Hi all,

After visiting my local Lego store recently I was quite surprised to be able to build 3 complete Lois Lane figures from the recent Man of Steel sets.

I know this isn't the most exciting figure but it is at least a licensed figure and as such not the kind of thing I thought I could put together outside of a set.

There are also Young Boba Fett torsos available as well as a couple of other flesh pieces.... Not too long ago they had a lot of Padme torsos from the Geonosis Arena figure.

There seems to be a lot of Monster Fighter torso's available at the moment too including Chauffeur, Swamp Thing and Frankenstein.

I'm just interested to see what kind of things Lego put in there and whether things change drastically from region to region.

I'm surprised. They really are not supposed to put the clearly identifiable licensed IP characters in there? The Lois Lane might be generic enough to rate a pass. But the Padme torso probably should not be there.

I saw bits of the older guy from Back to the Future last time I had a go, bits do sneak in I guess. I didn't look to see if you could complete him.

I picked out a Marty McFly torso from the BTTF Deloreon set at Glasgow from the build a minifig tower a few months back. The checkout operator was as surprised to see it in there as I was when I presented my build a minifig box!

Edited January 2, 201411 yr by escortmad79

A few years ago I saw Naboo Fighter Pilot torsos in the BAM kiosks - this version, from 2007's 7660:

... but apparently it's considered sufficiently "non-SW-specific"-looking as to be able to pass as a "regular" part, as TLG subsequently used it in a totally non-SW set, the following year's 10200 Custom Car Garage.

More recently, though, I've seen the bicorner pirate hats with the Spongebob skull from set 3817 The Flying Dutchman.

Is it possible that these came from display models or the monthly Lego Club meetings? Maybe the Store employees dumped the minifigure parts into the figure bins when it came time to clean up.

The heads have been in the tower for a little while now... it was only recently that the torsos appeared.

I looked if there was any of the hair recently and there wasn't any in the unit... then when I popped in yesterday all the elements were there to make the figure... lots of the torsos... not many of the hair pieces (I may have sourced the only 3 there) and I saw one more of the flesh heads.

As they've been appearing at different times it doesn't look like they were just dropped in from display models or monthly club meetings. I did notice that the tower has been stocked much lower recently... I think that's more down to the fact that it was packed at one point which just caused massive mess around the tower as kids built their figures. Now it's easier to browse without knocking piles of heads, legs etc onto the tray around the tower.

The appearance of young Boba Fett torsos as well as Monster Fighters tells me that they just have different stock to populate the tower at different times. I'm not sure how this is supplied by TLG and what direction each shop has to put it in the bins.

I always look out for fleshies in the tower though just in case.

The young Boba torso is strange, given that it's an advent calendar exclusive. Although I suppose there will be be lots left over. I rarely find licensed parts, just the odd fleshie head.

I thought I'd add some surprising items in my local store.

I checked today and the torsos of Celebration Luke Skywalker and the Leia from the Ewok Village are in the Build a Figure tower.

Considering that torso is unique in a £200 set I'd say that was highly unlikely!

Recently, when I last went I managed to score some nice stuff such as:

- 3 Lois Lane Figures.

- Doc Brown Head from the BTTF set.

- A few Luke heads from the Rancor Pit and the Ewok Village sets.

Great find on the Leia torso though!

I have found rare things too, but not licensed. I have found the vampire bride's dress, a sensei wu torso and hat, collectable minifigure parts, the crazy scientists complete body and head, and the faces of the ninja from Ninjago.

The only pieces I've ever seen are generic town parts, and CMF parts. The CMFs I remember were Surfer Girl, Magician, and Ice Skater. I saw a picture of a BAM wall somewhere with mermaid tails once.