The LEGO secondary market still pales next to staggering six-figure Funko Pop sales

There’s money in LEGO, for sure – but the secondary market still pales next to Funko Pop, as one SDCC-exclusive double-pack of golden figures has just fetched an eye-watering $210,000.

A handful of rare LEGO sets and minifigures have broached five figures in value, including the San Diego Comic-Con-exclusive Amazing Spider-Man (£11,700) and a sterling silver reproduction of R2-D2 (£23,000). But those numbers don’t come close to the amount of money one collector has just paid for a two-pack of golden Willy Wonka Funko Pop figures.

Originally given away at SDCC in 2016, the Golden Ticket sets include gilded recreations of Willy Wonka and an Oompa Loompa. Only 10 of the double-packs are known to exist, and of those, only four were actually handed out to convention-goers lucky enough to find golden tickets inside chocolate bars at the event. As of 2022, just two complete sets of Willy Wonka double-packs with golden tickets were known throughout Pop collector circles.

One of those was purchased back in May last year by Instagram user Frank Giaramita, who paid a staggering $100,000 in cash to a fellow collector for the double-pack. “I had heard for a while that he wasn’t going to sell it,” Giaramita told Kotaku at the time. “Our mutual friends put it in my ear that he might let it go if I offered him $100,000. I didn’t actually think he would sell until he walked through the door on the morning of the transaction.”

If $100,000 seems like a lot, in hindsight it was a coup: Giaramita has just sold the incredibly rare two-pack to rare collectible trader eVend for $210,000 in cash, more than doubling his original investment. According to Giaramita, eVend will be placing the golden ticket figures in a mystery box, effectively giving them away for pennies.

“This was a big factor in why I chose to sell (in addition to the offer being respectable),” he wrote on Instagram. “The fact that someone in this community will own the most valued Pop in the world for only a few dollars is really exciting.”

Minifigure Price Guide’s list of the rarest LEGO minifigures is currently topped by a wooden prop of Master Wu from The LEGO NINJAGO Movie, valued at $104,500, followed by the solid white gold R2-D2 given away to a black VIP card holder to promote the launch of 75192 Millennium Falcon. That one-of-a-kind minifigure is currently valued at just under $40,000. Big numbers, but still not a patch on the Funko Pop market.

The Willy Wonka and Oompa Loompa double-pack isn’t a one-off, either. Even while Funko is busy sending $30 million of excess figures to landfill, rarer examples of the collectible are still holding value – in April this year, one unusual trade saw six ‘Freddy Venom’ figures (which mash up Marvel’s symbiote with Funko’s mascot) swapped for a pair of Cadillac Escalades worth $80,000 apiece.

So next time you’re lamenting the fact that gathering a complete LEGO Batsuit collection is going to involve dropping nearly £1,200 on Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, just think: it could be so much worse.

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