Lego Catalogs from Japan or Australia?

[moschino]

Hello,

I'm interested in how Lego was advertised in Japan and Australia especially between 1988 to 1999.

Unfortunately this part of the world is pretty ignored and I barely can find few catalogs with a lot of searching.

Brickfactory and Worldofbricks doesn't have such catalogs. On BrickLink I hardly found 1997 from Australia, and on eBay I couldn't find anything.

I'm not starting this topic in order to search someone who sell such catalogs because I'm more interested in information rather than collecting, however, I'd buy them if there's no other way to get the information.

If any of you have any of these catalogs or know where I should search, please let me know.

[AmperZand]

I have definitely had a Japanese catalogue but it was about 10 years ago and was current at the time. I got it from a store in the outskirts of Tokyo. I'm not sure if I still have it.

I'm not aware of any Japanese LEGO catalogues from the '80s or '90s, but that's not to say they don't exist. Perhaps the best person to ask is JapanBuilder right here on the EB boards.  

[moschino]

They exist. I found this: http://www.lego7205.com/castle-cat/1

Unfortunately this site only has catalogs from 90 to 99 and I'd like to see something more.

Thank you, I'll contact him.

[slopemodified]

Have you asked the OZLUG group on Facebook? There are many Australian AFOLs there and someone may have a catalog from that time. If you're on Facebook, I'd suggest doing that.

Also trying searching on Brickshelf.com - it looks like there are many pictures of catalogs, though I'm not sure how to tell which ones are from what country. 

[Artanis I]

I found the box with my old Aussie catalogues, I believe they date from 89 to 99 or so. I've written all over them as a kid and they are very used. They aren't for sale or give away, but I could scan them.

[moschino]

I applied to join OZLUG, thank you.

Artanis, that would be great. If scanning requires much time, you can just make some photos with a photo camera or even smartphone.

What interests me the most at this point would be 89 Castle & Pirates, 90 Castle & Pirates, 95 Castle, 97 Western and 99 ADventurers.

Of course, all other years and pages are welcome.

[bonox]

haha - EB really does unite LEGO fans around the world 

[Japanbuilder]

Hi there! 

I am not sure how far back LEGO catalogs go back in Japan but I'll run a search and see if I can dig up any sites that may have indexed them. 

If that turns up nothing I'll see if I can get in touch with a LUG or two and ask around there for any information. 

 

*edit*　using the following search term: (レゴ カタログ 八十年代) ((Lego Catalogs the 80s)) you can replace　八十　with 九十　for the 90s. Just keep the last two ideograms the same. 

Seek and thee shall find as they say, this site has a few and one dates back to 1979. Though these seem incomplete. Just a few pages a piece. Which seems strange given the range of LEGO sets specially towards the late 90s. Also it seems to be missing the ones from 1988 and 1989 (may never have been released?) The navigation may be odd but the bottom of each page has a link to the other years along with a thumbnail. Ill get hunting for those 2 missing years. 

http://www.lego7205.com/catalog

*edit edit*

Late 60s versions:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=128360

http://www006.upp.so-net.ne.jp/OLD-LEGO/shiryoukan.html

Site of historical overviews of LEGO through the years though some of this information is mixed in with sets from other regions not just Japan. But it does try to keep data limited to sets that saw official release in Japan. 

http://ameblo.jp/1sw/entry-11847048523.html

All castle sets up to set 6098 King Leo's Caslte:

http://ameblo.jp/1sw/theme-10075872588.html

Pirates up to set 6281 Pirates Perilous Pitfall)

http://ameblo.jp/1sw/theme-10075872632.html

Adventure up to set 7419 Dragon Fortress

http://ameblo.jp/1sw/entry-11776694381.html

Western up to 6766 Rapid River Village:

http://ameblo.jp/1sw/entry-11776657137.html

1988 commercials in Japan including one for LEGO Castle:

 

I cannot find full scanned copies of the real catalogs. I may have to contact a LUG and see if anyone has any of these still around. Japan is a recycling culture so some print materials specially stuff as old as this may not have survived to the present day. Hope that helps a bit!

Edited October 27, 2016 by Japanbuilder

[Artanis I]

I haven't forgotten about this, just haven't been able to get some time to do it yet. After skimming through it all, I have the full catalogues in English from 1990-1998 (sadly not 1989 when Pirates launched), some with local (horrible) prices, and the smaller catalogues from 1989 with no text, 1990 with English/French/Dutch, 1992, 94 & 95 in English and probably Japanese. I also have various single sheet versions that were inside sets from 1987-1995 with no text. Those were probably just the Europe sheets though.

[moschino]

Japanbuilder, thank you very much for your search and help. I found Lego7205 before as I said, and I also contacted him. He scanned for me the pages I was interested from 1997, 1998 and 1999, Western and Adventurers. If anyone is interested, I can upload them here.

Unfortunately, he doesn't have any catalog under 1990 and I'm still looking for 1988 and 1989.

I also applied on OZLUG and someone scanned for me Castle 1987 and Castle and Pirates from1989 Catalogs from Australia.

What I would really like to see now is 1988, 1989 Castle and Pirates from Japan and 1998, 1999 Western and Adventurers from Australia.

 

Artanis I, yes, they are just the Europe sheets and they don't represent anything related to Australia, but the other catalogs should.

If you don't have time to scan the whole catalog, please just make a photo to Castle 1996 and Adventurers and Western 1998.

 

Thank you

[Japanbuilder]

19 minutes ago, moschino said:

Japanbuilder, thank you very much for your search and help. I found Lego7205 before as I said, and I also contacted him. He scanned for me the pages I was interested from 1997, 1998 and 1999, Western and Adventurers. If anyone is interested, I can upload them here.

Unfortunately, he doesn't have any catalog under 1990 and I'm still looking for 1988 and 1989.

I also applied on OZLUG and someone scanned for me Castle 1987 and Castle and Pirates from1989 Catalogs from Australia.

What I would really like to see now is 1988, 1989 Castle and Pirates from Japan and 1998, 1999 Western and Adventurers from Australia.

 

Artanis I, yes, they are just the Europe sheets and they don't represent anything related to Australia, but the other catalogs should.

If you don't have time to scan the whole catalog, please just make a photo to Castle 1996 and Adventurers and Western 1998.

 

Thank you

No problem. The previously mentioned catalogue site's homepage has a yearly breakdown posted there. http://www.lego7205.com They are divided into 3 columns for 6 themes:

The first should read お城シリーズ in green. This refers to Castle. It has an entry for 1988 but not 1989 for all sets in Japan at that time. 

In the middle column there should be an entry called 南海の勇者 or Braves of the Southern Seas (pirates) series. There is an entry for 1989 but not 1988. 

in Yellow is 街シリーズ which translates to "Town" 

Purple is テクニック Techniq. Red is 基本セット or LEGO Basic (not sure what this would be in English really) Orange is その他 or Other in English. The first few links for most of the sections detail the sets or catalogues (if available) or which mini figures were available at the time. 

Sadly I cannot find full catalogues for 1988 or 1989 in Japanese. It is as if there is a void in the Japanese Index for these two years. I am not sure why this would be though. 

The Japanese LEGOPedia here:http://ameblo.jp/1sw/

Has all the sets by year released in Japan by theme, sadly no catalogues. I put the relevant sections for these in my previous post. It seems there was a dearth of sets during the 1988 and 1989 time line with only 4 sets in 1988 and 2 sets in 1989. Pirates has no info for 1988 because it seems the theme hit Japan starting in 1989 (Late) which means the earliest print was probably the 1990 catalogue. Typically the catalogues run bi-annually nowadays back then, they have been released in January and covered a longer range of time. But pirates flooded the scene in 1989. 10 sets were released in one go at the time. The next new wave hit in 1991. 

Edited October 28, 2016 by Japanbuilder

[moschino]

That helped a lot, thank you.

[Japanbuilder]

9 minutes ago, moschino said:

That helped a lot, thank you.

Anytime, I'll see if I can't find real copies of 88 or 89 but looking through the Japanese LEGOPedia it seems the gaps are explained by either late arrivals to Japan or no new arrivals to fill the catalogues for the time in question. So they saved on print likely by only releasing in-store flyers of the few new sets available between 88 and 89.