Scalpers Rejoice !

LEGO-wise it's been a bit of a frustrating week so far, initially spent willing the last few AT-AT parts to arrive so I could start to build, then realising that I'm actually short of more parts than I first thought and therefore having to dive back into Bricklink. Still, they say that you have to suffer for your art, so maybe I'll appreciate the build all the more when it finally starts. Maybe.

While I've been waiting, I've consoled myself by perusing the various LEGO forums. One thing that's caught my eye has been the number of people posting "Wanted" messages on the Brickset Forum seeking to buy or trade exclusive items given out by LEGO at events such as San Diego Comic Con (SDCC). Good luck with that, guys...

LEGO have been doling out small numbers of limited edition minifigures and exclusive sets at events for years now, although I only became aware of this practice a couple of years back when I read reports of attendees at Star Wars Celebration V and SDCC picking up limited edition Star Wars Cube Dude sets (above - click to enlarge). Since then, LEGO giveaways at such events seem to have become an increasingly prominent part of the LEGO calendar, to the extent that speculation about what will be given away starts weeks beforehand, and the subsequent bragging by the lucky few then goes on for literally months afterwards....

Some of the most recent LEGO giveaways include four exclusive Super Heroes minifigures at SDCC 2012 - Phoenix (above), Bizarro, Shazam and Venom - and a trio of unique Green Lantern, Batman and Superman minifigures at SDCC and New York Comic Con (NYCC) last year. In previous years other themes such as Star Wars (below) and Indiana Jones have featured.

(c) Bricklink.com

On the surface, you might be inclined to give LEGO a big great pat on the back for their generosity and wonder what there is to complain about. LEGO are producing neat stuff to give away free, gratis and for nothing to LEGO collectors. The problem is that the route by which most of the passionate LEGO collectors eventually secure these items isn't via an obliging LEGO employee at a show, it's via eBay, or maybe Bricklink. And as you can probably gather, by the time most collectors get a look in, the nature of the transaction has gone from gift to gouging....

Let's look at some of the recent giveaways for evidence of this, starting with the Super Heroes Shazam minifigure (above) given away at SDCC earlier this year. Cost to recipient : nothing. Cheapest current Bricklink price : $165.00. Or you can try eBay, but once you've eliminated the custom minifigures you're looking at a $100 starting bid. Alternatively, I see that some eBay sellers are offering all four of the exclusive SDCC 2012 minifigures for the 'bargain' Buy It Now price of $749.98 - way to go ! Then there's the exclusive Batman minifigure from SDCC 2011 (below). Cost to recipient : zero, zilch, zip. Cheapest current Bricklink price : $254.99. Or you can Buy It Now on eBay for $180. I could go on, but I'm sure you get the gist - these items are expensive. I don't necessarily blame the sellers for trying to get what they can for the items; the current shoddy state of affairs is at least as much down to LEGO for putting the conditions in place for such a situation to predictably develop.

So what is the LEGO company hoping to achieve with these desirable giveaways ? My suspicion is that they're trying to attract new customers by targeting the freebies at events such as SDCC rather than, for instance, LEGO shows attended by genuine LEGO fans, and if they antagonise a few existing fans in the process then so be it. After all, those LEGO fans are already hooked. The company do need to be careful, though - with increasing numbers of people buying LEGO sets just for the minifigures these days, there's a chance that some will stop doing so if you take away their ability to "collect 'em all" by releasing exclusive minifigures which are out of their reach.

Honestly, while I have managed to track down a few of these exclusives, I'd actually prefer that LEGO just didn't bother with these giveaways at all. Tantalising sections of your audience in this way just seems cruel and potentially counterproductive to me, the joy of the few outweighed by the frustration of the many, with the only real winners being those opportunists seeking to make a financial killing out of the whole thing....

Exclusives are Rubbish

OK, time for a bit of a moan.

As a LEGO Star Wars collector, I get really irritated when new LEGO Star Wars sets or items are released which I'm prevented from getting at a reasonable price merely by an accident of geography. It's just not right.

So far this year, I can think of at least 5 LEGO Star Wars items which up until now have only been made available, or will only be made available, to people attending certain events overseas or living in certain countries. There were the Clone Wars Edition Cube Dudes (only available at this year's San Diego Comic Con), the Bounty Hunter Cube Dudes (only available at Fan Celebration V), the white Boba Fett minifig that I blogged about recently and a couple of Brickmaster sets (Set 20016 mini Imperial Shuttle and the yet-to-be-released Set 20018 mini AT-AT) only available to folks in the U.S. via a Brickmaster subscription.

The very cool Bounty Hunter Cube Dude Set, but you can't have one....

I'm really hoping that the Brickmaster sets and the white Boba Fett will appear on this side of the pond at some point, but the Cube Dudes are I believe all gone, so it's a case of paying over the odds on Ebay or Bricklink or just doing without. It's frustrating knowing that these interesting and desirable pieces of the LEGO Star Wars jigsaw are out there, but also knowing that I need to jump through hoops and cough up lots of cash in order to ensure that I can add them to my collection.

This isn't a new phenomenon - just check out the resale prices of the 64-piece 2008 Brickmaster exclusive mini Clone Turbo Tank if you want to see the kind of pain that collectors outside the U.S. have to endure, and there are numerous other examples of desirable LEGO Star Wars exclusives which give collectors sleepless nights. Chrome gold C-3PO minifig, anyone ? We should certainly be grateful for the existence of Ebay and Bricklink which at least mean that these rare items are attainable - I have Ebay to thank for my shiny gold C-3PO. It's just a pity you need a second mortgage to afford them !

Huw on Brickset reported yesterday that Brickmaster will be winding down at the end of this year. While that's a big shame for U.S. subscribers, it's one less source of 'exclusive' sets which aren't available to the rest of us. It's demise also raises the possibility that whatever replaces it might be a global rather than U.S.-only initiative which would be fairer, although I'm not holding my breath.

So I'll end with a plea to the LEGO company (who are obviously not reading this, but please just humour me anyway) : I implore you to stop producing limited edition LEGO Star Wars items for the chosen few. It benefits nobody except the Ebay scalpers and puts me in a bad mood.