Brick Inventory By Year?

[Lord Brickington]

Hi there, since I'm a avid fan and builder started in the 80's I've been having the same question popping up in my head every once in a while. 

Is there an inventory of bricks released by the year? This could come in very handy while building period correct MOCs. I've been looking around a lot but can't seem to find any info on it, so I've (finally) decided to put the question right here at EB.

 

Thanks in advance!

[MAB]

Year data is available at bricklink, although they do not necessarily distinguish between all variants. For example, these are all classed as standard 1x4 bricks (3010), with no differentiation:

[Lord Brickington]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

Year data is available at bricklink, although they do not necessarily distinguish between all variants. For example, these are all classed as standard 1x4 bricks (3010), with no differentiation:

Thanks for your reply @MAB! I understand what you are saying, but that is not what I'm aiming for.

 

My question is if there is a parts list for every year that Lego has been produced preferably list by year it came out? I've been looking at the lists at bricklink and I only see the items for sale and have to plow through every available item in there. Maybe I've been pushing the wrong buttons but if someone could clarify it for me, that would be great!

 

[MAB]

You can do something like this (I've used -sticker -pattern to avoid any sticker sheets and decorated parts):

https://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?pg=8&q=-pattern&catLike=W&itemYear=2005&sortBy=N&sortAsc=A&sz=50&itemBrand=1000&searchName=Y&catType=P&v=1

It will tell you everything that came out in 2005.

 

Or this will give you the full list, sorted by year (with a lot missing date info at the start):

https://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?v=1&pg=1&q=-pattern+-sticker&catLike=W&sortBy=Y&sortAsc=A&sz=200&itemBrand=1000&searchName=Y

Or this is the yearly summary, you can see each year's releases separately.

https://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?v=5&pg=1&q=-pattern+-sticker&catLike=W&sortBy=Y&sortAsc=A&sz=200&itemBrand=1000&searchName=Y

 

Perhaps more useful depending on what you want to do is clicking on category summary in the above links. You can then choose a category and just list parts in that category.  For example,

https://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?catID=5&catXrefLevel=0&catType=P&q=-pattern+-sticker&catLike=W&sortBy=Y&sortAsc=A&sz=200&itemBrand=1000&searchName=Y

will list all the bricks by their release date.

 

With all of these there is often 'junk' at the start as they do not have dates for all parts.

 

 

Note also the date information is by part type, not by the colour. They have only one date per part.

 

If you need colour data via BL it is much harder. You can check by part type and colour and see the release date for sets with that part in.

For example, if you wanted to know a 3001 in BL's light yellow,

https://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp?P=3001&in=S&colorID=33&ov=Y

chances are it was first released in 2002.

 

[koalayummies]

6 hours ago, Lord Brickington said:

Is there an inventory of bricks released by the year?

On a related note Brickset has a list of pieces added by year (https://brickset.com/parts/year-2019 and then you pick the year), but its more useful for MOCers looking for specific pieces and new pieces/recolors than for someone building period-correct sets with the type of attention to detail like that the picture MAB posted demonstrates.

[62Bricks]

Bear in mind that the dates Bricklink uses for parts are the release dates for the sets in which the part is inventoried. So it relies on the accuracy of the inventories. Many older parts are not in any inventories.

The inventories are pretty accurate, and there are a few people who are actively tracking down old sealed sets to verify parts, but it is not uncommon to see a modern variant inventoried incorrectly in a set released before the variant existed (and vice versa - old variants inventoried in newer sets).

[Lord Brickington]

Thank you @MAB for an extensive writing about this subject!

18 hours ago, MAB said:

Or this is the yearly summary, you can see each year's releases separately.

https://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?v=5&pg=1&q=-pattern+-sticker&catLike=W&sortBy=Y&sortAsc=A&sz=200&itemBrand=1000&searchName=Y

 

This is exactly what I was looking for.

 

15 hours ago, koalayummies said:

On a related note Brickset has a list of pieces added by year (https://brickset.com/parts/year-2019 and then you pick the year), but its more useful for MOCers looking for specific pieces and new pieces/recolors than for someone building period-correct sets with the type of attention to detail like that the picture MAB posted demonstrates.

I've had difficulties with Brickset being a bit incomplete, I like the users interface though. Thanks for your contribution @koalayummies!

 

13 hours ago, 62Bricks said:

Bear in mind that the dates Bricklink uses for parts are the release dates for the sets in which the part is inventoried. So it relies on the accuracy of the inventories. Many older parts are not in any inventories.

I became a bit stuck in the search of the correct bricks exactly because of this. Thanks @62Bricks