What is this brick from?

[zipper778]

A cousin of mine found a bunch of bricks like this:

Any idea of what it's from?

[Slegengr]

They are the vintage LEGO predecessor to Quatro bricks. I had quite a few of these in red, white, and blue when I was young.

[zipper778]

I've never heard of Quatro bricks. I take it these are a predecessor to Duplo. What decade are these bricks from?

[Slegengr]

Quatro is the line of LEGO that is even bigger and for younger children than Duplo.

I do not know what decade the brick shown is from (I would guess 1980's) and I cannot seem to find information online about these bricks.

Hopefully someone else will be able to bring light to the unanswered questions.

[deraven]

Those bricks are actually from the "Jumbo Bricks" series that were aimed at Preschool children, prior to Duplo. They were available only in the US, and manufactured by Samsonite. These predate Duplo by only a little bit and were in fact produced concurrently for a short period- Duplo was introduced in 1969, and these Jumbo Bricks were produced from 1964-1972 (pretty small numbers, and even fewer after Duplo became more widely distributed).

So, Jumbo Bricks (1964-72) -> Duplo (1969-present, basically). With Duplo fulfilling the preschool age range, Lego introduced Quatro for younger kids (babies, really) in 2004. It was a short lived theme, cancelled in 2006. That's probably why most people haven't even heard of Quatro, unless they happened to have a kid in the target age range for whom they were shopping for Lego during those 2 years. ;)

You can find a little more information about the Jumbo Bricks and the few sets they came in here: http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/Jumbo_Bricks

[zipper778]

Thanks deraven! That is exactly the info I was looking for. My focus is from when I was a kid (late 80's through 90's and Lego Batman and TMNT) so I didn't have a clue when he asked me about it.

[deraven]

Sure thing! Those Jumbo Bricks were before my time as well, and I wouldn't have even known they existed either if I hadn't come across set 041 still in its box about a year ago and grabbed it to add to my vintage collection.