Awesome! That's an amazing price. I hope I find them at my local B&N!

Anyone know of their availability from B&N online?

One store near me said they were only getting in 8 of them, AND they are not sure when, so I'm not holding out hope I'm getting these in store, unless I get extremely lucky one day.

I just think with, what appears to me, to be a small amount being provided to B&Ns stores, given how many TRU must have commissioned LEGO to make for their stores before closing, that other stores (or LEGO itself) will have them available. Not sure if it will be at a price like 7.99 though.

$7.99 USD for 4 licensed minifigures seems incorrect. Are you sure it isn't meant to be $17.99? I've been calling my local store every week since mid-september to see if they knew anything, but so far, nothing.

I'm in WESTMINSTER,COLORADO and I ORDERED 5 ON TUESDAY,9TH,IN THE MORNING AND I PAID $7.11 EACH AND A TOTAL OF $34.75 AND GOT THEM ON SATURDAY 13TH. SO NOT $17.99 IT'S $7.99 EACH. AND you can not get them on online ONLY IN store or call your local Barnes and Noble.

8 bucks for those?? Thats a laughing stock, LEGO! First we (in Europe) could not buy them separately.. and even then they were quoted to be priced like 15 EUR (cca 2x that much than in US)

Whelp, the only store I found in the greater Denver area that even knew what I was talking about was the Westminster store, but they only knew that they had them coming in, not when, and I wasn't able to order any for myself.

There seems to be some confusion here. They may ring up $7.11 or $7.99 but there's no way that's the correct retail. Just like the Kessel Mine Workers were ringing up for a buck and change. B&N is clueless in this whole thing, no idea where they are, what stores are getting them or when. Some stores let you special order them, some don't.

Sigh.....

This is great

sounds like you better get them fast before the resellers. available on LEGO.com too?

My local b&n in Cape Girardeau, MO said they had already gotten them in last month & sold out of them. Maybe I’ll check with them today.

I earned 10 bucks two days ago so might try to get this!

Oh my...8 bucks?!?!?! Thats like the cost of TWO miniatures and here are FOUR

just fyi... dont say word promotion.. was 7.99 on their computer but none in stock or warehouse ... for the polybags was not able to get, they said promotion item its not sale spend so much...

14.99 € In Germany normally will be the same in France

So I heard that Toys R Us was able to make enough money in their going out of business sale to reopen in the US, so does this mean the rest of the Bricktober packs will show up here?

I don't like Harry Potter, but that is an amazing deal!

@IJS07 it’s not that simple. Only some stores they deem were profitable might reopen, and I’m guessing it’ll involve a lot of nasty negotiations with all the vendors that didn’t get paid...it’s not that easy to regain trust. I doubt it’ll happen soon if it even happens at all.

I have 2 stores nearby. One is sold out and has been since Friday and the other can't find it in the system. Sigh. I hope that the lego store will treat it as a shared exclusive...otherwise what was the point? There were more Toys'R'Us' than Barnes and Noble so the 8 per store couldn't be a limited stock thing. Also Target had Harry Potter sets as a temporary exclusive and they only had a handful of sets per store as well. Here's hoping that this was a similar situation to gauge the 'public interest' before dropping the Bricktober sets on their own site.

Checked mine, northern CA, and they said there’s a Harry Potter event happening on the 17th of next month. No details of what’s to happen at the event, but they’ll k ow more on the first. Fingers crossed that’s when..if not sooner.

May have to be a pest & check in with them every week.

Wow Lego really couldn’t have handled this any worse. If, by most accounts, they were able to redeploy stock at their own choosing, I can’t understand why they didn’t keep this as a LEGO.com gift with purchase. They could have put a minimum purchase of £75/$100 and still sold out in no time, while making a tidy profit for themselves.

Ultimately, the people who will benefit the most are the scalpers able to get their hands on sets by intercepting supply chains, then selling on at a 400% mark-up.

Here in Japan you get one of those box for free if you spend over $70 purchasing any LEGO product at Toys R Us. In Japan they still running well apparently...
I've got the Ninjago and Harry Potter ones, now I'm looking forward to the Jurassic World and Marvel Heroes boxes.

Mostly same here, but in Taiwan ToyRUs our minimum purchase is USD$75. Not too interested in this selection, tho.

Local stores didn't even get any Kessel Mine workers. Called about these and they had no clue what I was talking about. Ugh...

You are raging about 8 vs 18 $ price. While in Middle-Central Europe, where are no toysrus markets, we have to pay at least 40$ to get one via bricklink (plus shipment fee).

Let's see:
7.99 USD in the US, which is about 6.99 Euro
14.99 Euro in Germany, which is about 17 USD

Will I let me get ripped off for these figures versus the US customers?

Erm, ... no?

Go f*** yourself TLG.

**Sorry for the explitive, but this is how I feel towards TLG ever more in recent times, and it is also why I am at the risk of becoming a permanent Lepin customer, in itself a horrid vision, but I am just not going to put up with TLG's price gouging and kick-in-the-groin attitude towards their non-US customers any more!**

to the ones bashing TLG
- do you have information how it ended up with B&N ? Who sold them the sets ?
- or if TLG could have pulled the supply and direct it to own shops ? Do you have their contracts ? (heh)

The lead time for making such sets placed it long before TRU folded, if you don't believe, then there were pics of produced items just few weeks after announcement. There had to be contracts made when starting the project. And contract means obligations and also possible prepayments (TRU being risky for some time). Which means it had to be included in the bankruptcy liquidation and from them was based on legal options...

@papluh: this is not just about this one set. It is almost generally the case that LEGO prices in the US tend to be the cheapest in the world, even though the income level there is higher than in other countries where LEGO asks far more for their sets.

Or take Europe in particular. There is absolutely zero reason why sets which are priced in Euro should have different RRPs, especially in neighbouring countries like Germany/France/Belgium/Netherlands, yet still there are substantial differences.

It is simply price gouging at its worst, and it has annoyed me so much that I have started to lose interest in my once favorite hobby. I have never bought fewer sets in one year in the last decade than this year, and if the trend towards rip-off prices continues, I will stop buying LEGO altogether and move on to a different hobby.

^then do it and stop buying Lego. That’s how economics works, if demand lowers they’ll have no choice but to lower their price. “Price gouging” isn’t really a thing when talking about something that is clearly a luxury item and not a commodity like food or oil.

Perhaps TRU in the US already had these in their inventory before shutting their stores in the US and when they were selling off their inventory perhaps they sold them cheaply to B&N who are unaware of the actual value.

@natro220: I call BS. LEGO is no luxury item at all, it is a toy, nothing else.

A Bugatti is luxury item, a Rolex is a luxury item, a Rolf Benz piece of furniture is a luxury item, a tin of Beluga caviar is a luxury item, a private jet, a yacht, a mansion, and so on.

LEGO is a basic toy, and has been so for decades, just like Playmobil, Bruder, Playdo, Matchbox, Siku, Hotwheels, Revell/Airfix, etc.
But whereas the prices of the other names I mentioned seem to have increased in correlation with general inflation, LEGO prices have exploded in recent years, inflation times factor x, at least over here.

@papluh

I have no insider knowledge, and can’t speak for how things went down at TRU in the US, but in the U.K. it was noticeable that there were no (or very few) significant discounts on Lego sets in the final weeks and months before closure, implying the TLG must have had a deal with TRU limiting undercutting of prices and/or mandating return of stock. It would therefore seem odd that these figures appear to have been accepted from that, though maybe it is just an example of the quasi-official nature of all the Brictober sets.

Still seems like a massive oversight by TLG, unless it turns out all these figures latter turn up in future HP waves.

@shaase

Yes that sounds quite feasible. I can’t otherwise fathom how B&N could be selling the set with barely a profit, unless they picked up all their stock for pennies (eg cents on the dollar).

@AustinPowers Has the popularity of any of the toys you listed exploded in popularity in the past 10 years? Not at all. Lego has, until recently, gained in popularity to the point that it was the biggest toy company in the world, and is able to support multiple movies and other media. They have the ability to price their product at what the market bears, according to supply and demand. They have hundreds of competitors for the same money, many you just listed, and if they are priced to high consumers will choose alternatives.

And by the way, in the realm of economics Lego is absolutely a luxury item. It is not necessary to live, and is something people buy when they have excess money after spending on everything else.

I went to my local store this past Saturday and inquired about it. They weren't able to find any in stock and I was told they had none coming to the store.

I do not have high hopes of being able to get this set at retail price.

@natro220, @austinpowers If a Bugatti Chiron is luxury car then what's a Chevrolet Impala. Both are cars and can do the same jobs. Not getting into the argument of toys being a necessity of child development... but everyone still agrees LEGO is darn good quality. If your going to pay extra for better quality of something, or to say you have it (a brand). Its luxury. A building block is a toy, made by many different manufactures, but the if you want the best built bricks in the industry, you by LEGO. To say "I have LEGO" vs "I bought building blocks" is like Timex/ Rolex, Dodge/ Ferrari. LEGO is 100% a luxury item.

ANYWAY, back to Harry Potter.

For all the Canucks out there and maybe States TRU
Don't forget TRU will have the promo the last week of October if you cant find it at any local book stores, but it will cost you $75 CAD before tax for the "free gift".

I haven't noticed Lego price exploding. on the contrary, I think it has become less expensive (with discounts), and I wonder if it has something to do with Lego releasing so many stuff that a lot of it ends up at 30 - 40 sometimes 50% discount.

Our local B&N stores have closed and now the closest is a 3 hour drive, bummer. Once I figure in the price of gas it kind of blows the whole "best deal ever" thing to crap. Plus my wife isn't keen on 3 hour drives for LEGO (allowed only once). So searched for the set on their website and found nothing. For my fellow LEGO hobbyists in EU and elsewhere, please don't be too upset, it looks like a lot of us here in the US won't be able to get our hands on this either. Maybe Fordman39 will sell us some of his extra and won't gouge us too badly? Please!

Does anyone know if these are available in the UK?

@Fauch
I noticed as I used to collect minifigures, in 2010 it was 1.99$, today is 3.99$. Lego increased prices to about double in past 10 years. For me that is ok, they are as money centric and greedy as any other company and will sell product for as much as they could. But I also stopped buying lego at full price and now buy only if heavily discounted as I find it obscene to pay so much money for toys. Seems I am not alone as lego discounts became norm in shops.

Stopped by my local BaN today (third visit in the last month) in southeast Wisconsin to inquire about these figs and yet again was met with the same old "not in our system, never heard of it, no clue" response. I then presented the clerk with this article and although it didn't produce a solid answer, it did get me to the next step. The clerk took down my name and and said he would pass my info along to the store "receiver" and they would contact me. Won't hold my breath for that call but thank you to Brickset for giving me the ammo to get something other than two mouse clicks and a chin scratch. Will update if I hear back.

Too bad I can’t this set because the nearest Barnes and Noble is 30 minutes away, so I will probably not get this.

Compared to some folks here, I was able to get my copy with relatively little effort (if you count a 45 minute drive and visiting 2 different BNs little effort...). Maybe worth it? Wish I was able to get a few extras. For these limited items, I would like opening one and keeping one in the box.

@natro220:
Has the popularity of any of the toys you listed exploded in popularity in the past 10 years?

The popularity of LEGO has not exploded over here in recent years. Perhaps in the US, but over here, the toys section in any store that has one has just as much space for Playmobil or Bruder as for LEGO. And the reason why the Matchbox/Hotweels section is physically smaller is because their product ranges are smaller too, as are the sizes of their boxes.

@dontfeedthebrickster:

To say "I have LEGO" vs "I bought building blocks" is like Timex/ Rolex, Dodge/ Ferrari. LEGO is 100% a luxury item.

No it isn't. Don't know over at your end, but over here LEGO is the only building block toy available in quantity. Megabloks is hard to come by, Chinese knockoffs are not available in stores at all, only via AliExpress et al on the web. So if you are getting toys for your kids, the choice is mainly between LEGO and Playmobil. And both are considered "normal" kids' toys over here, of comparable quality and comparable range and variety. Certainly not luxury of any kind.

For those that have found them at B&N, where were they actually located in the store? At the front? With the LEGO? with the HP stuff? Tried two in the north Dallas suburbs and just got the "not in our system, never heard about it" and mentioned previously by others

I just picked mine up today in Charleston, SC. I had gone in last week with the item (673419294300) and asked them to check in their computer to see what they could see. They were able to see the item and that it could be shipped to store, so they processed an order for me. It arrived after 5 days, and I paid for it in store when I picked it up today.

ytjedi, you checked the B&N in Addison on Beltline? They were always so helpful when I lived there!

I called my store on Wednesday last week and ordered 5. They called me today, and I went in and picked them up at the great price of $7.11. I looked around the store, to see if they were there, and there were none. So, what I ordered was all they had. I read someone else say that these weren’t supposed to be sold, they’re for GWP of $75+ at BN for their HP event on November 17th &/or Black Friday. He went today to get his order, & was told they can’t sell it to him. I’m glad I went today instead of waiting a couple days. The GWP thing explains the low price. This is all just poor organization on BN’s part.

@AustinPowers, I think you are splitting hairs. The point being anything that is not a necessity (i.e shelter, food, transportation) IS a luxury item. You do not need a toy to live, you want the toy. That is considered a luxury item to most people. Call it whatever, LEGO, Megblocks, chinese knockoff toys.. A toy is a toy and is not required to survive in the world ergo it is a luxury item.

Did some digging on reddit and in BandN system this set is referred to as Lego Harry Potter Hogwarts Professors 4 item 0673419294300
So when hunting, ask for that otherwise you'll get the "not in the system" garbage.

@madforLEGO: that's simply ridiculous. Since when is everything "not needed to survive" a "luxury item"? I have learned a different definition in school, and that's what I am going to stick to.
According to that, there are "luxury" variants of almost everything, but something like a toy per se is no luxury - certainly not in developed and "rich" first world countries like the ones we are talking about, i.e. the US, Germany, UK, etc. Even the poorest people over can and do get toys.
Maybe not the UCS Millennium Falcon, as that can indeed be called a luxury, but standard City or Friends sets are sometimes even sold at Aldi and Lidl over here - which are shops frequently used by the lower end of the income spectrum.

Of course, the perspective of someone from say Somalia or Cote d'ivoire would differ substantially, but I don't think the prices or availability of LEGO sets is a major concern for most people living there anyway.

@Aanchir: come to Germany, then cross the border to France, Belgium or the Netherlands. Then tell me again that the "costs of doing business there" or "the spending habits of consumers" are noticeably different to those in Germany.
Have you noticed how many Brickset members from those countries have stated here time and time again that they purchase LEGO sets on trips to Germany, because they don't intend to let themselves get ripped off by TLG. It's not just the slight difference in VAT, which people from the US should not even mention, as VAT in the US is laughably low anyway, no matter where you shop - and in some areas you don't even have to pay VAT there at all.

@AustinPowers: As I said, our country’s low taxes are not really something to be envied. Frankly, they’re kind of pathetic. I’d GLADLY pay $80 for a $70 set (I’m already paying $75 as-is) and even pay higher taxes in general if it meant having better transportation infrastructure and not having to pay insane amounts to meet even basic health needs. Instead, any American political figure who actually cares about funding programs that help people gets slammed as a wannabe tyrant intent on turning us into Europe (as if the very idea of collective responsibility for the public good makes Europe some kind of authoritarian dystopia).

And do you honestly think Americans would be flabbergasted at the idea of it being normal to travel a bit to get a better deal on a product? Frankly, as somebody who doesn’t drive, I’m constantly reminded how much of American society is built on the expectation of traveling long distances to accomplish basically anything (and I say that as someone who lives on the East Coast, where things in general are much closer together than places further west). Which, again, is not helped by a government that will gladly sink huge sums of money into the military and corporate subsidies but sees transportation spending as some kind of impractical resource drain. “High speed rail” is practically non-existent here —
most proposals for it get dismissed as overpriced, pie-in-the-sky dream projects, probably in no small part due to lobbying from the auto industry, which is perfectly content with owning a car and spending obscene amounts of time on the road being fundamental to the American way of life.

Your idea that LEGO is extraordinarily affordable over here not only fails to hold up to scrutiny, but also as mentioned is far from universal. And I’ll admit regional pricing differences can be downright perplexing, like how in the US 60186 is more expensive than 75205 while in Germany it’s the other way around. (Even stranger, the former makes more sense makes more sense by weight and the latter by piece count, which is the opposite of what I’d expect when American boxes have the piece count clearly marked while German boxes do not.) But regardless, you seem to have a persistent sense of being cheated or ignored as a European consumer that I don’t think you’ve really effectively demonstrated… particularly in cases like this where a new product launch like the Bricktober minifigures has been so obviously bungled here in the aftermath of the Toys R Us closures. Stil no decisive word on whether any of the packs besides the Harry Potter one are even GETTING a release in the United States, but sure, let’s pretend that LEGO is purposely rigging this release in Americans’ favor.

In fact, let’s also suppose that LEGO’s pricing discrepancies in Europe are a perfectly arbitrary act of malice, and that LEGO is purposely complicating their own European business operations and confusing buyers without any kind of strategic motivation/incentive. I’ll bet LEGO just LOVES charging their own neighbors in Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries 20 to 25% higher prices than people in Germany or the U.K. There couldn’t possibly be any specific reason for it, just the sheer fun of taking on needless logistical expenses in order to be random and naughty! That makes PERFECT sense! 9_9

Spoke with my local B&N manager today (Northern Utah, USA) and while they do not have them in stock yet, they got comms from corporate specifically yesterday about this item. They are not inventory to be sold directly to customers, and B&Ns that did so erred. (That would jibe with $7/8 likely being their WH inventory cost, not MSRP, since that is ~40% of the $20 MSRP set in previous TRU Bricktober promos.) They told me the instructions for the promo can not yet be disclosed to public, but that they will be an incentive with purchase.

Quixotequest - went to my BaN in southeast Wisconsin today and got the same story. This is a gift with purchase but beyond that had no info.
So to all you SOB's that scored these for $8, count your blessings.
Does anyone know how a return situation would play out with this? So... buy (whatever), get the gift with purchase, return (whatever)... what happens to the gift with purchase?

Typically the retailer deducts the value of the gift from the return.

It's sad that the majority of these got to people trying to make a quick buck.

Heres the latest, looks like its going to be a promo the week of Nov 18th.

https://www.reddit.com/r/lego/comments/9qh4ro/no_luck_around_here_but_maybe_this_can_help/

Store Rep in Seattle told me they have the set in stock, but it is a gift with purchase with $75 dollars purchase of HP Lego sets.