I'm currently searching for catalogs of various items such as weapons, cars, and even the various breeds of animals (i.e dogs, cats, etc.) So far my luck in finding such things aren't exactly turning up. For example, I want my character to have a certain type of car so I refer to a catalog and look through the makes and models of cars sold on the market. Same thing with weapons. Maybe I want the character to have a certain type of gun for a specific task and find various specs on that weapon. Perhaps a specific type of dog or cat that the character owns? Are there any good resources like this?
The met museum has a good image catalogue of historical pieces - mostly costumes and jewellery but there are oddments such as weapons and things as well. You can search by era I believe, I find it really useful for art inspo but I can imagine it would be good for people writing historical novels or novels about different cultures: http://metmuseum.org/art/collection/search#!?showOnly=withimage&PerPage=20&page=5&q=*&material=Dresses
The great thing about the internet is the preponderance of wikis. You can find a wiki for just about anything these days: Cars: http://www.allcarwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page Guns: http://guns.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun Dogs/cats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dog_breeds, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cat_breeds
The S&W Firearms company puts out a very nice product catalog you can order it through the mail or their is a PDF version. Also the Ruger firearms company has a nice product catalog as well but it is PDF only no printed version. same thing with vehicle company's the Ford vehicle company puts out some nice catalogs you just pick out the catalog or catalogs you need and they send them to you in the mail. Taurus Firearms company also has a nice catalog as well printed and PDF versions are available. Same thing with the Browning and Colt firearms companies.
I was doing some research on single-wheel trailers, and found that one of the genealogy web sites ( I think it was Ancestry.com) had an extensive collection of catalogs from Sears, Wards, and other places. I needed a membership to research it, but the state library had one and allowed me to use their computers to research the subject.
