Playmobil Part Numbers Decoded

THIRD AND FOURTH DIGITS

• 00 - Men (various molds, but not fat)
• 01 - women with classic flip-hem torsos
• 02-09 - regular unpainted parts first appearing in sets from 1974-1997
• 10 - boys
• 11 - girls
• 12 - babies
• 13 - fat men
• 14 - women
• 15-18 - not used
• 19 very rarely used for klickies
• 20-29 - regular unpainted parts first appearing in sets from 1997-present
• 30-43 - not used
• 45-46 - subparts of multi-mold parts
• 47-49 - not used
• 50 - special rubberized parts, rare
• 51 - multi-mold parts meant to be separated
• 52-59 - not used
• 60-61 - multi-mold parts meant to be separated
• 62-64 - painted parts
• 65-67 - multi-mold parts, usually assembled permanently; or combinations of parts (e.g. complete bicycle)
• 68-69 - black-and-white instructions
• 70-73 - either packaging, or parts with many tiny pieces (e.g. animal feed, coal)
• 74-78 - not used
• 79 - keychains?
• 80-89 - parts of non-plastic material, e.g. metal, paper, rubber, cloth. Most instructions found here
• 90-96 - packaging
• 97-99 - not used

FIRST AND SECOND DIGITS

• 30 - almost everything
• 35 - parts with special coating (e.g. shiny silver or gold, bronze)
• 40 - rarely used, usually from China-made sets
• 60 - all parts from 1-2-3 sets, even the instructions and packaging

ABOUT THE EIGHTH DIGIT

Part numbers from 1977 to 19?? had only seven digits. When the eighth digit was added, the old parts had "0" added to the end. That is: "30 11 111" = "30 11 1110".

The eighth digit is a "rollover" indicator: the eighth digit "3", for example, started to be used when all the part numbers for a third-and-fourth-digit set ending in "2" were used up. For example: "30 63 0003" follows "30 63 9992". The eighth digit is not to be used as the "units digit" when identifying groups of parts released together chronologically.

This is wrong:

30 63 0002
30 63 0003
30 63 0004
...
30 63 0012
30 63 0013
30 63 0014
...
30 63 9982
30 63 9983
...
30 63 9992
30 63 9993

This is right:

30 63 0002
30 63 0012
...
30 63 9982
30 63 9992
30 63 0003
30 63 0013
...
30 63 9983
30 63 9993
30 63 0004
30 63 0014