I wish I had a dollar (US of course) for every time I’ve been asked this question. I’ve grown up with the idea of them as I collected Stitch by Stitch when I was young so I just assumed everyone knew, it seems I was wrong.

Partwork magazines were, and are, still being issued by Marshall Cavendish, Orbis, de Agostini, del Prado, Purnell and other publishers. They’re an encyclopedia set issued one magazine each week until you finally collect the entire set, you can also buy specific binders to store your magazines. The information contained in these magazines is really diverse from crafts and sewing to cars and robots so you can find a partwork to suit almost every hobbyist. Some of them are short having only about 40 issues while others have over 100 issues. They look fabulous on the shelf and make an excellent reference work.

You can buy them at any newsagent and people generally put in an order after the first few weeks so any secondhand sets/magazines will have a name written on them. They have generally been used and referred to a lot so you will find some wear and tear.

I’m the Australian distributor for Partworks in the UK. They’re really lovely people and send me business whenever they can as well as being on hand to answer questions.

If I’ve missed anything or you have any questions please feel free to put them in the comments and I’ll answer as best as I can.