Author Topic: Playmobil Magazines, 2009-2015  (Read 4584 times)

Offline GrahamB

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Playmobil Magazines, 2009-2015
« on: April 26, 2015, 11:38:10 »
I have been trying to create a full list of all the PM magazines issued since 2009 (the ones with a free gift). I think I might be nearly there…
Here is the list:
 (these are screenshots of tables in a Word document. The Word file is attached. If you would like it in another format, let me know).






Tiermann has reviewed several of the klickies and animals given as free gifts:Boys’ magazines 32 and 33, Girls’ magazines 10 and 12 here and Girl’s no. 13 here Other people on PF have shown some of them e.g. Boys; No. 12 here and Boys’ No.10 here , but I have not seen an English-language site giving a list of all the magazines to date.

I put the list together using the following sources
Klickwelt topic (membership required to view)
Klickypedia
Playmoweb
German Playmobil site

How many are there?

In Germany there have been 35 Boys' Magazines (plus 9 'Special Magazines') and 14 Girls' Magazines. (“Boys” and “Girls” is what they are called but I don't endorse the sexist approach used by the publishers!) Some of the Boys' magazines have been released in other European countries (Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, UK and probably others) but, so far, the Girls' ones have been exclusively for the DACH countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). Which is a shame, because the Girls’ free gift figures are often very nice.

How are they numbered?

Each magazine has been given up to three different identification numbers (which is confusing!).
1.   A 5-digit number (805nn). All of the numbers from 80500 to 80558 have been used so far, in the sequence the magazines were issued (I haven’t found number 80511 or 80550 however).
2.   A number according to when each was issued. With 5 or 6 issues per year, numbers like 3/2014 are used (which means the third issue of 2014, released in May 2014).
3.   A number showing the magazine’s position in the sequence; in Germany so far that is 1 to 15 for the Girls’ and 1 to 35 for the Boys’ magazines. The Girls' magazines seem to be missing issue 4. I think there may have been a mix up with numbering issues 2 and 3 (sometimes numbering them 3 and 4 respectively), so with issue 5 the sequence was restored to normality. In other countries, the Boys’ numbers used don’t necessarily correspond to the German numbers and the sequence may be different.
There are some anomalies in the numbering, with different sources sometimes giving different numbers for the same issue (especially for the third numbering system described above). I have used the numbers found at www.playmobil.de and extrapolated across the gaps using the 5-digit serial numbers.
In addition to the above, the free gifts each have their own 8 digit number beginning 30, like other PM parts. Here are the numbers I found (on UK issues):


Free Gifts- Klickies and other things

Personally, it is the PM figures which come as 'gifts' with these magazines which attract me (the magazines themselves are not of much interest). Most of the magazines came with a klicky or an animal (some of these were exclusive to the magazines), but five of the early Boys' magazines had a non-PM toy (telescope, handcuffs, swimming goggles, walkie-talkie, crystals) which probably makes them even less interesting to collectors. Some of the 'gifts' have been repeated in the 'Special' magazines. The same gifts as were used in the German editions are used when the magazines are released outside Germany. The only variation I have found is that on the chest of the Police figures  released in the UK was printed 'Police' and in Germany it was 'Polizei'.

Where can you get them?

In the UK, they are sold in Tesco supermarkets. The UK publishers (Redan) can tell you where else they may be on sale and they may have some back issues. The UK editions are also on sale in Australia and New Zealand. Finding them on sale seems to be a bit hit-or-miss in the UK and other European countries.

Some back issues are on sale at www.playmobil.de,  if you can order from that website. Most of the back issues available there have the less interesting free gifts, I would say.

As far as ebay listings are concerned, some sellers are listing just the magazines (without the free gifts)- good luck with that! The first four UK issues (which I missed) went for £7.00, £6.60, £5.90 and £11.90 respectively a couple of days ago (so I still haven’t got them!), against a cover price of £3.99! Other issues are available, sometimes just the free gift, but the nicest figures are the most expensive, of course!

 :picsplz:

One good source of pictures (for sets released up to March 2014) is here
More recent issues have been pictured on klickywelt, but I haven’t copied them here.

As I said above, Tiermann showed us excellent pictures of Boys’ numbers 32 and 33 here , Girls’ magazines 10 and 12 here (I WANT that angel!) and Girls’ no. 13 here

If anyone has the magazines or free gifts they may like to add pictures of them to this topic….
At that moment the ship suddenly stopped rocking and swaying, the engine pitch settled down to a gentle hum. 'Hey Ford.' said Zaphod, 'that sounds good. Have you worked out the controls on this boat?' 'No,' said Ford, 'I just stopped fiddling with them.' (With thanks to Douglas Adams)

Offline Pynedor

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Re: Playmobil Magazines, 2009-2015
« Reply #1 on: April 26, 2015, 11:50:15 »
Wow, excellent summary! You've collected a lot of great information here. Well done. ;)
~Pynedor~

Offline Tiermann

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Re: Playmobil Magazines, 2009-2015
« Reply #2 on: April 26, 2015, 15:18:57 »
That's great! Lots of info there. A couple of things I would add.
The maker of the magazines in Germany is a company called Blue-Ocean, their website is at http://www.blue-ocean-ag.de/ and their Playmobil section is at http://playmobil.blue-ocean.de/  You can see the latest issues there and there is also an archive (Heftarchiv) that shows their issue numbers and images of the cover and the gift for each. It's possible to get an international subscription from them. For the US it runs around 35 Euros a year which is pretty steep but includes the shipping. Since I am usually only interested in the animals it's cheaper for me to try to get them through collector contact in Germany or eBay.
I think it may be helpful for you to list the actual contents of each gift pack. Some have multiple items.

Offline sbblabotw

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Re: Playmobil Magazines, 2009-2015
« Reply #3 on: April 27, 2015, 13:25:53 »
I can help here I think. (I keep saying I'm not going to get into the merchandising and extras, but if they have part numbers, it makes it easier.) I have a small list of "30 79" parts, mainly keychains and PCC offerings, that I haven't added to the DB. Looks like this list corroborates my theory that "30 79" means a small group of parts, usually a klicky and accessories. My "subpart" mechanism can handle this - that's what I've done for the mystery figures, made their accessories subparts of the "k" part number along with their body-parts. I also have a few catalogues in the DB with five-digit numbers, so I can put the magazines in like those, make the "30 79" part - categorized as, hmm, Ensembles? - as a subpart of the magazine, then the figure (they'll mostly have "k" numbers, although I think a few repeats are known) and the accessories as subparts of the Ensemble. Only catch: there is no set number, so they'll be free-floating. The klickies can be described, though, to find them with "Who's That Klicky", and then work backwards to find what magazine they were in.
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Offline tahra

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Re: Playmobil Magazines, 2009-2015
« Reply #4 on: April 27, 2015, 13:27:55 »
The mags have a ref number on the de store - that doens't do?

Offline sbblabotw

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Re: Playmobil Magazines, 2009-2015
« Reply #5 on: April 27, 2015, 13:39:14 »
All the merchandise items have a five-digit ID number starting with 8, like some catalogues do - but some other catalogues have regular ten-digit "30 xx" numbers, so, so far I've considered the five-digit numbers as part numbers, and put in catalogues as parts, like these: PlaymoDB Part Categories - Paper (Catalogue). Maybe a whole separate class of item - merchandise - is called for... more suited to the type of object, but will require more programming. Still brainstorming.
PlaymoDB.org has catalogued over FIFTY-FIVE THOUSAND parts in more than 6100 sets. Come and visit to find any set or part numbers you need to know!

Offline GrahamB

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Re: Playmobil Magazines, 2009-2015
« Reply #6 on: April 29, 2015, 10:26:25 »
I struggled to unravel the different numbering systems used for the magazines, but the 5 digit numbers do seem to be the most consistent across different sources- and as Heather said, they match similar numbers Geobra use for other merchandise. I agree with limiting what merchandise is included in the DB (I wouldn't bother with the plastic handcuffs, for example!), but klickies, PM animals, cannons, etc. are genuine PM parts and some are quite delightful!

Not such good news with the 8 digit 30 nn nnnn numbers, however. I just checked a few German ones which are visible on Playmoweb and they are different from the ones I found on my UK versions. This may reflect the fact that the backing card is different (in English rather than German). For example, T.Rex (80520) is 30 79 1283 in my UK version, but 30 79 7522 in the German/DACH version. (So the different number isn't due to minor variations in the parts e.g. Police/Polizei)

If anyone has any free gift backing cards (with or without the gifts still attached), it would be worth checking the 8-digit numbers there. I found the number appears twice on each free gift: one printed on the front of the backing card in very small print :


and the other dot-matrix printed on the back of the backing card (the correct technical term for this printing method evades me):


The UK magazines also have the number printed on the front cover of the magazine, described as a ‘batch number’
At that moment the ship suddenly stopped rocking and swaying, the engine pitch settled down to a gentle hum. 'Hey Ford.' said Zaphod, 'that sounds good. Have you worked out the controls on this boat?' 'No,' said Ford, 'I just stopped fiddling with them.' (With thanks to Douglas Adams)

Offline tahra

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Re: Playmobil Magazines, 2009-2015
« Reply #7 on: April 30, 2015, 21:55:42 »
Thanks for the list - I was checking mine, and was missing number 3 from the stupidily called "girls mag".... Your list sorted it. They messed it up. AMAZING.

I hope one day I will manage to read them all :)