CMF Distributions

BooTheMightyHamster

I was flipping through the new catalogue which arrived the other day, and on one page was an advert for the series 9 minifigs.

At the bottom of the page was some small print, and it mentioned how the distribution was random etc, and then went on to say... (I don't have the exact wording to hand, so I'll paraphrase)

"Some minifigs are rarer than others and so may be considerably more difficult to find."

Or words to that effect.

Does anybody do any statistical analysis of this once a series is released? Or in plain English, how long is it before we find out which are the easy ones to find, and which are the tricky ones? I have a 2/3rds complete series 8, and I've already got 7 spare Football players, so I'm guessing that's not a rarity.

I was wondering really, what's the avarage number of packs you'd have to buy before you get a complete set, if you were going to try and do it without swapping with other people.

mrtonytj

I am pretty sure there is a discussion already covering this but from what i remember up until series 9 you would get 3 full sets of 16 and then 12 spares and with series 9 on you would get 2 full sets of 16 and then a larger number of the more "popular" figures.. Thats what my sketchy memory remembers.. Others are more than welcome to contradict me.. :-)

mrtonytj

Oh also those figures were per box.

BooTheMightyHamster

Ah, right! Cheers.

Sorry - should have looked for an existing thread.

wainwrib

The box breakdown is fixed, e.g there are 2 roller derby girls and 6 policemen in each box of series 9. Usually someone will buy a box, count out the distribution and post it. A google for "lego series 7 box breakdown" should return what you are looking for like this. I think some clever souls also work out probabilities for each figure too.

Pitfall69

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=76075

CCC

I don't know why they cannot just make them truly random, but equal probabilities for each figure. So some boxes may contain three full sets, others 2, some possibly 1 and the occasional 0 full sets.

Pitfall69

Once all the pilferers get done, the boxes will then be random.

CCC

^ They won't though. By definition they will remove the ones they want.

Pitfall69

I'm just being funny. My TRU just dumps what's left in one box into another then puts some in this container along with their ploys. Thus making everything random :)

madforLEGO

IMO It does not stop those from continuously grabbing the rares though, which only 2 per rare in each box it magnifies those who take the rares and leave the rest.. especially the figures that are rare that people either want to:
A) Army build
B) Resell

2 of each rare per box is as dumb as the Gold Chase figure IMO.

HarryPotterLover

Well idk about rarity of different figs, I mean the eurobricks review said the Hollywood Actress was rare, and I out of only 24 packages I got 3 of her,
PS if anyone is interested, I'm selling her and a few other figs (with base and poster) on ebay http://www.ebay.com/itm/160968653408?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

tamamahm

madforLEGO said:

IMO It does not stop those from continuously grabbing the rares though, which only 2 per rare in each box it magnifies those who take the rares and leave the rest.. especially the figures that are rare that people either want to:
A) Army build
B) Resell

2 of each rare per box is as dumb as the Gold Chase figure IMO.

In addition, in this last release, since almost all females were set to a distribution of just two, there are also people like me that have these strange people in their families called daughters that for some unknown reason like minifigs that are female.
It creates a third category
C) People that want female minifigs instead of just male minifigs
And then of course there is still
D) People that want a full collection

Both of those categories also specifically grabbed those that were only two in a box for this last release.

BooTheMightyHamster

I'll just make a comment.

If I'd wanted to call this thread 'CMF Distributions', I was more than capable of doing so.
I chose to call it something else.

Instead of a mod changing it, why not respect your members enough to leave their contributions alone?

It wasn't rude, and given that no-one under the age of 16 is supposed to use this forum, you can't say that it was difficult for other members to understand.

Disappointing behaviour.

Zacherano

In previous series, there were some extraordinarily rare figs as well, such as the Mad Scientist in Series 4 (although later series evened out the distribution due to protest). TLG may have made a grave mistake this time.

Basta

I'm not a big fan of the new distribution, as I generally just pick the odd figure up every now and again (Sometimes I fondle, but not always), I did this with series 8 until I had about 12 of the figures, it was at this point I started just getting multiples of the more common figures, I purchased the remaining 4 online. Now with series 9, I think I am even more likely to get repeats which will probably stop me just picking up random packets, in which case TLG will sell less total number of figures to me. (I hope that makes sense).

Joseph

^^^
In answer to your question as to why the title might have been changed: (Note Bene: I am not a mod and my opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the staff in any way, shape, or form; these are simply my own observations)
Firstly, when comparing the two titles I find that the new one is much more concise and just a little easier to read than the first; not a major amount but every little bit helps.
Secondly, a thread about "Determining the rarity or otherwise of CMFs" is answered simply by stating how many of each is in a box; whereas one about "CMF distribution" allows discussion about CMF distribution in general and could lead to more discussion.

Lastly, though I am not a member of the staff, I can guarantee that the title change was not meant as a personal offense; hopefully you won't take it as such.

Pitfall69

Rare doesn't necessarily mean popular or more expensive. I also had no problem finding many Hollywood Starlets. The Plumber was harder to find, but I don't see many wanting to build an army of Plumbers unless their city has a major sewage problem :) In my opinion, the Forest Maiden is the most desirable minifigure in Series 9. She is also rare.

murphquake

I'm with Pitfall69, i've been snatching up Forest Maidens as I find them. But I also get a lot of CMFs, have cases of most that have come out since I got into them. I have several of some of them, others I just open one or two. Some are dedicated into full sealed sets I plan to resell down the line. I will say that there's only like 4 figures that only had 2 in S9 and I think they would have been better off making those 3 and cutting a fig or two from some of the others. I suspect a lot of it has to do with the introduction of the box of 30 (they're on BL now, btw). It's easier to split it down the middle if you go from 2/4/6 of each diff CMF to 1/2/3, and getting a pair of half cases give you the exact same mix as the full one. I think there have been genuine duds down the line that haven't been actively sought after except to make complete sets. Considering the number of people with big armies of Space Marines and Spartans we'd love to see 15 of each of those in the box, with 3 full sets of the other 15 to take up the slack... You can go feel them up, or try the dot thing... Most people aren't great at trying to feel them out the first time around, especially kids. Usually i'll help out but lots of people like to get them at random too, I usually do for my first few of each series. My first ones were to 4 S6 round out an order from [email protected] and I got 2 butchers in that batch, no biggie. It all depends on what you use them for. I saw a fantastic skull face using 2 butcher hats for eyes!

mr_benn

With reference to the Eurobricks review and case analysis that someone posted the link to earlier, they're usually out before even the earliest sightings of them in stores over here so that's going to be your best port of call!

Still find it annoying, but at the same time understandable, that the distribution is a bit skewed... but then I'm pretty sure that 7 year old me would have much prefered a knight/evil space marine to a Hollywood starlet or Fortune teller... at least with many of the female figs in S9 they're really easy to pick out through feel with the skirt pieces!

CCC

murphquake said:

Considering the number of people with big armies of Space Marines and Spartans we'd love to see 15 of each of those in the box, with 3 full sets of the other 15 to take up the slack...

I'm not sure I'd want lego to go that far. If they did, they would be choosing the army builder, not leaving it to the people. Which would the army builder be for S9? There are six or seven that could easily be army builders / collected in volume for MOCs (not all armies need to be soldiers).

If lego wanted everyone to have armies of spartans (or any other minifig), then they could just sell a spartan set.