Rare minifigures

Thankyou. It would be interesting to know how many of the larger sets Lego made. We all assume they makes 1000's of normal sets, but the more expensive you go they must have a model for how many they will sell and how many to produce. Personally I remember spending approx £23 (give or take postage...it was part of a brinklink order) on the "Heath Ledger" Joker from 76023. I was not going to buy the £170 set but really liked the minifig. How many of those exist?

@Zander said:
"Interesting article! Thanks @Samuel_Burkhardt .

While I'm sure it takes time and effort to collect very rare minifigures, at some point the size and rarity of one's collection just becomes a proxy for wealth. Even the commitment required vanishes at the top end as you can commission professional toy hunters (yes, there is such a thing) to chase rare minifigures for you.

With regards to the aluminium figures in space, they don't qualify as minifigures though as they are not articulated. I'm not sure whether the other so-called 'minifigures' in various metals are in fact minifigures for that reason. Per DK books approved by LEGO, an ordinary ABS R2-D2 is not even a minifigure. It lacks sufficient minifigure parts.

"
It's true that if someone collects anything for purely rarity value then it's no longer what it was intended to be; a toy, a beautiful vase, a car etc. Having said that being a professional toy-hunter sounds like fun!

I feel sad for R2 being demoted like Pluto from the Planets but then did TLC refer to him as a minifigure? The blurb for the current 75257 Millennium Falcon refers to the minifigures "plus R2-D2 and D-O LEGO droid figures"?

Indeed a nice question. Do the metal ones have moving/detachable parts and if yes, how do they feel when moving/rotating those parts? Not that I really care since all I want to do is mocing rather than hunting rare minifigs (i.e. ones that cost more than 10€) but being curious about that fact.

My personal rarest figure is a Niel B Christiansen (current CEO) business card minifigure! After that would be either Darth Malgus or the Employee 2019 Day of Play minifigures.

There is always a rarer minfig! I collect rare lego elements so stuff like star wars helmets without printing, miscolored and test pieces, that kinda stuff.

I liked learning (and reminded) about some rare minifigs in this article. I think it's silly that people clamor over a minifig being rarer than others only because it was in an expensive set that not everyone could choose to buy. Minifigs are produced by the hundreds of thousands and all start out in the same molds but with different colors and then getting different printings. It really annoys me that Lego doesn't make all of the minifigs more readily available with the exceptions of the metal prizes.

Hey Samuel, I think you got the names of the minifigs sent to space wrong because Juno is the Roman version of Hera, and Zeus is the Greek version of Jupiter.

Thanks for the article, though!

And i thought my Darth Revan, original Jango Fett and Boba Fett from the first Cloud City were rare.

I have Mr. Gold

Great article!! All the time I’ve been thinking I have some rare sets (Eiffel tower..etc) but reading this article makes me realize how incomparable that is to REAL serious collectors.. boggles the mind to think how much money was invested for them to obtain that one rare minifigure!!! On a side note @huw how do I sign up for “meet a member” would love to share my story!!<3 <3

@Huw on the article you linked in, it said ‘Roman god Jupiter, and his wife Juno and the ‘father of science’ Galileo Galilei.’

@PurpleDave said:
" @Zander:
None of the solid metal "minifigs" are articulated, except _maybe_ R2. C-3PO was formed in three solid parts, so the best you can do is rotate his head. The metals used aren't suitable to forming the wrist and leg connections. But as for what qualifies as a minifig, every AFOL site out there has their own special definition, and TLC _ABSOLUTELY_ markets astromechs as minifigs when describing the contents of sets."

Yes, I know about the misnomers. But it used not to describe all figures as ‘minifigures’. There has been a tendency during the last few years for LEGO to describe any kind of figure as a ‘minifigure’. That is most likely because some bright spark in LEGO’s marketing team realised that you can sell more sets if you misdescribe the contents. And that in turn is why, if you want to seek an official LEGO approved definition of a minifigure, you need to go back a few years. It’s the only way to undo the distortion introduced by the commercial motive. (For the record, I’m not against enterprises being profitable, but commercial interests sometimes have undesirable consequences).

Nice article. Really cool to see pictures of the minifigs (I don't care if they "count" or not) that went into space!

Very interesting article, thank you! I love collecting minifigures, but I'm certainly not possessive about having one-of-a-kind figs thank goodness. I enjoy hunting down some of the harder to find minifigs that are in perhaps more expensive sets or only appear once such as Velma, Sonic, Davy Jones, Goofy, etc. I think my rarest one is the Apollo astronaut from a while back.

My new favorite LEGO pastime is collecting minifig parts for making monofig. There is such a lot of rare colours that it offers almost endless fun. ;-)

Thank you Samuel. Excellent theme, excellent article.

Rarest Minifig in my collection would probably be one of the ones given to Rebrick competition winners (which I won fair and square, I didn’t buy it second hand).

I think the rarest figure I own is Marty McFly from Dimensions. I found him at a Lego event in town, but he’s nowhere close to the ones mentioned here!

Block_n_Roll - In the 80s ALL minifigs had the face on the wrong side - for some reason the figures in sets already had the heads attached to the torso, but oddly they were ALWAYS on backwards. No 50/50 right/wrong, not at any random angle, but always 180 degrees off. This was annoying as I suspect they'd been put on before that little dab of paint on the neck had fully dried, which made them quite hard to turn around.

The page http://www.minifigpriceguide.com/Top100LegoMinifigures.html lists the most valuable figures, don't know if it's up-to-date (crappy site, frequently acts up with some dumb "Sitelock" misfeature). According to them the rarest figure I have is no. 199 Series 1 Clown ($32), but I believe my still-in-bag Series 1 Zombie and Series 2 Spartan are worth more.

While I must admit that I've one or two times may have paid ~$25 for some sought-after licensed figure only available in a large set (can't even remember which ones), I have to agree with Brickalili and Kraken that I really don't give a rodent's posterior about rare minifigures. One thing is if it happens to get a high price for random reasons (not being made in a very large number and only getting a "cult status" some while later), but I really believe artificial scarsity and inflated prices (like the Mr. Gold/"chase figure" fiascoes and the SDCC exclusives) are just as detrimental to our hobby as it was with Beanie Babies and comic books.

I have 5 San Diego Comic-Con exclusive Superhero figures. I have Green Lantern from 2011 SDCC and all four figures from 2012 (Symbiote Spider-Man, Phoenix, Bizarro, and Shazam. They are now family heirlooms that I will pass down haha.

I have 5 San Diego Comic-Con exclusive Superhero figures. I have Green Lantern from 2011 SDCC and all four figures from 2012 (Symbiote Spider-Man, Phoenix, Bizarro, and Shazam. They are now family heirlooms that I will pass down haha.

@axeleng:
I never once got a set where the prebuilt minifigs had their heads on backwards. Maybe it was a Europe vs North America thing? I know back in those days they still packed sets in Enfield for sale in the US/Canada.

@Zander:
I did some digging, and 2009 seems to be the point when they started to show a lineup of all included minifigs on the bottom of the box front for SW sets. They're not labeled as such, and they include stuff that's even less minifigure-like, such as the Mos Eisley surveillance droid from ANH:SE. 2016 is the earliest I can find listings for Retired sets on LEGO.com, so that's eight years short of being able to say if they started calling R2 a minifig at that point. I'm guessing it's also later than what you think we need to "go back before", too. However, we do know that they sold a quartet of SW minifigure 3-packs back in 2000, and one of them consisted of just three battle droids, so those are minifigs in their book, but they include zero pieces that are part of the standard minifig design. Beyond that, I'd really need to see some early SW catalog entries to see when they first started listing the quantity of minifigs in sets.

So, what are you basing your definition on?

Whilst not necessarily all that rare although some of them could be quite rare now, they are certainly collectible, I’m talking about some of the minifigs that appeared in Lego Dimensions sets that only appeared in that particular expansion pack and not any other sets, things like the Adventure time figs, Mr T, Michael Knight, teens titans go, beetle juice to name a few.

I actually have that not-so-rare Jango Fett that you mentioned. Best of all I got it for free, well kind of. I plopped down $25 for a 7163 Republic Gunship, in the box was the Slave I set as well as the 10026 UCS Naboo Starfighter, and a handful of smaller sets from the early Star Wars years.

The seller had three other sets for sale so I decided to buy them as well and for $100 total I got 33 Star Wars sets from 1999-2007. The best part was the large sets I actually paid for were never the largest sets in the boxes. I’d say that is a pretty rare find!

I would love to see some estimated values on these. Talk elsewhere suggests the Gold 14K C-3PO may have swopped hands for $20,000 to $45,000. I myself collect the Star Wars minifigures and was pleased to find over the weekend that I own 80% of all 1000+ ever released and that some few value at £50-£100 each. If only I had won the R2-D2 (never collected when the other competitions were on)

Gonna be so awkward when the aliens find those minifigures and think all humans have weird claw hands and such.

I think the rarest minifig from the list linked above that I own is the printed-arms Boba Fett from the original Cloud City.
I do own all the parts for Lester but since mine was bought as parts and not as complete-with-packaging that doesn't count.

'There are over a hundred different business cards' >> really? I would say more over two hundred, more likely 250 up to 300. Well, yeap it's definitely more than a hundred

Sadly loads of different types of rare promotional and internal minifigures weren't mentioned. And sadly the author didn't say a thing about those who blogged behind such minifigures, searching those and trying to recognise the history about those great plastic population

if you are lucky enough to be offered £100s for a minifig, then take it because you've probably already decided not to use it in builds! value, while affected by rarity and availability, is purely based on what someone is willing to pay.
most people i know with 'rare and valuable'collectables hold onto them for boasting or kudos way past the point where they maintain a decent value and suddenly find themselves looking to shift a cupboard full of trading cards/ funkos/ action figures/ etc. for a fraction of what they paid for them, never mind a profit. its relatively rare these days for things to actually increase in value like original star wars figures.

Honestly, a few LIT mentioned, business cards and solid metal are a drop in a rare minifigures ocean. Over the past month only were found out around 4-6 minifigures no one heard about before.

I don't mean nothing wrong and skeptical but Sam talks of minifigures he only had on trade. But most of those are not rare and as for solid metal they can hardly be recognised as a 'minifigure'. People told here the same

Minifigure Price Guide has spent countless hours gathering information and pictures for LEGO minifigures. Please check out his work over at:

http://www.minifigpriceguide.com/Top100LegoMinifigures.html

When talking about rare minifigures, it’s almost impossible to not bring Minifigure Price Guide into the picture. He has paved to way to getting information and leads on these rare minifigures. It would be hard to write an article on the subject without including him and his gathered information.

If you’re interested in collecting rare minifigures, reach out, there are more than a few of us that would love to help you start. I love to build but I have really fallen in love with “finding” new rare minifigures. It still amazes me that we are digging up rare minifigures, sometimes 5-20 years old, that most people have never seen! It’s a fun and exciting hobby!

Well, I am sorry if I gave cause for resentment, I don't mean that. And I absolutely agree when you say the rarity of minifigures doesn't depend on price but quantity of production and obtainable in circulation. Most of those are eluded collectors for years. But I believe you'd better tell of the different types, classification alike but we see only common 'you know there's a few minifigures which are limited and almost unknown, and that's all you should know'. No! There's good load of regular sets people don't know. And what? I'd just be interested to see a bit more content.

When I first saw this article, I was hoping I'd see the Juno spacecraft minifigures mentioned.

From the Juno article linked in this article, "Juno and the minifigures are scheduled to arrive in July 2016 and orbit Jupiter for a year (33 revolutions) before intentionally crashing into the giant gas planet."

Looks like those minifigures are likely destroyed by now. Unfortunate...but for a good cause.

@DrDaveWatford said:
"Thanks, Samuel - excellent article!

I only realised how collectible employee "business cards" had become when I posted a picture of a few that I'd accumulated over the years and got a message from a collector asking me to name my price. I thought he was joking, but it became clear that he was serious. I didn't want to sell, so that was that, but it was a real eye-opener."

When you have one, two or even a dozen of business card minifigures, they're just a toy for you, probably means memorial value. But when you grabbed fifty, hundred or more of different names and variations (Kevin Hinkle has 7 different, all others usually a couple depends on Blank torso variation, and just a few employees has 3 variation) you take thinking up the idea to collect as a completist, all ever produced. And the main part of the collecting is finding new and new minifigures never known before.

@LINK_O_NEAL said:
"Can we have an article with the top 100 most rare minifigures with pictures? That would be the coolest thing..."

http://www.minifigpriceguide.com/Top100LegoMinifigures.html

@graymattr said:
"I liked learning (and reminded) about some rare minifigs in this article. I think it's silly that people clamor over a minifig being rarer than others only because it was in an expensive set that not everyone could choose to buy. Minifigs are produced by the hundreds of thousands and all start out in the same molds but with different colors and then getting different printings. It really annoys me that Lego doesn't make all of the minifigs more readily available with the exceptions of the metal prizes. "

Rare minifigures are usually produced less than 500. A run goes often for 100-300 pieces. And rare minifigures are non series ones, you can't find those as a part of regular sets, they are produced as a souvenir for promotional or internal events/purpose as a rule

@Starik20X7 said:
"Rarest Minifig in my collection would probably be one of the ones given to Rebrick competition winners (which I won fair and square, I didn’t buy it second hand)."

Great! But you'd be interested to know there were 5 different Mr. ReBrick minifigures in a lifetime.

@PurpleDave said:
"So, what are you basing your definition on?"

The 1979 patent (1977 application; 1979 grant) and the DK/LEGO co-branded book 'LEGO Minifigure Year by Year: A Visual History' supplemented by the DK/LEGO co-branded book 'LEGO: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know'. The books do not provide a concise definition, but the 'Visual History' is very judicious in its use of the terms 'minifigure' and 'figure'. While it only provides an incomplete definition of the former, a side panel on 'non-minifigures' and a plethora of examples of 'minifigures' allow one to infer what a 'minifigure' is. A note regarding the skeleton figure on p.144 of the 'Need to Know' book confirms the earlier sources: 'This skeleton... is not a minifigure because it does not have a standard [i.e. patent] torso or any standard [i.e. patent] limbs.' The patent, by the way, specifies the articulation.

@samiam391 , For what reason(s) are you discounting LEGO's commercial motive?

@legoman_russia said:
"Well, I am sorry if I gave cause for resentment, I don't mean that. And I absolutely agree when you say the rarity of minifigures doesn't depend on price but quantity of production and obtainable in circulation. Most of those are eluded collectors for years. But I believe you'd better tell of the different types, classification alike but we see only common 'you know there's a few minifigures which are limited and almost unknown, and that's all you should know'. No! There's good load of regular sets people don't know. And what? I'd just be interested to see a bit more content.
"

Again, my goal was to provide a brief and informative overview of rare minifigures in the form of an interesting article that would be appealing to all readers, not a complete index cataloging every rare minifigure that would potentially only be intriguing to collectors like us. If you'd like to contribute your own article with more details, just contact Huw and he may include it. :)

@samiam391 said:
"Again, my goal was to provide a brief and informative overview of rare minifigures in the form of an interesting article that would be appealing to all readers, not a complete index cataloging every rare minifigure that would potentially only be intriguing to collectors like us. If you'd like to contribute your own article with more details, just contact Huw and he may include it. :)"

Buddy, you see people is talking of arm painted Boba Fett, and so on, and so on. Most of the readers, as I can see and it's only my point, haven't realized the difference of the rare minifigures from other ones, thinking it's just a kind of unique item were given as a prize what we see for solid metal, or something unbelievable like those Juno. You titled the article 'Rare minifigures' but didn't answer what rare minifigures are in fact. Just add a few words, compare to SDCC expensive but not rare items and people would see, yeah, those minifigures are just pricey, and these are rare ones, an so on.

I don't think it's nice idea for me to contribute my own article, though I will think.

And once again, nothing personal. Greatly appreciated you texted this article. Every time rare minifigures are mentioned is good time for collectors and fans. We should talk about those more and more. In public. It was nice of you. Really

I have 3 of the 4 employee figures in your picture. Zack Camper and Magician:)

I also have one LEGO business card signing from an employee in Enfield

I remember when Kevin Hinkle "cashed out" and sold all of HIS OWN minifigs on Ebay. Actually seemed a bit of a pathetic prey on the Lego community just to raise some fast cash.......... but that is just one mans opinion as others obviously flocked to it just as he knew they would.

@deejdave:
He's married and they just had a baby when he got laid off right before Christmas, and I don't think he got any severance package, while the guy who'd just transitioned into his old position got shifted back to his previous job. Should he have moved them all into a homeless shelter just because it seems a bit sketchy to sell all this stuff that he'd accumulated during his time as a community liaison, or do you think that maybe keeping his family afloat at a difficult time of year was maybe of greater priority?

I'd love to see a list of Rare Minifigs that exclude the very exclusive ones (like business cards, SDCC, any of the precious metal colors). I've seen tons of articles and or videos about these guys. Sorry, but I don't care about these. There are unobtainable my most people, so why talk about them, especially on a site like Bricklink where we are all collectors!

I want to see someone write about the hard to find ones that typical collectors can find. I want to hear more about the Queen Amidalas, the Jango Fetts, the Boba Fetts, those kinds of minifigs. The ones that are rare to the common folk.

@Sackofrito said:
"I'd love to see a list of Rare Minifigs that exclude the very exclusive ones (like business cards, SDCC, any of the precious metal colors). I've seen tons of articles and or videos about these guys. Sorry, but I don't care about these. There are unobtainable my most people, so why talk about them, especially on a site like Bricklink where we are all collectors!

I want to see someone write about the hard to find ones that typical collectors can find. I want to hear more about the Queen Amidalas, the Jango Fetts, the Boba Fetts, those kinds of minifigs. The ones that are rare to the common folk. "

SW characters mentioned ain't rare. Rare minifigures are typically gone apart any series of set and were limited less than 500 in quantity just for internal or public promotional purposes. I believe only Lego World torsos are not limited.

As for a guide on rare minifigures, you would hardly find it anywhere. But from what I can confirm there's around 120-150 rare non-series minifigures known to collectors by the moment.

@PDelahanty:
No, Juno is still flying. The original budget only funded the mission through July 2018, but NASA announced an extension to the mission in June (oh!). The new projected end date for the mission is July 30, 2021, at which point it will cease social distancing with Jupiter and burn to a fiery crisp.

@Zander:
Fair enough. But at some point, their definition of a minifig changed, and we don't know an official reason. You obviously think it's because they could sell more sets if they could market them as having higher quantities of minifigs. But it's also possible that once they started doing the character inset on the front of the boxes, they ended up with another Lando situation. Just like, for years, they'd been able to make all-yellow minifigs (excluding aliens and robots) and claim that they represented all skin colors, and all that got shot to pieces when LEGO Direct released a single set with a brown Lando minifig, adding a bunch of named characters to an inset panel on the box art becomes problematic when your own definition of a "minifig" excludes important characters like R2-D2. Short legs and sculpted heads also created potential discord with that original definition, never mind the tall minifigs like Woody and Jessie from Toy Story 3.

I still have my Lester; one of the limited edition ones in special packaging that were won by scratchcard at the AFoL preview day of the Leicester Square Lego Store. There's been a number listed on eBay over the years since, usually at around £2k each.

@Chocolate said:
"I still have my Lester; one of the limited edition ones in special packaging that were won by scratchcard at the AFoL preview day of the Leicester Square Lego Store. There's been a number listed on eBay over the years since, usually at around £2k each.
"

Cheap Brand store minifigure vs. expensive back card. And what's rare here? Not a minifigure per se

@Chocolate:
For a while there, the carded Lester could be had for as little as $50 on Bricklink. I kinda wish I'd jumped on obtaining one back then, because the wide release of an identical-but-better version really drove the price into the ground. Now all that's left appear to have prices that were influenced by the pre-polybag market.