Peter Wilt recalls his experience getting very, very lucky and finding the most elusive LEGO Collectible Minifigure – Mr Gold
It was the year 2013, and Series 10 of the LEGO Group’s Collectible Minifigures theme was released. It was packed with its usual 16 characters including Medusa, Paintball Player, and Tomahawk Warrior. But this year would be different. To celebrate its 10th series, the LEGO Group created a special chase minifigure – Mr Gold. Only 5,000 copies of this golden minifigure were made. Distributed randomly around the world among the other figures from the series, the search was on. I can remember feeling the blind bags with my fingers, just hoping I would be lucky enough to find him. I had pretty much given up all hope. But one trip to the grocery store changed everything…
I was around the age of 12 or 13 at the time, and I was as into LEGO as I ever had been. Going to the store to feel minifigures was common practice. At that age, I thought nothing of loudly cracking the plastic bags with my fingers, trying at all costs to avoid duplicates. On this particular day, my mother was headed to the grocery store. The grocery store isn’t exactly a fun place, so I was just going to stay at home. But then she mentioned that they had minifigures there, so I decided to tag along and give it another shot.
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Series 10 had been out for some time, and I hadn’t found a Mr Gold yet. So off I went to the toy aisle and started feeling away. I had most of the minifigures I wanted from the series, so I was only looking for the minifigure I was least likely to find. I went through a few bags with little luck, until I almost had a heart attack. My fingers had found what had to be a lightsaber piece… then a rod… a diamond. I had found Mr. Gold.
It felt like the moment when Charlie found the Golden Ticket – I was about ready to lose my mind! I clutched it in my fingers as if I didn’t hold it tight enough, I would lose the rarest minifigure I had ever found. When we were finally ready to check out, I watched the store checker as they scanned my precious $2.99 minifigure, making sure they didn’t mess anything up or lose it. I used to open my minifigure packs in the car, but I didn’t want to risk losing any pieces. The moment we got home, I carefully opened the bag to find a shiny Mr. Gold inside!
If I hadn’t gone to the grocery store, I never would have acquired this very special LEGO character. Today my Mr Gold is inside a minifigure display case, inside of a plastic storage container. I try to limit my contact with the figure so I don’t accidently do anything to it. When I tell people I have a real Mr Gold, they don’t always believe me. There are many cheap knockoff versions on the internet that don’t look half bad. While the figure is quite valuable (between $2,000 and $5,000 according to BrickLink) I would never sell mine. Every time I look at it I remember the story of how I found it and feel the joy that memory brings.