Over the past few weeks, I have received several requests relating to the two minifigs distributed to a handful of privileged people during the Toy Fair from New York in 2012. These versions of Captain America (Bucky Barnes) and Iron Man were produced in very limited quantities including 125 numbered copies from the bag above.

Since then, Chinese manufacturers of copies of minifigs have obviously made sure to meet demand with counterfeits of these two very exclusive minifigs.

Rather than repeating the same thing over and over again, here are some clarifications for anyone who would like to try and get these rather rare original figurines on the secondary market. It is complicated.

The sachet which contains these two minifigs is not sealed and is not numbered. This is a resealable bag. It bears the words "Warning: Plastic bags can be dangerous. To avoid danger of suffocation keep this bag away from babies and children"and" "Warning: Chocking Hazard. Small parts. Not for children under 3 years".

This bag was offered accompanied by a numbered plastic badge in gray felt (XX / 125) on which are glued two flat 2x2 gray which allow to hang the two minifigs. This is also the only complicated element to reproduce. Its presence in the lot that you can find for sale is a good indicator even if you are not immune to dealing with a seller who could have obtained the badge to resell it with non-original minifigs.

In the original bag, there is a roughly printed and hastily cut paper insert. All the original bags must be identical to the one I present to you here (This is my copy, bought in 2012 from a journalist a few hours after the event organized by LEGO). Any other packaging would be an attempt to sell you a DIY product and make you believe it is indeed an original.

Two sellers on Bricklink currently offer the Iron Man minifigure, one of them talks about a box from which the sealing tape has come off. I asked this seller about this "box", I never got an answer ... The other seller announces that the minifig is damaged.

Concerning Captain America, a copy of this minifigure is also currently for sale on Bricklink. Besides the fact that it is difficult to authenticate this minifig without having it in front of you and that it is delivered without the shield provided by LEGO, the asking price is clearly excessive.

It is confirmed that in addition to the 125 copies of the bag offered to journalists invited by LEGO on its stand at the New York Toy Fair 2012, a few copies of each of these two minifigs were provided by LEGO to several websites which made them the prize money for the launch of the LEGO Super Heroes Movie Maker application.

At FBTB, BZ-Power et Eurobricks, each winner received only one of the two minifigs to choose from, with the second on the podium inheriting the other figure. brick set, TheBrickBlogger.com et Toys n bricks for their part involved the lot of two minifigs, but a priori without the original bag. This dozen original minifigs put into play is therefore confirmed. There have probably been other sites that have benefited from this endowment in minifigs, but I have not found confirmation.

If you are going to buy these minifigs individually, find out as much as possible about their provenance. The rest is just speculation as to how much is actually produced.

Finally, if you want to add these two versions to your collection and you prefer to fall back on the fakes / customs that circulate on eBay and others, do not pay them more than a few euros.

They are good imitations but they are not official minifigs anyway, even if they are sometimes original LEGO parts which have been pad printed by a customs manufacturer and are identical to the originals, also made. by an external service provider on behalf of LEGO in 2012.

In a few lines, here are figures from professional reports that help to better understand the state of the current toy market in France as well as the place and strategy of LEGO.

Over the first 8 months of 2012, the toy market in France was negative at -4% in value and -8% by volume. Where the Action Figures (or action figures) is in sharp decline with a decrease of 27% of the turnover generated compared to 2011, the construction games market (incorporating LEGO) is up 18% over the same period.

In the market of Action Figures, only the Spider-Man licenses (+ 380% with the help of the film), Power Rangers (+ 696% thanks to the return of the license via Power Rangers Samurai), Pokemon (stable), Avengers and Batman are doing well .

Regarding the Friends range, LEGO communicates a few figures: The LEGO brand is considered mixed until the age of 5 via Duplo. After this milestone, only 14% of female customers acquired to the cause. This is why LEGO flooded the media with advertisements in 2012 in order to create notoriety around this new range as quickly as possible. LEGO believes that the potential of this range is at least equivalent to that of the City range over the 5-8 year range.

During the period from January to June 2012, LEGO is part of the Top 10 Advertisers in France with € 4.856.000 of invested budget (launch of the Friends range) and is in third place behind the two giants Mattel (€ 9.858.000) and Hasbro (€ 7.179.000). MEGA Brands is not present in this ranking, but the press relations manager I met at NYCC 2012 confirmed to me that the group would be more present in 2013 to highlight its licenses (WoW, Halo, Skylanders, Power Rangers Samurai).

The advertising budget allocated by LEGO over the same period in 2011 was € 3.162.000, i.e. an increase of 53.6% in 2012. For comparison, Playmobil invested 1.194.000 € in 2012, reducing its budget by 7.1% compared to 2011.

TV advertising represents 82.8% of the total advertising investments made over the first six months of 2012, all brands combined. 11.1% of the sums were invested on the internet, and cinema, radio and the print media share the rest.
The biggest advertising investors in 2011 were Hasbro, Mattel and Giochi Preziosi (Gormiti).

No reliable information for the moment concerning the licenses for 2012, but as an example, know that in 2011 the Top 3 consisted of Beyblade, Cars and Hello Kitty.

In the ranking game of the most sold licenses on the toy market and carried by a film we find Cars (2011), Spider-Man (2007), Star Wars (2011), Toy Story (2010) and Ratatouille (2008).

Regarding distribution channels, a few figures: Between 2009 and 2011 the market share of supermarkets / hypermarkets increased by only 1%, where the pdm of specialized brands increased by 7%. The biggest increase is to the credit of online merchants with + 47% pdm in 3 years.

Regarding the sale of collectible products in sachets, it is a huge market: Products under 5 € represent 40% of the volumes sold in France thanks to a price adapted to the children's budget and to impulse purchases. By way of reference, the PetShop brand launched in France in 2005 has already offered more than 2000 different references with the success that we know. Enough to whet the appetite of LEGO, Playmobil or MEGA Brands with their figurines in sachets in this segment.