Column: Why knowing what’s inside a CMF blind box matters to LEGO fans

The LEGO Group may have doubled down on blind buying with its switch to cardboard boxes for Collectible Minifigures, but knowing what’s inside matters to LEGO fans for three very good reasons.

Foil bags are now firmly in the rear view mirror, and with them one of the most enjoyable parts of collecting each new series of minifigures: the communal hunt for specific characters. Standing in a store and fondling bags to figure out what’s inside might not have been the most orthodox way to spend a Saturday afternoon, but getting it right made you feel like the world’s greatest detective.

Click here to learn more or if you’re experiencing issues using the Brick Search Series 25 minifigure scanner.

And if you were one of those savvy shoppers able to find a T. rex costume just by its tail, or a conquistador by its rapier, you’d often become the most popular guy or gal in the LEGO aisle. You’d help other fans amass a complete collection of Harry Potter minifigures or an army of Gingerbread Men (hey, everyone has their quirks), and in the process unlock that sense of community spirit so often lacking in what can be an otherwise solo hobby.

The switch to cardboard boxes with 71039 Marvel Series 2 was – with my environmental hat on – a good one. Foil bags can (supposedly) be recycled in my corner of the world, but that isn’t true everywhere. Cardboard boxes are more universally recyclable, more environmentally friendly and generally more sustainable. These are the tenets on which the LEGO Group is building itself in the 2020s, so the move to cardboard packaging was pretty much inevitable.

So, thumbs up from a planet perspective. But for collectors? One giant thumbs down. You can’t feel a box to figure out what’s inside without doing irreversible damage to the packaging (read: tearing it open), which is exactly what happened when 71039 Marvel Series 2 arrived on shelves. Gone are the days of standing shoulder to shoulder with other LEGO fans and feeling out your favourite characters. That’s reason number one why knowing what’s inside those boxes matters.

Maximum Moon Knights

There’s probably somebody out there who wants an army of Gingerbread Men. I’ve yet to meet them. (It was a hypothetical example.) But almost every LEGO Minifigures series includes some characters that are worth buying in big quantities, and others of which you’d only want one. For the kids who are just happy to get anything, blind buying works great. For everyone else, it means risking ending up with one too many Moon Knights.

And for most of us, two Moon Knights is one too many, because what else are you going to do with those highly-specialised pieces? The in-house series – like the newly-launched 71045 Series 25 – are usually home to one or two minifigures worth army-building (in this case, the Vampire Knight and Barbarian at least), but very rarely do we see the same thing with licensed batches. Nobody really needs a dozen Wolverines.

Knowing what’s inside boxes can prevent frustration when your eighth Pet Groomer pours out and you begin to wonder what you’re going to do with all those perfectly-groomed dogs. That’s reason number two why knowing what’s inside these boxes matters.

Mo’ minifigures, mo’ money

It also keys in nicely to the third and final reason, which is that these things are expensive. Yes, it’s commendable that they’ve maintained the same price point for years – £3.49 / $4.99 / €3.99 per box – while other sets have only increased in price. But that feeling of consistent value evaporates when you’re forced to buy at random, and suddenly find yourself spending way more than £42 per series to collect them all.

The true cost of collecting these characters technically has increased with the advent of cardboard boxes, because now you’re buying totally blind. Combine the loss of community spirit, the unwanted multiples and the spiralling costs, and you can see exactly why knowing the contents of these blind boxes matters to LEGO fans. The good news is that 71039 Marvel Series 2 is now turning out to be just a bump in the road.

That’s because the LEGO Group – whether by design or not – has started to include codes on later production runs of 71045 Series 25 that can instantly identify the minifigure inside. All you need to do is download the Brick Search app, hit the blue barcode reader, scan the larger data matrix codes found on select Series 25 boxes, and the app will immediately return an image of its contents. Hey presto: we know what’s in the boxes again.

Problem solved

That obviously sidesteps issues of expense and unwanted characters. But for me, it’s also had the unexpected side effect of bringing that sense of community spirit full circle. Since downloading the app, I’ve found myself stood in the LEGO aisle of my local toy store (other stores are available) helping other fans find the specific 71045 Series 25 minifigures they’re looking for.

Maybe that means handing over the last Vampire Knight on the shelf to a doe-eyed nine-year-old who has no clue what Fright Knights is, or helping a budding LEGO farmer amass an army of goats (at least, that’s what they told me their occupation was). Or maybe it’s simply helping a fellow normal adult fan of LEGO buy a complete dozen, just like the good old days.

Either way, I’ve got my mojo back for the Collectible Minifigures. So here’s hoping the LEGO Group has intentionally implemented this solution – because knowing what’s inside these boxes really does matter to LEGO fans.

71045 Series 25 is available now at LEGO.com, in LEGO Stores and at all good retailers. Download the Brick Search app on iOS or Android to easily scan a complete series of characters.

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