Lego Minifigures Series 11 - Release Date, Bump & Dot Codes

On this page we are going to be taking a look at Lego Minifigures Series 11. We will review all the new Lego characters and tell you about the release date for Series 11 Minifigures. We will also take a look at the bump and dot codes and tell you exactly how to identify which figures are contained in the mystery bags. If you are a fan of Lego Minifigures and like collecting these characters then this is a page that will certainly interest you.

It's around four years now since the first series of minifigures was introduced. Back then Lego could have had no idea just how popular these little characters would become. Now we are all the way up to Series 11 and there are sixteen exciting new figures to collect. You may have thought Lego would be running out of ideas by now but they still keep coming up with fresh new characters to keep people interested. So now we know the series is coming out, lets tell you about things such as release date and how to identify the figures using bump codes, dot codes and the classic feel technique.

So first of all the big news is when actually this new set is coming out. Well the people at Lego seem to keep a pretty regular schedule of when these come out and each year they have a release date for September. Sometimes in the US you tend to find the release date gets brought forward a few weeks but in other countries such as the UK we won't see Series 11 arriving till September time. If the release date changes or gets updated in anyway we will update our page and let you know.

Now we know what the minifigures are and there are some real treats in store. Another thing we do know is that the new mystery bags will be green and we expect the little checklists to also come in green. One thing that there has been speculation about is whether or not Lego would release a 17^th character as they did with Mr Gold in series 10. Sales of series 10 were no doubt helped by the five thousand rare figures that were hidden away and so there was speculation that something similar may be done for the next release, but it looks like we will just be getting the standard sixteen characters this time. So what are these characters going to be? Well let's take a look.

So the list of sixteen characters was confirmed over the spring and we now know these will all be here come September time. So the new figures are: Welder, Evil Mech, Barbarian, Yeti, Female Robot, Tiki Warrior, Gingerbread Man, Grandma, Diner Waitress, Mountain Climber, Scientist, Jazz Musician, Constable, Holiday Elf, Bavarian Lady and a Scarecrow. As always there looks like being some classic figures as well as some not quite so good ones. Highlights though include the Scarecrow, Elf, Gingerbread Man and the Yeti. Some really interesting ideas from Lego this time and so we expect that once again this set of sixteen minifigures should sell very well.

As is always the case with the figures, Lego bring these out in small mystery bags. The standard price of these is usually around $3 or £2 if you live in the UK. We are expecting the price to remain the same for this new release. The issue of course though is always how to find a full set of sixteen without buying hundreds of the mystery bags. Well let's take a look at how exactly you can identify what's contained in the bags.

Way back when the first few series' of these figures hit the shops, they was a way of reading the bar codes to work out which character was contained inside, Lego got wise to this and changed their method of marking though. Now they use bump or dot codes. These are small bumps imprinted on the bottom strip at the back of each mystery bag. Every year people try to work out which bumps represent which figure, the reality is that often one figure can have a few different dot codes so it can be really tough to work out which one is which. It is also very hard to see the bumps on packets, especially when you are in a busy store. For that reason many people don't tend to put that much faith in the bump and dot code technique. Most people use the feel technique which is a skill that can take some practice.

The feel technique is pretty basic, you simply feel around for the most obvious features of each character. This is not as easy as it may sound as the bags are made from quite thick material. Given a little practice and patience though this is a technique you can master. Due to the fact that we have not seen any of the figures from Series 11 yet we can not give you any tips at this point, but when we know more we will update our page and give you some tips for identifying Lego Minifigures Series 11.

As you can see there are some excellent new characters coming out in this new set of figures. When the release date arrives these will once again be very popular and children both young on old will be scrambling to get there hands on a full set. There are already rumours as to what to expect when series 12 hits the shops and although this has not been confirmed yet we are expecting these to show up early 2014, so something else to look forward to there. For now though this new set of sixteen will delight Lego fans the world over, get down to your local toy store and get searching for those figures.