1000 Star Wars minifigures!
Posted by Huw,
Over 1000 different Star Wars minifigs have now been catalogued by BrickLink which has prompted the site to renumber them, by adding a leading zero to their reference numbers. So what was SW265 is now SW0265, and so on.
This has caused a few problems here at Brickset because we use the reference numbers as the foreign key in tables that relate to minifig data. As a result, your Star Wars minifig collection disappeared from view for a while today, along with tags and character names and so on.
Luckily it was easy enough to run some update queries to sort things out but because of the way data is cached and calculated it may take a little while before things appear normal. Data will be imported and processed again overnight tonight so everything should sort itself out by the morning.
Rest assured that nothing has been lost and you won't need to re-enter any data. Nevertheless, I apologise for any inconvenience.
So, what is the 1000th minifig to be catalogued? SW1000 is Iden Versio (Inferno Squad Commander) who appears in 75226 Inferno Squad Battle Pack.
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58 comments on this article
Sounds like the Y2K problem but on a smaller scale. :D
Woo, futureproofing!
I suggest to renumber to SW001000 just now! :-)
Thanks for letting us know, Huw! Always nice that you guys are up front about that kind of thing.
Here's to another 1,000 Star Wars minifigs!
I think I have about a tenth of them.
Just when I was thinking "now's a great time to start getting into SW minifigs. I mean, how many could there be?!" :-P
I have 310 out of the 1031 Star Wars minifigs (30%). I didn't know I had so many. The advent calendars have 71 minifigs over the eight years, so I guess that's a decent portion of my collection.
This would have been a perfect occasion for LEGO to celebrate with an exclusive set or polybag or some such goody.
Instead a minifigure like Iden Versio, no offense, takes the cake. Wasted opportunity imho.
Awesome, need to check my collection but I suspect it is a big one as I am.a huge SW fan, I want that set. 357 I saw.
@Golem25, I suspect Lego hasn’t really been paying attention like we have, and the criteria they track figures could be entirely different from how most of us would think.
But some type of commemorative figure or set would be neat. But I guess the 20th anniversary sets coming out in the future will fill that void.
I noticed the change coming a few days ago, and just today I saw that all of my loose owned minifigs (about 30 or so) were wiped from my collection. I should have just waited for the system to sort itself out. Let's hope I didn't cause more issues for myself down the road!
It took us 20 years to get to 1000, but only about 250 of those 1000 came in the first 10 years. Unique minifigs really took off post-2009.
@Golem25: These aren't official Lego inventory numbers, so it's not their call which one will be the lucky 1000. The numbers are assigned by BrickLink largely at random with each new wave. The first 200 numbers or so don't even correspond to the yearly releases.
Ooh. So that’s why all the SW minifigures disappeared. I had no idea we were getting so high up there! It would be interesting to know which theme has the most number of minifigures. Would it be Town? I don’t know. Someone research it.
It's definitely Town by a long shot: 2370 minifigs since 1978 (some 21.6% of all unique minifigures). Star Wars is 2nd with 1031 since 1999 (9.4%). Super Heroes (both DC and Marvel) edges out CMF by just one minifigure, at 534 and 533.
Initially, although I am not a big fan of SW, I thought that I could have some minifigures: Darth Varder, Yoda, Skywalker, Princess Leila...and obtained some of them from magnets and keyrings. Now that I know that there are more than 1000 minifigures I feel lucky not to have continued the collection...
However, I continue the collection of the CMF Series, owning at least one of each minifigures of all the series...
Cool. Thanks huw for sorting it out. Any guesses on when the 2,000 th will be?
From my experience it's often very easy to have maintain a collection of minifigures from a theme that feels more or less "complete" even if it's not 100% complete by BrickLink standards, since a lot of the time there are multiple BrickLink listings for a figure that might vary by as little as having or not having a neck accessory, or having a single sided or a double sided head print.
Just as an example from one of the themes I collect: BrickLink lists 495 different Ninjago minifigures from 2011 through 2018. But if you limit this to the most complete/definitive versions of each particular figure design (for example, ignoring minifigures that vary only in terms of not having their signature armor/headgear, or skeletons that vary only in terms of having their hands in a different orientation), you can ignore 198 (about 40%) of those figures.
I suspect with Star Wars, you can have a more or less comprehensive collection of characters while ignoring even more, just by skipping older and less accurate/detailed versions of figures depicting the same scene/costume from the movies. Skipping characters from before 2010 when eye sparkles became standardized reduces the number by over 300! Of course, there are several pre-2010 figures, especially droids, which didn't get redesigned after 2010 and which you might want to obtain for your collection one way or another.
It'd be interesting to see a list of how many Star Wars figures you'd have to get to own every character in the most detailed and up-to-date version of each of their designs/costumes from the source material. I'm sure it's way more than I'd be willing to hunt down one way or another.
When people lose interest in Star Wars again, TLG is going down the pan.
What will be the minifigure number 10000.
Huw & Brickset team: Thanks for your amazing work once again!
@Aanchir: I agree; the same is largely true of having a "complete" set collection.
@CortezTheKiller: How so? Even in the post-Episode III period, when interest in SW was at its nadir, the Lego Star Wars theme remained popular. And it's not like Lego is neglecting other themes just because SW is popular.
@Drzhivago138, @Aanchir: Me too. I "only" have 281 of 687 Star Wars LEGO sets, but many of those I don't have are "bonus" packs, 3-in-1 packs, polybags, magazine gifts, etc. I also only have 2 UCS sets, because I mainly like minifigure-scale sets. So in my mind, my collection is a lot more "complete" than the numbers imply. Same goes with minifigures- I only have 6 of 16 Darth Vader figures, but that's all right. I'd rather get sets with figures of characters that haven't been made before- the more obscure, the better! And apparently Zuckuss is on the way- YAY!
For the record I have 596 SW figures, but I stopped collecting the theme in 2012 so they are all from prior to that.
Yeah, but several figures referred to as Star Wars characters are from the Disney era, so they don't really count... ;)
223 in Brickset...I have several recently acquired loose figures that haven't been logged yet...probably pushing 250 unique Star Wars minifigures. Interesting to look at, I had no idea.
I did notice something going on with the numbering in the last day or two, glad to realize what the issue was.
Something something this is all the fault of clikits?
THat's a lot of SW minifigs...
I have 181 unique star wars minifigs right now, only 819 more to go....
I have 125...
Aha!
That explains my the number of minifigs I have dropped by 150+. Good to know!
It's been a great ride for those of us who boarded the Lego Star Wars bus back in 1999. Now with the stylistic changes to Rebellion pilot helmet and Imperial Stormtrooper helmet designs I find myself questioning how to approach collecting. Probably not army building (again), but perhaps boldly forming a different collection of thematic concept.
Are they releasing new 20th anniversary sets for Star Wars?
If they do I hope they re-release old ones or make 3 sets off each movie, but LEGO will probably just put a logo on new sets.
i have 19 SW mini-figures, 21 if you include the Darth Vader & BB8 keychains.
Apparently I have 782 unique Star Wars minifigs. I think my username is fairly accurate.
@Golem25:
The official number according to Billund is very different than the number for Bricklink. For starters, Bricklink voids numbers. This means that if a minifig is added to the catalog, and then later determined to be a duplicate, not a real minifig per Bricklink definition, or anything else that's a compelling reason to delete it from the catalog, that number gets deleted from the catalog. I don't remember if policy is to leave it fallow, or eventually reuse it, but even if they try to reuse them someone has to actually remember that it's sitting empty.
Then there are variants. There's a Leia with regular or smooth hair. The smooth hair was run on an incomplete mold cavity, so it's really a production error, but the smooth hair version goes for triple digits so there's a catalog entry to keep it from skewing the price guide for the regular version. There are listings for the magnet minifigs from back when they used to put the magnets in the legs. There are things listed as minifigs that some people think should be deleted from the catalog (brick-built droids), and there are probably things that some people wish could be added to the catalog that aren't (I know there's a rare print variant to an AT-AT Driver that they refuse to create a listing for). Bricklink differentiates yellow/fleshie, and (for Chewbacca) brown/reddish-brown, but I remember from a point when LEGO made a big deal about how many minifigs they'd released (a lot less than 1000, maybe 500?), they weren't accounting for any minifigs that had two variants due to the 2004 color changes. So, whatever their number is, they probably have at least a couple years to go before their count hits 1000. When they do, they'll probably acknowledge it in some capacity. It'd be nice if they kept a running tally somewhere, though, so you could track it as new sets change that number...and so you know somebody has to be paying attention.
@Drzhivago138:
Bricklink numbers are assigned by the people who submit them, I believe. So you could even cheat and skip ahead to a favorite number if that's the case. That said, when they were approaching 10k total minifigs, someone noted it in advance, and as a result they made a point of picking something good for the milestone. It ended up being the minifig wearing the log costume, which even has it noted in the minifig description. But if people aren't paying attention, it's really easy for a pile of new minifigs to swamp the system, and the next thing you know there's some random filler character that nobody even knows claiming the milestone spot.
@PizzaBrick:
I've seen a list posted somewhere. It was only four sets, all from the six Star Wars movies (nothing from Disney), and no idea if there might be more on the way. But we did get official confirmation that they're doing _something_ for the 20th.
I was curious the highest number I have:
SW1004 Mouse Droid (also the highest number listed on Brickset so far)
I also have SW0999...Both from the Death Star Escape set.
I don't have SW1000-SW1003 yet.
I used to focus solely Star Wars only until about 2014, when I really got into Ninjago. But I do still get some Star Wars sets from time to time. I have roughly 267 different Star Wars minifigures, but I think around 350 + including duplicates.
Is there a way to view how many minifigures I have of each theme including the duplicates?
I couldn’t find it but I wanted to make sure if it was just me or it isn’t there.
306 out of 1000 Star Wars minifigures here! Not so bad...
@Huw something is up, I'm seeing duplicate listings for most of my Star Wars minifigs when looking at the minifigs owned and minifigs wanted lists since the correction to the number change.
And in the meantime I've made no adjustment to my records from before the change until now.
I love Brickset! I have approximately 250 different Star Wars minifigures, but I have about 110 stormtroopers, in many different styles, mainly the style from 75078. I can’t wait to add 75226.
I don't own a lot of Star Wars Minifigures, but I can now say I own the 1000th Star Wars Minifigure! :D
Pleasantly surprised to have 110 of these. Must go out and get some more
There are definitely some issues on the site still. I just looked up one of the Cantina sets and it has some of the figures doubled up when you click on the minifigure tab.
https://brickset.com/sets/75052-1/Mos-Eisley-Cantina
676 out of 1033...I'm pretty stoked about that one.
@ Mastergamer015 If you look under "minifigures I own", you can get the list of all you have. If you want to see it broke out by themes look under "Overview of my collection" Then under Minifigures click on "Analysis (table)".
In my collection, every Star Wars minifig that I own is duplicated. Is this part of the same problem?
Last couple of days I have been busy crosschecking my recent Bricklink orders and wanted lists with my Brickset collection overview, and already noticed some hiccups.so I was a bit worried when day before yesterday suddenly all my SW minifig collection had disappeared..
Good thing knowing the reason, and it seems to be solved now..
There is still one issue though ; most (all??) in my owned SW minifig list appear double... and it is to early morning to be drunk already.. :-)
Which makes that my total is stated as 734.
Now since I mostly collect the OT ( considering Rogue One and Solo as part of OT), and have only a limited amount of PT, and almost nothing CW, that number seems to be exaggerated.
So I guess in reality it must be half of that number : 367 unique ones, adding another 100 or so of duplicate generic troopers... You never can have enough stormtroopers.. :-)
124 minifigures ranging from SW0001B to SW0914
Don't think there's any yellows there which is fine as I much prefer fleshies
I have 49 Star Wars minifigs from 12 sets, yet I have 49 Space minifigs from 56 sets. Oh boy have Lego learned how to milk the collectors!
Bricklink catalogue needs to be updated because there are many buildfigs that are NOT considered as sw*number* thing.
I thought there were more of them, as Brickset database tells me that I have 585 of them... More than a half on a big thousand I own... I did not think I had such a good part of them. But the more important for this comment, but those very "on myself turned" considerations (sorry but I would express this better in French) is that once more I want to thank BS team for maintaining this super site and base as usual, as I did not even notice there had had an issue provoked by this new minifig and reference. Brickset is the first thing I check every single morning, while drinking my necessary awaking coffee mug before I go out in the cold to go to work. Random set of the day, or previous day set review... My own daily little pleasure before starting a hard day of work and pressure. So thank you all for all you provide us!
Very appreciative to all the work that goes into maintaining this site. Thank you!
Also appreciate the up front and explanations provided. We completely understand when things go crazy wrong.
i wish lego had put out a different minifigure then Iden Versio maybe a special edition darth vader 1000 minifigure package.
I feel your pain Huw, it took me ages to update all my spreadsheet links to both BrickLink and Brickset
503 out of 1000 here (not including MANY duplicates)
I hadn’t realised I had so many!
Ok, this compelled me to check my collection as well. According to Brickset I now have 672 unique SW Minifigures. However, there are hundreds... thousands? of duplicates. My clone army is close to 200 by now (2 full 32 x 32 baseplates - they're pretty impressive standing in rank formation all w/aftermarket weapons : ), and about the same or more for Battle Droids, Rebels and Stormtroopers (all loose in lonely little bags - poor guys). I wonder where my collection would be if I hadn't stopped buying SW instead of almost only City and Creator over the last few years.... No wonder my wife complains so much ("Don't you already have that!" - instantly comes to mind), lmao!
@rogue one: As we have already established, these aren't official Lego inventory numbers, so it's not their call which one will be the lucky 1000. The numbers are assigned by BrickLink largely at random with each new wave. The first 200 numbers or so don't even correspond to the yearly releases.
Was wondering why my minifigure count was out, thought I remembered my figure incorrectly!
My Star Wars sets are randomly purchased so only had 370 unique minifigures with the total Star Wars figure count at 1033.
Not sure should I be proud of it, but my total minifigure collection (including microfigures & nanofigures) now exceeded 8300...
So the counting issue has been resolved... but now I can't see any SW minifig images! Went through my minifig collection and only certain ones are displaying properly. Everything was fine before the SW minifig renumbering, but I can't see how that would affect non-SW images. Any ideas?