LEGO Minifigures Series 18 (2018)

LEGO Minifigures Series 18: Party (71021), April 2018 — 17 figures for the minifigure’s 40th birthday, including the rare Classic Police Officer, just one per 60-bag box.

LEGO Minifigures Series 18 — set 71021, sold as “Series 18: Party” — launched on 1 April 2018 with 17 figures instead of the usual 16 (The Brothers Brick, Wikipedia). It was built around a birthday: the modern minifigure turned 40 that year, the first one having been a police officer in set 600 in 1978 (LEGO, Jay’s Brick Blog). Most of the cast are partygoers in costume — an elephant girl with a mouse, a clown with balloon animals, a guy bursting out of a two-tier cake, a cactus, a flowerpot, a firework rocket, a race car, and a matching pair, the Brick Suit Guy and Brick Suit Girl, dressed as LEGO bricks. When we checked LEGO.com on 21 October 2026, the Party series was marked retired. The extra, seventeenth figure is the Classic Police Officer (BrickLink calls him the 1978 Classic Police Officer), a recreation of that very first minifigure with a white cap and a printed tile showing set 600 (Jay’s Brick Blog, Brickset). He is the short-packed one: a 60-bag retail box holds a single Classic Police Officer, while the other 16 figures each turn up several times (The Brothers Brick, Jay’s Brick Blog, Brickset). In practice one box can complete at most one full set. Two Series 18 costumes came back later in green: the brick suit for the anniversary Brick Costume Guy of Series 20 (2020), and the dragon suit in Series 23 (The Brothers Brick, Jay’s Brick Blog). For sorting the bags by feel, The Brothers Brick published a guide on launch day, 1 April 2018, and Jay’s Brick Blog lists a tell-tale part for each of the 17 figures.