The 2009 San Diego Comic-Con Mini Republic Dropship & AT-TE BrickMaster Pack
500 Made. A Raffle to Buy It. A BrickMaster Magazine Nobody Mentions. And a Bilingual Box That Answers One Question While Raising Another.
The second exclusive LEGO set SDCC attendees could buy in 2009 — and the only one that was a true double exclusive. A microscale Republic Dropship you couldn’t build anywhere else, bundled with a BrickMaster polybag most subscribers never received.
San Diego Comic-Con 2009 ran July 22–26. LEGO was there with an unprecedented lineup — six Collectible Display Sets distributed one per day, plus two additional purchasable exclusives. COMCON010 was one of the two. Unlike the display sets, which were giveaways via raffle, COMCON010 was a paid purchase — $50 for 500 individually numbered boxes, available only to attendees who won an on-site raffle. It sold out.
This collection holds one sealed example.
The BrickMaster Context
BrickMaster was a LEGO subscription service available to US customers, delivering an exclusive bi-monthly magazine with a small polybag set included in each issue. Subscribers received models unavailable anywhere else — the only way to get them was to be a paying member.
Set 20009-1 — the Mini AT-TE Walker — was a BrickMaster exclusive. 94 pieces, microscale, Clone Wars subtheme. It appeared in the July-August 2009 issue of BrickMaster Magazine. In the UK it was also available through the LEGO Shop at Home, but in the US it was subscriber-only.
COMCON010 followed the same double-exclusive format as COMCON002 the year before — the Indiana Jones BrickMaster Pack at SDCC 2008 — where a BrickMaster subscription polybag was combined with a unique exclusive model in custom SDCC packaging. The format rewarded attendees with something that required two separate forms of access to obtain: a Comic-Con badge and a BrickMaster subscription. COMCON010 collapsed both into a single $50 purchase.
The Box
COMCON010 is packaged in a custom box with identical layouts on the front and back — same design, one side in English, one side in Spanish. Whether this is two separate print runs or a standard bilingual production box has been a point of confusion in collector databases since 2009. From firsthand examination of this collection’s example: it is a single box, English on one face, Spanish on the other. There are not two variants — there is one box with two languages.
All four sides of the box carry the same text: SDCC 09 EXCLUSIVE.
The front (English) face carries:
- LEGO and Star Wars logos at the top
- A green section below containing: SDCC 09 EXCLUSIVE · UNIT [handwritten number] OF 500 · SPONSORED BY · LEGO BrickMaster logo · SDCC 2009 Comic-Con logo
The individual unit number is handwritten directly on the box in the UNIT field — not a sticker, not a stamp. The back face carries the identical layout in Spanish. The box has no seal — it is not heat-sealed or taped shut.
The Contents
The box contains three items:
Set 20009-1 — Mini AT-TE Walker (BrickMaster polybag) — 94 pieces. The July-August 2009 BrickMaster subscription exclusive. Microscale AT-TE Walker from the Clone Wars subtheme. Sealed polybag, standard BrickMaster format.
Parts and instructions for the LAAT/c Republic Dropship — loose parts in a ziplock bag. The Dropship is the unique element of COMCON010 — a microscale LAAT/c (Low Altitude Assault Transport/carrier) that did not exist as a retail set and cannot be built from any other source. Combined with the AT-TE, the two models form a smaller-scale version of the retail set 10195 Republic Dropship with AT-OT Walker, which retailed at $249.99 the same year.
The July-August 2009 issue of BrickMaster Magazine — a standard retail subscriber issue. This detail does not appear in any collector database entry for COMCON010. The magazine’s presence confirms the set was timed precisely to the BrickMaster subscription cycle and reinforces the dual-exclusive nature of the package — the magazine contained the 20009 polybag for regular subscribers, while COMCON010 bundled it with the exclusive Dropship for SDCC attendees.
The Dropship
The LAAT/c Republic Dropship is the reason COMCON010 exists. The AT-TE polybag alone would have been a straightforward BrickMaster giveaway. The Dropship makes it an exclusive. Designed to carry the AT-TE beneath it — as the full-scale 10195 does — the microscale version slots the two models together into a combined display.
The combined Dropship + AT-TE model is 108 pieces total across both components. The instructions for the Dropship are available from The Holo-Brick Archives and other collector sources — the model has been reverse engineered and documented, though the original instructions from the ziplock bag remain the primary reference.
One documented quality control note: at least one opened example has been reported with missing parts — 14 different parts absent and additional incorrect parts included. The BrickNerd article on SDCC exclusives speculated this was a result of subcontracted packaging at a workshop employing people in work experience programs, citing a similar arrangement used for LEGOLAND California exclusive models.
The Distribution
COMCON010 was available exclusively via an on-site raffle at SDCC between July 22 and July 26, 2009. Winning the raffle gave the attendee the right to purchase the set at $50 — it was not a free giveaway. 500 were produced and all sold out over the course of the convention.
This is the same raffle-to-purchase mechanism used for the six Collectible Display Sets (COMCON004–009) distributed the same week — though those were distributed free to raffle winners rather than sold. COMCON010 sat alongside that system as a separate purchasable item.
Current Value
Brickset lists the current new value at approximately $1,056 and used at approximately $48 — an unusually large spread reflecting how many owners have opened and built the set versus how few sealed examples remain. The parts themselves cost roughly $23 new on BrickLink, meaning the sealed box commands a roughly 45× premium over parts value — almost entirely attributable to the SDCC packaging and the numbered, sealed condition.
In This Collection
This collection holds one sealed example. The bilingual box detail, the magazine contents, and the ziplock bag format are documented from firsthand examination of this example.
What We Don’t Know
- The parts count on sealed examples — the one documented opened example had 14 missing parts. Is this consistent across other opened examples, or was it an isolated packaging error? No systematic survey of opened COMCON010 examples has been published.
- The magazine — every issue or specific copies? — was the July-August 2009 BrickMaster issue included in every COMCON010 box, or only some? Given that the 20009 polybag was the cover item for that issue, including the full magazine makes narrative sense — but it has not been confirmed across multiple examples.
- The Spanish language question — the bilingual English/Spanish box has generated confusion in collector databases for over 15 years, with some entries describing it as two separate variants. This collection’s example confirms a single bilingual box. Are there any genuinely monolingual English-only examples, or has every known box been bilingual?
- The SDCC booth setup — no photographs of the LEGO booth at SDCC 2009 showing COMCON010 on display or for sale have been publicly documented.
COMCON010-1 — Mini Republic Dropship Mini AT-TE BrickMaster Pack (San Diego Comic-Con 2009 Exclusive)
BrickLink: comcon010-1
Distributed: July 22–26, 2009 | Event: San Diego Comic-Con International 2009
Price: $50.00 | Distribution: On-site raffle purchase
Contents: Set 20009-1 (Mini AT-TE Walker polybag) + LAAT/c Dropship parts (ziplock) + instructions + BrickMaster Magazine July-August 2009
Pieces: 108 total
Quantity: 500 individually numbered
Current value: ~$1,056 sealed
Status: Owned (sealed)
