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I am in the process of painting my first 40k army. Like most of you, it is vanilla Space Marines. All of my figures are second hand and collected from at least 4 sources. I've noticed some differences in the details between figures that are likely hallmarks of various print runs. Is there a website out there to visually date my Space Marines? All of them are plastic, but I suspect that some of them are rather old. Thanks!

Stuff of legends is a good place to start:

http://www.solegends.com/citadel/index.htm

The original RTB01 plastic marines all have Mark V helmets with pointed fronts and studded shooulderpads.

The next plastics were Mark VI and multi-part, but with less detail than later multi-part plastics, these all tended to have smooth shoulderpads with a raised trim.

Then there were the three-part marines with the seperate bolters and backpacks with little or no variation, these are probably the least detailled of all the marines out there.

GW released a new edition of plastic, multi-part marines around the turn of the century that had a far greater amount of detail and options as far as mixing types of armour components and weapons; these still make up the largest part of the marine range.

Some later three part plastics have been relaesed that have a similar level of detail to the new multi-part marines, but obviously not the same amount of customisation; these are mainly found in the Battle for Macragge and Assault on Black Reach boxsets.

Carmine the Wolf wrote:

The original RTB01 plastic marines all have Mark V helmets with pointed fronts and studded shooulderpads.

The next plastics were Mark VI and multi-part, but with less detail than later multi-part plastics, these all tended to have smooth shoulderpads with a raised trim.

Then there were the three-part marines with the seperate bolters and backpacks with little or no variation, these are probably the least detailled of all the marines out there.

ok sorry to nit pick but

1) The RTB01 beakie marines are mk VI not V mk V is the studded armour.

2) the next mk is therefore VII not VI

3) the third lot you mentioned are the snap-fit marines from the 2nd edition boxed game not released as a progression over the first.

That list also misses a couple...

Plastics-wise, there was the original RTB01 Beakies, followed by the 2nd Edition Starter Set plastics (solid models with separate backpack and bolter) then a multi-part plastic set that had the head attached to the torso.

This was followed at the start of 3rd edition by the current multi-part plastics, although they originally had a few less options on the sprues, and were cast with each marine on a separate mini-sprue.

3rd edition also had a Space Wolf sprue added to Space Wolf boxes, which had some extra components to add to the regular Marines.

4th edition saw the Battle For Macragge set, which were similar to the 2nd edition start set minis but matching the current multi-part set detail-wise. These were also released in a box of 3 Marines.

Then the current Assault on Black Reach starter took the BfM Marines and added Tactical markings and a few other minor details, while sticking with the 3-part format.

Along the way during 4th and 5th edition we've also had the release of the Black Templar, Dark Angel, Space Wolf, Blood Angel and Grey Knight plastics which, aside from the last one, are all mostly variant parts modelled off the multi-part kit.