My Unfiltered Guide to Finding a Rare Labubu (Without Getting Scammed)

So you've fallen down the rabbit hole. Welcome. One minute you're buying a single blind box from The Monsters Camping series, the next you're 20 tabs deep at 2 AM, frantically searching for a rare labubu doll. I've been there. As the owner of PopNya and a hopeless collector myself, I've seen the entire spectrum of this beautiful, chaotic hobby.

The first thing I need to tell you is that the conversation around labubu rarity is completely broken. People use "rare" and "expensive" interchangeably, and that's the biggest mistake you can make. A figure can be expensive because of a TikTok trend, not because it's genuinely scarce. Let's clear the air.

The Three Flavors of "Rare" (And Why It Matters)

When someone asks me to find them a rare labubu, I first have to ask: what kind of rare are you talking about? Because there are levels to this.

1. The Chase/Secret: This is the most common type of "rare." In a standard case of 12 blind boxes, there are 12 unique designs. The "Secret" (often called a "Chase") is an unlisted 13th design that replaces one of the regular figures in some boxes. The standard odds are 1 in 144 boxes. This is manufactured scarcity. Pop Mart designed it this way to get you to buy more. The Macaron secrets, the Flower Elf secret, these fall into this category. They are rare-ish, but with thousands of cases produced, there are still a lot of them out there.

2. The Super Secret: This is a whole other level. Sometimes, a series will have an even rarer variant of the Secret, often called a "Super Secret" or "Super Chase." The odds can be something insane like 1/720. The "Dull" version of the TYCOCO secret from The Monsters Exciting Macarons series is a perfect example. These are legitimately hard to pull.

3. The Limited Edition (LE): This, for me, is true rarity. These are figures not found in blind boxes. They are released for a specific event, a collaboration, or as a standalone art piece. They have a fixed, announced production number, sometimes 500 pieces, sometimes less than 100. These don't get restocked. Once they're gone, they're gone. The massive Zimomo figures or special convention exclusives fall into this category. Their value is tied to a real, finite number, not a blind box ratio.

Understanding this difference is your first line of defense against overpaying. A Secret from a brand new, popular series might spike to $300 the week of release, but it will often settle down to $150-200 once the hype cools and more are unboxed. An LE of 200 pieces will almost never go down in price.

The Hype Trap: Don't Chase a Bubble

I need to be blunt about this. The Labubu Macaron series was a phenomenon, but it was also a perfect storm of hype that caught so many new collectors in a financial trap. I remember getting emails daily at PopNya asking if we had them, people offering way over retail.

I watched the Chestnut Macaron (the regular one, not even the secret!) go from a retail price of about $15 to over $100 on secondary markets like StockX in a matter of weeks. It was pure mania. And now? As of this writing, you can find it for $40-50. The people who bought at the peak got burned.

This is the Hype Trap. It's fueled by social media, FOMO, and the thrill of a new release. A figure isn't necessarily a rare la boo boo just because it's all over your Instagram feed. It's just new and popular. My advice? If you're hunting for a figure and the price seems to be doubling every week, wait. The market will almost always correct itself. Let the whales and the impatient collectors fight it out. True value holds; hype fades.

The Real Grails: My Personal "Rarest Labubu" Watchlist

If you want to know what I, as a seller and collector, consider the real heavy hitters, it's not always the ones making headlines. These are the pieces that have historical significance, genuine scarcity, and a story.

The Pre-Pop Mart Era Figures: Before Kasing Lung partnered with Pop Mart, he produced figures with another company, How2Work. These early Labubu and Zimomo figures are, in my opinion, some of the rarest labubu figures in existence. The production runs were tiny compared to Pop Mart's mass-market scale. They were sold in art toy galleries, not big box stores. Finding one of these now, especially with its original packaging, is a serious collector's quest. The vinyl feels different, the paint application has a more hand-done quality. They are artifacts from the origin of the character.

The Big Zimomos: Okay, yes, these are famous. But their rarity is legitimate. I'm talking about pieces like the "Monster" Zimomo or the "Magma" Zimomo. These are huge vinyl art pieces, often over a foot tall. They were released in extremely limited quantities (think 100-300 pieces worldwide) and sold for hundreds of dollars at retail. Now, they command thousands. The reason isn't just scarcity; it's the sheer presence. They are centerpiece art objects, not just cute shelf-sitters.

Obscure Regional Exclusives: This is the deep end of collecting. Did you know there was a special Labubu released only for a store opening in Bangkok? Or a specific colorway only available at a convention in Shanghai? These are the figures that most of the market doesn't even know exist. They don't have a StockX page. You can't just search for them on eBay. You find them through dedicated collector networks, often trading with people overseas. Their rarity is a function of obscurity and logistical difficulty.

That Infamous Gold Labubu: You've probably seen the headlines about a 24k gold Labubu. Is it the ultimate rare figure? A marketing stunt? A myth? It's a bit of all three. We actually wrote a whole piece trying to get to the bottom of the truth about the 24k Gold Labubu, and the story is wilder than you'd think. It's less of a collectible and more of a legend at this point.

A Collector's Playbook for Hunting Rares

Okay, so you know what you're looking for. How do you actually find it without getting a convincing-looking fake or paying double what you should?

1. Master Your Sources: For new releases, always try the official Pop Mart store first. For sold-out items, you're entering the secondary market. * Safer Bets: Platforms like StockX offer authentication, which is great for peace of mind but you'll pay a premium. Established, curated stores (like, ahem, PopNya) are another good option because we stake our reputation on authenticity. * The Wild West: eBay, Mercari, and Facebook collector groups. You can find incredible deals here, but you can also get scammed. My number one tip for avoiding fakes: Ask the seller for a picture of the figure's feet. A genuine Pop Mart Labubu will have a crisp, clear "© Kasing Lung," "POP MART," and often the year imprinted on the bottom of its feet. Fakes often have blurry, soft, or missing text. The vinyl on fakes also tends to be harder and shinier.

2. The Box Weight "Trick" Is a Lie: I see this advice given to new collectors and it drives me crazy. People claim you can weigh or shake blind boxes to find the secret. This does not work anymore. In the early days, maybe. But Pop Mart got wise to it years ago. Newer series, especially from 2022 onwards, have intentional variations. I've seen them add metal-weighted collector cards or different-sized desiccant packs to normalize the weights across the set. Shaking is even worse; you're more likely to damage the figure than to identify it. The only way to guarantee a secret is to buy one on the secondary market or get incredibly lucky.

3. The Full Case Strategy: If you're serious about a series, consider buying a sealed case of 12. You won't get any duplicates from the main set, and it's your single best statistical chance of pulling a secret. It's not a guarantee, but your odds go from 1/144 to 1/12. It's a significant investment upfront, but it can be cheaper than buying each figure individually and then hunting for the last one you need. If you want to understand the economics of it, we broke down the math in our collector's guide to the Labubu box.

4. Timing is Everything: The absolute worst time to buy a hyped secret is within the first month of its release. The price is pure speculation at that point. I have a rule: I add the figure to my watchlist and ignore it for 60 days. More often than not, the price will have settled to a much more reasonable level. Patience is a collector's superpower.

Real Talk: My Honest Take on Chasing Rares

Look, I get it. The thrill of the hunt is a huge part of the fun. Unboxing a secret you weren't expecting is a core memory for any collector. But I've also seen people get so obsessed with finding the rarest labubu that they forget to enjoy the hobby. They get stressed, they go into debt, and their shelves are full of figures they bought for their perceived value, not because they actually love the design.

Here's my honest verdict as someone who lives and breathes these little monsters: Collect what makes you happy.

A common Labubu that you think is adorable and got for retail price is a better addition to your collection than a $500 hype beast that will give you anxiety every time you look at it. The point of art toys is that they're supposed to be fun. They're supposed to bring a little bit of weird joy into your space. Don't let market values and rarity ratios ruin that for you.

If you're just starting your journey or looking to add some non-hyped, just-plain-awesome figures to your shelves, that's what we love to focus on. You can always browse our LABUBU collection at PopNya to see what we've curated. We only stock the ones we'd be excited to have in our own collection.

At the end of the day, the "rarest" Labubu isn't the one with the highest price tag. It's the one on your shelf that has a story, the one you traded for, the one you found on vacation, or the first one that started it all.

---