By Sophie Yu and Brenda Goh
BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) -A Beijing auction house sold a human-sized Labubu figure for 1.08 million yuan ($150,275.51) on Tuesday, setting a new record for the “blind box” toy as it moves from craze to collectible.
The event held by Yongle International Auction, which traditionally specialises in modern art as well as jewellery, marked the first ever auction dedicated to Labubu, toothy monster figurines that are mainly sold by China’s toy company Pop Mart and have been at the centre of a global frenzy for the past year.
The auction offered 48 lots for sale and was attended in person by roughly 200 people, while over a thousand bidders put down offers via Yongle’s mobile app, the auction house said. The starting price for all the items started at zero and it eventually raised a total of 3.73 million yuan.
The highest grossing item, a mint green, 131 cm (4.3 feet) tall Labubu figure, received several bids to sell for 1.08 million yuan. The auctioneer said it was the only one available in the world.
A set of three Labubu sculptures, about 40 cm tall and made of PVC material, sold for 510,000 yuan. The set, from a series called “Three Wise Labubu”, was limited to a run of 120 sets in 2017 and another one sold for HKD 203,200 ($25,889.64) at Sotheby’s most recent auction in Hong Kong.
Labubu was created a decade ago by Hong Kong artist and illustrator Kasing Lung. In 2019, Lung agreed to let them be sold by Pop Mart, a Chinese toy company that markets collectable figurines often sold in “blind boxes”.
A buyer of a blind box toy does not know exactly what design they will receive until they open the packaging. The starting price for Labubu blind box toys sold in Pop Mart’s stores is around 50 yuan.
The character’s popularity skyrocketed after Lisa of the Korean pop music group Blackpink was spotted with a Labubu and praised the doll in interviews and online posts. Many celebrities followed. In May, British football star David Beckham shared a photo on Instagram of his Labubu attached to a bag.
One Yongle auction bidder, a restaurant owner who only gave her surname as Du, said she had planned to spend a maximum of 20,000 yuan but walked away empty handed as the final prices were too high.
“My child likes it so every time when Labubu released new products we will buy one or two items. It is hard to explain its popularity but it must have moved this generation,” she said.
($1 = 7.8487 Hong Kong dollars)
($1 = 7.1868 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Sophie Yu, Xiaoyu Yin and Brenda Goh; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
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