These Collectable Minifigures and the way of acquiring specific characters has come up in many a conversation, so I thought it would just be simpler to pool our info into this one spot like a "how to" guide for anyone. I'll start off with some things that work for me.

1. Understand the contents

All the pieces inside each mystery bag are separated. Sometimes you will have a head get stuck inside a helmet or armor though which can throw off your game. To help reduce that problem or spread out the parts inside, take the packet at the top and shake it bit or gently smack it on the face of your palm. You can do this at the start of each packet you smoosh to feel it out better in the end or if one has you stumped.

2. Rule out the common denominators

For the most part save for a select few (Chicken Suit Guy comes to mind) have these common components.

1 head, 1 torso, 1 pair of legs, 1 3x4 stand with 4 studs going across the middle, and 1 pamphlet.

Everything else is parts that make up that character which brings me up to the next point.

3. Find out what makes each special

It helps to know what parts are truly unique to specific characters. For example, Tomahawk Warrior is the only character from Series 10 with a Mohawk piece so you can feel for that besides the tomahawk weapon. A couple of characters will share a part like say a coffee mug, but they always have one part at least that is unique to them.

4. Feel with your fingers and nails, and do so with your eyes shut

Since you are quite literally feeling blind, try to visualize what each piece is by feel using the tips of your fingers and edge of your nails. It can help to feel similar pieces you already own and eventually try doing so without even looking at the part.

5. Research and visualize your target

For the stores that put out the retailers box, this makes smooshing much easier because you have an image of each character right in front of you. As for the norm where they just put a bunch of mystery packets on racks, it is much trickier and here is what I do. Look at the images for each Minifigure in the series and study each ones composition. Make a list you can printout showing the name of the character and his or her non common parts. I am going to use the Roman Emperor from Series 9 as an example simply because he is both the easiest and most difficult one to figure out.

Roman Emperor - small hairpiece with many grooves, 2x2 tile

It is crude but all that matters is it works for you when reading it like your own shorthand. I highlighted the 2x2 tile because out of Series 9, he is the only one with that part. Plus the hairpiece can be confused for some of the others.

These are just some tips that help get me going and I tried the best I could to put what has since become second nature to me into words. Since this is a discussion about smooshing techniques, how about you share some of what you do to find the characters you want?

Here is an easy method to having a visual aide and list taken from BuckeyeFanDan's reply.

Buy any single mystery bag at random, then take out and keep the included pamphlet with you.

A perfect reference doubling as a checklist. Brilliant!

Excellent tips, thank you!

I can see it now... instead of smooshing, everyone will just be standing in the TRU aisle with scales.

I challenge the accuracy of the scales vs my smooshing techniques. I bet I can itemize the content of 60ct box faster and more accurate than the scale :)

I can see it now... instead of smooshing, everyone will just be standing in the TRU aisle with scales.

 

I've seen kids with gram scales that go out to a hundredth of a gram using them to ID pokemon and yugo packs that have foils -- since they average slightly heavier per pack.  My own experiments with measuring the Movie packs was packs could vary by as much as +/- half a gram -- enough so that two figures with very similar parts could overlap in weights -- so using weight alone wasn't a good indicator.

 

However first weighing and then smooshing made the smooshing process much faster and easier as the weighing would group all similar figures together.  Works best if you are buying an entire carton, or a large number of bags and than trying to pick-out a complete set -- rather than standing guard over the carton in the store and trying to ID them there.

This weight-based approach has me interested!  I'll need to upgrade our kitchen scales though.

I've seen kids with gram scales that go out to a hundredth of a gram using them to ID pokemon and yugo packs that have foils -- since they average slightly heavier per pack.  My own experiments with measuring the Movie packs was packs could vary by as much as +/- half a gram -- enough so that two figures with very similar parts could overlap in weights -- so using weight alone wasn't a good indicator.

 

However first weighing and then smooshing made the smooshing process much faster and easier as the weighing would group all similar figures together.  Works best if you are buying an entire carton, or a large number of bags and than trying to pick-out a complete set -- rather than standing guard over the carton in the store and trying to ID them there.

Yeah, I've heard about that. I can see shop owners doing this first and just cherry picking all the good packs.

Yeah.  Like I said, weighing isn't perfect, but it'll help keep the smooshing to a minimum.  I'm not the greatest smoosher in the world.  I can't just pick up any bag, smoosh it, and identify it.  It has to be the one I'm looking for at the time.  So I'll smoosh a bunch of bags until one has that certain piece I was looking for, and then I move on and smoosh all the same bags again looking for another guy.  
In addition to all that, I'm in recovery from an illness, and I'm on immunosupressants.  I have to wear rubber gloves and be careful about germs.  It's no good for me to be squeezing bags that little kids have had their hands all over, so it's best to minimize smooshing.
So for me, here's how it's gonna go from now on:  
A new set of minifigs hits the store, Let's assume there are 16.  I show up with my scale and start weighing them and putting aside any figure with a weight I haven't seen yet.  If I'm using my current gram scale, which isn't that precise, I'll end up with fewer than 16, but I do know that the ones I have aside are all unique.  I keep weighing them and putting them aside, never keeping any 2 with the same weight, until I reach a point where there are no weights unrepresented.  Let's imagine there are 10  unique weights. I put a star next to the weights that multiple figures had.  I buy those 10 figures i put aside, open them, enjoy them, and figure out which 6 i'm missing.  Let's call these missing 6 figures "TEAM 6".  I now have to go back to the store to find every member of TEAM 6. To prepare, I write down a list with the numbers with stars next to them.  I don't know how many numbers will have stars, but they're still helpful, because every TEAM 6 figure has one of those weights.  I call these the TEAM 6 WEIGHTs.  I go into the store and start placing bags on the scale, and if they have a TEAM 6 WEIGHT, I put them aside to be smooshed.  After I have a few, I start smooshing, and then I repeat this weighing and process until I'm done.  

It's not a perfect plan, but it's all about increasing efficiency.  The good thing about the plan is that even though it doesn't solve the problem entirely, it can't fail in any way that results in the purchase of an unwanted figure.  It's fool proof in that regard. 

This is also no good for someone who doesn't want all of the figures in the series.  

If I owned a gram scale that went down another decimal place or two, it most likely WOULD be a fool proof method, and I could get the weights of each figure, post them here, and people who only wanted one could take their highly accurate gram scales to the toy store and weigh bags instead of smooshing them.

My god what silly things I devote time money and energy to!

not sure if this would be smooshing but someone at all the walgreens by my house actually cuts each bag with a small razor and manages to get away with doing the entire case of simpsons minifigs . very frustrating that the lack of security would allow this the only upside to this is all the damaged bags end up on clearance for 75 cents the next week....

To identify the minifigures I want I take my smartphone of table with me and have the photo with all minifigures in the screen while I smoosh. Fastest way to start comparing without having to buy one just to see the pamphlet.

Thanks for this helpful guide! I think the most important thing in smooshing is to get lucky ? you can identify the figures with 100% accuracy but if you didn't pick up the right one it's no use. 

On 4/2/2015 at 0:39 AM, DFC01 said:

To identify the minifigures I want I take my smartphone of table with me and have the photo with all minifigures in the screen while I smoosh. Fastest way to start comparing without having to buy one just to see the pamphlet.

The toy store where I live has a pamphlet on display to help you identify the figures ?

Out at Pottery Barn with the wife, can’t escape it. My mind instantly goes to sorting basket.

9 hours ago, exciter1 said:

Out at Pottery Barn with the wife, can’t escape it. My mind instantly goes to sorting basket.
 

As it should

 

1 hour ago, exciter1 said:

Out at Pottery Barn with the wife, can’t escape it. My mind instantly goes to sorting basket.
 

Meh ... you need the new and improved 20 version for the special minifigure collections. It even has handles.