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Automatic Binding Bricks - The Oldest LEGO Sets
LEGO Historian posted a topic in General LEGO Discussion
In my LEGO DVD/download I show the 4 oldest LEGO boxes, all Automatic Binding Bricks boxes. Well in 6 months when I ship out my next update (free to people who already paid for or own the DVD/download)... there will be 2 additional old box images. Here are 6 Automatic Binding Bricks box images of 1949-54... __________________________ 1) The upper left box is the earliest of circa 1949-50. It shows a "serif" Automatic Binding Bricks label. 2) The middle left box is the next oldest of circa 1950-51. It shows a thin "san serif" Automatic Binding Bricks label. 3) The lower left box is the next oldest box of circa 1951-52. It shows a thick fancy Automatic Binding Bricks label. 4) The upper right box: In 1952 TLG decided to add the word LEGO to their box images. The upper right image dates to circa early 1952. This box from my friend Richard in the Netherlands shows the same 1951-52 box as previously mentioned, but there is a "LEGO" decal in the lower right area of the box. For the longest time I thought that this decal (which is found on wooden LEGO toys of 1944-52) was removed from a different LEGO product, and arbitrarily added to this box by someone outside the company. But as has been discovered... removing these type of decals is virtually impossible, so this decal must have been added at the company. And likely TLG had some older (1951-52) boxes in inventory, so when the decision was made to add "LEGO", a few older boxes simply had the decal added. 5) The middle right box: As just mentioned, in 1952 TLG decided to add "LEGO" to the Automatic Binding Bricks boxes... and they displayed it as "LEGO Mursten" (LEGO Bricks in Danish) on the box top near the upper center of the box. This box type was produced until 1953, when TLG replaced it with a different box top type in Denmark... with only "LEGO Mursten". 6) The lower right box: When LEGO sales started in Norway in November 1953, oddly enough the boxes didn't have "LEGO Mursten" as the new (mid 1953) LEGO boxes had... but continued with "Automatic Binding Bricks". TLG Denmark must have had a lot of LEGO labes with the old Automatic Binding Bricks artwork on it, so Norway got a red box with the older label on it still with Automatic Binding Bricks on it. _________________________________ While TLG Denmark started LEGO sales in Norway to a Norwegian company called Svein Strømberg & Co. (a Norwegian plastics maker).... new LEGO Mursten boxes were sold in Denmark. Within a year this box type was also sold in Norway, and when LEGO was introduced in Sweden in 1955, the same LEGO Mursten box was used... since "Mursten" was the same word for "bricks" (or a similar translation thereof) in all 3 countries... here's the LEGO Mursten box used in Denmark (1953-55), Norway (1954-55) and Sweden (1955). This 1953-55 LEGO Mursten box top shows Ole Kirk Christiansen's 2 grandchildren Kjeld and his older sister Gunhild. Today these 2 "billionaires" are the principle owners of Kirkbi AG, the Swiss incorporated company that owns TLG.... as well as all the LEGO patents.