BLOCKS: Article 17: Comic Con LEGO sets & minifigures...A con or coup?
Back in 1970, in the beautiful city of San Diego, California, the first Comic Con was born. Originally known as the Golden State Comic Book Convention, it has been shortened to the current San Diego Comic Con name in 1995. The San Diego Comic Con is a four-day event that promotes many of today's media and entertainment venues. Comic books are still a factor in the current San Diego Comic Con, but major motion pictures and television shows and their characters make up a larger portion of the event. The San Diego Comic Con enables large entertainment and toy corporations to promote new products, movies, characters and shows in booths throughout the event. The LEGO Group is one such company that promotes new products at these events, especially licensed sets and minifigures relating to movies, TV and comic book characters. LEGO has been actively displaying at the San Diego Comic Con for well over a decade, and some of the most valuable and highly collectible LEGO items have been sold and given away at these events.
As just mentioned, some of the most valuable LEGO collectibles were obtained at a San Diego Comic Con. The San Diego Comic Con has become so popular among fans that a similar event in New York City is also held each year. For purposes of space and time, we will discuss only the San Diego Comic Con, the gold standard of all conventions, but many other similar conventions have sprouted up throughout the globe. Because many of the promotional products at the San Diego Comic Con are rare and limited editions, they are valuable on secondary markets. This sounds like easy money to the typical LEGO investor and collector. The problem is gaining access to this event(s). Sure, tickets are available, but they are hard to come by, and many fans live thousands of miles away from the convention. In addition to just getting there, once you are there, there is no guarantee that you will be able to obtain a LEGO promotional item. Some are raffled off, some are given away, some are sold. Let's take a look at some of the major promotional items that were given away at the San Diego Comic Con and how they have appreciated on LEGO secondary market sites. Although LEGO was present in earlier San Diego Comic Cons, 2008 was the first year a major set was released specifically for the event.
2008: The first major set released for a convention was the COMCON001-1 Clone Wars Comic Con Exclusive. It was a 351-piece STAR WARS set that combined sets 7654 Droids Battle Pack and 7670 Hailfire Droid & Spider Droid. It sold for $20.00 and current prices on secondary market sites are close to $200.00!
2009: In 2009, six "Collectible Display" sets were sold at the LEGO booth for $49.99 each. They were numbered COMCON004-1 through COMCON009-1. Each STAR WARS Collectible Display set had three LEGO minifigures mounted on a plate and were enclosed in a diorama-like box that had unique scenes and backgrounds that coordinated with the minifigures. The boxes were marked and individually numbered, with some being 1 of 1250, while others were marked 1 of 300, pretty rare in the LEGO collectible universe. Current values for individual Collectible Display sets are around $100.00 for the less rare (1 of 1250) and well over $200.00 for the rarer editions. A complete set of six Collectible Display sets can reach close to $1000.00. These are some of my personal favorite LEGO collectibles. There was also a STAR WARS "BrickMaster" pack that contained a mini Republic Dropship and mini AT-TE. Five hundred of these numbered sets were sold for $49.99 apiece. Current values are close to $300.00 on LEGO secondary markets.
**2010: **The 2010 San Diego Comic Con sold two thousand "Cube Dude-The Clone Wars Edition" sets that contained five unique models of famous STAR WARS characters, all with oversized heads. There was a matching "Bounty Hunter" version released at the Celebration V event in the same year. Both sold for $75.00, with current prices nearing $200.00. Cool sets and very similar to this years "BrickHeadz" sets.
**2011: **LEGO changed it up a bit in 2011 with two exclusive minifigures, the Green Lantern and Batman minifigures mounted on a newspaper-like placard. Fifteen hundred of each were raffled off to lucky LEGO fans. Current values on LEGO secondary markets are about $350.00-$400.00 each.
2012: LEGO released both a STAR WARS set (Darth Maul's Sith Infiltrator) and four minifigures...Shazam, Phoenix, Bizzaro and Spider-Man (Black Symbiote Costume). The mini Sith Infiltrator was sold for $39.99 and was packaged in a unique "tin can." Current values of this set are well over $200.00. The DC Comics and Marvel minifigures were raffled off at the event and have skyrocketed in price, with the Shazam selling for close to $1000.00 and the other three selling between $400.00 to $600.00! Those are amazing values for a peanut-sized plastic person.
2013: The 2013 San Diego Comic Con was another mixed bag. Four DC Comics and Marvel minifigures...Spider-Woman, Spider-Man, Black Suit Superman, Green Arrow were given away and three mini sets...the STAR WARS JEK-14 Stealth Starfighter, The Hobbit's Micro Scale Bag End and the Guardians of the Galaxy Rocket Racoon's Warbird, were sold for $39.99. All of the minifigures are selling for close to $1000.00, some even for more. The prices are exploding. The sets are selling for around $200.00. It paid to show up at the 2013 event.
2014: Another active year at the Comic Con, with four minifigures...the Super Heroes Batman of Zur-En-Arrh and The Collector, The Hobbit's Bard the Bowman and The LEGO Movie's Unikitty. These were also given away to lucky visitors. Current prices are between $100.00-$400.00 for these minifigures, with Batman of Zur-En-Arrh being the most valuable. The mini sets, the STAR WARS set, The Ghost, and the DC Comics Classic TV Series Batmobile are selling for $250.00 and $500.00 respectively. Nice.
2015: Only one minifigure was given away at the 2015 event, the Sam Wilson Captain America, selling for several hundred dollars currently. There were three mini sets...STAR WARS Dagobah Mini Build, Avenger's Throne of Ultron and the DC Comics Action Comics #1 Superman, that were sold for $49.99 and are currently selling for several hundred dollars.
As the reader can see, the growth and values of most of these promotional items from the San Diego Comic Cons are phenomenal. The problem for most of us is that we cannot attend the San Diego Comic Con in California without major expenditures of time and money. A LEGO collector will have to decide on whether or not buying these on eBay or another source for an inflated rate is worth the risk. The lucky attendees of the annual San Diego Comic Cons can reap great rewards if they are fortunate enough to obtain any of these minifigures and sets. There seems to be some shenanigans going on at times because resellers seem to have a unique ability to acquire these valuable LEGO items. They are supposed to go to LEGO fans, especially kids, yet you will see these listed on eBay even before the raffle or giveaway. LEGO has to come up with a better and fairer system of distribution of such collectible items. Personally, I do usually take the risk and pay marked up prices early on. History has shown that even at higher buy-in prices, there is still room for these sets to increase in value. Many mini sets I bought for $100.00 have easily doubled, and some of the minifigures bought for several hundred dollars have doubled or tripled in value from the high buy-in price. I love these unique pieces of LEGO history and try to obtain most that are reasonably priced and I have benefitted from their continued appreciation. These are rare items and, unlike many other LEGO items, will never be reissued. Regardless of your taste for risk, appreciate these San Diego Comic Con promotional items. There is a lot of thought and creativity built into these items, and this is what keeps LEGO popular and the LEGO secondary markets strong.
