a new mold. But even the new mold, in the minifigures series, some figures need a few different new molds and TLG sells them 2 € in France (excl. VAT) and manages to make money (otherwise they wouldn't do it).

And like I read on the internet, TLG does an interesting lottery. Normally you pay a little amount for a little chance to win something objectively big (millions of pounds for example).

By TLG, that's too easy. You need to pay a lot (at least 55 GBP; 54,99 GBP isn't enough, so it will probably be at least around 60 GBP & if you buy a set of 275 GBP, you won't get any more "tickets" than one. That's very annoying too) for a little chance to win a little thing. The parrot is ridiculous, I don't want to spill words on that either.

I'm very sorry to say it, especially because it is quite harsh, but TLG just p***ed me off.

I was lucky enough to get one, I don't plan on selling it but if I did how would it be money grabbing? People pay what they are will to pay, I've personally paid well over the odds for old retired sets and bought loads of things from bricklink is this money gabbing too? Don't get me wrong I think the whole thing was done badly and its crazy that I could buy all the things on my retired wish for the price of one minifig. Also I would take the prices with a pinch of salt as there are a lot of unhappy people and could be a lot of fake bids.

I can see Lester being available as a key chain by next year. Then I'll pick him up.

The low number of Lesters is a real shame. As exciting as it would be to win one, their scarcity also ruins part of the excitement - being able to open and play with an exclusive minifigure. If I won one of these, it would be very hard to ever justify opening it. In the same way, I have all the modular houses boxed until I have to space to build and display them with my daughter. I actually don't like them appreciating in value because it will become harder and harder to justify opening them when the time comes (but I will). It's a real shame they didn't make the Lesters limited to the London store but in copious amounts. Then you'd still benefit from getting a "rare" exciting figure, and people unable to get to the store could pick them up for £10 or £20 quid on eBay. So everyone coukd share in the excitement of getting a premium, but obtainable, minifigure. I'd originally been looking forward to buying a bunch so I could send some to friends I have in the US. I guess that won't be happening now.

It's frustrating that there are figures I will never be able to get, but if people are stupid enough to pay that sort of money then let them.

One problem is that TLG rarely acknowledge this as an issue and seem to want to do nothing about it.

Another, though, is how do you reward or incentivise the collectors or fans that want something a bit special?

I don't have an answer, so for the moment... let those that want to pay £3500 for lester pay it and let the rest of us quietly get frustrated how it's a) not fair that they don't have one and b) wish that had enough disposable income that they could buy it!

This is just ridiculous. TLG should have made more that just 275. Surely that would be considered uneconomical in terms of production. If they want to retain fans they should have at least made at least 5000 and sold them in the shop for £10 and made them 1 per person.

they should dissect people that sell those figures,... those people are in it for the money and not for the love of lego !!

I was happy to get one, I did spend 550+ pounds before getting one. Im happy I did seeing these prices.

It isn't "How much WOULD you pay for a Lester?"
It's more like "How much COULD you pay for a Lester?"
This price keeps going up & up!

I'd like to see the seller's faces if Lego decides to introduce Lester as a permanent sale item in the shop!

Money grabbing, especially if you entered with the aim of getting one to sell on.

The sad thing is that now none of them will get played with. Any kid who has one will find their parents are selling it instead. So they all end up hoarded by collectors. What's the point in Lego that doesn't even get opened?

That said, for £1,500 I'd do the same in a heartbeat!

just sheer greed, its a shame that the real collectors amongst us never got the chance to try to win one, but its indicative of yet another poorly thought out give away ..

Everything is worth the same price, 'whatever someone is willing to pay for it'.

While I think Lester is cool and would have liked one, had I got one I'd certainly prefer having the £1500 than the minifig sat on my shelf.

If people want to pay silly money for them then so be it.

@allstyles, getting a Lester was pure luck, so nobody with one was 'in it' for anything.

A bit disappointed. I just arrived in London and I did not know Lester was only given away at the opening...

@TheBeerThief, I was thinking the same thing about TLG making Lester available permanently. I don't begrudge people who sell and buy this minifigure for silly money, that's up to them. But I do wonder if it's a good investment. I heard that TLG only made 275 because that's all the black bowler hats they had, but they could produce more and probably will if they see an opportunity to sell Lesters in stores across the UK. If they do, the Lesters issued for the grand opening will plummet in value on the secondary market.

@allstyles
Well, the chap who listed it for £3500 is on the forum. He said he listed it on the off-chance someone would pay it so he could buy the 10179 Millennium Falcon. So does he love Lego or not? I'd say yes.

Although I think the ones guilty of pushing the price up are the ones who are mad enough to pay £3500 for a retire set ;-)

If I won a Lester, I don't think I'd sell it. But I might happily trade it with someone who had something valuable that I wanted.

If Lester was widely available from the store, I wouldn't pay more than £5 for it without feeling ripped off; I'd pay a wee bit more if I couldn't travel to the store and had to buy it from eBay.

Hi SiX from Belgium (or for anyone else who can help)

Am planning to visit tomorrow

Can I say buy a few sets - each worth over £55 and pay separately so I can get a scratch card each time?

Or would I need to keep re queuing?

Just really want to get as many scratch cards as possible

Thanks

In a few months this figure will be almost forgotten by most collectors and the next craze is going on. Problem with these "collectors" Items is: They are no collectors items. They are just small production runs. Lester is not worth this amount of money. I am not even sure, if he is worth the average 2.99 € since he is lacking accessories. :D And I wouldn't be surprised, if Lego churns out some hundretthousands of them in the next years, available at british lego stores for small money.

My question is, are there any Lesters left!? Or were they all won yesterday? I was thinking of making a trip on the Sunday but may not do if there is 0 chance of getting a Lester from the scratchcard.

I can totally understand these being sold if there are those that are prepared to pay for the privilege.

It would have been nice if there was 2 versions of the figure though.
An exclusive numbered (exclusive accessory/printed) version to win and the generic version available to buy as a poly-bag.

At least that way, those that went for the experience and a memento of the day would have the opportunity to own the figure if they didn't win the exclusive.

Ridiculous. Why LEGO doesn't just have this as a permanent instore item is beyond me. I'd imagine they'd sell millions giving the number of tourists in London.

I don't know what I would pay for a figure (not that much) or what I would accept for one (depends how broke I was!)

I am heartened by one commenter in the forum who was there yesterday and seemed to get the impression that Lester will be back again in some other form next year. I can actually believe that the bowler hat mould was out of production and they didn't have enough spares currently to offer more figures, but you'd think someone would have thought of that back when they designed Lester!
I think a Lester polybag would probably be a good offering, also including the folded up umbrella piece that is coming out with the TLBM Penguin figure. I hope he's not just a keychain as I would prefer a minifig that I could include in amongst my modular street!

@adman,... i get it, but i am suprised that people that really want it are getting ripped off by people that do not have any interest in them except selling them for way too much money,,,...
( but thats how it works nowadays anyway,... :( )

(and in a few weeks/months they will be in stock at that Lego store,,.. i am hoping this for the people that want it.)

Will the world stop turning if you don't own a Lester Minifigure.... surely there are more important things in life?!

@meesajarjar72, To paraphrase Bill Shankly but with tongue firmly in cheek: Some people believe LEGO is a matter of life and death. I'm very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.

Honestly, I am shaking my head at the whole situation. I mean, think about it. Those buyers are paying more than what many people earn in a month - on ONE little plastic minifigure. No matter how rare it may be, it's still just a little plastic figure. Not a diamond ring or Rolex watch. At least the latter is a masterpiece of engineering. Still overpriced of course, but in relation to a small plastic Lego minifig still something completely different.
Sometimes you have to take a step back and look at what you do with a little perspective. When you do that, there is no way anyone can not find it crazy to spent such a silly amount of money on something with this little real world value.

But to each their own.

No more than a fiver. And the answer to your final question is, without doubt, that they are money-grabbing, scalping scumbags. And anyone who pays that much for one minifigure is off their head.

I've got a sneaking suspicion that Lego will make more Lesters available at some point. Fair play to the current sellers; more fool those willing to shell out more than £1,500.

Standing in line at the store. Queue is modest

£3.99, because that's all he's worth. Flamin' scalpers trying to hike up the prices again!

Buyers will dictate the market value, and these as an exclusive run will hold some value, maybe not the £3.5k the brickset member has listed his for (which to me is a crazy I don't want to sell it price, but if someone is willing to then ok).
As a collector I would pay for it, circa £500. But no more.. And if the market value keeps well above that figure then I can live without owning one.

The crazy thing is the packaging is in no way sealed, so someone could take Lester out, put in one of the £16 knock offs on ebay and the buyer would probably not know..

$15 max. You could make a decent looking custom from some Mystery Minifigure pieces.

I don't know all my minifig face printings but if the face isn't unique then really you're paying that can kind of money for only the unique torso printing.

If I had one and saw those prices, I would sell it without hesitating a second! And from the money I earned this way, I would buy all the sets on my wanted-list! But sadly I dont have one to sell...

Its clearly the buyers decision, if they WANT TO PAY a ton of money on such items (also a 10179 or Mister Gold etc.)! Noone really needs them.
It would only become a whole different story, if someone or a syndicate would dictate unbearable or unrealistic prices for (everyday) necessities of people!

@AustinPowers & SigmundBjorn, It really depends on how wealthy you are whether paying that much is mad or not. If you or those around you suffer or risk privation, then yes, it's highly irresponsible. But if you're so well off that that amount of money means nothing to you, then it's perfectly rational. When I was in the queue for the tills at the Leicester Square store yesterday, I could see others who were spending hundreds of pounds. From the perspective of someone who is so indigent on the streets of India that they are literally starving (people I've seen first hand), spending that much on toys would seem completely insane. It's all a matter of perspective.

I was at the pre-opening AFOL event, and didn't get a Lester. But if I had, and it was worth say £100 I would keep as a memento. But if it truly can be sold for more than a grand, I would put mine on ebay too. Many non Lego things are possible for that kind of money. However I would much prefer that TLG made the figure available for all comers and not go down (again) the tiny limited edition route.

I get the desire for rare minifigures, but in the end it's a fairly plain minifigure with the union jack printed on it. Someone's going to have a bad case of buyer's remorse once they realize that they just blew thousands of dollars on a piece of plastic with different printing then other pieces of plastic. Oh well, I suppose if they want to, who's to tell them their business?

I honestly feel that the people that are selling these are doing a service...yes, the price is ridiculously high, but it is up to the consumer whether they want to spend the money. Would I like one of these mini figures? Sure, but will I buy one at these prices? No...and that's my choice.

In the past I use to go to SDCC and every year I would try to get the exclusive mini figures. Now that I have kids I don't go to the convention. I am very thankful that people sell the SDCC mini figures. The same goes for all those Store Grand Opening sets. I can't go to every store Grand Opening around the world. If someone sells them, it gives me a chance to buy something that I wouldn't otherwise be able to get. I wish they were cheaper, but ultimately it's my decision on whether I want to spend the money to buy them at an inflated price.

I think it's easy to point the finger and blame someone else for us not being able to get something that we like, but ultimately we can get it...if we choose to buy it...because there are people out there making it available to those of us who cannot get him.

The overheads for just making 275 are about the same as for making 275 million.
TLG are crazy for not splitting the cost over a larger production run.
They are also clever for the marketing strategy.

It may be too clever, because now we are beginning to accept just how badly they rip off the true fans for the sake of marketing?
Maybe now there will be a Legoff backlash against TLG, like the Brexit backlash and the Trump backlash?

I think someone at Lego has made an epic blunder. Lester is now the mascotte for the store and he's a great character. But because they have now released him as an extremely limited set they now have a problem:
- They can't simply produce the exact same figure again because they'd get sued for falsely advertising a limited edition figure.
- They can't produce a slightly different figure because this guy is the mascotte in all the branding and advertising.
Be interesting to see what they're going to do about this.
I would happily pay a tenner for this particular minifig because I was there at the pre-opening but I won't pay silly money.

I was at the store opening yesterday, I spent a lot of money getting there and in the store, I didn't get a Lester and whilst I think it's a cool minifigure that would have been a nice memento of the store opening, as a minifigure it isn't actually that special and would have preferred one of the London London themed creator expert sets as a prize. I am probably a bit old fashioned but for me Lego is more about the system of play rather than the minifigures. Although I do strongly believe that all those who visit the store and want a lester should be able to leave with one for no more than the cost of a CMF. Elements of Lego's current marketing direction seem at odds with the brand and company values.

stupid move by TLG imho. At times when i applaud TLG for being sustainable, child friendly, and supporting all the noble causes like stop advert on TheDailyMail to stop hate etc. This over exclusive crap is despicable. TLG need to be reminded that they are a toy company to spread JOY. yes there are idiotic scalpers out there, but why must TLG feed them more?

I vote for greedy money grubbers, but LEGO should really know better. They don't live in a bubble and can't claim that they are unaware of where these ultra-exclusives end up going.

I was lucky enough to procure some the Comic Con figures. I got the Green Lantern from 2011 and Phoenix, Black suit Spiderman, Shazam, and Bizarro. However, I never once thought of selling them, ever. I have transformed them into family heirlooms haha. I'll never understand why people would pay thousands of dollars for one minifigure.

Well Lego has created this situation. Not everyone could make the opening and try to get this limited Minifigure. So if someone has something to sell that someone else wants and is willing to pay for it then fair doo's.

I personally think that it was a marketing blooper by Lego. I can't see it being something to attract people through the door, as I don't think they had to worry about numbers turning up. A Duq states, 'Lester' is the marketing figure for this store so should have been available to all IMO, either in the first few days as a free poly when buying 55 pounds plus of goods and on sale for say 5 pounds. This would be a momento for many coming into what is a Flagship store to get something unique as a reminder of their visit.

I think the idea of the limited number being down to the amount of bowler hats being available is very reasonable as the hat is no longer available at Bricks and Pieces and the hat was with the Collectable minigifure 8833-8 Businessman which was way back in 2012 so its likely the mold has been retired.

So this makes me think it was a late idea to create an 'Lester' Minigiure for give away not realising there is not many hats available.

I know wonder what the 3 figures will be in the Official store opening minifig pack give away as I would have thought a copy of the Business man would have been almost guaranteed as it is the quintessential London iconic image!

I'll laugh my ass of when LEGO releases this minifigure in a month for free with any purchase.

I have a Bionicle head from the special opening of the 5th Ave store in NYC. Mine was like 92 out of 100. But they gave away thousands and thousands more at Comic Con that just had a different insert.

$5 max, anything else is money down the drain. :P

I can't say that I'm not the sort of person who has fulled this situation. I collect Superheroes figures and have spent £100s on Comic-Con exclusives, but never more than £200 on a single figure, (which for some people is probably already £199 more than they'd ever spend on a single figure). I like knowing I own something a bit more special than a standard set.

I'm a collector and they are collectors items, but is there seriously market for these? I guess its just what you're in to. One of the earlier comments noted they thought there would be far more people interested in a Lego specific mascot for London than a Comic figure, but I would think it would be the other way round? If you asked anyone who Spider-man was they would likely be able to answer, but Lester? That said, I had been lurking on eBay yesterday hoping someone would put one up for £20 not knowing the 'real' worth of it.

To me £200 doesn't seem too bad, i liken it to people buying a designer bag or shoes, when really a £10-20 equivalent does the job, its nice to have something nice, but £1,000+!? to me that's just silly money and surely no one looking to buy for an investment will realise a return on that? Then again.....?

was so distraught i ended up buying a sealed chrome gold c-3po instead... haha.. not sure which is worse to be honest...

I can see a lot of bitter jealousy in this thread, if you didn't win one then tough! Last night there were a few people (not realising its true value) selling them for cash at the end of the long queue out of sight from the staff. I snagged one for £75 which is my best purchase of the year so far!

Beware of the 21034 London Skyline as it's way over priced at £44.99 and will be fully released in the New Year.

LEGO does this thing more often than people on here seem to realize. So it goes, relax. I would expect another version of Lester in the future. But this one will still be super-valuable.

If it was SDCC or an exclusive Star Wars mini figure I would understand, but for this?

I was lucky enough to 'win' a Lester minifig but after spending 3 hours in the queue I feel I earned it. I have no plans on selling it. But if someone gives me 5k I'll think about it ??

In short: "No comment."

This is not really scalping, as they were given away for free to those lucky enough to win one. They can sell them for as much as they want. Nobody missed out on the chance to actually buy one in-store.

Bad scalping occurs when people (usually a-holes) buy bulk quantities of a scarce hot ticket item such as Nintendo's Mini NES Classic which came out last week and go flipping them on eBay for 5-10x the price, in doing-so depriving a large number of genuine buyers the chance to get one for themselves for Christmas at retail pricing. Those scalpers can go to hell.

At 7pm yesterday 190 of the 275 were gone according to the staff behind the counter. So I'd expect them all to be long gone by now.

I wish LEGO would make regional exclusive mini figures like Lester but sell them continuously throughout the year. This would give LEGO fans a reason to visit the local LEGO store wherever they go on holiday. I was in Hawaii in the Summer and really hoped to buy a Hawaiian-themed mini figure or keychain or anything like that. They had nothing. The manager told me he had asked LEGO to provide their stores with something Hawaii-related but there was nothing available. I know NYC does have a couple of NYC-related items. I wish they would add more in other countries and Lester seems like a perfect example.

they are greedy *******s

@ cucumber 12:45 why not go one step further and fake the packaging too? Are we about to see not 275 but 275,000 Lesters on e-bay in the run-up to Christmas?

The big danger is that this artificial scarcity makes it easier for conmen to rip off desperate fans in the short run.

Thankfully, as Huw (11:50) and LostInTranslation (11:12) imply, there will be lots of Lesters - or at least Lester parts - available in the upcoming years. Who here hasn't come across a once-rare CMF part popping up in recent sets or Build-a-minifig bins?

PS: has Tim Brooke-Taylor been approached for comment?

I think it's sad that folk are so quick to get rid of something unique. I dare say the ones that end up on eBay are from those that went to the store with the sole intention of getting hold of the minifig to sell it on. No doubt the auction price of one will probably end up being close to the BIN price of the other. However, hose that list as an auction are prepared to sell at what someone is prepared to pay whereas a ridiculous BIN price is somewhat unscrupulous.

^^ Just a note, I'm not "implying" anything. I have no insider info. Just going by something I saw in the forum and what I hope will happen.

Well they could one day bring out more Lester's, even though this was meant to be an exclusive.
Its happened before with 'Exclusives. I was on the Inside Tour in 2014 and you are given an exclusive set for the tour that year, yes limited edition they said for that tour only. That year it was the train. Then what do Lego do, they give them to exhibitors at the Lego Fan weekend in Denmark and LEGOLAND Florida ambassador pass holders that same year, so what does exclusive really mean to them? So, never say never. Lester could re-appear!

A boring yellow figure? $0,00.

I believe Lego has been using stategies to discourage high prices on the secondary market for the past couple of years. They have re-released sets that had a high price or that speculators assumed would gain a lot of value, Winter village, Death Star. Several other sets have been for sale longer than expected, Pet Shop, Tower Bridge. The comic-con exclusives have seemed a bit less exclusive, Batgirl, Supergirl, Green Arrow. Certain Collectable Minifigs have returned, lowering the resale price of the originals. Also there are Lot's of rehashes throughout every theme, making it less desirable to go back and buy the original ones. This Minifigure may be another way to show collectors that they should not be paying high prices on the secondary market, as it would be a harsh lesson to anyone who pays thousands for it if it becomes widely available for just a few dollars/pounds. It would be a lesson that all fans of Lego would pay attention to and make most pause at paying high prices for rare items that may not be so rare in the future.
Of course I have no proof that Lego is trying to disrupt the secondary market. I'm just basing this on observations. These observations have led me to not to panic over sets or minifigs I was not able to buy, because I know that there will always be something else coming up that will be bigger or better or both.
Also as my Mom never tired of telling me, LIFE ISN'T FAIR! Never has been, probably never will be. If you don't worry about what you haven't got and be happy with what you do have, your life (and the lives of everyone around you) will be far more pleasant.

They are still there, 2 were just won whilst I was there

Anyone buying this is either in too deep or has money to burn. We're all collectors here, we all understand the compulsion, but the only people buying this either don't need to care or can't control themselves.

I think Minifigs.me are going to get a lot of Lester orders :)

It is ridiculous.

10 listed on eBay now

One lot is at £1750, with 19 mins left, on eBay. Total madness.

Does anybody know what the probability of winning Lester was vs getting the parrot? 10/90? And to get a lottery ticket, you had to spend how much? £100?

^ like the comic con figures, it's not even guaranteed if you were at the specific location though. There were around a hundred of us at the pre opening event, all got scratchcards. By my estimate fewer than ten people won a Lester, perhaps as few as five.

I was also fortunate enough to win the figure, but I'm keeping mine also.
I showed the staff at Westfield London afterwards, who were very excited to see it.
I'll be back in London on the 7th Dec. Not sure if I'll pop to Leics Sq or Stratford yet.

I hope this is a similar scenario to the Azog minifigure given away at SDCC, i.e. Lester minifigure goes into production and folk have simply paid over £1K for the unique packaging :-D

I like my collectibles like anyone else but this Lester minifig along with the way in which the Star Wars Space Slugs were given way earlier in the year rank highest on my my list of $h!t Lego promotions.

I'll come clean and admit to being the evil doer selling my LESTER for £3500! I don't particularly want to sell it but find it difficult to rationalize my keeping it if I can get that much money for it. I love and collect large amounts of LEGO and there are lots of sets that I would love to buy and build, the 10179 "Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon" being the most expensive of which. Would I trade my LESTER for a sealed Falcon, yes in a heartbeat!

Do I think this aftermarket will hurt LEGO? No, this store is in the heart of one of the most expensive cities in the world. Publicity about freebies selling for thousands of pounds can only generate interest in what is a relatively cheap product in London's heartland.

I went down to the opening for the sole purpose of acquiring a free LEGO Store which I got! :) I find it sadder that the store only stocked 3500 of those which where gone in the first half day when they were supposed to be available for the whole of the opening weekend. You will notice, if you look at my eBay sale that I'm not including that with the LESTER bundle! That is the real memento for me which I will likely open and display somewhere.

I can't blame people for selling Lester, or doing so at the high prices people are evidently willing to pay. If I'd gone there and got him, I'd have done the same. He's a nice wee figure, but not so nice that I'd put him into my town if someone out there might pay £1500+ for him. In my personal economy, that would be silly of me. For other people, he's a much more appealing figure, or they don't have an instant plan for what they'd do with thousands of pounds if they sold him, so it makes sense that they hang onto him. That doesn't mean one sort of fan is better than the other.

Mostly I just think it's a missed opportunity on TLG's part. Obviously people really want to be able to buy small, location-specific souvenirs when they visit new Lego stores, so it would make a lot of sense if there was a Lester minifig or keyring in another design in the future. If they made a collectable line of minifigs for all the different locations of store (even just by country if not by city), that would be even nicer. Re: @Duq's comment, I don't think the fact Lester's been marketed as a limited edition is a big problem - it's hard to believe people are going to sue TLG (which has deeper pockets than any of us, I think) if there's more made. And just make a small difference in the design and it'll not matter that this version of Lester has appeared in all the promotions - I'm pretty sure Disney have managed to produce Mickey Mouse promo artwork and toys in many different outfits without it hurting their branding.

I think most of you are looking at this in a lot of wrong ways. I can't see LEGO ever coming out with this figure again. They might do a different version but not the exact same figure. This was a small run and as someone stated earlier, it's not economical for LEGO to print small runs. So why not just print a bunch? Well my guess would be that LEGO didn't print these. I bet if you feel the figure it's a digital print over a pad print. Which would mean someone outside of LEGO was licensed to make them (which has been done before with some small run minifigs) This same version won't show back up in a set but LEGO may decide to come out with a different version later (which they have done before with both Max minifigure versions)

On top of that buying a Lester is no different than collecting anything else. Anyone that has bought, traded, or sold any retired sets or minifigures is no different than someone buying, selling, or trading a Lestser minifigure. Hardly anything we buy is actually "worth" the money and if anyone truly disagrees, then they should stop buying LEGO all together. I'm not mad at LEGO but I'm mad that a lot of you are acting like little babies.

This figure no doubt will hold its value. Mr. Gold has gone up in value and there were 5k produced. There are more than 275 serious minifiure collectors out there that want this figure. If you want it then shell out the money, if not then quit complaining. It's not the first LEGO set or minifigure that some of us will never get.

Sales of LESTER (with various odd freebies) on eBay so far include:
- no 248 for undisclosed offer < £2500
- no 170 for £2000
- no 247 for £1810
- no 254 for £2057.50
- no 93 for £1750
There are lots more sales pending, 5 or which are already well above £1000.

It's interesting to note that if all these minifigs sell for £2K then LEGO gave away £550,000 (275 * £2000). This is on a par with the total sales that included a free LEGO store, upward of £437,500 (3500 * £125). And I suspect their sales dropped sharply once people realized there were no more LEGO store sets!