LEGO advertisement - launch of the Pirates theme in NL

[CvS]

Look what I found in a 1989 Donald Duck from a thrift store: the announcement of the launch of the Pirates theme in the Netherlands!

Plus another one in a different Duck:

Our daughter really likes reading Duckies. So I have an excuse to go through old Ducks when I find them in a thrift store 

I have already found quite a few: LEGO ads etc

Edited October 4, 2025 by CvS

[CvS]

The first ad reads:

'Pirates conquer toy stores.

The new LEGOLAND Pirates are conquering all toy stores with no fewer than 10 boxes, both small and large.
Full of good and evil pirates and soldiers, ships, sharks, parrots, palm trees, islands, and overflowing treasure chests.
There's even a thrilling comic book!

May 6th: Exciting Pirate Contest.

To celebrate, there's an exciting Pirate Contest in almost all toy stores on Saturday, May 6th, starting at 1:30 PM.
Dress up as a pirate (for example, wear an eyepatch) and come to your toy store.
We won't tell you exactly what to do yet, but we will reveal the loot.
The grand prize is a trip to LEGOLAND in Denmark, and there are 500 other LEGO prizes to be won.
Stay tuned*, and see you on May 6th!'

* 'Hou je haaks' is a Dutch expression and means something like 'keep it/stay hooks', of course referring to captain redbeard's hook hand.

Edited October 4, 2025 by CvS

[TalonCard]

Love to see these! Thank you so much for taking the pictures and translating.  Do you remember which issues these happened to be in?

Donald Duck was always my favorite too but I had no idea as a kid how popular he was in other countries.

[CvS]

(how do I remove this post?!)

Edited October 4, 2025 by CvS

[SpacePolice89]

Cool! The Swedish Donald Duck comic (Kalle Anka) used to have similar ads when I was a kid. I remember several Pirates ads and even a special Space comic about the Futuron monorail, a black Classic Space astronaut and a robot.

Edited October 4, 2025 by SpacePolice89

[CvS]

Yes, it was in #17 of 1989

If I have them, I've added all the Ducks covers to this album as well, followed by the ad: Click

[Mister Phes]

On 10/5/2025 at 1:20 AM, CvS said:

ook what I found in a 1989 Donald Duck from a thrift store: the announcement of the launch of the Pirates theme in the Netherlands!

Thank you for sharing these and the translations! 

On 10/5/2025 at 1:20 AM, CvS said:

I have already found quite a few: LEGO ads etc

I dug a little deeper and found these catalog pages...

I don't think I've seen this particular catalog with just four sets. 

 

This is what I've typically seen in the past:

[CvS]

14 hours ago, Mister Phes said:

Thank you for sharing these and the translations! 

I dug a little deeper and found these catalog pages...

I don't think I've seen this particular catalog with just four sets. 

 

This is what I've typically seen in the past:

It's 1990 Medium Dutch (921390-NL) / Item No: c90nl3
It is stapled in the middle of the Duck.

[CvS]

Part two!

Including this Pirates cartoon ad from 1989 (D.D. #37):

-> To see the other ads I found today: Click!

Unfortunately, the '89 volume D.D. at the thrift store wasn't quite complete.
I think there should be more Pirates ads, from 1989 or 1990.
Or maybe I missed them. It's quite a hassle to search through all the Ducks, with those thin pages. Plus my daughter wanted to go home ;).
I bought the 1991 volume -unfortunately also not quite complete- and I still have to search through it. Who knows...

 

 

On 10/4/2025 at 7:19 PM, SpacePolice89 said:

Cool! The Swedish Donald Duck comic (Kalle Anka) used to have similar ads when I was a kid. I remember several Pirates ads and even a special Space comic about the Futuron monorail, a black Classic Space astronaut and a robot.

Someting likes this one?

Edited October 5, 2025 by CvS

[TalonCard]

Wow, I don't think i've actually seen that Space Police one anywhere before! 

[Mister Phes]

On 10/6/2025 at 7:51 AM, CvS said:

Unfortunately, the '89 volume D.D. at the thrift store wasn't quite complete.
I think there should be more Pirates ads, from 1989 or 1990.

You'll have to go back ASAP! 

But seriously, thank you again for sharing these pages which have been lost to seas of time.

[SpacePolice89]

15 hours ago, CvS said:

Someting likes this one?

Yes, that one is very similar. Must be made by the same artist.

[kelceycoe]

I thought everyone knew about these lol! I found a bunch of ads from Donald Duck on Archive.org a couple weeks ago. I searched for "donald duck" "lego" 1989 or something and found many that way.

On 10/5/2025 at 10:15 AM, Mister Phes said:

Thank you for sharing these and the translations! 

I dug a little deeper and found these catalog pages...

I don't think I've seen this particular catalog with just four sets. 

 

This is what I've typically seen in the past:

Our Medium catalog for 1989 only contained the four big pirates sets here in the USA. The 1990s one looked almost identical to the UK one above, minus the minifig set and comic book.

Here's a 1990 NL catalog scan: https://archive.org/details/netherlands-Katalog_Lego-1990/page/n19/mode/2up

 

[Mister Phes]

13 hours ago, kelceycoe said:

Our Medium catalog for 1989 only contained the four big pirates sets here in the USA.

From my understanding, in Northern America, only 6285 Black Seas Barracuda, 6276 Eldorado Fortress, 6270 Forbidden Island and 6274 Caribbean Clipper were available for the initial 1989 release.

But it appears 6235 Buried Treasure and 6245 Harbour Sentry were available in  exclusive mail-away promotional pack 6200.

[Admiral Bejaune]

6 hours ago, Mister Phes said:

6245 Harbour Sentry

That was my very first Lego set.  I didnt have the other set.  Was it available at another time as a stand alone set and not the bundle?

Edit

Just confirmed with my dad.  He remembers buying it and he did indeed buy it from a local store. Just the harbor sentry alone. 

[kelceycoe]

8 hours ago, Mister Phes said:

From my understanding, in Northern America, only 6285 Black Seas Barracuda, 6276 Eldorado Fortress, 6270 Forbidden Island and 6274 Caribbean Clipper were available for the initial 1989 release.

But it appears 6235 Buried Treasure and 6245 Harbour Sentry were available in  exclusive mail-away promotional pack 6200.

I posted somewhere else on this board that, yes while the first 4 big Pirate sets were first made to us in 1989, through the 1989 SAH catalog we could buy most of the other sets the UK got. And that bundle was a cool thing Leo did for club members.

To clarify: As far as I can tell, only 6285 Black Seas Barracuda, 6276 Eldorado Fortress, 6270 Forbidden Island and 6274 Caribbean Clipper were actually sold in stores. The others COULD be bought here in the US but either through the 1989 shop at home catalog or that club magazine.

[CvS]

Part III - 1991 (well, some of it):

...and the rest.

[DonQuixote]

Ah ,the nostalgia 

[Mister Phes]

13 hours ago, kelceycoe said:

To clarify: As far as I can tell, only 6285 Black Seas Barracuda, 6276 Eldorado Fortress, 6270 Forbidden Island and 6274 Caribbean Clipper were actually sold in stores. The others COULD be bought here in the US

Do we have any reliable information on why this strategy (I.e. releasing the larger sets first) was used for Northern America?  (Was it just the United States or did it apply to Canada too)

According to the below catalog, all the smaller 989 sets became available to regular retail in 1990 (as indicated by the "NEW" to  the top-left of each previously exclusive set)

[Mister Phes]

17 hours ago, Admiral Bejaune said:

Just confirmed with my dad.  He remembers buying it and he did indeed buy it from a local store. Just the harbor sentry alone. 

Which year was that?

Because in 1990 Harbour Sentry was released to retail in United States.

[Admiral Bejaune]

5 hours ago, Mister Phes said:

Which year was that?

 

Probably around 1990.

[Mister Phes]

18 hours ago, CvS said:

Part III - 1991 (well, some of it):

 

Thanks for sharing these more of this great finds! 

Also, apologies for derailing your topic with non-Dutch catlogue images.

[kelceycoe]

20 hours ago, Mister Phes said:

Do we have any reliable information on why this strategy (I.e. releasing the larger sets first) was used for Northern America?  (Was it just the United States or did it apply to Canada too)

According to the below catalog, all the smaller 989 sets became available to regular retail in 1990 (as indicated by the "NEW" to  the top-left of each previously exclusive set)

Yes that is accurate. Those sets came to retail stores officially here in the USA in 1990. I do not know anything about Canada yet.

As you will see in the page from the 1989 Shop at Home Catalog here in the United States, these four sets were available to those of us here in the United States starting August 1, 1989:

Pirate Mini-Figures, Shipwreck Island, Castaway Raft, and Sabre Island

They were also for sale in the Holiday 1989 catalog: 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/203530674@N07/albums/72177720329114990/with/54797131271/

As mentioned already, Lego Club members here in the United States could ONLY buy Buried Treasure and Harbour Sentry from the club magazine.

On 10/9/2025 at 3:57 AM, Mister Phes said:

From my understanding, in Northern America, only 6285 Black Seas Barracuda, 6276 Eldorado Fortress, 6270 Forbidden Island and 6274 Caribbean Clipper were available for the initial 1989 release.

But it appears 6235 Buried Treasure and 6245 Harbour Sentry were available in  exclusive mail-away promotional pack 6200.

 

If you look here, this is a Christmas catalog from Sears USA from 1989. This link should take you directly where the Lego Pirates sets are listed - only the "big four" I call them. They were marketed as having working cannons as well. 

Edited October 10, 2025 by kelceycoe

[Mister Phes]

6 hours ago, kelceycoe said:

This link should take you directly where the Lego Pirates sets are listed - only the "big four" I call them. They were marketed as having working cannons as well. 

Thank you for sharing these additional pages!

If I'm not mistaken, the first wave of LEGO Pirate sets in the United States had firing cannons and then subsequent waves moved to the non-firing cannons.

[kelceycoe]

12 hours ago, Mister Phes said:

Thank you for sharing these additional pages!

If I'm not mistaken, the first wave of LEGO Pirate sets in the United States had firing cannons and then subsequent waves moved to the non-firing cannons.

That is 100% correct! I had the Black Seas Barracuda, Eldorado Fortress and Forbidden Island in the same year (1989) and mine all had firing cannons!