UK 1988 catalogue or is it?

[Sir Gareth]

 I received this catalogue the other day after winning it on ebay under the description "Playmobil 1988 catalogue".
 I wasn't sure at first that this was a catalogue since the 3rd edition of the Playmobil collector has a box leaflet with the same front image released in 1987. The image was good and I could see that this was more than just a leaflet so I had to go for it.
 I was very pleased when it arrived to see that it was A5 in size with 32 pages which was the standard size for most of the UK's 80' catalogues. The fact that the year is not shown on the front isn't that unusal the 1987 UK catalogue also has no date on it.
 There could be a simple reason for the lack of the date on this catalogue and maybe the 1987 catalogue because on the back this catalogue is not just for the UK but for Australia and New Zealand. My toughts are that it was the 1988 catalogue for the UK and possibly a year later used again for Australia and new zealand as a 1999 catalogue.

[Sir Gareth]

 It's the first time that I have ever seen the addresses for Australia and New Zealand on the back of any UK catalogue.

Another discovry in this catalogue is 3 pages of Spare parts (direct service) items in the back. So as part of my ongoing research into what was available to the UK and when, I can now put DS being available as early as 1988.

The bad thing about this catalogue is the lack of Knights and pirate sets available to the UK in 1988 there were just 2 of each.

Pirates, 3550 pirate ship and 3382 Pirate captain.

Knights, 3446 small castle and 3329 Knight with squires.


So is this a 1988 UK catalogue or a 1988 UK / 1989 Australian New Zealand catalogue?

[playmofire]

That's a very interesting buy you've got there, Gary.  The catalogue front is, I think, the most impressive one I've ever seen.

[flatcat]

I just love the the cover picture, and the rally picture is just beautiful! - I have never seen a grey rally car with those wheels before

[playmo1989]

very intresting reviou!! so you think that only these sets were available on uk & new zeland??
 
these spare parts they might were sold in all toystores as  the normal toys ,were they fun parks then? when the fun parks began?

all the old catalogs and boxes were artistic and very pretty, i think they know that if they would make the new catalogues and boxes like that they would look better ,i think they found it easyer making the photos on the computers . they playmobil are terribly bad and the boxes as well(exept some themes romans  and egypt) and back then they were bad playmobil but with the good looking catalogues you would buy them!!!!