Identifying the edition of your vinyl record
 

I'm somewhat new to record collecting. I need some info on how to tell If my records are first editions. Isn't there a catalog number on the album covers? I was looking at my collection, and i noticed that there is a number on some of them, but I couldn't find a number on others.
If someone could help me out with this it would be apprectiated.

Even if the serial number is not on the sleeve, it can usually be found on the round label on the vinyl record. I don't know of any truly great online catalogs, but sites like discogs.com (which I like very much) lists release serial numbers in searches in a way that makes it relatively easy. Since it doesn't contain everything, it might not have your release entered into it though.

edit :

I suspect very serious collectors buy catalogs made for collectors or published by record labels (f.ex on ebay). As far as I know, record labels will only include vinyls that are in print in their catalogs, so you'd need a catalog from them from the time your vinyl was in production.

If it's on the sleeve it's usually in the upper right corner, back side, or somewhere near the record label logo :)

There are numbers in the dead-wax (the area between the last song and the label) a Google search should help identify the version.