Two years ago, in 2011, 90 percent of Lego's consumers were boys. A tough statistic to swallow for those of us who grew up playing with Lego's gender-neutral buckets of bricks. But the statistic came straight from Lego, which was then focused on boys with franchised sets based on properties like Star Wars and The Avengers after weathering a disastrous period in the 1990s that left the company on the brink of collapse. "Construction had never worked for girls, for whatever reason," says Garrick Johnson, a toy analyst for BMO Capitol Markets. "It took [Lego] four years of research to figure out how to address the girls' market, how to attack it the right way." Lego Friends turned out to be one of the biggest successes in Lego's history. They're five adorable little dolls with distinctive names and storylines and sets that encourage girls to build karate studios, beauty parlors and veterinary offices. The line doubled sales expectations in 2012, the year it launched. Sales to girls tripled in just that year.
Johnson says the company carefully studied differences between how girls and boys play. "When boys build a construction set, they'll build a castle, let's say, and they'll play with the finished product on the outside. When girls build construction sets, they tend to play on the inside." And research showed that girls loved little details, says Lego brand relations manager Amanda Santoro. "When we were testing this, we asked girls what would you like to see in a Lego school?" she said, as she showed off the line at Toy Fair, the massive industry event held each year in New York City. "Of course, they said an art studio. So we see a lot of detail here with the different paint canisters and the canvas here [a Friend] is creating." David Pickett blogs about Legos at Thinking Brickly, where he's criticized the Lego Friends' gender implications. "Their legs can't move independently, so they move as one big block," he points out. That's not the case with "minifigs" — the classic Lego minifigures with stocky little torsos, snap-off heads, and feet designed to click onto Lego blocks.
Additionally, Lego Friends cannot turn their wrists. "That sort of sends a message about what we expect women being able to do physically," Pickett notes. Lego Friends triggered the ire of Joy Pochatila, a scientist and mother of two small girls. Her first reaction to the line was dismissive. "Why can't they just play with regular Legos? Why does it have to be girl-driven?" she wondered. But Pochatila also was dismayed by how many of the regular sets revolve around male superheroes. "You don't see a Wonder Woman set," she points out. Her husband, Davis Evans, is a staunch Lego defender. When presented with the minifigs' skewed gender numbers, he argued that the androgynous figures could be read as female. Pochatila said she'd prefer a few more specifically female figures, ones that reflect a real-life ratio. And it's hard, she admitted, to argue with Lego Friends' appeal, the complexity of their sets and their overall message of empowerment. The success of the girl-centric Lego Friends has led to little girl dolls popping up in construction sets all over the place, including pink ones from Mega Blocks and Mattel's Barbie.
to register for your chance to win - you couldn't just hit up your local Target. VIP members in Australia and New Zealand couldn't enter for "unspecified operational reasons," and everyone was limited to just one entry per day, further limiting the pool of potential winners. In the end, only 750 were ever made. Released in 2007, the Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon is rare because it's the most expensive Lego set ever produced ($499.99) and the second largest (5195 pieces), meaning it's harder to find complete used sets. Lego stopped manufacturing it in 2009 and sold out of it in July 2010, meaning you'll have to pay about $4,000 to a collector to get a copy that's MISB (Mint in Sealed Box). See also: the 2008 Death Star, the second-most expensive set Lego ever offered ($399.99).Newer expensive sets include the The Disney Castle and the Ghostbusters Firehouse Headquarters, both $349.00. Like the Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon, this gorgeous Taj Mahal model is hard to come by mainly because it's so expensive.
When Lego released it in 2008, it retailed for $299.99, which isn't that bad, really, considering it's the largest set they've ever produced at a whopping 5922 pieces (that's only 5 cents per piece). Since Lego stopped making it in 2011, it will cost you at least $2,000 to get a mint set. So Lego probably just mixed their medieval "Castle" theme and their modern "City" theme here to unload some extra unsold parts, right? How else do you explain the reasoning behind this odd set from 1980 that has axe-wielding knights parading down a very 20th-century street. The posters on the castle say it's the "Legoland Carnival," so maybe it's a Renaissance Faire? That would explain the American stop sign. Regardless, the set looks like it would have been a blast to play with, right? Feeding your knights fish and chips after defending the book store from top hat-wearing thugs? Only 5,000 copies of this smug plutocrat were ever made, given away Willy Wonka-style in 2013 as a surprise in the tenth incarnation of Lego's Minifigures blind bags.
Unlike regular minifigs made with Lego's standard acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic, Mr. Gold thinks he's better than everyone else and has a chrome gold finish. Sometimes the rarity of a particular Lego set is all about the minifigs. That's the case with the elusive and now absurdly expensive 2003 Star Wars Cloud City, which features four minifigs found only in this set, including a unique printing of fan favorite Bob Fett. It's also the first time fans could get their hands on a tiny Lando Calrissian, one of the early examples of Lego making a black minifig. It's bad enough that only 20,000 copies of this sweet remote-controlled 2013 Lego Technic 4x4 were ever manufactured, but Lego also decided to give all 20,000 copies a unique numbered license plate. So even if you and your friends were fortunate enough to snatch one up, your buddy might have a more impressive plate, such as the incredible "1 of 20,000." 8 + - Photo: LEGO/Bricklink Only 10,000 lucky collectors found this shiny C-3PO in specially marked Lego Star Wars-themed sets back in 2007.