18 replies to this topic

[LEGO Historian]

From 1955 to the present TLG has made many dozens of promotional sets (not to confused with Set Exclusives)...

Here are a dozen sets, mostly the promotional advertisements, that I selected from Chapter 17 of my LEGO DVD/download....

Here is how I've cataloged them....


17.0  LEGO PROMOTIONAL SETS (1955-99).
17.1   USA Promotional LEGO Sets (1963-86).
17.2   Canadian Promotional LEGO Sets (1984-87).
17.3   British Promotional LEGO Sets (1967-99).
17.4   Continental European Promotional LEGO Sets (1972-99).
17.5   Other Parts of the World Promotional LEGO Sets (1985-96).
17.6   World’s Fair LEGO Sets (1964-65).
17.7   LEGO Company Promotional Sets (1958-95).
17.8   Other Company Promotional Sets (1963-75).
17.9   LEGO 1:87 Promotional Cars/Trucks (1955-67).

And here they are...

First the oldest... the 1955 Danish Esso Service Station giveaways.... 1:87 vehicles during the first year these (very collectible) vehicles were produced as part of the LEGO Town Plan System...



In 1967 British Kellogg's Cereal decided to have a promotion for all the leftover UK Town Plan parts leftover.  They took a UK Town Plan... but since the Esso Service parts were mostly out of inventory... they replaced those with the new Shell Service Station parts...




Also in the 1960s SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) promoted a small LEGO set for child travelers on their European routes... it was just a small sample of bricks, but it kept the children busy while they were flying...




In 1970 a new LEGO set called the  380 LEGO VILLAGE was sold in Britain/Ireland and Austalia.   This was a rare and highly collectible set  Apparently TLG Billund must have made too many of these, since the last 10,000 of them were used in a Danish promotional ad called Anders and Corn Flakesl.... with a Walt Disney's Donald Duck...




In 1978 UK/Ireland/Australia warm cereal producer Weetabix (which already had a few LEGO set promotions from 1970-76)... came out with a 1589 Town Square Set... a very highly collectible set today...




When it came to promotional sets... few countries could out do the Dutch... here is a 1983 Dutch version of the 1592 Town Square set (already done by Weetabix in 1980 in the UK, and later sold in Germany as well).  The Dutch version was from Unilever Corporation for their UNOX Soups....

Edited by LEGO Historian, 18 November 2012 - 06:07 AM.

[LEGO Historian]

Another very collectible Dutch promotional set was for Chocomel, a popular Dutch chocolate beverage.  This set was the 1620 Factory set... another highly sought after set of the 1980s....






And in 1985 in the USA a 1582 small basic set came out as either a PEPSI soft drink or CREST toothpaste promotional set.  But compared to European standards... this promotion was lame....






Another 1980s Dutch Unilever Corp. promotional set was this UNOX Soup promotion... the #1966 Repair Shop Set...






And then there were Dairy Company sets...

This small 1980 French 1591 promotional set for Danone Yogurt....




And finally this 1999 Norwegian Tine #1029 Tine Dairy Truck set...




All these promotional sets, and about 100 more can be found in Chapter 17 of my 2800 page Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide available on the Eurobricks Bazaar, Lugnet Marketplace, several Bricklink Stores or Ebay.

Edited by LEGO Historian, 18 November 2012 - 05:08 AM.

[Grimmbeard]

Nice The factory one is my favorite. I'm guessing these are the "precursor" to the licensed themes?

[L@go]

Interesting Nordic language fact for you, Gary: "And" means "duck" in Danish. So when it says "Anders And Corn Flakes" it's not the English word "and", it's the Danish word for duck. Donald Duck is called "Anders And" in Danish :)

[Mazin]

"Anders And" in Denmark? So how is it that they call him Kalle Anka in Sweden? I thought that these languages are very similar   Different naming method perhaps?

Wow... these are fine sets!... would be great to hem them... ... it's amazing that they used to have those cars with no drivers and different type of "horses" when "normal" minifigure has already evolved

[LEGO Historian]

No... interestingly enough Danish, Swedish and Finish (I can't speak any of them)... do have different words... for example... in Danish and Swedish... it's GARAGE... in Norwegian it's GARASJE.  The word for "VW SALES" in Danish is VW SALG, as it is in Norwegian... but in Swedish it is VW FORSALJNING, it's HOTEL in Danish, but HOTELL in Swedish and Norwegian.

Here is another Disney related LEGO ad... and I was told that it was Dutch 1963... but I don't think  "og" (and) is Dutch...  (this is from Chapter 68 of my DVD... LEGO Advertisements 1953-86)...

Edited by LEGO Historian, 18 November 2012 - 03:09 AM.

[Mazin]

Well obviously not every word is the same but as much as I know these languages are stunnigly alike and a Swede could easily read or watch Danish and same - Dane reading Norwegian ( Finnish belongs to a completely different group of languages on the other hand )... I'm just surprised that there's such a big difference in naming! I guess that the difference is caused by using local names "kalle" and "anders" to replace "Donald" and a small difference between their translation of "duck".  
It's just interesting for me since Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse sound much more similar in many european languages that are much harder to undestand   

This poster is rather danish or norwegian... "og" stands as "and" for both danish and norwegian, it would be "och" in swedish and "en" in dutch
I guess it must be norwegian since they use the name DONALD instead of "Anders"!... or maybe Danes used to call him "normally" back in the 60s?

Their version of Donald looks kind of scary BTW  

Edited by Mazin, 18 November 2012 - 03:59 AM.

[LEGO Historian]

In the first post on this thread I show an image of the 1592 Town Square set of 1983 that was a promotional item for UNILEVER Corp. product UNOX Soup.  Well the 1592 set was produced from 1980-83, and has a very complex history... going back to the 1980 UK Weetabix Cereal version, to the later selling of the UK version in Germany from 1981-82, to the switching over to the Dutch version for sales in the Netherlands in 1983 (and yet some UK boxes were still available...).

I just posted a detailed explanation of the rather complex history of this set over on LUGNET, which makes for good reading...
http://news.lugnet.c...eneral/?n=55925

Enjoy!
Gary Istok

[jonwil]

One promotional set (well at least its suspected that its a promo set) that is totally unknown is the Classic Space set 1526.
It would be good to find history about this unknown set. Bricklink says it was never released and all that is known to exist is a prototype box yet somehow Bricklink has an inventory for it.

I do wonder if there are any other unreleased, rare, extremely-limited-run or unknown Classic Space sets out there

[Fugazi]

jonwil, on 18 November 2012 - 10:55 AM, said:

Bricklink says it was never released and all that is known to exist is a prototype box yet somehow Bricklink has an inventory for it.

The inventory has probably been derived from the box picture, as this set was only a prototype. More details can be found on Brickset.

jonwil, on 18 November 2012 - 10:55 AM, said:

I do wonder if there are any other unreleased, rare, extremely-limited-run or unknown Classic Space sets out there

Another Classic Space promotional in the UK was 1593, made up of 6880 and 6929 parts. Not the nicest design if you ask me, but the boxed set is very hard to find.

[LEGO Historian]

Fugazi, on 18 November 2012 - 11:23 AM, said:

The inventory has probably been derived from the box picture, as this set was only a prototype. More details can be found on Brickset.

Another Classic Space promotional in the UK was 1593, made up of 6880 and 6929 parts. Not the nicest design if you ask me, but the boxed set is very hard to find.

The 1593 Delta Spacecraft Set is an interesting exclusive set... like the 1592 Town Square Set (the previous number in the LEGO numbering sequence)... and it also was sold by 2 companies.

In the UK/Ireland the 1593 Set was promoted by UNILEVER Corp. as a Persil Detergent promotional set.

In continental Europe the 1593 Set was promoted by HENKEL, a German company... the originators of Persil Detergent... and was sold in Denmark, Germany and France.

Interestingly enough HENKEL licensed the production Persil Detergent to UNILEVER Corp. in UK/Ireland.

The 1593 Delta Spacecraft Set distribution is discussed in my LEGO DVD/download in Chapter 30 - Classic LEGO Sets... but I think I'm going to add it to Chapter 17 - Promotional Sets as well.

Edited by LEGO Historian, 18 November 2012 - 11:02 PM.

[Fugazi]

The existence of set 1593 (1983?) does make one wonder whether LEGO simply had too many unsold copies of 6880 (1982) and 6929 (1981).

[LEGO Historian]

Fugazi, on 18 November 2012 - 10:50 PM, said:

The existence of set 1593 (1983?) does make one wonder whether LEGO simply had too many unsold copies of 6880 (1982) and 6929 (1981).

I had always thought the same thing about the 1967 UK promotional Kellogg's Town Plan... the 2,250 sets they had for promotions were likely leftover Town Plan accessories/boxes... but since the Esso parts supply was exhausted, they replaced those with the new Shell items.  I bet TLG used promotions in many instances to get rid of leftover sets.

[L@go]

Sorry for straying off-topic here, but there's a couple of things I need to answer :)

Mazin, on 18 November 2012 - 01:13 AM, said:

"Anders And" in Denmark? So how is it that they call him Kalle Anka in Sweden? I thought that these languages are very similar   Different naming method perhaps?

The word for "duck" is "and" in Denmark and Norway, and "anka" in Sweden. "Anders" and "Kalle" are pretty regular first names, so it's just a case of Donald Duck being given different names when introduced to these two different countries. To make things a bit more confusing, guess what he's called in Norwegian? Donald Duck.

Which leads me to...

LEGO Historian, on 18 November 2012 - 03:02 AM, said:

Here is another Disney related LEGO ad... and I was told that it was Dutch 1963... but I don't think  "og" (and) is Dutch...  (this is from Chapter 68 of my DVD... LEGO Advertisements 1953-86)...

That is most definitely Norwegian. And as you can see, he's called Donald :)

Mazin, on 18 November 2012 - 03:58 AM, said:

Well obviously not every word is the same but as much as I know these languages are stunnigly alike and a Swede could easily read or watch Danish and same - Dane reading Norwegian ( Finnish belongs to a completely different group of languages on the other hand )...

Yep, Norwegians, Danes and Swedes can read and understand each other's languages - after what I've heard, we Norwegians are the ones that understand their Nordic brothers and sisters better, and if that's the case it's probably because we were in union with Denmark for more than 400 years from 1380 to 1814 (often called the 400-year night) and then with Sweden from 1814 to 1905, before we were finally on our own.

I have to add that the Danes have such a guttural language that they even have problems understanding each other, as this video clearly shows:



NOTE: I have to admit that this is from a Norwegian TV show. But although it is a joke, there's a grain of truth to it :)

[LEGO Historian]

Thanks for the laugh L@go!  I had seen that one before, and find it very funny....  I just saw a very old Danish brick with MEJERI printed on it and was thinking of the :"thousand liters of milk" mentioned in that video!

With the close links between Denmark, Norway and Sweden, one would think that these first 3 LEGO selling countries would have a lot of old LEGO in common.  But that was not the case.... while LEGO Billund was busy selling LEGO in Denmark... they licensed LEGO sales to Svein Strømberg & Co. of Oslo in Norway, and A. B. Lundby of Lerum Sweden for their first LEGO sales in those 2 countries.  The result was that the LEGO Archives have little information of what was produced in Norway and Sweden in the 1950s... and I keep surprising the LEGO Archive folks with items that they have no information on (thanks to the collections of many sharp eyed European collectors)...

Here are 2 examples of things that TLG Denmark had no idea was being sold in Norway and Sweden...

1.  Norwegian alphabet bricks in blue with gold lettering.  These are only known elsewhere in white with blue lettering....




2.  In Sweden Hemmets Journal, a popular Swedish magazine, had a promotion in the late 1950s for small LEGO sets.  You had to have an image from Hemmets in order to build what came in the little boxes you sent away for as part of the promotion.




These items are discussed in Chapter 48 - Printed and Painted LEGO Elements, and Chapter 15 - LEGO Promotional Items in my 2800 page Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide on DVD/download.

I'm still trying to locate the Hemmets Journal pages to go with these little sets #1, #2 and #3 that shows the models that could be built!

[Hrw-Amen]

Yes that fire station the one with the yellow strip across the front of the roof, the one you say came as a promotion with cornflakes for Danes. That is the one that I had which was in the south of the UK. I think it must have been about 1970 my parents got it for me. I am sure it was with one of those cardboard road plans as I mentioned in another of your threads. There was a small bungalow with it. This was white and had 33 degree red slopes for the roof. I think back then it was the only building I had with those slopes as most of what I had came with 45 degree ones in either blue or red. There was i am certain another building (If not two.) in the set but for the life of me I cannot recall what it was?

[LEGO Historian]

Hrw-Amen.... that was Fire Station 347 of 1970.

Now this gets very complex... (which is where my DVD download comes in handy)....

347 was sold as an individual set....http://www.bricklink...Pic.asp?S=347-1

It was also sold in the 380 Village Set (UK/Ireland/Australia only)... which consists of sets 3... 344, 346 and 347.



It was also sold in the Danish Anders and Corn Flakes Danish set seen above (my mistake... that set WAS different from the UK 380 set).  It had sets 345 (not 344), 346 and 347.

It was also sold in the large 1970 promotional UK Kellogg's Village set... which consists of 326, 344, 345, 346 and 347.... as well as extra car/truck sets 600, 601, 602, 603, 621, 622, 623.





This is actually one of the most complex set inter-relations of any LEGO sets... because the 347 set is a subset of the 380 Set, the Danish promotional set and the UK Kellogg's set.  The 380 and Danish promotional sets are also a subset of the UK Kellogg's set.

And even the building sets 344, 345, 346, 347 have vehicles that are a subset of those individual building sets... such as vehicle sets 600, 601, 602, 603, 621, 622 and 623.  And even some of these vehicle sets have different USA set numbers (600 = 360 USA, 601 = 361 USA, 602 = 362 USA, 603 = 363 USA).

Also... all of the cars/trucks can be found in the USA/only 348 Samsonite LEGO Mini-Wheel Car/Truck Set.

This is easily (yeah right)... explained in my DVD download in Chapters 3 (LEGO Town Plan Sets), Chapter 8 (1955-71 LEGO Town Model Sets) and Chapter 17 (LEGO Promotional Sets).

Edited by LEGO Historian, 21 November 2012 - 02:05 AM.

[JopieK]

other Dutch promotional sets include two of the ANWB (emergency vehicle repair service):



And the newer one:



I have the old one, my brother the newer one.

[Carrera124]

1966 (and some other promotional sets) have been sold in Germany, too



A few additional pics can be found at my brickshelf accout