What do the Numbers on Funko Pop Boxes Mean?

In the top right hand corner of every Funko Pop box there’s a number, and at first it always appears like there is no real rhyme or reason dictating which number appears on the box, or how the order is worked out. But, apparently there is a logic behind the numbering system… I’ll TRY to explain that logic here.

The numbers do run as a series, however each number set runs independent based on the pop series. There are a few of these including games, animation, movies, music (rocks), 8-bit, ad icons and more. Within each one of these there’s a different number set, which keeps each set of figures roughly together. However where this gets a little confusing is with pops where a set may come in different runs. For example the first 3 sets of south park figures run from 1 to 5, then again from 8 to 12 and a third set from 15 to 22.

Between these sets there could be 2 different things going on. The first is that a different set of figures, perhaps a run of 2 different designs might have come out after the first series of south park but before the second. Or, in order to save space for exclusives and special editions, Funko may keep this in mind and leave a gap so that they can continue the special figures as part of the original series.

All of this does mean that some times it looks a bit strange, especially when you see an exclusive which has a different number to the rest (even if it looks very similar to another one) and a chase. Unlike the exclusives, a chase version of a specific figure will have the same number as the common version of that pop.

The numbering system can look very messy, especially for franchises which have huge sets (like Star Wars for example), so it’s important not to get too hung up on these! With most of my pops I keep them in their sets and then order them in the number order for that particular series, but I don’t have too many huge sets at present.

So, it seems like this leaves a lot of room for mistakes, however it’s surprisingly uncommon, with myself only being aware of one major issue where 4 pops share 2 numbers within the movies series. These are Pulp Fiction (Vincent – movies number 61 and Jules – movies number 62) and Back to the Future (Marty McFly – movies number 61 and Dr. Emmet Brown – movies number 62). This does however show that there is still a human element involved to the numbering of each pop figure series.