LEGO catalogues reference?

[youtoo]

Hi everyone,

I'm interested in collecting all the catalogues between 1983 till 1996 aprox, and I already have a bunch, but I find myself with different catalogues of the same year, some US some EU...

Is there any place in teh internets where to find exactly the cover of, let's say, the cover of the EU catalogues, and how many per year where published?

Do you know if LEGO used to publish two per year (winter/summer)?

Thanks!

[Aanchir]

Hi everyone,

I'm interested in collecting all the catalogues between 1983 till 1996 aprox, and I already have a bunch, but I find myself with different catalogues of the same year, some US some EU...

Is there any place in teh internets where to find exactly the cover of, let's say, the cover of the EU catalogues, and how many per year where published?

Do you know if LEGO used to publish two per year (winter/summer)?

Thanks!

I'm not entirely sure of older release patterns. For finding images of older catalogs, Brickfactory and Peeron have scans that you could refer to. But these databases are imperfect and are missing many catalogs.

Good luck on your collection! It would be a real treat if you could find a way of sharing these catalogs with other AFOLs if you meet your goal-- personally, I find old catalogs an irreplaceable resource when looking for story details on old themes or comparing the names for sets in different countries.

[snefroe]

yes, there are differences in catalgues between countries and yes Lego did increase the number of catalogues throughout the years.

the site I usually go to is: http://www.brickfactory.info/

[CP5670]

This site also has a couple that aren't on the others. Some catalogs aren't on any of these sites though.

Apart from the large S@H catalogs, there was only one set catalog of a given type per year, but there were several different kinds of these (regular, Technic, small/foldable, Lego Direct, service, etc.) and many countries or regions had their own catalogs. These localized versions were not just translations of the text, but often had different dioramas and content in them.

[Karto]

The only source I know of is Bricklink. Most of the ones I own are referenced there (per year, region and language).

On the home page, select the 'Catalog' tab, then 'Catalogs' and choose by year. There are about 2900 different ones, usually with thumbnails, serial numbers and country codes.

Bricklink