Searching for numbers on minifig cape boxes?

tecjam

Hi all,

from my collection I generally never open the capes for minfigs.
Now I have a few I do not know which set they are from, but how can you search for these?

Each cardbox box has a number printed on it, which afaik relates to the capes style and colour, but searching for this number gives me nothing (here nor on bricklink or anywhere else for that matter).

How can I find out which set(s) these are from, or to which minifig(s) they belong or were used on? And are there any plans to include this in your database at any point? I think it should be ;)


Picture included to explain what I mean

CCC

The problem is the number refers to the package rather than the contents. Whereas parts databases (here, BL, etc) refer to the parts. Some of the numbers are on BL but not many.

tecjam

CCC said:

The problem is the number refers to the package rather than the contents.

So the number on the cardboard box is not the element ID for the cape inside it, but it can clearly be used to identify the content inside as the packaging id is clearly unique for the content.

An example would be this link on bricklink (additional notes)

So why wouldn't it make sense to list the box id with the id of the content? How else will one identify it? Lego surely uses this also, how else would they know what's in the box?

CCC

tecjam said:

CCC said:

The problem is the number refers to the package rather than the contents.

So the number on the cardboard box is not the element ID for the cape inside it, but it can clearly be used to identify the content inside as the packaging id is clearly unique for the content.

There might be more than one cape inside it. But yes, lego use the ID to identify what is inside. But lego (through replacement parts) do not identify it this way in the set contents, so it doesn't going into the brickset database, and BL don't inventory capes inside boxes, they inventory individual capes. However, the information sometimes gets added as notes as you noted.

tecjam said:

So why wouldn't it make sense to list the box id with the id of the content? How else will one identify it? Lego surely uses this also, how else would they know what's in the box?

Lego obviously know what is inside each box, but don't publically list it. BL doesn't use it as a single cape can be found in multiple numbered boxes (Batman's regular black cape for example can be found alone in a box, or with other capes depending on who else is in the set). The other way of identifying what is inside is to open the box.

tecjam

Ok, so what you are saying is .... These codes will not be used anywhere on BrickSet (not even in comments).

So unless somebody adds the box codes to an item on BrickLink or any other Lego site there is no way of finding out which cape is in the box and which set it's from (or which minifig it's for) unless I open it and even then I will not be able to find out exactly but from the colour and material used I can hazard a guess?

That's not much help =(

How hard would it be to add an extra textfield where these codes can be added to a set?

caterham7

How about posting the codes you don't know on here and seeing if anyone can help identify which set they've come from?

And any idea in general what themes they are likely to be from, saves someone with loads of LOTR looking through if you only collect Super Heroes?

tecjam

@caterham7 I'll get them together when I get the chance and post them in the indentify parts thread with a rough selection of themes they could be from.

CCC

tecjam said:

How hard would it be to add an extra textfield where these codes can be added to a set?

Then it becomes a crowdsourcing issue (expecting users to add the data) rather than a data import (from lego's sevrer) issue. I guess Huw would also need to decide how to hold that data, whether as an extra, as part of an inventory, etc.

tecjam

CCC said:

Then it becomes a crowdsourcing issue (expecting users to add the data) rather than a data import (from lego's sevrer) issue. I guess Huw would also need to decide how to hold that data, whether as an extra, as part of an inventory, etc.

Maybe @Huw could take a look and decide if this a valid feature request to stop vague and wild guess work.

caterham7

Thinking out loud to see if there's any pattern to numbers;

6002415 79012 - reuse of a cape from an earlier set?
6008142 9473
6038371 79006
6040331 79008
6062960 79014 (I think!)
6062961 79013
6103366 76035
6119516 Scooby mystery mansion
6134290 70316
6142663 75103

Best I can deduce is that the codes increase in roughly date order, but if a cape is reused, the code will be too.  No particular theme has any prefix to help identify it.

CCC

6151458 - Batman, Rescue from Ra's al Ghul (4 capes).

Huw

I would say that this information is so niche and of little interest to most that it would not be worth the effort implementing anything to gather and display it. Sorry!

CCC

Huw said:

I would say that this information is so niche and of little interest to most that it would not be worth the effort implementing anything to gather and display it. Sorry!

Note that BL is now starting to collect this information.

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/search.page?q=cardboard sleeve&tab=A#T=A

snowhitie

^that's good to know @CCC, thanks for resurrecting the thread, I got some boxes like that too.