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Packaging Variations
Written by Neil (blackiecats)

8-back vs 14-back

The main package variation between the first releases and the subsequent releases is the fact that the series 1 cards are all black, while the series 2 (and UK series 3) have a white splash on the front. There is also a variation of how they were also packed on to the card itself. In early releases the mini catalogue was packed behind the plastic tray that holds the figures, while series 2 and later releases had the catalogue packed inside the tray. Also to note is the obvious variation of the amount of figures advertised on the card backs, however for more information on this see: Cardbacks
Early series 2 card with mini catalogue
loose behind the figure
Series 2 card with mini catalogue
placed inside figures tray

Snarf

Upon his release as part of the Companions range of LJN figures, Snarf was packaged facing and sideways on inside the blister. This is not just a Foreign variation has both profile examples have been found on American LJN cards. However as far as I am aware, Snarf was only packaged facing forward on the UK and European release. I never seen a UK or European card with him facing sideways. I have no idea exactly which version was released first, but my inititial guess would be the facing forward version as it's possibly this was changed to the the sideways profile to make the bubble less bulky. See pics below of both packaging versions of Snarf.
Snarf facing forward
Snarf facing sideways

A NEW sticker?

Nearly all North American and UK series 3 cards featured a sticker on the blister bubble that contained the word 'NEW' to obviously show these were the latest figures on release. Under the word 'NEW' would be the characters name. However with later series 3 cards the sticker would be missing. This is especially evident with Bengali who can be extremely hard to find MOC with his name sticker present on the bubble. I can only assume this was due to the figures being at the end of their production and not enough stickers were made to cover the last batch of figures produced. See images below of Bengali with and without his name sticker.
Bengali (with name sticker)
Bengali (without name sticker)

NEW vs NEW stickers

Two different 'NEW' stickers were produced for the final series of figures. The first had the word 'NEW' on a blue background, placed at a 45 degree hangle coming from the name part of the sticker. Then the other had the word 'NEW' written in red writing and placed on a yellow background above the character name. The top part of this sticker had a spiked effect. The yellow name sticker is the most common and is found on nearly all carded series 3 figures that come up for sale these days. I believe the blue background sticker came first (however I am not 100% certain of this) However I do know that the blue background sticker did not appear on any UK or European series 3 blister bubbles. See images below of both stickers.
Blue 'NEW' sticker
Yellow 'NEW' sticker

Fist Pounder

The accessories and vehicle itself, seem to be packed slightly differently on some Fist Pounder vehicles. Please see the 3 pictures below for more details.
Instructions and Sticker packing variation
Accessories packing variation
Box packing variation

Jackalman (Childbro cards)

The Packaging variations was also present on some of the foreign releases as we can see with the Childbro Jackalman figure. If look closely at the pictures below, you will see that Jackalman's mace is facing the opposite way to each other.
Jackalman with mace head
facing to the left
Jackalman with mace head
facing to the right

General Foreign Variations

In some instances, figures released in South America were packed slightly differently. The blister bubble on cards produced by Playful were sometimes stapled to the card rather than glued and in Brazil the Glasslite company packed the toys in boxes rather than on cardbacks. See an example of the Playful and Glasslite packaging below:
Playful Bengali
Glasslite Tygra

If you have questions regarding Packaging Variations or have any additional information to add to this topic, feel free to contact blackiecats.
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