The value of collectable minifigs

This list would be really different if it included all the series. Team GB figures would be high up there, as well as some Simpsions or even possibly Lego Movie ones. I'd like to see the full list, that would be very interesting.
I'm personally not surprised with the price of the nurse figure. She's been popular ever since her release and is still a figure many people desire.

"an average of 3 highest sold listings on Ebay" makes it a useless and biased statistic.

This is just not sound math/statistics. It's like Pawn Stars logic. Someone hops on eBay and sees a couple of high auctions and assumes that's the going rate. This is the type of speculative valuation that ends up screwing over collectors.

I agree with the above statements.

Did you know that people buy their own items (using another eBay account) at an inflated price so that when you search for an item and sort by price (highest first) their sale is at the top of the list?

This data is pretty much worthless.

Thanks Huw for posting this. I follow The LEGO Girl and love her enthusiasm. I appreciate all the effort and time that went into this summary and have a particular affinity for charts and graphs!

And anyone who deals with data (engineers, mathematicians etc) KNOWS, you have to understand the assumptions made when accumulating the data; that said, stats are not really useless as much as they reveal only a biased portion of the whole story.

One of my favorite sayings is that "Stats are like a bathing suit; they reveal a lot but hide the most important parts"!! Still find them terribly addictive! Would love to see her do the rest of the series!

I bought three zombies and the nurse for 10 NOK each back in the day. Dropped by the same toy shop the other day and realised I won't be getting that Lobster Lovin' Batman I wanted as they're now 45 NOK each... It's probably better value for money to buy the new asylum rather than army building Arkham jumpsuits with the Joker CMF.

I've got that nurse swilling around in a box somewhere. Bricklink...

They are worthless until someone buys one for those costs and I have never met a LEGO fan who would spend $40 on a nurse. or a minifigure in general, more so an unlicensed one.

Interesting article. I wouldn't be surprised if some of Disney Series 1 become very collectable.

@fuzzythoughts Anyone dealing with data will also know that there comes a point where if it's so limited it's just not worth using. The 3 most expensive eBay sales? That's the source? Don't waste my time.

I can think of loads more ways to make sure the data is more useful and here's one: take the ten most expensive completed sales, the ten cheapest completed sales and divide by 20 for a far more realistic average.

I stand by my claim that the information presented is useless.

Wow I got 2 bumblebee minifigs when they were out ,And now they seems quite valuable.

If you're thinking of making a quick buck, make sure to sell them for half of those prices.

Agree with everyone else here. Whlist I like the idea and the stats you just can't base the value on the 3 highest sold. If you're going to use such a small sample then you'd be better off using the 3 latest sold. You could at least argue that this would be the current market value.

I remember the first collectible minifigure my brother ever got was the nurse and him being quite annoyed as he wanted the robot. I'm not telling him how much it is as I don't want him to sell it :p

I must say that it was really interesting and fun to compile these charts. Before I started to look for real prices, I have chosen 3 candidates for the most expensive minifigs within each series by myself and then checked by real prices whether I had at least one correct guess. :-)Sometimes real numbers where more surprising for me (e.g. Nurse being the most expensive minifig of series 1), sometimes less (e.g. animal costume dressed minifigs being the most worthy ones).
It took me a while to create a dataset, because I didn´t simply copy the first three sold listings and made an average, but I have also checked older sold listings to make sure that the number I use makes sense. Of course, it does not change the fact that the graphs are based on the highest listings, but the same approach was applied to each of 160 minifigures. It is always important to understand what does the chart show. In this case, it shows the price calculated based on the highest listings. I believe that if I had used e.g. average of 10 highest listings or 10 recent listings, the order of the minifigs would be more or less the same. However, the nominal price would change because the charts would show a bit different story.

Ha ha... I'm RICH!!! I got the complete set!!! Not that i'm selling though.

@CCC . Ups, you're right. Thank you very much for pointing out ! Will change the picture in the series 6 graph asap.

I appreciate your efforts MyLEGOTalk and enjoyed browsing this data as well as your 2016 Brick Market Report. I look forward to future reports and endeavors!

I find it a little obvious that the most expensive is the nurse due to the lack of medical personal in the general Lego sets (how many medical droids, doctors or medical caretakers have you seen in all Lego sets?). Our civilian population is suffering a medical crisis and it would seem that Nurse Harley Queen will have to report to the medical area as well as Mantis and the discounted Doctor from The Lego Movie sets.

Why is the nurse so sought after? I assumed maybe she was holding a 2x2 trans blue tile with x-ray on it. No reason not to regret passing on her in 2010!

Interesting article and a good start, but I agree that methodology is severally flawed. For all their faults in their methodology, Brickpicker's data would give much better, more accurate and clearer data for more relevant period of time. And you can use Bricklink's 6 month history as well. For example a very quick search on Bricklink shows the Bumblebee Girl as 1, and the Nurse at 2 and the Bunny Suit guy as 3. I don't think the overall results in terms of ranks will change that much, but numbers should be a more accurate reflection of what people are paying.

@The Green Brick Giant
I agree with you, but Bricklink's 6 month history tells an expensive tail about the Nurse.

I remember seeing a similar chart a year ago or so and the stats were similar. The Nurse continues to be a popular one. Although I'm kicking myself because I gave away a Bunny Suit assuming I had a second... which I did not. :(

I remember buying that nurse 5ish years ago for my mother in law after she graduated nursing school. It was around $8-10 at the time and I balked at that price. There is nothing special about it, other than it being a traditional nurse. But people have paid higher prices for sillier things I guess. Also people don't always think when they buy things, especially if trying to complete a collection.

I am glad I have a small army of bumblebee girls though, completely unaware of the price of them. Now the debate, to open or not to open?

If you're going to criticize someone's data analysis, you probably shouldn't use hyperbole.

Who is it that pays these fantasy prices for Lego? Low supply, high demand apparently. Lots of new Lego sets are released all the time. You get much, much more bang for the buck out of those -- and clean bricks.

I like the race car driver (I have three) but I am a huge car nerd and am always looking for new drivers to populate my moc race tracks and racing-themed models and I really like his printed helmet and his hair is useful for spectators

Two small errors:
*Series 3+ started to be 2.99 each (whereas those charts continue to list them for 1.99 each).
*One of the Roman soldier images is incorrect.

I think certain ones trend high in part because of the desirability of what they represent to someone in that career etc. Nurse, Graduate, etc. they have a certain market outside of dedicated LEGO types. Some of the others baffle me? I mean Bee Girl? It's a cute figure, but I can't really see a driving demand there?

Like beast76, I have all the Collectable Minifigures so far since Series 1, including the zombie skateboarder that came in a book and the toy soldier from another book. No Mr Gold though... Obviously.

Even if the prices are a little high, it's interesting to see the general trends and what's most popular. I would've thought the Spartan would be most sought after but apparently not.

@MyLEGOTalk loved your stats and the market report. As a financial journalist myself, it is great fun to read something about LEGO in my usual lingo.

As for the criticism, well, use it to your benefit, improving your data sourcing and fine tuning your methodology - never let it hold you back!

In the end, these statistics you've provided might not be based on the ultimate data, but are sound in method and results in a picture that is interesting, to say the least. You just might want to choose a different set of lenses to make it even better. Cheers!

I don't understand why people like the nurse so much; she's almost the same as the minifigures available in the regular City sets. Same with Space Guy, assuming he means the series 1 astronaut.

This is an interesting topic but I really dont think using the 3 highest sold listings on Ebay is helpful. Can someone tell me how to sort Bricklink series minfig sets by the 6 month history average price ? That would be more relevant.

Someone once told me that nurses will by nurse themed ANYTHING. A guy I knew had a physical shop with a very high price on one. A nurse was in with her kid. as soon as she saw it, she bought it and didn't bat an eye at the price. This was several years ago, though. But that is the answer. nurses love nurse themed ANYTHING.

I wish the values were calculated by taking the last 10 auctions (or at least 7) and throwing out the highest and lowest prices. Then the average wouldn't reflect a couple crazy high bids as much.

This analysis is perfectly useful for gaining some understanding for the high end of the market for the minifigs in series 1-10. I am interested in the low end of the market also, and really any other descriptive statistics for LEGO. Thanks for posting it.

I wonder if the prices are for "sealed" or "opened" CMFs?

It true, i have just sold two nurse for 60 eur on ebay. Firstly, when I started buying minifigures idea was to collect some characters didnt have for my town. So I never bought all colection, just a few interesting. And secondly, when I saw crazy prices on secondary market I decided to offer them in order to finance purchases of bricks for my MOCs. Eg. with one minifigure I both regulary for 3-4 eur after a few years i can buy bulk of bricks:)

ps. I admire people who pay 20, 30 or more for figure

If the article is going to be broad and say minifigs then it needs to cover ALL minifigs. Speaking as someone that collects mostly Star Wars sets I challenge someone to find a Boba Fett or Lando, well any minifigs, from set 10123 for anywhere close to the $40 high end price this article says.

Most of the time on eBay I see any one of these minifigs going for over $100 easy let alone Lando or Boba which are upwards of $200-$250

@baldeaglekjc, the article states 'collectable minifigures', with which they mean the theme of that name. Nowhere does it say that they mean all minifigs.