Month: August 2012

I stopped by the LEGO Store Rockefeller Center today, and saw that the advent calendars are now on the shelves. Star Wars advent calendar:

Friends advent calendar

City advent calendar

Evidently, this guy is a pretty big deal. He wasn’t supposed to be released until September, but Amazon keeps getting him in stock, and quickly selling out. Others have reported seeing him in stores recently as well.

Some are saying that the Lloyd ZX set will be one of the hot toys of the holiday season, that they only other way to get him is in the expensive $120 set, Epic Dragon Battle, and that every kid wants to be the Green Ninja, who is a kid as well.

Amazon was going through their stock super quickly, and folks are getting $20-30 for theirs on eBay. I couldn’t resist picking some up. This is half of my order:

A closeup:

The back of the card:

I had a 20% off coupon for Toys R Us, so I took another trip over there this week. In the end, I didn’t use the coupon (which was valid for a single day only), but snapped some more shots of displays and LEGO products I missed earlier in the week:

Here is the new Monster Fighters display case. Different from what Target had in terms of how they display minifigs, but they are still front and center. I’m just noticing the QR code on it promising a mini-movie if you scan it. That I COMPLETELY missed this in the store is, to me, another indication that QR codes have not caught on yet.

A closeup of the Monster Fighters characters:

They had a big Star Wars display featuring Jabba’s Palace and the Desert Skiff:

Watch your step…

They brought out more Frodo polybags, and shoved them into this little display:

At the very end of the LEGO aisle they had not only a couple boxes of series 7 Collectible Minifigures, but also a box of series 6 with a handful of packs left:

“Clearance” for the LEGO Stereo CD Boombox:

The LEGO Friends display keeps moving further and further back in the store. When it launched it was front and center, 10 feet BEFORE the LEGO aisle, then it moved to just before LEGO aisle, and now it is 10 feet beyond the LEGO aisle:

More Friends. I have to say, they never seem to have an excess of these – they do seem to sell:

You can see how big Ninjago branding is here – both sides of the display aisle:

I don’t think I had noticed the City Garage in stores before. nice set:

The LEGO mining display:

Here is everything I know about Minecraft: it exists. Okay, well since LEGO came out with a Minecraft set, I figured out it is a video game. Anyhow, these had sold out quickly, and were going for crazy money on eBay (around $150 for the a set that retails for $35), and then LEGO began to catch up with demand. They are still hard to come by, and tend to sell for something like $70 on the aftermarket. Amazon got a few in stock, and I grabbed one at $35 just to have it as part of my collection. I really have no interest in building the set, but it is unusual.

With their ominous black packaging, LEGO Collectible Minifigures Series 8 have hit the shelves at Toys R Us. Mine had four boxes, two unopened:

A box of series 7 still hanging out as well:

This week TRU was giving away the Frodo polybag from the Lord of the Rings lineup:

The Ninjago endcap

New Star Wars sets:

The long LEGO aisle:

Some new displays appeared in the LEGO aisle at my local Target. First up, the big Monster Fighters Display. Notice the images of minifigs at the bottom (kid eye-level) with the phrase “collect them all”

I believe this is a Target exclusive, set 9465 The Zombies:

A pretty large Monster Fighters section, but that is to be expected given that Halloween is coming up:

This is one of the new minifig displays, really pushing them as huge selling point in buying sets (which we know they already are):

Two of the bigger Monster Fighter sets:

Super Heroes had the same type of minifig display. I’m sure this drives kids nuts, as it must parents. A kid who wants just the Hulk minifig realizing he has to buy some big set to get it. That said – this is a nice way to make LEGO a bit more like action figures in the toy aisle, since most action figures are behind a clear pastic bubble:

Up close:

A mix of sets: Lord of the RIngs, Ninjago, and Hero Factory:

Ninjago. This stuff seems to be wildly popular. I am just now starting to pay more attention to it:

The $20 training set, displayed as an action figure would be:

A Ninjago Booster Pack:

City, Dino and Creator:

That Pirates of the Caribbean ship is still in stock everywhere:

More City. Bank Transfer is still in stock too:

LEGO Star Wars:

More:

Finally, some of the Summer 2012 releases:

Blurry, but good:

The Skiff:

The new Star Wars display. Kind of underwhelming, especially when you realize that the one ship costs $90 by itself:

I stopped by a local toy store the other week, and saw they had received a big shipment of LEGO Star Wars summer 2012 sets, along with Monster Fighters:

Wal-Mart is having a mid-summer LEGO sale, I assume clearing out sets to make way for the first wave of Fall/Holiday merchandise. Mostly 25-30% off, the sale covered a wide range of themes. The only thing I picked up in the sale was Battle of Helm’s Deep (my second one) for $89. No other Lord of the Rings Sets were on sale.

There were reports of Wal-Marts having 50% off Star Wars Turbo Tanks and 30% off Friends, but the Wal-Mart I went to didn’t have that. This is one of the first glimpses of the great sales we hope to see leading up to the holidays. Last year Wal-Mart had an amazing 50% off sale just after the holidays.

It looks as though the Imperial Shuttle set is about to hit “end of life,” meaning be retired after 2 years, which is common for Star Wars UCS sets. I have two already, but wanted a third, and found a decent deal at Target. They had a promotion where you got the Jedi T-6 Shuttle for free, plus I think there was already a 10% discount. I coupled this with 10% off via a Discover card promotion, and now have a 3rd Imperial Shuttle in my collection.

It’s a beautiful model, and pretty unique compared to all the other hulking gray ships in the other UCS sets. While it has been widely discounted for awhile, I think Amazon had it for $206 for weeks at a time in the winter, I think it will do well in the aftermarket. It is being replaced by the B-Wing, which was barely seen in the movies, is rather odd looking, and doesn’t seem to have much of a presence.

There is talk of this set being discounted as we get closer to Black Friday. From what I have seen, fewer and fewer retailers have this in stock. So it could be like a Green Grocer scenario, where LEGO discounts it on their site near Black Friday, even though it had been sold out everywhere for weeks already. I would definitely pick up another two if I found a good deal. If I found a 50% off deal, well, all bets are off!

Here is the haul: