The LEGO Group’s evil plan to prevent LEGO fans from identifying the new Series 3 Collectible Minifigs has now been completely foiled. LEGO says that the barcodes were never intended to enable people to get past their cunning marketing ploy (ha!), so they eliminated the unique barcodes on the back of each Series 1 and Series 2 minifig bag.
Instead, the Series 3 manufacturing process seems to have put patterns of raised bumps on the flat part on the bottom of the package. FBTB Forums member that guy cracked the code yesterday, and I’ve confirmed that the dot method works with my own case of figs this evening.
Rick Theroux pulled all the dot patterns together into a handy-dandy cheat sheet:
The consumer wins! Nice try, corporate goons.
The dot patterns can be a little tough to distinguish in a few cases, so it’s also a good idea to know what you’re looking for and identify your Series 3 minifigs through the bag by touch.