Question about minifig collection quality and origin

[Taser66]

I was reading an article on the lego minifigure collection when I read that the collection was manufactured in
China ,not denmark and that the plastic to make them is different then the regular plastic used most commenly today.
Does this mean that the minifigures are of a lower quality? Also what is the major diffrence between the two?

[The Brain]

viewtopic.php?f=28&t=3867&start=220

Do a quick search for China on the page, and you'll see. They are indeed made in China, and there have been numerous reports of quality issues (especially transparency of the figures) with differing degrees of severity. Personally, I love the minifigures enough that I don't notice too much of a difference, and I would not skip out on buying them. That being said, I haven't gotten any of the ones that are practically translucent if held up to light, so I don't have much of a personal point of comparison.

Some other distinctions are that the necks of the torsos don't have the black marks typically associated with "normal" mifigures, and that their arms have the indentation in them associated with the magnets.

[Taser66]

I have gotten my hands on these only to find
1. the traffic cop's helmet is a bit diffrent then the other figures
2. I was tried to turn a disco dudes hand.... when it broke of and is now stuck with little part of hand inside of it

[Kaminoan]

Taser,

Take a dab of superglue and the broken hand and reattach. Once the glue has dried for a full 24 hours you can likely pull the hand out of the arm and replace it. If this doesn't work you can try to drive a small needle into the part still sticking out of the arm and then pull it out.

Of course the easy thing to do is merely yank the arm off and replace the whole thing.

Jared

[fredjh]

I have a set of series 1 and most of series 2, and I guess I'm just not that nit-picky, as there's nothing that jumps out at me to say "inferior!"

The only think broken was the skateboard, and that's because I got it second hand from some jerk who I would like to throttle at the moment.

[Taser66]

Thanks for the help I'll try that tonight but this is the only time in years this happened

[kibosh]

I think these figures just "feel" different. I also think the hips are loose. Some of my minifigs bend forward or back at the hips fro gravity alone. NEVER had this happen with any other figs in the past. The heads are looser, too.

[fredjh]

I think these figures just "feel" different. I also think the hips are loose. Some of my minifigs bend forward or back at the hips fro gravity alone. NEVER had this happen with any other figs in the past. The heads are looser, too.

I haven't had this problem with the hips, but the heads just might be looser - but not loose, just looser. In fact, it doesn't bother me, as I always end up taking off the helmet or hair or whatever just to turn the head.

[Draykov]

My initial instinct at this revelation was to fly into a frothing nerd-rage...but I don't know if I have it in me to get that worked up about it just yet.

A worrying trend: 'hybrid' minifigs in regular sets

[Mister Ed]

The Buzz and Woody figures in my RC Car set were clearly at least partially Chinese-made, so this isn't exactly new. Kind of lame, though considering that LEGO is still upping prices at the same time that they are making record profits. I can stomach cost-cutting stuff when it is done to keep the prices low, but LEGO is cutting costs AND raising prices, and making huge profits to boot. Even though I still love their products, and I know making money is the goal of all companies, I'm starting to have a significantly less warm-fuzzy view of the LEGO Corporation than I used to...

[GIR3691]

My basic understanding is that they lack the resources themselves to do overly complex printing, so they farm out things like the Toy Story heads, new animal molds, and CMF parts to China. They get the awesome printing, but at the cost of the Chinese manufacturer using lower-cost plastic. This has resulted in reduced clutch power and varying levels of brittleness and transparency. It would be nice if LEGO could crack down, and they have claimed that they planned to look into it. I think they at least made progress, since we haven't seen anything recently that's nearly as bad as the minifigure collections or blister-carded battle packs. It's still inferior quality, but hopefully it'll continue to improve.

This is a serious issue, as LEGO prides itself on quality. With the specialty parts it's easy to tell what's what, but the CMFs have both specific and generic parts, which have already mixed their way onto Bricklink.

[gomek]

Just a couple notes:

I can see the difference from a mile away. If you have a pre-2000 figure and put them up against one of the new collectable figures you can see it in a second. It's also very apparent if you have any classic space figures and put them up against any of the re-issues. the plastic looks and feels completely different.

That being said, the quality of the printing is also 100 times better post 2000. So there is definitely a trade-off.

Personally, while I hate look of the cheaper plastic, I hate the lack of printing on the old Star Wars figures even more (see original Jabba the Hut, Ewoks, etc.)

[Flynn]

See, I never minded the unprinted figures. Never got what all the fuss was about them.