VIP Castle coin review
Posted by Huw,
LEGO recently added a Castle-themed collectable coin to the VIP rewards centre, which can be yours for 1,150 points.
Brickset member JimmyO received one and has provided this review for us:
I just received the LEGO VIP Castle coin. I would like to share my thoughts with you about it.
The coin, which is about 4cm diameter, comes in a plastic case. It's kept in place inside the case by 4 small screws. The case is of great quality as you would expect from LEGO.
The first thing I noticed was that the coin wasn’t completely aligned straight in the case. Not that much of a big deal, easily fixed of course, but I would have expected it to be properly aligned in the first place.
The second thing with this coin is that it is painted. As you can see on the back of the coin there is relief in the letters and edges of the coin. This relief can also be seen on the front of the coin. I think the coin would have looked much better without the paint. The paint is not necessary at all to make this coin look great. (maybe someone knows a way how to remove the paint without damaging the coin?)
The paint has not been applied very well. As you can see the edges are not sharp and the lines are not straight. Most likely it was painted by hand, at least it looks like it was. I think the painting would have of higher quality if it was painted mechanically.
Also, the colour of the crown is pink….PINK? Yes pink. Perhaps it is supposed to look like a gold crown, but it really is a pink crown. It should have been the same colour of the coin, just gold.
Another thing is the VIP logo on mine has scratches even though the case had been wrapped in protecting material for transport. And again, the alignment is a bit off. It is placed a little too much to the left of the middle.
Overall conclusion. I have mixed feelings about this coin. I was really excited about the idea of collectable Lego VIP coins. It feels special and exclusive. But the coin should not have been painted. The quality of the painting together with the colours chosen doesn't make it feel like this is a coin you just have to own.
Overall score: 7/10. I hope the other coins will not have any paint on them, and if they do, that it's better than this.
119 likes
64 comments on this article
Nice scathing review for once. All that is missing is a loose hair stuck under the coin holder :)
No stickers?
This is strange, the colors look different than on the Lego rewards page (on the French site the crown's color seems to be yellow)... are there different versions depending on the region ? Anyway I think it still looks great and the packaging is nice, so I am glad I redeemed it (for 1150 points in France)
The pink crown is foreshadowing to the castle theme returning.... But with minidolls.
Maybe later coins will have a smoother paint job. :/
Your score of 7/10 is way too generous.
Doubly glad I decided against getting that now!
SHINY TAT!
I'm pretty sure that the coin is actually enamelled (as opposed to "hand painted"). Either way, am I missing something here? This is the kind of garbage 'collectible' I'd expect from FAR lesser companies that TLG. Weren't enough people spending VIP points on digital downloads, colouring pages and A4 'posters'?
Seriously...
@wiggy said:
"Nice scathing review for once. All that is missing is a loose hair stuck under the coin holder :)"
You need to check the Brothers Brick review to find that loose hair ;)
To be clear, is the "coin" metal, or plastic?
Wow. A coin.
What’s the point of the other case then?
I like it, think it looks good and I like having a different kind of VIP reward to collect. I think these will hold a good value in the future. It does also lead to the question of the point of the larger display case? I assume the intention is to remove them and place them in there. I suppose having them individually cased also, gives you the display option if you don’t collect all 5.... Plus, it keeps them all secure and damage free :-)
I suspect ALL the display cases are to assist in a false perception of value.
It looks to me like it might be soft enamel, if that's the case then it is "painted" by hand (if you want to go technical, it's a syringe that's used to fill each recessed area with liquid colored enamel, then it's baked to set the color).
That could also explain the odd color of the crown. On the rewards page it looks like they wanted yellow. Of all the colors grey and yellow enamel has a reputation among pin artists for being super difficult to work with, and it can turn out weird colors if you aren't really careful.
All that isn't to defend how it looks, the uneven edges and weird colors looks like they didn't do corrections at all if the image on the rewards page is the initial design, but I figured some best-guess context might be interesting.
Or one could spend their VIP points on, yer know, LEGO...?
Coin... hehe...
Seems kind a bribe...
Hmm, I'm starting to regret ordering mine now. The image on the website definitely looks much cleaner and with a yellow crown.
@Jelippo said:
"What’s the point of the other case then?"
Exactly, no need!
@bananaworld said:
"
Or one could spend their VIP points on, yer know, LEGO...?"
It's actually not a good deal to use your points for discounts on Lego sets. Any physical ''goodies'' rewards that you buy instead (whether you like them or not) will have a significantly higher value on the market. Let us take the example of the disappointing silver brick key chain (which is more a plate than a brick actually): it cost 950 points to get, i.e. about 6 Euros discount equivalent right? Well you can now resell it for a minimum of 15 Euros on bricklink! And you can be sure that the collectible coins (which cost 1150 points i.e. a bit more than 7 Euros) will be worth much more soon...
The cynic in me says this is more about Lego trying to get people to spend their VIP points on something other than Lego sets - which ultimately means more profit for Lego. And generating the urge to collect something else. And developing a secondary market in years to come (how much are Series 1 CMF's?)
I think I'll pass on these.......
I think it's could be made from an outside firm, looks like chinese scrap :(
This looks just like what I have come to expect from ever more LEGO products as of late - bad quality all around. How you can give this a 7/10 is beyond me. This looks so cheap and crappy like so much giveaway garbage.
Thanks but no thanks. I'll spend my points for something more worthwhile.
@chris38911 said:
"The cynic in me says this is more about Lego trying to get people to spend their VIP points on something other than Lego sets - which ultimately means more profit for Lego. And generating the urge to collect something else. And developing a secondary market in years to come (how much are Series 1 CMF's?)
I think I'll pass on these.......
"
Don't forget that every coin also necessitates a full retail-priced order of Lego in addition to using up hard-earned VIP points.
Haha, is this LEGO's idea of VIP treatment? I'll take my € 10 discount, thank you.
Excellent choice of subject matter for LEGO's first coin: it's a Danish Krone.
But pink?!
Eh it's fine
LEGO building anything other than LEGO has always been rather silly to me. So has spending VIP points on anything other than actual LEGO. The coin’s quality is close to garbage and I hope they get a lot of phone calls about it.
Toss a coin to your witcher...
@magni_nominis_umbra said:
"
@wiggy said:
"Nice scathing review for once. All that is missing is a loose hair stuck under the coin holder :)"
You need to check the Brothers Brick review to find that loose hair ;)"
Ha! I hadn’t seen that until just now, so funny :D
I've noticed (far cheaper) challenge coins have better quality than this, and many were commissioned by individuals from police departments and military units not a major corporation like LEGO. And I'm sure the company who made the coin itself was much larger than the typical makers of challenge coins.
they really missed their opportunity to make this a black falcon design - something that really screamed LEGO. if i saw this for sale at a shop i wouldn't even identify it with LEGO. definite pass for me.
@lady_bricker said:
"they really missed their opportunity to make this a black falcon design - something that really screamed LEGO. if i saw this for sale at a shop i wouldn't even identify it with LEGO. definite pass for me."
Honestly, I like this design more for a Castle-themed coin. I love the Fantasy era of sets, and the crown quickly signifies something medieval better than a falcon for me.
Just watch: collectors 20 years from now will go nuts over this
Also, I honestly think it would've been more fun if the coin was designed to be a giant version of those old shiny ones that used to come in sets. You know, like in Pirates or Aqua Rairders. They don't make those anymore, but it would be a nice little throwback.
Is the coin metal or plastic? I don't see that detail in the write up.
Seems like OCD collector trolling to me.
Is this (and the larger coin case) going to be added to the database? Odd having a review of an official item (admittedly a “gear” item) and not being able to link to a database entry about it. Plus makes inventorying this more difficult...
@gonesnakee said:
" @turboslot said:
"Your score of 7/10 is way too generous."
^ DITTO^ a 5/10 Would Still Be Generous!"
I do understand why you question my 7/10 score. I may have been too generous but the reason is that the only real negative thing about the coin is the painting. So you mighy say that the score is based on an as much as I could objective view. But since we all are used to very high quality as the only standard for Lego l, subjective views influence the score. So you are all right. An obective view together with a subjective view will lead to a more negative score. When I include my disappointment into the score I will have to give this coin a score of 5/10.....
Regardless of the flaws, I actually kinda still want this. Rumor is a bunch of coins for other themes are coming out in the future and I'd love to get my hands on them.
Hand painting isn't too common nowadays with LEGO is it? Last time I remember them doing it was on the Infected Hau in the 2001 BIONICLE sets.
I get that we’re talking about an item that cost maybe $1 apiece max to manufacture in China, but this thing is just embarrassingly poor quality. Who would approve this?
@Jelippo said:
"What’s the point of the other case then?"
Do we know that the actual retail version even comes with a case? (EDIT: Missed that this was a regular user who wrote up the review and not someone who was sent some sort of preview item) The photos on the Lego site don't show a case on the individual coin and have the 5-coin case listed separately.
I also just noticed that in the US the coin is listed for 1,150 points, not 1,500, with the 5-coin case listed at 700 points. Perhaps since they sent out this information they dropped the single-coin case and lowered the point cost accordingly?
@GSR_MataNui said:
"Rumor is a bunch of coins for other themes are coming out in the future and I'd love to get my hands on them."
It's not really a rumor that there are going to be other coins representing other themes. The 5-coin case that's also listed shows coins with the classic space logo, a pirate coin (skull and crossbones on red and white striped background), an Octan logo (representing the city/town theme), and a fifth that, to my eye, is a replication of the classic LEGO coin piece, such as the pieces that came in 6235 .
Not interested in the whole set, but I'd like to get the Classic Space coin, so it'd be nice if individual coins do come in some sort of display case - and any production/packaging issues get sorted out by the time they get around to the Classic Space coin.
In numismatics "coins" are issued by a government entity and have a monetary value on them. This is not a coin but merely a VIP chip or a medallion that is just coin shaped.
But who cares as long as you spend your hard earned VIP points on 5 cheap souvenirs instead of discount codes or the next signed set that is available for a minute. Rant over.
Worthless tacky tat taking advantage of Lego collectors quest for completism & encouraging them to part with VIP points for something with all the heritage & appeal of a Beanie Baby
@Altair1970 said:
"This is strange, the colors look different than on the Lego rewards page (on the French site the crown's color seems to be yellow)... are there different versions depending on the region ? Anyway I think it still looks great and the packaging is nice, so I am glad I redeemed it (for 1150 points in France)"
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/media.brothers-brick.com/2021/01/VIP-Castle-Coin-Review-06-640x640.jpg
Totally different colors
@Altair1970 :
I basically stopped cashing in points for price reductions when they revamped the system and made it nearly impossible to do so. Then they made it easier again, and I started back up...when I could remember to ask them to cash them in at the register _before_ they rang me up. And then I kinda dropped back out of it once they started coming up with these special items that could only be bought with points. I've got the carbonite and 2x4 plate keychains, and cashed in a few points for both the first coin and the multi-case. I did burn some points on half-priced coupons, but if I'd been dumping the points as fast as I racked them up, I'd never be able to get these without paying extra for them on the secondary market.
@Brainslugged :
1. If you're entertaining the thought of snagging these coins with your points, you're probably dropping S @H orders regularly throughout the year. You don't have to buy something _immediately_ like you sometimes do with GWPs. You just have to snag the redemption code right away and make sure you use it before the code expires.
2. There are new sets being released every month, and new GWP offers going live all throughout the year. Chances are there will be something coming down the pipe that will be of interest.
3. You can always stack these. It doesn't take one order per item. If the next offer comes up soon enough, you can probably tack multiple codes onto a single order to minimize the number of S @H orders you need to place to collect these, if it's really that big a deal.
@lady_bricker :
This coin has a crown on it, so it was minted under orders from the king or queen. Black Falcons were nobility at best. They also aren't very representative of the entire Castle theme. And worst of all, you have to figure out which of the four Black Falcon logos you'd even want to put on the coin! For those who don't know what I'm talking about, the BF logo has a shocking amount of variety. One person was able to find torsos where the bird was looking left or right, and the background was either B/W or W/B. Combined, he ended up with four distinct variants of the original torso alone, not to mention the shape of the shield outline on the torso changed when they hit the point of Bricktober releases.
@GSR_MataNui :
It's not a rumor. They've already published an image showing the large case full of five different coins. Besides this, there will be a Classic Space logo on a black background (_that_ one will skyrocket in value for sure), and Octan logo on a checkered flag background, a skull and crossbones on a red/white vertical stripe background, and a plain gold coin that looks like the top of a LEGO stud.
Interestingly, the single image of this coin does show the yellow crown as people have mentioned. The display case image, however, shows the funky pink crown like we see in the review photos.
I don't remember the Infected Hau being hand-painted. It was definitely painted, but the rust patches were pretty consistent in their location, even if they weren't so consistent in their intensity. I'd think they would have loaded these onto some sort of puck on a conveyor and sent it through a painting machine that applied a complete base layer (graphite) before hitting it with a few spots of rust.
@R0Sch:
Most commonly a non-monetary coin would be referred to as a token, at least in the US. While a lot less familiar now than they were a few decades ago, the two most common forms I know of were subway tokens and arcade tokens. Subway have largely shifted to other means of payment that don't make as enticing souvenirs, and arcades are no longer the common sight that they used to be when Pacman was cutting edge.
But the term "coin" has a much wider usage in the general public. One such instance is challenge coins, which is kinda what these look like. Challenge coins have zero monetary value attached to them, but they are referred to by no other name. Non-governmental entities have also been known to issue currency. During the early days of the United States, the US government was reluctant to issue a national currency. Instead, bank-issued currency filled in whatever gaps were left by Spanish "pieces of eight".
I keep telling myself I don't "need" this. If it was 500 points I'd probably go for it but once something goes over 1000 points it has to be something really interesting to get me to part with my points. The fact that it does come in a case makes it a little more tempting since the case does add value. Curious if they will just do the five shown in the 5 coin case or if there will be others. The Octan one is of no interest to me so no need for the 5 coin case unless there will be others added in the future.
Is that really “pink”? I see it as closest to the Lego color medium nougat. Seeing no one pointing this out in the comments, I was filled with so much self doubt I just took an online test to confirm I’m not colorblind. I’m not. But I did struggle to see pink compared to other colors. So maybe I just have poor color vision but not blindness when it comes to seeing pink. Or maybe my phone lcd is bad.
@eMouse:
Or you're just seeing the different point cost between US and UK.
@Norikins:
It's a pretty earthy shade of pink to me, but it still has a reddish tinge that medium nougat does not.
A load of nonsense... but seriously, it seems like TLG are just trying new and different things to mix it up a bit. It does seem cheap tat to me, but if people want to collect them then so be it.
@ClassicDragon said:
"The pink crown is foreshadowing to the castle theme returning.... But with minidolls.
Maybe later coins will have a smoother paint job. :/
"
Princesses are where the money is. :D Just ask Disney!
@mkrey said:
"Toss a coin to your witcher...
"
Well played, indeed.
Looking at around $60 in rewards spent to get the 5 coins and the display stand!!! Definitely not worth it for me.
However, I might come to regret that decision in a couple of years, lol!
@bbalit said:
"Looking at around $60 in rewards spent to get the 5 coins and the display stand!!! Definitely not worth it for me.
However, I might come to regret that decision in a couple of years, lol!"
I thought the same thing about a different kind of coin a couple of years ago. Little did I know... ;-)
I understand the fascination and monetary value in collecting coins, I used to do so some years ago. However, lego could have made it a lot more sophiscated than using paint or enamel, using text and dates about the theme, etc instead.
And faced with either a thousand points and over on that or £10 or more off a set, I would go for the latter.
Thanks for the warning.
Not sure about the reason this product exists, other than artificially become a collector's item. Great review, thanks for the heads up!
Thank you for this very valuable review. I was torn about getting one, and the subsequent 4 coin case, due to the high point cost. After this review I can confidently pass on this item...it was a good idea, just poorly executed.
Maybe your 'pink' coin is now somewhat very valuable because it is a 'defect' (assuming the correct colour is yellow).
Happy that they come in their own case - will try to get the Classic Space one whenever it comes out.
Just a thought......I think the coin system could have been more enticing if a unique coin were sold at each Legoland, similar to quirky coin collectibles found at various "tourist traps" across the US.
@Darth_TNT:
I don't know if it's still the case, but Pixar's Cars was actually Disney's most profitable franchise at one point, dusting Disney Princess and Mickey Mouse, all because kids had hundreds of die-cast Cars cars to collect, and they only cost about $5 each.
@HOBBES:
That could be true if anyone were actually receiving coins with yellow crowns. But since all the eBay pics show the same earth-pink crown, I doubt it will mean anything.
@Josh_the_aquaraider:
I know some LEGOLAND parks have unique penny-smashers, and I've also run across pics of some larger, round tokens that are/were available in parks outside the US where there's nothing that's really comparable to the US penny (I have a friend who lived in Japan for a few years, and he said that since there's no Japanese currency that's equivalent to the penny, they just give you penny-sized slugs to smash instead).
I've read the entire review and each comment here, and still don't see any information as to whether the "coin" is plastic or metal. Would make a big difference in perceived value
@eMouse said:
" @Jelippo said:
"What’s the point of the other case then?"
Do we know that the actual retail version even comes with a case? (EDIT: Missed that this was a regular user who wrote up the review and not someone who was sent some sort of preview item) The photos on the Lego site don't show a case on the individual coin and have the 5-coin case listed separately.
I also just noticed that in the US the coin is listed for 1,150 points, not 1,500, with the 5-coin case listed at 700 points. Perhaps since they sent out this information they dropped the single-coin case and lowered the point cost accordingly?
@GSR_MataNui said:
"Rumor is a bunch of coins for other themes are coming out in the future and I'd love to get my hands on them."
It's not really a rumor that there are going to be other coins representing other themes. The 5-coin case that's also listed shows coins with the classic space logo, a pirate coin (skull and crossbones on red and white striped background), an Octan logo (representing the city/town theme), and a fifth that, to my eye, is a replication of the classic LEGO coin piece, such as the pieces that came in 6235 .
Not interested in the whole set, but I'd like to get the Classic Space coin, so it'd be nice if individual coins do come in some sort of display case - and any production/packaging issues get sorted out by the time they get around to the Classic Space coin."
I just ordered my pirate coin... way cool... love the fact that it is hand painted... 1150 points as well! Have no interest in ordering the Castle theme, Octan, or Classic Space coins though, although I could see ordering a "friends" coin in the future.
@Wildblue said:
"I've read the entire review and each comment here, and still don't see any information as to whether the "coin" is plastic or metal. Would make a big difference in perceived value"
I just got a Pirates coin, and it is definitely metal, enamelled. Looks good.
I got my Castle coin today. Pink crown. No major defects in the enamel, but the upper vertical divider looks like it might have a little dent in it. The back of the coin has a significant dent on the top edge, like someone dropped it, and there may be some short hairs trapped against the coin (or they may have been on the coin when they plated it).
The VIP logo on the case is unblemished. The case sits flat, and has minor alignment issues on the sides. Both sides have some tiny scratches near the screws. There are a few minor scuffs, but they're on the back. The edges seem kinda sharp, though, especially on the back. I'm wondering how long it'll be before someone reports that they drew blood with one of these things.