LEGO Series 25 (71045)

Series 25 (set 71045) is the anniversary instalment of LEGO's collectible minifigures — the twenty-fifth numbered series, if you set aside licensed releases such as Marvel or the Muppets. It reached shops on 1 January 2024 and made history for one more reason: this is where LEGO dropped the sealed foil packets in favour of cardboard boxes. That has a very practical consequence for us — a code is printed on the underside of every box, and it identifies what is inside. That is the code you scan here, so you can find out which figure is in there without squeezing or guessing.

The line-up shows how widely LEGO can spread itself within a single series. Alongside completely ordinary people — the Pet Groomer, the Fitness Instructor, the E-Sports Gamer, the Sprinter and the Goatherd — stand residents of entirely different worlds: a Harpy out of Greek mythology, the Vampire Knight, the Mushroom Sprite and the Fierce Barbarian. Add the Film Noir Detective, done in nothing but shades of grey, and the Triceratops Costume Fan, the latest turn in a much-loved tradition of animal-costume figures. The fantasy characters, the sporting ones and the everyday ones each form their own small group, so the series covers a lot of ground.

For a child it is an easy, safe series: you do not need to know a film, a game or a book to know instantly who each character is. For a collector, twelve figures make a comfortable, self-contained set, and the code on the box meant that completing a series stopped being a lottery for the first time. Series 25 is no longer in general retail — new sets arrive every few months and older ones disappear from shelves — so these days it circulates mainly secondhand and at collectors' fairs.