mpfirnhaber

I have a huge Classic Space and Futuron collection - it's the bulk of all the Lego that I own. I'm thinking about selling it off and collecting Pirates 1 instead. Am I mental?

LEGO was very much a clone when it started. They copied the 2x2 and 2x4 brick design directly from Kiddicraft, along with the 1-slot and 2-slot brick configurations, the baseplates, even the shape and style of the doors and windows. Kiddicraft also produced DUPLO-sized bricks long before LEGO did. LEGO also copied Kiddicraft's first interlocking brick design - the early Bri-Plax cubes, which were patented in 1936. LEGO's version Byggeklodser came out in 1950, though in such limited quantities they mostly only exist in Billund's vaults. LEGO not only copied the Bri-Plax brick design, but also the packaging design and configuration. Yes, LEGO added tubes and revolutionized the 2x4 brick design and took over the world, but only after selling "clone" bricks for 9 years :)

Clone brands aren't as bad for LEGO as they were for Kiddicraft :)

This is quite common. Model Shop builders can request current production parts in any currently used color, and these parts often make their way into the wild. I have Legoland exclusive parts from as far back as the 60s. For example, take a look at the basic 2x4 brick (part 3001). There are about 25 colors listed in the BL price guide that haven never been available in sets. I have most of them - here are just a few: I have lots of other examples, like trans-clear chains, red and black ghosts, and my favorite: a blue pteranodon! More examples: https://www.flickr.c.../rarelego/pool/

Ever since I started collecting 2x4 bricks, I basically stopped building, and I've sold most of my LEGO. But like you, I still get the urge to play every once in a while. My solution is Mixels. They are cheap (if you buy them as they are released), they offer a huge variety of parts/colors, and you can fit all 6 series into a single bin.

I'm very close to having enough pieces to build any Classic Space or Futron set. So yes, you can :)

From the early 60s to the early 90s there was a LEGO factory in Wrexkham, Wales. They got their plastic from the Borg/Warner plastics company in Grangemouth, Scotland. Borg/Warner had their own LEGO mold that could make 4 2x4 bricks at a time - they used it to test their plastics. In the late 70s a couple of employees decided to play around with excess plastic pellets and they experimented by making marbled bricks. As the story goes, when TLG found out they weren't too happy at all, and they took the mold away. Earlier this year someone on BrickLink sold a big stash of these bricks that he had been given as a child. They went fast, and they are now quite hard to come by. A few other "flavors" are known, and are being hoarded by other collectors. They're unique gems among people like me who collect 2x4 bricks! More info and pics:

I like (and collect) all colors!

I collect more than I build, so I'm mostly interested in colors that have never been released in sets. TLG has contracted with several plastics manufacturers over the years to produce bricks using a variety of colors and plastics for testing purposes, and many of those bricks have leaked out into the world and are distributed among collectors. I have neon bricks, transparent colors that have never been released, and all colors of the rainbow, from milky green to super dark blue, from semi-transparent orange to marbled colors.

Muppets! The minifigs would be fantastic. Looney Tunes would be fun too.

Mmm, swirly.

Can you post some photos?

The trans-clear minifig under the ghost shroud isn't real, but everything else is :)

Some of my recent acquisitions

Does that mean you plan on selling some of your treasures??

I think you need to define "LEGO system" and "set" before anyone can answer your question. Are you only considering bricks with bottom tubes? What about older tubeless bricks, or the even older slotted bricks? What about interlocking plastic bricks that were made by Ole Kirk Christiansen in the early 50s but were not yet branded LEGO?

He ruined an instruction book once, but I did leave it out on the floor...

Really nice find. I don't even want to think about what you must have paid for all of those :) I've never experienced the joy of opening and building a sealed Classic Space set. It must be truly amazing. Fresh gold moons on the minifigs, light gray parts with no yellowing, trans-yellow windscreens that are still perfectly clear... Wow!

This is the first set I remember playing with, but I think it belonged to my older brother. This may have been the first set I got on my own. Hard to say, it was a long time ago :)

At one point about a year ago when I was still collecting CMFs, I had the same great idea to take them all apart and sort the pieces out into bead boxes. When I decided to sell them a few months ago, I really regretted it. It took me the best part of a day to put them all back together :(

This black Prima brick from Sweden circa 1954 is both very old and very rare :)

If it weren't for nuts who keep sealed sets for 30+ years, we wouldn't be able to buy "new" trans-yellow windshields for our space ships :)

Thanks Gary. Yes, there are a lot of unknowns, and there always will be. But I think more is known now than was know 5 years ago about the history of slotted bricks. Who knows what else we'll know 5 years from now! I think there are a few transitional molds, however, that will always be a mystery. Double logo slotted, hollow stud blockletter slotted, bricks with filled slots, bricks with no slots and blockletter logo underneath... Lots of oddballs! It's amazing that entire molds were created for these and yet nobody knows much about them...

Thanks for the tips. I also asked on BL and it was said that the tubing from Classic Space kits is softer and more pliable than pneumatic tubing. But I found a place to buy 10 feet of black pneumatic, so I'll grab that and see how it goes.