Back in the ’90s, LEGO sets were categorized into some really cool buckets. Ninjago was and still is one of the most famous, with it’s robots and ninjas. But other than that, sets were themed around the medieval era, pirates, space, and even the titular LEGO City with its police cars, choppers, ambulances, etc. Basically, anything that a 12 year old would find cool. However, LEGO eventually pivoted away from many of these themes and leaned towards a more franchise partnership strategy. It tied up with major IPs like Star Wars, Marvel, The Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter in an attempt to increase its popularity. Clearly, that strategy paid off, as themed LEGO sets are now some of the most popular and most expensive toy releases of the year.
Among these crossovers are the popular MCU Avengers sets, featuring Avengers Tower, the SHIELD Helicarrier, and other massive sets. However, it all started with two promotional minifigures of Iron Man and Captain America at the 2012 New York Toy Fair, which are now up for auction at Heritage for $1,000. 125 sets if these minifigures were exclusively distributed at the toy fair as a promotion for LEGO’s upcoming Avengers sets, however their final versions in the sets themselves were quite different, making this pair extremely rare and highly coveted among LEGO collectors. Exclusive minifigures like this tend to go for a lot of money, and this pair is worth more than the most expensive LEGO set on the market.
The biggest differences between these promo versions and the final versions of the minifigures are that Iron Man’s helmet is printed here and molded in the final version, while Cap’s shield and face expression is different. Of course, these changes mean that these minifigures are extremely rare, since there are only 125 of each in existence. While they do cost more than the LEGO Death Star, the value was probably further boosted by the fact that they’re firstly LEGO, and also that they’re Avengers. If you can believe it, $1,000 for both minifigures is actually pretty low, especially compared to those on eBay, where some people are selling just one of the figures for $800 to $900. Of course, there’s no guaranteeing the condition of the minifigures.
The minifigures originally came with a custom 2012 New York Toy Fair card back, with the figures stuck on it. Since there was no covering or blister packaging, it wasn’t easy to keep the figures on the card back. However, you can bet that the price would have been at least double if it was still in its original state. Considering how popular The Avengers are, and the fact that Doomsday is steadily approaching, this set of LEGO minifigures has gone up for auction at just the right time. With so few of these items in the market, the bid price will surely climb higher, especially since there are still 23 days left. Iron Man and Cap were at odds during Civil War and made up during Infinity War, but now the duo are set to kick off a bidding war.
