LEGO Minifig Display Case Review

I've been eyeing the LEGO Minifig display cases for sometime but I thought them a little pricey just for a place to put my minifigs. Now that my collection is getting a bit larger it's been harder to pass one up.  A couple weekends back TRU had a sale and the cases were down to $18. My store had one left and as an added bonus, it happened to be black.

These large cases retail for $30 at the LEGO store...what?! The TRU site shows their normal price is $23 which is almost inconceivable. You'd think being a LEGO store that they'd be competitively priced on the product they make. The good news is the TRU site is still showing them on sale for $18. The bad news? Only available in store. 

Some of the cases come with a minifig and it seems like different colored cases have certain minifigs assigned to them. That's cool so you don't always get the same one if you buy different colored cases. Here's the policeman that came with my case.

The case itself is pretty solid and looks like a tall, thin LEGO brick. It has cubbies for 16 minifigs and there is a thin plate in each spot that slides out so you can put your minifig on it and then slide the whole thing into place.

There is a clear plastic "door" that snaps shut to keep everything in place (and keep dust out!). The odd thing about this is the release for the door is right on top of the case. Naturally, the case is designed to so you can stack one on top of the other but it seems this would prevent you from accessing the door release. I don't have another case so I can't test this out. If you're strapped for display space, there are two slots on the back to wall mount it.

Also included are two "stand" bricks that the case can slot onto to stabilize it. When the case is in these stand blocks, you can't open the door but it's easy enough to lift it out.

The "door" is down in the shot below so you can better see the figures.

Sorta reminds me of the end of Cabin in the Woods

These must be a hot item because prior to picking this one up, my TRU had plenty of them and I haven't' seen them again since snagging this one. There's still a few more minifigs I need to get and with Series 9 coming in 2013, I definitely see more of these in my future!