LEGO Sets/Parts Never Released into Production

[LEGO Historian]

One of my favorite LEGO E-Book chapters is Chapter 18 - LEGO Sets/Parts Not Put Into Production.

Many of these made it as far as being added to LEGO catalogs... but that was it... they have never been found in production... so one of 2 things happened.... 1) TLG changed their mind about releasing the set after the catalogs were printed.... or 2) they used old parts images, not realizing that the final scheduled for production parts had changed since the images were created. In all areas it appears to be a timing issue, or an issue with using old stock or Idea Book images that did not match what was actually produced for sale.

Here's some examples of sets not put into production....

1) 1995 #9500 Holdiay Village Set.... shown in 1995 UK Catalogs... but never found in production....

2) The famous 1979 Hospital Set... in the diarama of produced 1979 town sets... it looks nice along with all the other sets that were produced in 1979... however this hospital set (which I and others were looking for back in 1979-80... only to never find it).... because it was never released for production... and in this case it was never given a set number!! That rectangular HOSPITAL sign was also never released... although if any of these ever made it out of the factory.... the would be worth quite a bit!!

3)Another example of a set not put into production was one (of 2) that I became obsessed with! That was the #077 set of 1971-72. In 1967 the #070 set was introduced throughout Europe and Britain/Ireland/Australia (never USA/Canada). This was part of the 010 thru 080 basic set series of the late 1960s, and by 1969 the set had changed numbers and boxes to 011 thru 088 (although there was a different 010 basic set still sold), and the 088 set came later to replace the 080 Town/Train Set. However... the 070 set never changed numbers to 077.... except for Germany! The Billund Archives state that the 077 set was sold in Germany (only) from March 1, 1971 until Dec. 31, 1972. At the same time all other countries continued production of the 070 set until Dec. 31, 1972. Well when you look at continent European catalogs of 1971-72... most show the upper left image of box and model with the 070 number. In German catalogs they show the same box and models... but with the 077 number. I was skeptical about this... since it made no sense to change the set number (without changing the box or contents)... and only change it for Germany... Europe's largest LEGO market.

Well to date no 077 set has ever been found on the secondary market... and no 077 set exists in the Billund Vault. So that made me even more suspicious.... Why had no 077 set ever been found, when Germany is Europe's largest LEGO market... surely one should have appeared by now?

Well my suspicions were finally confirmed 2 years ago... when a good acquaintance from Connecticut USA bought a MISB 070 set from a German collector. When he opened it up... it contained a 1972 German catalog. For me, this was the proverbial smoking gun!! So here's my take... the 1971 and 1972 catalogs were produced with the 077 listed in the 1971 and 1972 German catalogs. And the Billund Archives updated their records to show that this set was indeed sold in Germany. But someone in the production department decided it would be dumb to re-number an existing set that was already in production as 070. So somewhere in Billund... there was a failure to communicate between the departments... and only the 070 set was ever produced... regardless of what the catalogs and archives said! Now many years later... still no 077 set has ever been seen...

4) The 1237 Service Station Set.... this set shows up in 1956 Swedish and Norwegian catalogs. It shows as a 1/2 Esso Service Station. It appears that the 1236 Garage set was able to be added to a 1237 Service Station set, and when put together, you would have the 1310 (also later 310)... Esso Service Station. Well the 1236 (later 236) Garage set WAS produced... as was the 1310 (later 310) Esso Service Station that combined the 2 buildings. But no Swedish or Norwegian 1237 set has ever been found. I do believe that this set was in the design stages, and the catalogs were produced... before it was decided that why produce the 1237 set, when the 1236 and 1310 sets already rendered the need for a 1237 set redundant. A few examples could possibly exist... but I doubt it. This 1956 never produced set was the first of many sets that made it into catalogs... but not into production. The Billund Archives have no information on this 1237 set...

There are many other sets that were never produced, and are in my DVD/download 2,800 page E-Book.....

________________________________________

Now for some parts that were never produced.....

1) One of my favorite parts never released to production were the old red train small spoked wheels with 12 spokes instead of the 10 spoke spoked wheels everyone has! The 12 spoke variety show up in early 70s idea books, such as 240, 241 and 242... but none have every been seen on the secondary market. I would hope that at least a few made it out of the Billund Factory... but perhaps workers for the most part weren't privy to their uniqueness... and they may have all ended up destroyed... a sad scenario! Here a few images of them with 12 spokes.... from the 241 ideas book. The best way to look at them is as though you were looking at the face of a clock... line up 12-3-6-9 o'clock... and you won't need to count them all.

2) LEGO road signs for UK/Ireland/Australia....

The UK/Ireland/Australia catalogs of 1962-65 show striped road signs with the words "Coming Soon"... and the parts pack box inner drawer also shows them... but none have ever been found. These would have been produced by British LEGO Ltd.'s Wrexham Wales plant... but the labor intensiveness of painting black stripes just must not have appealed to the Brits... so this idea never came to fruition... although no one must have told the catalog and box making folks at British LEGO Ltd.....

3) Another part not put into production was a 1970s man's minifig hair piece. It resembles the girls hair without the pony tail. Never been found in any set... although it has been spotted in catalogs...

4) and then there are these royal minifig figures of recent times... never been put into production....

There's dozens and dozens of other rare items that never made it into production... this is just a sample teaser from my E-Book... still available for download! ;-)

Edited September 1, 2012 by LEGO Historian

[twenty6twelve]

Some fantastic insight into your work, LH. Definitely plan on purchasing a copy from you come payday.

Set 6500 has mystified me ever since I first came across it's catalog image a few years ago. Not only because of the differently printed 7-stud road plates seen nowhere else, but especially because the pizzeria and "Super 2" shop resemble the identically named/similarly styled buildings from the original Lego Island PC game - which was released in October 1997, long after this set had appeared and had gone unreleased. Coincidentally, within the game, the Super 2 shop is one of several buildings which cannot be entered despite being advertised in-game over the radio. This may simply be because of time restraints, but it's still interesting nonetheless that an unreleased set is an inaccessible feature.

[LEGO Historian]

Thanks for that "piece of the puzzle" Sixoh!! I didn't know that...

But some other parts that were unique to that set were the 4x4 curved railing and 1x4 curved railing fence pieces... both in red. The cuved red railings only came out in 4 sets, the first one (3451 Sopwith Camel Airplane) produced in 2001 (6 years after the "nonintroduction" of the 6500 set). The straight red railings only came out in 1 set... the 2004 introduced #7075 Captain Redbeards Pirate Ship.... a full 9 years later.

There are some other unique pieces from that set that were never introduced.... such as 1x2x3 low slope and 1x4x3 low slope white slopes with a red tile pattern. These are only known in white with a purple tile pattern, from the 4161 pink plastic Carrying Case of the same year (1995) as the ill fated 6500.

Very unusual!!

[LEGO Historian]

Sigh..... I wanted to add this pair of LEGO Space System prototypes from a 1983 Danish LEGO catalog... to the LEGO chapter on prototypes but it was too late...

.... actually if it wasn't for one of the folks proofreading this chapter who stopped me... I would have left it in....

It seems that these 2 sets were part of an Aprils Fool joke exposed over 10 years ago on LUGNET... someone must have been having fun on photoshop....

So these were left out of the Prototype Chapter....

Edited September 2, 2012 by LEGO Historian

[LEGO Historian]

I've been a LEGO collector going back to the Dark Ages... no not the Dark Ages that most AFOLs have had but to the original Dark Ages (Mittelalter Zeit, Moyen Age)!

I got my first LEGO set at Christmas 1960 from my uncle in Germany (LEGO didn't arrive in the USA until a year later at Christmas 1961).

When I got my first USA LEGO catalog, I wanted this cool looking Cotswold Cottage type European house set known as the 717 Junior Constructor. Its' design was based on a 238 Idea Book image... with more windows in the roof.

Here's the image blown up from the 1961-62 USA LEGO catalog....

And Samsonite LEGO even produced a commercial with this model set.... (now on Youtube)...

But do you think that I could find this set? My aunt searched the toy stores of Metro Detroit for 2 years looking for this set to get me for Christmas or my Birthday... but never found it.

So instead... I had to settle for this set... which ironically had the same set name and number.... but was a smaller and less desirable house model....

This model was modern, and only used 4 baseplates, instead of the 9 10x20 baseplates of the European design.

While I was still a kid, I bought a lot more LEGO, and eventually I had enough parts to build the European style house after all... in fact... over the last 40+ years I think I built this house at least 5 or 6 times.

Here's my latest version....

This is an attractive build... and would have been the largest LEGO house ever produced (even though it was in the classic scale (door = 3 bricks tall).

When I was researching the LEGO DVD/download E-Book.... the TLG Archives folks told me that they have no information in the LEGO Archives on this model set, and they don't have a copy in the vault!!!!!

That was a few years ago when I asked them about that... and although I wasn't mad about it... at least I got closure about the set I wanted as a child. I won't say this was "another dream that TLG crushed".... but gee, my aunt (who is still alive at 86)... would be really cheesed off at TLG for putting stuff in their catalogs that they never produced. Ironically this was (wrong) image of the 717 set was only in the USA Samsonite LEGO catalog from late 1961 until 1962... it was corrected in the 1963 USA catalog. But in Canada... they had this wrong set image in the 1963-65 Canadian catalog!!!!! Here it is....

My 40+ year obsession with this set can be seen in Appendix A of my LEGO DVD/download E-Book.... where I devote 15 pages of historical images, idea book images, TV commercial images, and even TLG display model images of this house. The irony here is that the box used for this catalog was just a mock-up box, that likely no longer exists. And why they did a switch of models for the 717 Junior Constructor set? Likely the number of parts in the larger house (including 9 thick 10x20 baseplates) just didn't fit into the box they had planned for it. I even tried taking one of these built larger models... and couldn't get all the parts to fit into my own version of the 717 box.

Just another historic thing you'll find in my E-Book.... and how TLG impacted on the dreams of a 7 year old potential Architect..... (OK I won't be so dramatic.... but really for years they kept me and other American and Canadian kids in the dark?)

lol....

[Piranha]

I find this subject interesting myself. One of the great mysteries is set 6576.

There is some doubt as to the actual existence of this set. A source at TLG could find no trace of it in a search of their archives, inventory or catalogs. Furthermore, there is no record of the set, instructions, sticker or the red parka hood unique to this set ever having sold on BrickLink.

Any further information on that set would be very interesting.

Also brings to mind another one of my favorites Seatron.

[antp]

It seems that these 2 sets were part of an Aprils Fool joke exposed over 10 years ago on LUGNET... someone must have been having fun on photoshop....

It reminds me of the april fool joke posted this year on the Train section:

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=67990

[LEGO Historian]

I find this subject interesting myself. One of the great mysteries is set 6576.

Any further information on that set would be very interesting.

Also brings to mind another one of my favorites Seatron.

Thanks for the post... I had seen the Seatron monorail prototype before, and it could have been a popular set.

As for that 6576 image.... it's just artwork, and not a diorama of a built set. There are no face images of the minifigs, so I would tend to believe one of 2 things.... 1) it never made it to an actual built model stage of development by TLG, and was stopped in the artwork phase... or 2) it's just a fake made by some AFOL.

It reminds me of the april fool joke posted this year on the Train section:

http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=67990

7812... I love it!!! Nice forgery!! Love the use of 9 classic windows. They were discontinued around the same time as the introduction of the 7740 Intercity Train in 1980. 7 1x6x3 yellow Panorama windows (no LEGO set ever had more than 1).... and 2 1x1x2 yellow small tall classic windows. This would have been a nice way for TLG to get rid of their remaining inventory of yellow classic windows!

Edited September 3, 2012 by LEGO Historian

[LEGO Historian]

The earliest prototype was one that was on the front of all 1958-60 LEGO basic set boxes.... a 1:87 scale Opel Kapitän car that was designed in 1957.... but just never put into production.

Here's an image of the car with Godtfred Kirk Christiansen's 3 children playing with a Town Plan (their outfits should look somewhat familiar... since they used them in the 80 years of LEGO video, but with the wrong Town Plan board)....

That yellow car in front of the twin towered hotel was the Opel prototype, and is today the most valuable single LEGO item ever sold.... there are only about 8 of these known (that made it out of the factory)... 5 in yellow, 2 in red and 1 in orange. About 2 years ago a yellow one sold for $4000.

One of the earliest sets not put into production dates to about 1958... and it was an entire series of related sets... part of a LEGO zoo that would have used a 1950s Town Plan board as the zoo layout.

Here's one of the prototype box tops of one of the 7 sets that would have been part of the Zoo series....

This one would have been the Elephant exhibit designed for the largest of the Town Plan set blocks...

And here's the non LEGO System TLG produced animal sets that would have provided the zoo animals for all 7 blocks of this never produced series....

And here's the actually sold 1950s masonite Town Plan board with what the blocks were to have been used for....

I have images of what was to be on each block... (such as animas from China)... and the empty block was likely the zoo entrance. You'll have to get my E-Book to see the dozens and dozens of other prototypes over the decades.....

[Carrera124]

I find this subject interesting myself. One of the great mysteries is set 6576.

Any further information on that set would be very interesting.

Well, at least brickset offers a download link for 6576 instructions.

And it seems as if the instruction PDF file is hosted on TLC servers:

http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=6576-1

[jonwil]

As a space fan, the 1526 Space set has to be up there on the prototype wishlist.

If I wasnt broke (thanks to an expensive repair of my mobile phone) and if there was a way for me to buy it that didn't involve PayPal (which I refuse to use due to previous bad experiences) I would very much buy a copy of the wonderful history guide (which no doubt contains a mention of the 1526 and probably other space part and set rarities :)

[soccerkid6]

Thanks for posting these!

Those castle figs look pretty neat, too bad they were never released

[Darthluke824]

I'm sure this part never got made:

The orange part, never seen it or had it before. It apparently never came in the set!

Edited September 4, 2012 by Darthluke824

[LEGO Historian]

From my Prototype Chapter... I wish they would have made the Napoleonic Era Sets....

Or even the Loch Ness Monster Sets....

Or one of my favorites, which they only made as a European glued retailer display model from 1959-60... but I modified it to add inverse slopes and Maersk color bricks (introduced 1974).... and sold 20 MOCs of this set (still have one available).... the REGINA MAERSK.... the first LEGO Maersk ship....

The REGINA MAERSK was a real live Maersk line ship that was built in a 1954, and was the first Maersk ship that had the famous blue hull. It was decommissioned in 1970, just 4 years before the first official LEGO Maersk set, the VERY PRICEY 1650 Maersk Line Container Ship.

Edited September 4, 2012 by LEGO Historian

[Greedo24]

WOW...I wish that Lockness monster set came out...

[LEGO Historian]

WOW...I wish that Lockness monster set came out...

Just imagine all the BURP (Big Ugly Rock Pieces) we'd end up with!!

[lightningtiger]

Thank you for the detailed information on the products Lego put time into but didn't release 'LEGO Historian', the main one I'm feeling sorry for was the Napoleonic Era theme....that would have been an AWESOME theme, I wonder why it was dropped ?

They did army vs army in castle, and it's 200 hundred years ago so it can not be considered modern warfare anymore ?

[Canticleer blues]

Hello Lego Historian, I'd like to add more insight into the background info of set 6500 Holiday Village if that's okay. From what I can tell, the set must be entirely linked to the original Lego Island video game. Why? Well, early development for that game started in 1995, with the basics of that game being planned out between the Lego Group and Mindscape (the developers of LI). In 1996, a physical version of the game's map was constructed. (You'll notice, by the way, several pieces that this island mockup and 6500 share in common- those red bar fence pieces on the hospital, and the red-tiled roof slopes on the pizzaria.)

Your date of the set being seen in a catalogue seems to be a bit inaccurate- Brickset lists it as 1996, which would fit better with the game's featuring of other sets from 1996- namely 6518 Baja Buggy, 6334 Wave Jump Racers, 6337 Fast Track Finish and 6598 Metro PD Station.

The game was originally supposed to be released in 1996 and it's very likely this was meant to be a kind of loose 'tie-in' set, considering several of the displayed logos/brands (i.e. the pizza logo or the Super 2 sign) originated from the PC game. However, the game got delayed (as often happens in that industry) and came out in October 1997. If my theory is true, then it's very likely that the reason the set got cancelled was because the game it was supposed to feature with never came out. Hope this helps!

Edited September 8, 2012 by Canticleer blues

[Bricktooth]

Thank you for the detailed information on the products Lego put time into but didn't release 'LEGO Historian', the main one I'm feeling sorry for was the Napoleonic Era theme....that would have been an AWESOME theme, I wonder why it was dropped ?

They did army vs army in castle, and it's 200 hundred years ago so it can not be considered modern warfare anymore ?

Maybe because it would have been based on real countries, and people from the country that got the 'bad guy' role would have been offended?

[LEGO Historian]

Your date of the set being seen in a catalogue seems to be a bit inaccurate- Brickset lists it as 1996, which would fit better with the game's featuring of other sets from 1996- namely 6518 Baja Buggy, 6334 Wave Jump Racers, 6337 Fast Track Finish and 6598 Metro PD Station.

The game was originally supposed to be released in 1996 and it's very likely this was meant to be a kind of loose 'tie-in' set, considering several of the displayed logos/brands (i.e. the pizza logo or the Super 2 sign) originated from the PC game. However, the game got delayed (as often happens in that industry) and came out in October 1997. If my theory is true, then it's very likely that the reason the set got cancelled was because the game it was supposed to feature with never came out. Hope this helps!

I was just checking on the 1996 Large UK catalog in Brickfactory.... and I don't see the 6500 set? I'm not sure where Brickset keeps their catalogs, so I can't say for sure.

[Sid Sidious]

I was just checking on the 1996 Large UK catalog in Brickfactory.... and I don't see the 6500 set? I'm not sure where Brickset keeps their catalogs, so I can't say for sure.

For the Brickset entry of 6500, it says released in 1996 on the right side of the page where the theme, piece count, etc. are.

[LEGO Historian]

For the Brickset entry of 6500, it says released in 1996 on the right side of the page where the theme, piece count, etc. are.

I must be going blind...can you point to the page...

http://www.peeron.com/catalogs/1996/medium/?id=25

[Canticleer blues]

Alright, this might be the problem. Read here:

Set was never released but did appear in a UK retailers catalog for 1996.

Note the italicized words. Basically, to find out which year this was supposed to come out in you'd need to find retailer's catalogs from 1995 and 1996 and compare those, not the ones available to the public.

Edited September 8, 2012 by Canticleer blues

[LEGO Historian]

Ah.... thanks for the answer... so it was only in the retailer catalog.

Funny thing is in 1970 in the USA... just the reverse happened... a 50x50 stud baseplate with roadways was introduced (first ever roadway baseplate). It was found in the 1970 Samsonite LEGO Retailer Catalog... but NEVER seen in any customer catalogs. But it WAS sold to customers in the USA (although today very pricey!)....

It was 078 Roadway as seen below (new 1970 item)...

And ironically items put into production that were not shown in LEGO catalogs is not all that rare... especially in the 1950s and 1960s...

Edited September 8, 2012 by LEGO Historian

[Tria]

Really nice thread! thanks for sharing!