German entertainment club system formed in 1981, where members can buy books, music and movies at a special price.
The products they sell always contain a special Club catalog#. This cat# appears solely in the meantime, so please don't add a printed matrix as a second catalog#. The expression "Bertelsmann Club" itself didn't appear anywhere usually.
Vinyl releases could be identified mainly by the wording "Club Edition" - "Club-Edition", sometimes 'Club-Sonderauflage'. The problem is, that also other clubs used this wording. So please be careful and if in doubt, ask at the forum. There is a link at the history for a German forum thread specialised into this problem.
Especially 'Club-Sonderauflage' was common for Bücherbund or Deutscher Schallplattenclub.
Good examples are releases 842147 (Bertelsmann) and 3267547 (Bücherbund) which also show the typical difference in cat#s.
CDs contain in place of the EAN/UPC a special barcode with Club catalog# and price attached.
Please don't use Bertelsmann Club as a label in it's own rights, but as an "Exclusive Retailer" instead. For this company task you need to scroll down to the bottom.
For other German Club editions please check:
Bertelsmann Schallplattenring
Sonocord
SR International
Deutscher Schallplattenclub
Deutsche Buch-Gemeinschaft
Deutscher Bücherbund & Bücherbund
for Austria
Donauland
For the release dates of the club editions:
Please be careful with the use of the common P&C marks here. Club editions may be released together with the usual retail version, but often had some delay. So please check at the club discography whether the release date match the chronology. The Bertelsmann Club is known to use the cat#s in a chronologic way, at least in the meantime.
In June 2014, Bertelsmann announced that the club will be set with a current membership of about 1 million during the year 2015. The economic importance for the company was steadily waned. 2014, there were only 52 stores. On March 31, 2015, the last two book club branches were closed in Gütersloh and Rheda and in June 2015 there were only 600,000 club members.
On December 23rd, 2015, the online shop was also discontinued.