35 DS catalogues have been issued in Germany since the first in 1983.
The contents of every catalogue up to 2016 are listed in the following documents
German DS catalogues as a MSExcel spreadsheet (the form in which I created it)
German DS catalogues as a CSV file or
German DS catalogues as a text document.
(CSV/ Text may be compatible with spreadsheet programs other than MSExcel, but only the basic data is included).
Let me know if you would like it in a format not listed above.
DS catalogues contain two main types of set:
1. Specially-created sets (often called ‘Add-ons’ or ‘DS sets’) which supplement existing themes, reissues of ‘classic’ sets, building extension sets, accessory sets and klicky sets. These sets typically have numbers beginning with a 7 (since 2011, numbers in the range 6200-6599 have also been used). 1089 sets (including 3 sets issued in 2 different versions) have been specially created for sale through the DS catalogues since 1983. Specially created sets sometimes appear for just one year, but most are offered for several consecutive years.
2. A further 349 sets featured in the German catalogues are ‘standard’ sets offered at a reduced price, probably offered as end-of-line/ stock clearance items. (DS ctalogues in other countries often feature different end-of-line sets).
So, a total of 1438 sets can be found in the German catalogues, 76% “specially created” sets and 24% “end-of-line/stock clearance” sets .
38 sets were offered in 1983, rising to 100 by 1995 and over 200 every year since 2006.
One set appeared in all 35 catalogues: 7553 – 2 Axles
40% of sets appear just once in the catalogues, with 75% appearing 4 or fewer times. If you see it featured in the latest catalogue, snap it up, it may not be there next year!
Some sets appear in the DS catalogues of other countries (France, Canada, USA, UK) but not Germany: 77 sets in PlaymoDB have set numbers in the correct range to be DS sets, but are not found in German DS catalogues.
Collector 3rd edition lists only one DS set: 7411, the extension floor for the Victorian Mansion 5300.
52 DS sets reappear after an absence of a few years (4 appear three times); although often described as ‘New’ in the second or third appearance, only 3 appear to be actually different from the first issue.
Where does this information come from?
gassy has posted scans of the German versions of every DS catalogue issued from 1983 to 2015 here on Klickywelt. This is a fantastic visual reference but it is unfortunately not ‘searchable’ electronically (nor is it available to non-Klickywelt members). So I logged the basic information into a spreadsheet.
On the spreadsheet, I logged every set featured in every German catalogue (note that two catalogues were issued in 2006-7) by entering the price charged (in Deutschmarks prior to 2002 and in Euros after this). From this I determined the year of first release for each set, the duration of each set’s availability and whether a set was issued more than once through DS.
The advantages of having data in a spreadsheet include the ease with which it can be searched, sorted or filtered (e.g. to find all sets released in a given year or all sets in a given theme) or exported into other databases. The price charged for a set over 30 years ago may be of limited interest today, but it is interesting to note how few prices remained unchanged from one year to the next! [Recording prices helped me to check I was entering the data in the correct cell of the spreadsheet, by comparing it with the previous year’s price.]
No doubt there are mistakes in the data in the spreadsheet. If you find any mistakes, please let me know! I can easily correct the data, for the benefit of anyone who wants to use it. I may even add subsequent year’s data!
More detail about DS sets
Each year since 1983, Geobra has produced a Direct Service Catalogue which offers various items for sale over and above what is in the ‘main’ catalogues. In recent years these items have also been displayed in the online shop. These items include
New sets only available from the DS department.
- Most of these sets have numbers in the range 7000 to 7999, but since 2011, set numbers between 6200 and 6599 have also been used (also 6619).
- DS sets often closely resemble earlier sets, in some cases a DS set is apparently identical to an earlier set
(see for example a comparison of set 3627 from 1994 and its DS counterpart 6464 from 2015 here ) - For many DS sets the main difference from an earlier set is that they have no klickies included
- DS sets often come in a plastic bag or plain brown box, rather than in a full colour carton like regular sets
- Some DS sets are released to restricted markets, as with sets in the main catalogues. For example, 7950 does not appear in any German DS catalogue but is in UK versions.
Re-issues of ‘classic’ sets
These use the same set number as the original (e.g. the Excavator 3001 from 1998 was reissued in the 2011 DS catalogue and the Baron’s Battle Tower 3665 from 1993 was reissued in 2004). Many of the reissues of classic sets have been under new numbers in the 7nnn or 6nnn range
Accessories
Items such as electric motors, railway tracks, train couplings. quartz sets for RC controllers, as well as add-on sets such as building extension sets, lighting sets, sets of accessories, etc.
Most of these have 7nnn numbers but in recent years railway track accessory sets have been numbered 4384 to 4391
‘Standard’ Playmobil sets offered ‘while stocks last’.
These seem to be ‘end-of-line’ items and are always offered several years after the original issue. What is offered varies quite a bit from country to country.
Non-Playmobil items such as books, cups, bags and T-shirts.
Some of these have typical 4-digit set numbers but have not been included in any of the statistics, graphs or totals here.
I found 1438 sets featured in the 35 in German DS catalogues. Of these, 52 were issued more than once. with a gap of 1 or more years between issues. 4 sets were issued three times. Reissued DS sets are often (32 of the 52 second issues and 2 of the 4 third issues) labelled as ‘NEU’ (new) in the catalogue when they reappear after a gap of one or a few years. In most cases, there is nothing to suggest that the reissue is any different from the earlier issue, but in the following three cases I believe the reissue really was new, in that it was a new version of the earlier issue.
- 7010 First issue 1983-1994. The 1995 reissue had newer-style sheep
- 7071 Originally issued 1994-9. The 2003 reissue probably had newer-style fence posts, created for the similar set 7292, available from 2000-2013
- 7223 The 2000 reissue picture showed a canoe with two paddles but the 1998 picture showed no paddles (the actual set may have had paddles in both versions, or the earlier version may have been issued without paddles in error)
In addition, set numbers 7102 and 7303 were both used twice, for different sets:
7102a (1983) Five Color Figures
7102b (1986) Elephant Trainer Accessories
7303a (1983) Selbstlader
7303b (1986-7) Tractor Trailer
I found seven sets newly issued but without the label “NEU”, so a visual search of the scans would miss these as newly issued sets for that year.
5 sets shown for the first time in the 1996 catalogue were overprinted ‘Leider ausverkauft’ (Unfortunately Out of Stock), so perhaps very few were actually sold (or perhaps the catalogue which gassy scanned was a version issued later in the year, after stocks had run out).