The Corner Penthouse

I reviewed several of Neca's themed blind bags in the past. After what happened the last time - buying two Pop Culture bags that were EXACTLY the same - I soured on them and was on the verge of never buying them again. Well, I bought four more bags from Target the other day - two Pop Culture and two Sci-Fi & Horror - and I don't think I will be buying any more. Read on to find out why...

If you haven't read any of my previous reviews of Neca's themed blind bags, here's the down and dirty lowdown on them: For $10, you get four leftovers from Loot Crate mystery boxes from years past, usually without the original packaging. Sometimes the items are randomly placed in the bags, and sometimes there's a specific set of items in the bag. Last time, the two bags I bought contained the same four items. This time, I felt up the bags in Target first, and I'm positive that the fifth bag I left on the shelf contained the same items as one of the four bags I bought (the Harry Potter bag). As for the other bags, it's a mix of new items, and a lot of stuff I've gotten in past bags. Since I'm now getting more and more duplicate items, I'm probably going to stop buying these bags. Of the four bags I'm about to detail, I got very little that I want or didn't already have, so I don't feel like I got my $40 worth. Let's see what I got...


Pop Culture Bag #1 contains:

• Harry Potter Gryffindor Notebook
• Harry Potter Gryffindor Bookmark
• Harry Potter Rubeus Hagrid's Magical Creatures Sticky Notes
• Harry Potter Mirror of Erised Replica

This is the Harry Potter bag I mentioned when I said that there was a fifth bag in Target that, I'm sure, contained the same four items.


Harry Potter Gryffindor Notebook - A 5.25" x 8" book with a 2018 copyright date sealed in plastic. The blood red cover has the silhouette of a griffin, while the Gryffindor crest is on the back.


Harry Potter Gryffindor Bookmark - a 2.5" x 3" metal bookmark with a tassel that has a manufacture date of July 2018 listed on the back of the card.


Harry Potter Rubeus Hagrid's Magical Creatures Sticky Notes - This cute little set of "Post-It Notes" features a small 2.5" x 3" pad with a drawing of Hagrid on it, and some smaller pads of a puppy, owl, bat, and hippogriff. It was made in 2018 by Insight Editions for Loot Crate.


Harry Potter Mirror of Erised Replica - This is a small 4.24"H x 2.5"W mirror replica-ish of the Mirror of Erised, which is a magical mirror that shows the "deepest, most desperate desire" of the person looking into it. The name "Erised" is "desire" spelled backwards.

While I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan, this was not a bad bag. There's nothing here that I already had from a previous bag, which is a huge positive. There are a few items here that I like.


Pop Culture Bag #2 contains:

• Loot Crate Ghostbusters Terror Dog Pin
• Loot Crate Jaws Drain Stopper
• HYP The Lord of the Rings Legolas & Gimli Crew Socks
• HYP The Lord of the Rings Frodo & Sam Crew Socks

This entire bag is a 100% duplicate of a Pop Culture bag I bought back in August 2020. That's $10 down the drain... or $20 when you consider that this is now the second 100% duplicate bag I've purchased. Adding in the (presumably) Harry Potter Pop Culture bag I left at Target, I'd say that this is proof that there are a bunch of these Neca bags with the 100% same set of items in them.


Sci-Fi & Horror Bag #1 contains:

• HYP The Lord of the Rings Aragorn & Boromir Crew Socks
• HYP The Lord of the Rings Pippin & Merry Crew Socks
• Buffy The Vampire Slayer Sunnydale Pennant
• Farscape "My Other Ride is a Leviathan" Bumper Sticker

Look at that! Two NEW pairs of The Lord of the Rings socks. I think that the four pairs - Legolas/Gimli, Frodo/Sam, Aragorn/Boromir, Pippin/Merry - are the entire set. It's nice to have the whole set. I'd point out that The Lord of the Rings is fantasy, not sci-fi or horror, but I've come to expect items in these bags that don't fit the genre listed on the outside.


HYP The Lord of the Rings Aragorn & Boromir + Pippin & Merry Crew Socks - These two pairs of The Lord of the Rings crew socks, made by HYP in 2019, are interesting because they are not matching pairs. The first pair contains one Aragorn sock and one Boromir sock. The other pair contains one Pippin sock and one Merry sock. The faces on these are a bit on the ugly side, but for $2.50 a pair, I can't really complain much.


Buffy The Vampire Slayer Sunnydale Pennant - Made by Loot Crate in 2019, this 29"x11.5" mustard yellow felt pennant features the name and mascot of the high school that Buffy and her friends attend in the movie and television series. There are faux blood splatter, the result of a fight with some vampires.


Farscape "My Other Ride is a Leviathan" Bumper Sticker - Also made by Loot Crate in 2019, this 11.5"x3" bumper sticker is from the 1999–2003 Sci-Fi Channel series Farscape, produced by The Jim Henson Company. It features the "My Other Ride is a Leviathan" slogan against a purple starfield with the Leviathan ship on the right.

I'm thrilled to get another pair of socks. The pennant is nice, but I'm not a Buffy fan, so I'll pass it on to someone else. I don't have a car, and have zero interest in Farscape, so that will be passed on, as well.


Sci-Fi & Horror Bag #2 contains:

• Farscape "My Other Ride is a Leviathan" Bumper Sticker
• Loot Crate Predator Mask Bottle Opener
• Happy Wonder Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft Collector Stress Reliever
• The Lord of the Rings 3-Patch Set

Well, the bumper sticker is an obvious duplicate. The bottle opener and stress reliever are duplicates from a Sci-Fi & Horror bag I bought back in August 2020. That's three-fourths of this bag wasted for me. Should I bother pointing out, again, that Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft and The Lord of the Rings are fantasy, not sci-fi or horror? Anyway, let's take a look at the one non-duplicate item in this bag.


The Lord of the Rings 3-Patch Set - Each patch is 2.5"x3" depicting three locations from the fantasy series: The Shire, Moria, and Mordor. Made by Loot Crate in 2019.

I like the patches, so that's nice. Not $10 nice, but still nice.

Of the 12 items from these bags, 7 are duplicates. That's more than half, which means I spent $20 (out of $40) on items I already had. So, if I seem a little miffed about this entire purchase, I think you can understand why. Although it will be tempting to buy them again when I see them on the Target shelf, with over 50% odds of getting duplicates, I think I'm gonna have to pass.