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New Minifigure collector

Shane DildayShane Dilday Member Posts: 30
in Collecting
I am new into collecting Legos.  A couple weeks.  I decided to start by collecting MiniFigures.  By doing so I have found myself involved in a community that is really passionate about their blocks.  I am posting this threat to ask a question.  I bought some second hand blocks and minifugures in play condition, and I have gotten in over my head.  The previous owner took everything, I mean everything apart.  Heads, torsos, hands etc everywhere.  I want to piece these back together as they should be, but I get overwhelmed just trying to figure out what I am looking at sometimes.  This there a place that I can look up torso and see the complete figure so I have put "humpty dumpty back together again"
Andorsamiam391Norlegobobabricks
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Comments

  • matticus_bricksmatticus_bricks Member Posts: 651
    I use Bricklink.com. It's a marketplace for buying and selling, but they have an extensive catalog of every part, including lists of sets that contain them. They also have inventories for every minifigure and the parts that make them up. If you have a torso that has a belt, for example, you can go to the section with Minifigure torsos and search "Belt" to narrow it down, and then you can look to see which minifigures the part appeared in and what else you need to complete the Minifigure.

    Good luck and have lots of fun sorting your bricks! :)
    AndorShane Dildaygmonkey76madforLEGO
  • prevereprevere Member Posts: 2,923
    Buy Mr. Gold then walk away. Just kidding. It's a whole universe onto itself. Lots of friendly people here to help too.
  • AdeelZubairAdeelZubair Member Posts: 2,704
    Shane Dilday said:
    I decided to start by collecting MiniFigures.
    Good Luck.
  • CCCCCC Member Posts: 20,526
    If you have minifigs from the collectable minifig series (CMF), good luck. They all have unique heads, often with small differences to ones in regular sets. Sometimes I think it would be easier if all minifigs came with the simple classic smiley face. But not as much fun.
    bobabricks
  • BumblepantsBumblepants Member Posts: 7,635
    you can post pictures to this thread: http://www.bricksetforum.com/discussion/513/master-thread-help-identifying-parts and someone almost always has the right answer.

  • piratemania7piratemania7 Member Posts: 2,146
    Start by sorting everything. That's going to make it a ton easier on you.

    As a side note, welcome. You won't want to go back.
    AndorMordoor
  • Shane DildayShane Dilday Member Posts: 30
    Thank you everyone, even the [email protected]$$e$.  I believe that I have 45 sets of legs, which shows how many I have to do.  I dont want to get on here and sound like complete idiot, even though I am when it comes to this stuff.  I will use the provided resources and see where I come out of the other side of these bags.   :/
  • Pitfall69Pitfall69 Member Posts: 11,454
    I wouldn't say that some of us are being "[email protected]$$e$", we are just saying that collecting minifigures is addicting and "good luck" with your addiction ;)
    AndorbobabricksAdeelZubaircarlq
  • legogallegogal Member Posts: 754
    I second matticus' advice to use bricklink to look up the minifigs under buy and then click on the theme you think that you want, pirates, castles, star wars, city, etc.

    Almost 20 years ago, my young (enough to know better) stepson decided to decapitate every minifig in our house. (He is lucky that I did not decapitate him.)

    Hubby struggled to put them all back together....randomly. Figs looked like crap.

    ^$#@%^((*^%GUI^$DU(OJY%UIJHY, after weeks of sorting, checking bricklink many times, and studying where the 20,000 or so pieces should go, yours truly managed to get most of them back to their original state and theme. 

    People who take apart someone else's entire collection of minifigs should be slowly tortured until they can no longer breathe. (That is the most humane treatment that comes to mind.)
    Shane Dilday
  • bobabricksbobabricks Member Posts: 1,842
    @legogal Or their hands, arms, hips, legs, torso, head and hair should be all disassembled. That's more of a punishment to fit the crime. ;)
  • Pitfall69Pitfall69 Member Posts: 11,454
    Ok. Call me obsessive, but I take great care of my minifigures. Many have not seen the light of day and some maybe a glimpse of overhead lights or sun peeking through the windows. There is much more to sorting your minifigures than just matching up the pieces.

    I have been a Lego fan since 1976; a couple of years before the minifigure we all have come to love appeared in any sets. In that time thousands of these wonderful little people have passed through my fingers. I am far from an expert, but the first thing I look for in a Lego lot are the minifigures.

    If you are ocd about your Lego minifigures like me, you should know you cannot take a yellow smiley face from the Detective's Office and put it on a Classic Spaceman's torso. You cannot take the legs of a Classic Pirate and put them on the torso of a Parisian Restaurant minifigure. Obviously, you can, but you would be mixing up time periods and molds.

    There have been at least 3 different head molds used since 1978; a solid stud, a hollow stud and the current stud that is used. I find the legs very interesting. The new legs that are made in Denmark have Lego molded into the feet on both legs. The CMF's have only Lego on one foot and it seems that Keychains do not have Lego on the inside of the feet. The neck on the torso of Minifigures that are made in Denmark is "painted"; whereas CMF's torso necks are not. This really helps me reassemble some of my daughters The Lego Movie Minifigures. She keeps mixing up Emmets legs from the CMF'S and the one from the regular sets.
    bendybadgercarlqEluneoldtodd33
  • Pitfall69Pitfall69 Member Posts: 11,454
    I didn't want to ramble on much further, but I just wanted to point out how fun this will be for you in trying to figure out what goes where...oh...and how much I need to be committed to a mental institution ;)
    ElunebadgersandwichToc13
  • LusiferSamLusiferSam Member Posts: 574
    ^I'm surprised you did mention the different torsos.  My major minifigure obsession right way is finding period right torsos.  I'm in need of a couple of hollow or O type torsos to compete a two late 70s sets
  • Pitfall69Pitfall69 Member Posts: 11,454
    @LusiferSam , Hahahahaha, yeah I didn't want to go into eveything. I can also talk about the hands as well :)
  • TarDomoTarDomo Member Posts: 515
    Welcome. This is a great place to get answers to lego questions. You might find the Brickset database ---> minifigures useful.
  • Shane DildayShane Dilday Member Posts: 30
    Thank you everyone again, it appears that I have found the correct place to be among like minded people.  I am looking forward to getting more involved in the community in the years to come.  please watch for my posts in the thread to help i.d. these things.

    rocaobobabricks
  • EluneElune Member Posts: 99
    edited March 2015
    @Pitfall69 I was surprised by your post. Mixing up minifigs to get an "original character" is among my favourite things to do. In fact, I'm buying collectible minifigures for that purpose. But that must be due my customization addiction. I can't wait to have enough place to sort out all my parts and start building MOCs. In fact, before I joined this community I though AFOLs in general were more into MOCs, but it turns out there are a lot of "follow the instructions" fans, who also look like more "hard-core" collectors, which is cool too. ^_^

    Anyway Shane, good luck with sorting out your minifigs! Are they only the "collectible minifigures" or are there any from sets? If they are just the collectible ones, TarDomo's advice is the best imho. You can also select "collectible minifigures" in the "theme" drop down menu and tada! You have everything you need! *Huge fan of Brickset's database*
  • Shane DildayShane Dilday Member Posts: 30
    They are from sets, as I also got about 5 pounds of blocks with them.  I started with the collectible series a few weeks ago and have complete 12 and 13.  Now to dump my duplicates or trade for figures from earlier series.  Spent a little time last night and got two or three back together and my a migraine in the process....fun stuff.
    Elune
  • CCCCCC Member Posts: 20,526
    Elune said:
    @Pitfall69 I was surprised by your post. Mixing up minifigs to get an "original character" is among my favourite things to do. In fact, I'm buying collectible minifigures for that purpose. But that must be due my customization addiction.


    Me too. Minifigs are meant to be mixed and matched...
    ElunechuckpAdeelZubairmatticus_brickscarlqbobabricksMODVLEX
  • ChubblesChubbles Member Posts: 459
    I have two small kids so expecting original stuff to be matched up is an impossible task
  • AdeelZubairAdeelZubair Member Posts: 2,704
    CCC said:
    Elune said:
    @Pitfall69 I was surprised by your post. Mixing up minifigs to get an "original character" is among my favourite things to do. In fact, I'm buying collectible minifigures for that purpose. But that must be due my customization addiction.


    Me too. Minifigs are meant to be mixed and matched...
    For some it's not really possible to have a consistent look.
    matticus_bricks
  • matticus_bricksmatticus_bricks Member Posts: 651
    Adzbadboy said:
    CCC said:
    Elune said:
    @Pitfall69 I was surprised by your post. Mixing up minifigs to get an "original character" is among my favourite things to do. In fact, I'm buying collectible minifigures for that purpose. But that must be due my customization addiction.


    Me too. Minifigs are meant to be mixed and matched...
    For some it's not really possible to have a consistent look.
    Yeah it frustrates me when I want to use Arwen's torso and dress slope from LoTR, for example, for a random elf, and it just feels like another elf wearing Arwen's dress, and not a new, original character. But still, mixing and matching to find cool combos is one of my favorite things to do as well. 
  • Pitfall69Pitfall69 Member Posts: 11,454
    Well, that is what I am saying. I have OCD and seeing my girls take apart their minifigures and swap heads and torsos and legs makes me crazy. I get the customization part; that's different, but if you are looking to piece together a small minifigure collection, he needs to know what to look for. If he didn't care what goes where, why bother trying to identify what he has and post it in a forum?
  • piratemania7piratemania7 Member Posts: 2,146
    edited March 2015
    You don't really own that minifigure anymore if you take it all apart, jumble the parts and create 100 custom figures. You would now own 100 unique minifigures. You still own the parts in and of themselves but the figure no longer exists and if it doesn't exist you can't own it instead you own what you put together which is unique and custom into and unto itself.
  • binaryeyebinaryeye Member Posts: 1,831
    Not this again...

    What happens if you keep track of which pieces were swapped and return them to their original configurations?

    Also, I'm just curious how far down the rabbit hole this goes. If I open two of the same CMF but switch their legs, do I no longer own either of them?
    Pitfall69bobabricksthedingman5
  • TheLoneTensorTheLoneTensor Member Posts: 3,937
    Yes, and they are both named Theseus.
    Pitfall69
  • Pitfall69Pitfall69 Member Posts: 11,454
    Ha! Here's where I differ in my approach to "owning" Lego sets/Minifigures. If you have all the parts of each minifigure, I don't see how you wouldn't "own" the minifigure. If you only had the torso of Captain Redbeard from the Classic Pirates theme and put the head and legs from Captain Redbeard that comes with The Brick Bounty, you have neither figure. You just have "Frankenbeard".
    VorpalRyu
  • EluneElune Member Posts: 99
    Woah, I did not expect to start a philosophical debate. O_O

    @Pitfall69 I do get that my comment to you had nothing to do with Shane's problem. I tend to indulge with some "off-topic" when I also have "on-topic" in my comments.

    Please people, stay on topic here.
  • Pitfall69Pitfall69 Member Posts: 11,454
    We are still on topic. If we start talking about starving Minifigures from "Hungrystan", then we have driven off course ;)
    EluneAdeelZubairBumblepantsbobabricks
  • piratemania7piratemania7 Member Posts: 2,146
    We are on topic. We are definitely bricktopic here.

    My last post was completely meant in good humor. Some will get it and others won't. :smile:
    Pitfall69MordoorRonyar
  • EluneElune Member Posts: 99
    Then you have a more "liberal" idea of being on topic than I have. ;)
  • Pitfall69Pitfall69 Member Posts: 11,454
    You are lucky we are still talking about minifigures ;)
    bobabricksGothamConstructionCo
  • piratemania7piratemania7 Member Posts: 2,146
    Let's talk about the FB and DS minifigures.
  • VorpalRyuVorpalRyu Member Posts: 2,318
    *LOL* Frankenbeard??? Did I miss the step when you put parts from the Monster CMF in there @Pitfall69? Wait! Are we still on page 3??? I'm lost! Help!
    xiahna
  • minifignickminifignick Member Posts: 109
    MIX EM UP !! https://flic.kr/p/pX7yEf

    AdeelZubairmatticus_bricks
  • legogallegogal Member Posts: 754
    I love customizing minifigs. Have torn up so many male figs and turned them in to females so that there are few males left in my collection, but lots of male heads. And replaced most yellow heads, hands, arms and legs with lt flesh ones because I prefer that color most of the time. I even did a seminar at BFVA one year on building custom female figs, and at least two other attendees showed up along with my family. 

    It has been a blast...until I decided to put many figs back together and decrease the size of my minifig collection. That is when the problem arose of putting the right pieces back together after hubby had so creatively built random figs out of many of the loose parts.

    I am thinking about selling the rarer figs that have shot up in value because I would rather focus on just a few themes, and have enough of those to make me happy. For seven years I bought figs that captured my eye from any theme. So that leaves me with a lot of beautiful figs from across most themes that I am going to part with. It is okay because those are not my favorite themes, but I will miss the Star Wars ladies a bit. They are just such incredible designs and many are so unusual looking that I have treasured them. Same with my Harry Potter figs. I am sure that someone who is really into those themes will love them even more. 

    It is great sharing LEGO that you no longer cherish with those who will give it a proper home. Now I just have to figure out how to downsize my collection. I am eyeing the yard sale slots at BFVA 2015 because you get to meet the buyers in person and avoid mailing things to far places. This is a great place to pick up LEGO on your wish list as AFOL's recycle parts of their collections with other AFOL's. 


  • TheLoneTensorTheLoneTensor Member Posts: 3,937
    legogal said:
    Have torn up so many male figs and turned them in to females...

    Wow, thought I was on a whole different site for a moment there.
    Pitfall69matticus_brickschuckp
  • Shane DildayShane Dilday Member Posts: 30
    Added another 10 or 15 to my collection last night.  Got them out of some City sets, now since I do not sets, as of right now.  Do I sell them off? Trade them away? Ideas?
    All came out of 
    60066
    60072
    60065
    60032
    60041
    Cheap sets, but it get me the figures I did not have before.
  • Pitfall69Pitfall69 Member Posts: 11,454
    I would say that minifigures from City sets are the most common and can be easily replaced. If the sets are complete, I would just sell them off with the minifigures and take the money and buy some licensed minifigures like Superheroes or Star Wars.
  • Shane DildayShane Dilday Member Posts: 30
    So trying to get my first help. Torso on the left minifigure.  I can not find it online.  Ideas?  I am looking in the Castle series from 1988 to 1999.  I know that they have them all mixed up.  
  • Shane DildayShane Dilday Member Posts: 30
    I found it. 1993.  With different parts.
  • Pitfall69Pitfall69 Member Posts: 11,454
    The one on the left is part of the Dragon Knights. Take the legs from the one on the right and put them on the one on the left. The helmet is also missing 3 plumes; either red, blue or yellow.
  • Pitfall69Pitfall69 Member Posts: 11,454
    Now, the one on the right is a Royal Knight, but legs are wrong (the blue pants might belong to the King) and the wrong helmet.
  • Shane DildayShane Dilday Member Posts: 30
    Pitfall, I am seeing this in Dragon knight, but with black legs and red hips.  The Black/Blue combo appears to be the other breast plate format?  right?

  • Pitfall69Pitfall69 Member Posts: 11,454
    Ahhhh. Yes, my bad. Yes, black legs with red hips.
  • oldtodd33oldtodd33 Member Posts: 2,696
    The hips/legs combo only came in these sets.  http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp?P=970d02&in=S
  • Shane DildayShane Dilday Member Posts: 30
    Hey everyone I am back...with my STUPID questions.  You all have been doing this a lot longer than I have so...I have a possible honey hole for MinFigs.  I am going to post some pictures and can someone please tell me if there is anything worth my time here.  I already have information on the Chewy (I think I am gonna get that one), also had a question on the accuracy of the Jar-Jars. 
  • Pitfall69Pitfall69 Member Posts: 11,454
    I will tell you that you have a lot of wrong heads on the wrong bodies. You also have some broken black castle helmets.
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