LEGO Historian Posted June 26, 2013 Posted June 26, 2013 One of the most interesting of the 73 chapters in my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide.... is one on old LEGO Display Models that were produced by the LEGO Model Shops. Here are some of the more interesting ones..... a 12 year old Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen (1959) playing with a "Riparian" scene along a river, including a bridge. This was during the 1:87 scale Town Plan era, using many of the pricey LEGO 1:87 cast cars and trucks. A circa 1962 model from British LEGO Ltd. (Wrexham Wales)... of the facade of York Minster, the largest surviving medieval church in Britain. This very rare storewindow model has survived for 1/2 century, and is currently in the collection of a Yorkshire UK LEGO collector.... And then there's the entire layout of a 1960 town layout located in the LEGO HQ in Billund (before LEGO wheels... those "brick" wheels look like something out of the Flintstones!). This Hotel building model was built by my Dutch friend Jeroen, and the image is found at the top of my LEGO Collectors Guide - Table Of Contents, This model is also found on the front of the 703 USA/Canada Basic Set box of 1961-65, and on several parts packs box tops of the early 1960s. Lots more images to follow.... Quote
lightningtiger Posted June 26, 2013 Posted June 26, 2013 Thanks for more history of our favourite art form 'LEGO Historian', I can't wait to see more......anything from the late 1970's, that's when I first got into Lego ? Quote
LEGO Historian Posted June 27, 2013 Author Posted June 27, 2013 Here's some of the glued display models assembled for a November 1962 USA Saturday Evening Post Samsonite LEGO ad... Here's a display image from a 1958 Continental European Glued Display Model Catalog.... Here's a box top image of a 700/1 Basic Set of Germany/Austria in German... this was one of the first basic sets sold in those 2 countries in 1956 and 1957 respectively.... That is of course Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen (right) along with his sister Gunhild (left) and other sister Hanne (1951-69) middle (she died in a 1969 automobile accident in 1969 that almost caused their father Godtfred Kirk Christiansen to sell TLG, so great was his grief. This 1962 UK (British LEGO Ltd.) advertisement shows the "first" LEGO "Palace Theatre"!! I've got hundreds of pictures more to sort thru.... Adding a lot of these to the new version of my LEGO DVD/download (free to those that own the old one!). Quote
lightningtiger Posted June 27, 2013 Posted June 27, 2013 Oh, that last picture can give so much inspiration eh ? Quote
timmyc1983 Posted June 27, 2013 Posted June 27, 2013 Wow, yeah, that last picture is really interesting. I didn't realise this current Palace Cinema 10232 was a 'remake' of sorts.... Does this suggest we should be expecting a chemist and a bank in the modular series over the next couple of years....? I wonder.............. Thanks for the info LegoHistorian, fascinating stuff Quote
Sid Sidious Posted June 27, 2013 Posted June 27, 2013 so did your friend Jeroen work at Lego fifty years ago? Quote
DPrime Posted July 10, 2013 Posted July 10, 2013 I just discovered your posts, Historian - LOVING them. :) Quote
LEGO Historian Posted July 10, 2013 Author Posted July 10, 2013 (edited) Wow... didn't realize they were so popular... but I guess that there isn't a large inventory of old images (although I have over 10,000, collected these last 15 years). Here's one that I think you will like. This started out as a glued display model in continental Europe... then made it to an image in a Building Ideas Book No. 1 of 1960-66 (#238 in guides)... and in 1961 it was going to be a large house model kit for a USA/Canada Samsonite LEGO model set called the 717 Junior Constructor.... but the model was too big, and it was replaced by a smaller house... also shown here... this is one of the most interesting LEGO house model histories of all time.... http://www.youblishe...d-Actual-Model/ Here is the prototype house again... using 9 10x20 thick baseplates... the largest LEGO house model (as a display and prototype) of the 20th Century!! This large English Cotswold Cottage style house is sooooo easy to build because it uses all common classic LEGO windows... and absolutely no rare parts... just the 1960s trees and bushes are rare... but even those can be had for about $3 EACH. Even the 9 10x20 baseplates can be substituted with 2 32x32 thin baseplates in green! In my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide, I provide not only this history listed above... but also the building instructions to this fun to build piece of old LEGO history!! Edited July 10, 2013 by LEGO Historian Quote
Laura Beinbrech Posted July 10, 2013 Posted July 10, 2013 Man, it never ceases to amaze me how you keep coming up with these awesome old pics and interesting tidbits of LEGO history. Quote
LEGO Historian Posted July 10, 2013 Author Posted July 10, 2013 Thanks Hikaro... I could talk for days about sets... especially the old LEGO wooden box sets... TLG produced over 80 different... but no online database lists more than 10... except for my collectors guide on DVD/download... Quote
LEGO Historian Posted December 14, 2013 Author Posted December 14, 2013 (edited) I thought I would reopen this old thread from 5 months ago... my friend Henk from the Netherlands... who collects glued LEGO display models, and who alone is reponsible for 1 entire chapter of my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide (available as DVD download)... the chapter on glued display models... he keeps raising the bar on old LEGO display items. We fondly call him the "glue sniffer", because he does what few of us would dare to do... use glue to restore LEGO models. But since the models are glued to begin with, he just completes or restores them with glue and vintage parts. One of his most interesting models of all is a LEGO gear model. LEGO gears first came out at Christmas 1965 with USA/Canada Samsonite gears (not sold elsewhere). By 1970 a different platform of gear sets were introduced in Europe/Australia and later in Canada. These gears were the forerunner to the Technic system first introduced in 1977 as Expert Builder sets. These 1970 introduced gear sets had an 800 set as the large ear set, with a 4.5V battery powered motor... Here's the 803 Gear Set for building a truck with crane.... And here is one of my all time favorite display model... a machine that would have fascinated every kid and dad with it's working ingenuity. Henk got this machine in parts, and didn't know how to put it back together. He was assisted by several other old time LEGO collectors who found diagrams of the model in old publications. Although this is only about 80% functional so far... it is really cool!! http://www.flickr.co...N08/6846415027/ I believe that this uses 3 LEGO motor units. Although this must have been very noisy in a toy store... it got your attention!! This model will be the highlight of my LEGO DVD/download chapter on display models! Edited December 14, 2013 by LEGO Historian Quote
LEGO Historian Posted February 9, 2014 Author Posted February 9, 2014 (edited) The old LEGO Town scenes were done in classic scale... which is HO or 1:87 scale. The one nice thing about buildingin that scale is that you get way more build for your bricks. With a classic door 3 bricks high, and the modern door 6 bricks high, the Minifig scale is 2 to the 3rd power for building... or 8 times the volume of a building in the Minifig scale versus the classic scale. Here are some more images from my Dutch collector friend Jeroen, who has many of his images in my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide.... Using a Town Plan board.... Lots of HO Scale classic LEGO elements built on a 200 Town Plan board. The 1:87 cars/trucks can be very pricey for the rarer items... the green VW Van is about $2000 because it's a promotional van. The road signs have yellow poles... hence they'r rare and from Sweden (all other have white bases)... the girder type street lights are continental European style, the thin ones with the curved top are the UK/Australia version. Lots of nice classic windows and doors with some old (and modern) printed bricks. And the 1960s type LEGO trees/bushes with the donut base that can attach to baseplates. This building shows that you don't need a lot of SNOT or gimmick techniques to make a beautiful structure... love the 1950s (more fragile) trees/bushes... and all the 1:87 LEGO cars.... Here we have a 2 story VW Dealership... with lots of very pricey 1:87 vehicles... (and again the UK street lights)... Again we have the solid green Kästner & Öhler VW Van.... the emblem is the name of a large department store in Graz Austria, which commissioned a group of these vehicles. In excellent condition these are probably worth about $2000, in mint even more. Here we have a Philips 1:87 VW Van in gray and blue. These Philips vans are probably the most common of the 1:87 VW Vans... and still they're worth about $400-$500. A Kølevogn is a refrigeration truck, which tells us that this particular truck doesn't represent a particular company. But because all white VW Vans with this decal (also known with a sticker) on the roof is also a very rare promotional van, worth about $2000+. Mejeri is the Danish word for Dairy. The 1:87 LEGO cars and trucks (1955-70) are probably the rarest and most valuable (not precious metal) LEGO items, and can easily command $5000+ for the right ones. Here are some unique ones (only examples known) that even the LEGO Archives/Collections in Billund don't have.... $$$$ They belong to other collectors from around the world... (not Jeroen!)... And here are another group of rare 1:87 trucks... the Mercedes Delivery vans... the Philips van is worth only about $200, which is the price of the average one of this in excellent condition. The rarest is the red van with the fowl-fish-beef emblem on it... worth about $2000 in excellent condition (fewer than a dozen known).... All the LEGO Town Plan and 1:87 vehicles on this one post are easily worth in excess of $30,000 !! All can be found in my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide in Chapter 37 - LEGO 1:87 Cars and Trucks (1955-70). I've been collecting images and the history of LEGO sets and parts for the past 7 years... and have also gotten many images from the folks at the Billund Archives as well... Edited February 9, 2014 by LEGO Historian Quote
lightningtiger Posted February 9, 2014 Posted February 9, 2014 (edited) Thanks for sharing again 'LEGO Historian', I just that image of the fully lined streets......er, with lots of cafes ! Those Kombi's with logos on them must be worth a pretty penny eh ? Edited February 9, 2014 by lightningtiger Quote
LEGO Historian Posted February 9, 2014 Author Posted February 9, 2014 Thanks Lightningtiger!! Sometimes it's all about color. For example... the 265/665 Karmann Ghia sedan comes in 13 colors... These 10.... ... and in addition metallic blue, metallic green and brown. Some of these colors can command hundreds of dollars. So colors can play just as importand a role as promotional models with decals. One of the rarest of the sedans is the 605 Fiat... in black fewer than 1/2 dozen are known. The last one that came up for auction 3 years ago, sold for 3250 Euros!! Quote
Freddy Bricker Posted February 9, 2014 Posted February 9, 2014 Wow thanks for showing us the 'Lego Historian'! I was always under the impression that old Lego sets were, terrible. You have now shined a light in my eyes that they are indeed of quality, and surpass that of sets released in the 00's (some, not most or all). They are definitely more filler and useful than the cars we see repeated quite often now. The cars I don't agree with, but I'm not so sure when it was that they came up with the wheel solution anyways, so I'm sure brick-built cars weren't a thing during these time periods. Lego Historian, are any of the latter images yours? Or are these pulled pictures from the internet? I don't believe colored images were around for very long (not so great with these kind of things) and if so, you have quite the collection. I envy this display, be it yours or an official display, it looks great! Also, punch-buggy no punch back! Had to, just so many Volkswagen's in one place. Quote
LEGO Historian Posted February 10, 2014 Author Posted February 10, 2014 Thanks Freddy Bricker, with the exception of the NIVEA trucks, I know the owners of all the other items. I have a collection of over 10,000 rare LEGO images (mostly color), and being a big time historian about LEGO... it's amazing how many folks want to send me pics of things that they hope I've never seen before!! There are some images that I get from other people... and later find out (when I put together my LEGO DVD/dowload chapters to give credit at the end of each chapter, with the names of the contributors) that the originator of the images don't actually own the image nor the item... But most images I do know the owners to... Here is a brand new (old) item. The 1957 Opel Kapitän 1:87 car. This car was a prototype, and was never actually sold to the public. This example resides in Norway, and is valued at about $5000 as is. Most of these Opel Kapitän cars have some sort of defect, since they were all prototypes. Quote
LEGO Historian Posted February 10, 2014 Author Posted February 10, 2014 The folded cardboard Town Plan board (#200 & #246) was introduced in September 1959. In 1961 a Town Plan set was also introduced, the 810 Set, which could build this scene.... I built my own Town Plan scene, with a more downtown feel to it.... Quote
pbaptist Posted April 13, 2014 Posted April 13, 2014 Does anyone has pictures of the metallic blue or green karmann ghia models? I am a collector of VW Karmann ghia models, but I have never seen a picture of how these would look like. Regards patrick The Netherlands Quote
talos Posted April 15, 2014 Posted April 15, 2014 What great photos, they bring back a lot of my own memories of playing with my Lego bricks back in the late 60's. I still have them in the family, though now a lot of them are so worn down from use that they won't stay together. I remember the flat bushes and trees, I never got too many of them. My bricks were all red or white, and I had enough to build a lot of big buildings. Never enough windows though. Quote
droomangroup Posted April 17, 2014 Posted April 17, 2014 wow, as a lego and vw lover those busses and ghias are amazing. i've seen the busses in a gas station set, but haven't seen all the variations, amazing. thanks for sharing. Quote
elleana Posted April 17, 2014 Posted April 17, 2014 (edited) The pictures are illuminating and interesting in historical terms, but having been raised on more 'modern' Lego I see little appeal in them beyond historical value. To each his own I guess but even were all the vehicles displayed were available at retail price today I wouldn't buy them.. And the buildings just show how far we've coming in terms of building techniques, but then even before and after my Dark Ages things are so different. Edit: I would add though, that the HO 1:87 scale has lots of possibilities for building town layouts, I quite like what Lego Historian himself has done in his last few pictures. The problem then though is that minifgs wouldn't fit in, and whats a town without the hustle and bustle of its citizens? Edited April 17, 2014 by elleana Quote
Artifex Posted April 17, 2014 Posted April 17, 2014 Wow, thanks gor sharing! These are so great! Quote
gunm Posted April 17, 2014 Posted April 17, 2014 This thread makes me appreciate the sophistication, part diversity, details, and color variety of current Lego. While there's a certain charm in the simplicity and basic color palette of those old sets, I feel like Lego has really improved for the better over the years. Thanks for sharing! Quote
alexandreblonda Posted April 22, 2015 Posted April 22, 2015 Thanks Hikaro... I could talk for days about sets... especially the old LEGO wooden box sets... TLG produced over 80 different... but no online database lists more than 10... except for my collectors guide on DVD/download... hi my name is alex and i am living in france. I found one of this wood old box. And i will need some help to put all the original element. There is some one who could help me please? i am ready to send pictures if you need to contact me dirctly here is my email adress : alexandreblonda@hotmail.com . All my apoligize for my bad english Quote
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