Earlier today on the other side of the pond, the new LEGO flagship store at Leicester Square opened up and members of the LEGO community were there to attend the pre-opening event. You can read up about the store over on Brickset but I want to focus on the Lester minifigure that was available for the AFOL attendees as well as for shoppers.
As you can see from the image above, there are only 275 LEGO Lester minifigures available which makes it one of the most rare minifigures ever produced. This puts Lester around the same level as the early exclusive San Diego Comic Con LEGO minifigures. Huw reported that the extremely limited number of Lester minifigures produced was because there wasn’t more bowler hat pieces due to it being out of production and whatever was left were used for it.
You still have a chance to win Lester when you make a purchase of £55 or more at the Leicester Square store until November 20 or while supplies last.
When you make a purchase or, sometimes, carry out some other action as direct result of clicking on a link at The Brick Fan, we will receive a small commission.
The Brick Fan is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
We partner with Rakuten Advertising, who may collect personal information when you interact with our site. The collection and use of this information is subject to the privacy policy located here: https://rakutenadvertising.com/legal-notices/services-privacy-policy/
“…the extremely limited number of Lester minifigures produced was because there wasn’t more bowler hat pieces due to it being out of production…”
Then make more? Presumably the molds still exist.
“Huw reported that the extremely limited number of Lester minifigures
produced was because there wasn’t more bowler hat pieces due to it being
out of production and whatever was left were used for it.”
This is nothing short of a pathetic excuse. Lego is trying to increase sales by running a thinly veiled lottery, where they can produce multiple $2,000 prizes for pennies. If they were a stand up company, they would just give out $2,000 gift cards and not lean on their fans (aka secondary market) to flip to price tag for their promotion.
I would have very much appreciated it had they not done this at all, or at least be up front with early promotions, and basically say unless you have an obnoxious amount of disposable income, this is not for you.
It’s sad that after collecting for 40+ years, Lego has decided to price me out of what should have been a fun in-store purchase for everyone. Going out of my way to get figures like the BR mascot used to be fun. This is just flying things in my face to show me what I’m not privileged enough to afford.
Lego is not the problem here. This figure is meant as a fun item for visitors at their new store. People who cannot access that store were never meant to have one. We can’t all get what we want all the time.
Lego is indeed the ONLY one at fault here. When your brand has global popularity and you only make 275 copies of a figure, that’s a $2,000 figure (maybe more). That’s just not right. There’s no call for it. Is a $2000 figure for kids? No it is not. If they knew they weren’t going to be able to make enough, then you just don’t make it at all. Or you make it clear you’ll make more later. Again I just feel getting fans to flip the bill for your promotion is just not a very stand up way to do business. (and by business, I mean standard 100% retail mark-up, that’s been the ethical business standard since before I was born)
You’re making up a problem where one does not exist. I’m sick of using kids as some excuse. “But the KIDS!!!!” No child’s life will be ruined by not having a Lester. Also, Lego is not making any money off these things (other that getting people into the store.) Lego does not benefit from scalpers. This is just a special promotion, not a regular retail release. Now go to the store and spend your money on one of the hundreds of sets that are easily available and stop whining about the one set you can’t have.
Hold the phone. ‘Lego is not making money off these things’ For real? This is all about ‘spend $55 for a chance to win a $2000 minifigure’. There is nothing about this that is not about making money. Lego is not doing this out of the kindness of their hearts.
And I never said it was about the kids. I said the opposite. There is nothing about this that is for kids. Any parent who gives their kid a $2,000 minifigure to play with has to have their head examined.
I am complaining because Lego is making something that is only meant for the obscenely wealthy. There is just no need for it. And as a loyal custom who has been with Lego trough thick and thin, I have more than earned the right to complain about it.
Gomek I’m with you. I went there and I got a parrot. Ok, I’m among the ones who didn’t got it and maybe I’m complaining for just this reason, but still I don’t understand why Lego let us dream about a damn good minifigure for about 2 months, and then left us out of the door. They could have produced a new running of stock later (without a special date e.g.). This would have been a more successfull marketing strategy where everyone is satisfied and spends money with a large smile!
I hope Lego will change their mind very soon.
thanks. And I like your idea; a dated version for the giveaway would have been a nice way to leave the door open.
Spend $55 on Lego product, you get $55 worth of Lego product, and a chance to win. If you win, you got a free minifig. Lego is not charging $2000 for Lester.
Lego is a company and they’re doing this to drum up business, just like with any other in-store freebie, except this one is more limited. I cannot see how this is unethical.
Lego is creating a $2000 minifigure. Doesn’t matter that they are not collecting the money. It’s like throwing a bunch of dollar bills into a crowded street. They may say they are doing something nice, but the reality is it’s going to cause problems.
Right now there are thousands of kids who have knock-off SDCC Green Arrow figures (that’s one of the exclusives that started the knockoff craze). Maybe 10s of thousands. Most of those kids probably don’t know they have a fake. When those things start hitting ebay and the owners are selling
them unknowingly as the real thing, there are going to be issues. People will get ripped off. Lego didn’t create these SDCC knockoff figures, but they sure
as heck created the market for them.
Lego can say whatever they want. There is just no need to create $2,000 minifigures. No one benefits from these things. Lego wants to make an honest buck, sell them at retail.
Has LEGO made more than one bowler hat mold? I see black bowler hats in their Build a Mini selection from time to time. And there is a green one in the Riddler Chase set.
They just made one with hair molded on it for The LEGO Batman Movie’s Riddler, so it’s actually possible that the plain bowler has been discontinued for the foreseeable future.
One is already selling for 2,500 on ebay, ridiculously over-priced.
It also appears clear the seller works for the store.
Though that’s the thing. Turning it into a very expensive lottery, we now we have no way of being certain that all of them will be given out in time – instead its likely the store will pocket a majority away to sell them later on Ebay for a much higher amount.
If a store employee gets caught selling one of these, they can expect to be fired, if the UK works anything like the US. When you get hired, you have to agree to not sell any LEGO product of your own.
Also, presumedly they were given 275 “winner” scratcher cards, and it’d be kind of embarrassing if they came up short when someone tried to redeem one of them.
They are specifically given 275 winning scratch cards. However there are probably several hundreds or thousands of non-winning cards – so its fairly clear that there are going to be some left over that are not distributed to people in the shop at the end of all this.
As a side note, I’ve seen them sell for anywhere between £1,500 – £3,500 which is more than most employees get, and that’s if they sell them immediately. If they hold onto them they could end up being worth around several thousand.
Either way, it doesn’t seem like the 275 have even gotten distributed – there have been a few sites tracking them and a few people have asked in stores and last check they had only given out about 50 – and that was this morning…
Granted weekends are more busy, but they have about a day to get rid of over 200 and considering its been going for two days already, i don’t think they are actually distributing them with the intention of giving out all 275.
*sigh* No Lester for my Routemaster bus. And I just went to the trouble of reorganizing how the passengers were sitting so the Grenadier Guard could carry his hat instead of tossing it into a nearby seat so there’d be room for one more passenger.
It’s nice they build a lego stores at the Leicester Square in Landen I’don’t care they put a lego stores in UK because I don’t lived in Landen.