I think I might be onto something here!
So, I told you all that I bought a Crankcase with the fingers clipped and the number on the back was 10601.
Well, I went back out tonight and checked out EVERY Crankcase figure I could find. Every store I checked had Crankcase figures with 10601 stamped on them (K-Mart, TRU, Brewer Wal-Mart), except for a few at our Bangor Wal-Mart. The number there was 03651. Actually, it looked like the "03651" had been stamped over another number which I can't read fully. It's 033???
Anyway, I grabbed it hopeful that I'd see something different and....TA-DA!
(10601 on the left, 03651 on the right.)
Sweet!
So what does this mean? Well...definitively? Nothing. But, IMO, if I were you, I'd look for this number and if there's more than one number available - go with the lower one. If I'm wrong, I'm sorry!
Haha, I'm REALLY tempted to go back and grab the other two to test my "hypothesis"! I have another "10601" figure too...I might open him just to check!
Oh, and I agree with Jelze. This could be regional, it could be in earlier runs, I'm not sure exactly.