LEGO Historian

Wow... I'm 6 years too late to this party... but I'm bumping it (I found it on a Google search).... so I'll be adding some serious info on this... now if all the previous members are still here?? Hmmm I'll post tomorrow... lots of info on all the LEGO road signs...

I had seen a catalog entry in an old 1956 Norway catalog, but I wasn't sure if was (common in old LEGO catalogs) an error, or a real set, since one had never been seen before, and no other country had this set listing. But 2 days ago my Norwegian friend Arild found a set not yet seen online... a rare 1309 ESSO GARAGE set (not to be confused with the 1310/310 ESSO SERVICE STATION set)... and here it is for the first time.... This set is not to be confused with the 1309 CHURCH SET, which was ironically first produced in 1957, at the same time. The 1957 Norway catalog shows the ONLY time in LEGO history where 2 sets are shown in the same catalog under the same number!! This 1309 ESSO GARAGE SET was found in a 700/4 regular basic set box, but with a paper banderole that mentions 1309 "ESSO GARASJE" in Norwegian.... The contents of this box are unfortunately not original for the most part, but do contain 3 very important pieces to give us an indication of what the built set looked like. Those pieces are a 1x8 white printed brick with a (unique to Norway) ESSO SERVICE decal, a large (part 820 in Bricklink) garage plate, and a tall freestanding ESSO sign. Also, the box insert is missing... Here is what a 1236/236 GARAGE SET (flat box version) insert would look (image mocked for this 1309 set).... And here is what a 1309 built model would likely look like... This built model is virtually identical to a 126/236 GARAGE SET, except for a ESSO SERVICE sign (instead of GARAGE), and the addition of the freestanding Esso sign. This would help explain why this set was only produced (by A/S Norske LEGIO of Oslo Norway) for the Norway market for just 1956-57 before being discontinued. The regular GARAGE SET however continued production for many years afterwards. Also, here is the back of the 1 page 1956 Norway catalog (bottom half) that shows the 1309 ESSO GARAGE SET, and the larger 1310 ESSO SERVICE STATION SET.... This set was not produced in Billund Denmark by TLG, only in Oslo Norway. So the folks at the Billund Archives have no records of this set! The latest addition to my LEGO Collectors Guide! (NOTE: ADMINS, please merge this thread into my "Digging thru the history about LEGO" thread in about a week!)

In 10 years I see the Dowager LEGO Lady Edith Kirk Christiansen (daughter-in-law of LEGO founder Ole Kirk Christiansen, widow of Godtfred Kirk Christiiansen), and mother/grandmother/greatgrandmother of LEGO owners Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, his children Sofie, Thomas and Agnes, and their children... celebrating her 100th birthday. The dear lady herself celebrates her 90th birthday on May 29! God Bless her!! (Seen with her son-in-law Mogans Johansen and daughter (Kjeld's sister) Gunhild Kirk Johansen...)

Wow Mike... I didn't realize it was THEE Mike Poindexter... Long time indeed! Yes, I'm a "purist" when it comes to old style movie theatres. Yes, many of the new theatres incorporated stadium seating to help greate that old theatre experience. Many of the old movie palaces later had extra theatres inserted in the former (usually cavernous) auditoriums. Having an old theatre balcony walled off and often "twinned" was a way to turn a 1 screen theatre into several screens. Of course most of these changes have since been reversed as so many of the old theaters have returned as performing arts centers. You are correct, no old or new theatre would have windows... only public multifunction auditoriums do. Good to hear from you again Mike!!

Mike, very nice job with this!! It's the best scale to reality to date of a movie palace modular. The real life movie palaces have a main floor lobby and and auditorium the full height of the building. Above the lobby is a balcony on the old movie palaces. Also (and you have this better than anyone)... the entire projection area really should be minimized. No one ever sees the projection area in a true movie palace... it's only ever a couple of square glass cubes in an upper back wall. And as for a candy counter... well old time movie palaces did NOT have candy counters. Movie palaces frowned on drinks and snacks in the auditorium. It helps explain why old movie palaces have so few restrooms... big gulps were not around back then! It wasn't until the 1940s that theatres started having candy and refreshment counters. So if you made a theatre with only a lobby and main floor seating, and a balcony above the lobby (with just some square holes in the back wall for a not-seen projection room)... facing a tall screen with a Procenium (an arch that frames the stage and screen)... then you would be way more authentic by far, than the original concept of the Palace Theatre. I'm a historic theatre buff, and give tours of old movie theatres in downtown Detroit, such as the over the top 5,174 seat Detroit Fox theatre... https://www.flickr.c...m&safe_search=1 So these are just some tips on making the Palace Theatre look like a 1920s theatre (which the exterior building design copies).

My Swiss LEGO friend Pascal is another collector of the 1:87 LEGO cars and trucks. He is especially partial to the Volkswagen Beetles, Vans, Buses and Pickups. 1:87 VW Beetle, introduced in later 1957, came in at least 30 different colors. Some of the nicer LEGO 1:87 car colors are the metallic ones. There is a metallic blue color that is known in at least 1/2 dozen of the different 1:87 cars. But the nicest assortment of metallic colors is the VW Beetle, which is known in Metallic Blue, Metallic Silver, Metallic Light Gold, Metallic Gold, and Metallic Bronze.... these are going into my next update to my collectors guide... The Karmann Ghia sedan (under the 265 number from 1962-65, and 665 number from 1965-67)... came in a large number of colors as well. Here are 10 of the colors that it is known in. Missing from this group is Metallic Blue, Metallic Green and Brown...

And here are all the 4 digit spare parts pack sets, including the 8 Bedford Trucks...

Just got a wonderful Email from my Norwegian collector friend Arild! Earlier in this thread I posted some images from my Dutch collector friend Richard, who purchased a red Opel Kapitän (from 1957) from a Norwegian LEGO collector. There were 7 known of these, until my friend Arild found an 8th one in yellow. Now Arild was so very fortunate enough to find the 9th known example of this very rare Opel... but in green... a new color for this rarity. Although his model is missing the roof (so far 2 of 9 are missing this)... these are so rare that it really doesn't affect the value all that significanty... Here it is... another $5000 LEGO car!

My LEGO collectors guide is a download of 688MB (only takes 6-15 minutes to download)... that can be downloaded to your PC or MAC, you iPad, SmartPhone... or all of the above! Plus you get free annual upgrades to the DVD data.... 73 chapters, 3000 pages, 6000+ photos.... 10,156 prices LEGO Price Guide (1949-80) in Euros and Dollars. Everything you ever wanted to know about LEGO!!

Ole... I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention... I was busy wiping the drool off my keyboard.... So many many parts... so hard to focus.... The ones that I loved.... 1) classic 1x1x2 window in brown.... .... the trans clear parts... 2x6 brick, 2x6 and 2x8 plates...all those other cool curved slopes in that color. I also love that Moorish pointed arch... and the brown 2x2x3 steep slope double concave slope... love it love it love it!!!!! This will need a couple of days for me to absorb... definitely.... There is one other thing I wanted to mention about LEGO employees getting parts... for many decades employees have been able to buy LEGO parts that others could not. Some parts in the past were the marbled bricks, and also printed bricks (mostly 1x6/1x8 white bricks with printing)... which were sold to employees very cheaply as Factory Seconds. There have also been other times where employees were offered LEGO parts to purchase... and at times even parts that were given to them as promotional items. So employees getting parts from TLG has always been one way of items getting to the secondary market.

Thanks my good friend Ole! Just so that you know... I am just as jealous as everyone else... hehehe... I just have a better way of hiding it.... In years past, some parts that made it out of TLG were actually a blessing in disguise. However these made it out of the company... these 1x1 round and 1x1 square prototype bricks without studs on top were never sold to the public. These rare circa 1955 prototypes were included at a later date (by a collector) to the period parts pack boxes of 1955 (they never had the prototypes in the packs). When I sent the folks at the Billund Archives/Collections this image... they had no record or examples of these rare bricks in Billund. So we are very fortunate that these somehow made it out of the company when they did... since so much of early LEGO items were likely destroyed! And then there are these prototypes that likely never made it out of the company.... The infamous 12 spoke train wheels from the late 1960s. All the idea books of the late 1960s and early 1970s show models with the 12 spoke spoked wheels... but today NONE are known either in or outside of the factory....

OK... buying parts from an employee... hmmmm... not surprising, and not illegal. Unless the seller was not authorized to sell the parts... which would make it questionable... As for finding rare parts... I put those into 2 areas.... 1) rare parts that have never been in a produced set... via the model shops... and 2) rare old parts that have been out of production for many years, and suddenly show up in some BL store in a huge quantity... and for unknown reasons. The first type is what is being discussed here... we know that the LEGOLOANDs have been producing models for decades using colors and parts that didn't make it into regular sets. I know several collectors of old "Pat. Pend" LEGO parts from the 1960s... who have Pat. Pend bricks in green, gray, dark gray and tan. These had to have been from the model shops, which were used for old LEGOLAND models, which unfortunately have long ago been destroyed due to the weathering at the orginal LEGOLAND, which caused old models to be replace. A case in point that I am familiar with was the 1x1 round bricks (hollow stud) in Maersk blue. These all originated from the Windsor model shop. I purchased a sizeable quantity from a UK BL shop 5 years ago, when I noticed that all the sellers at that time were from the UK. The seller told me these were from the Windsor model shop, but would not go into details. Besides the LEGOLAND models... store display models also had parts that were never found in sets. In 1985 I was in a KMART store in St. Clair Shores Michigan (USA) which had a model of the Brussels Belgium Hotel de Ville (City Hall). The building was entirely built of tan LEGO bricks (not produced in a LEGO set until 1998), with a dark gray roof. At that time I knew that these were not found in LEGO sets.. and even felt a bit annoyed about that. Another type of rare parts that can often be found in European BL shops, are rare old LEGO parts not produced in decades... suddenly showing up on BL in large quantities in only 1 store... One very glaring example was a few years ago when a Dutch BL seller had 100 1x2x2 black classic windows (very rare, only found in a few early 1980s train sets). These were selling for $10 each (well below the retail price at the time of about $20-$25). One buyer snatched up all 100 for $1000. About 5 years ago I bought some very rare mint classic windows from a German seller... 100 of the 1x1x1 in yellow, 100 of the 1x2x1 in yellow, and 100 of the 1x1x2 in yellow... all of these were only found mainly in a few select 1970s train sets. I bought them for $1 each... which was about 1/3 of the going rate. I asked the German seller where he got them... well he never replied. So where do these rare old parts that were in production come from? Very likely from the old replacement services inventory found in each European country. Perhaps at some point these parts are put into the distribution chain for circulation... or some other way to get to the secondary market. So for both of these part types... model shop surplus... and spare parts service excess inventory.... how exactly do these get from TLG to the secondary market?? Having employees sell them is the obvious answer... how they did so is still the mystery... (1974... nothing against you! You have opportunities that others are dying to have... no reason to feel angry or bad about other folks being jealous about that... it's human nature! )

How many of you remember the big APRIL's FOOL rename of EUROBRICKS to AMERIBRICKS last year? That was the LEGO con of the decade... They kept us going for weeks on that foolery.... of course the started it a few days before the 1st, which made it more believable! Any sightings yet this year of some new brickery/trickery?? Hehehe....

Hello again Armando.... Yes you are correct... the 605 Fiat was NOT sold in a plastic LEGO garage. The 605 was introduced in a cardboard box in 1965. 1965 was a year in which all the older 261-268 1:87 LEGO cars were renumbered to 661-668 (no 663 however)... and the way they were sold was no longer in a plastic garage... but in a cardboard box. Here is an example... the 267 VW 1500 Limousine (1962-65) in a garage with a banderole around it... was re-issued in a cardboard box under the 667 number (1965-67)... So... 1965 is the year when the switch from plastic to cardboard, and using new set numbers happened. In addition to the 261-268, the 258 (VW Van), 259 (VW Bus), 603 (Citroen DS19), 605 (Fiat 1800) and 607 (VW Samba Bus) were introduced in a cardboard box... with the 601 (Morris Marina) coming out in 1966. BUT... and this is a big BUT.... for some odd reason... this was not the case in your home country of Portugal, Armando... the 1965 Portuguese LEGO catalog shows all the new numbers... but all the cars still in the plastic garages!! And instead of 603 Citroen and 605 Fiat in cardboard boxes... the 1965 Portuguese catalog shows these 2 with the 602/604 number... again in plastic garages... So although that black Fiat 1800 (as a 605 number) shows an incorrect box type from this Ebay auction.... that's not to say that this wasn't originally a 604 Portuguese Fiat 1800 box. Unfortunately... when the outer banderole is missing... it would make this impossible to prove! However, that being said... I have yet to find any of these rare Portugal (only) cars in their plastic garages and banderole. That's where the collectors in Portugal need to help find these!! Any of these 1965-66 Portuguese 661-668 MISB (with banderole) boxes would likely be worth over 1000 Euros each to old time LEGO collectors. And the 602 Citroen/604 Fiat... would likely be worth twice that, if not more, under those rare set numbers. And of course... a very rare black Fiat in a 604 plastic garage with banderole sealing it... would easily be worth 5000 Euros!! Portuguese collectors.... you are on notice!!

Hi Armando, welcome to the group!! The front and side indicator (turn signal indicators) 1:87 vehicle variations are known for the Bedford trucks, and also for the VW Buses, Vans and Pickups. Usually the different variations between the same models sell for the same prices, but this is not always the case, as with the VW Samba Bus (607). The other item you mention... the "reference numbers" found on the bottom of the Bedford Esso Tanker Truck... is the mold number for that particular item. Most (not all) LEGO items have mold numbers found on them. The 2x4 brick is a common example, and can have an almost infinite number of mold numbers on the underside. In this instance, the Bedford trucks were produced in much smaller quantities, and therefore would have a single digit mold number. Again, these are not a determining factor for value. On the otherhand the decals found on these vehicles are a very big determination for value. A Swedish or Norwegian decal on the 250 Bedford Esso Tanker Truck, would ordinarily be worth 10 times as much as a Danish or English one. There is a Swedish one currently on sale in Bricklink, selling for 500 Euros. Yes Bakelite was a very popular material used in some very collectible and popular Art Deco Moderne streamlined plastic radios and jewelry. The designs of old radios made of Bakelite is endless... https://www.google.c...iw=1024&bih=636 Bakelite was never used by TLG for LEGO bricks... but only by licensee Geas Konstharts of Sweden for Automatic Binding Bricks made there.

Thanks Blondie-Wan.... but now I'm really lost! http://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?v=2&colorID=48

OK... I spend a few days trying to analyze how you got to #15... I know which one you are talking about (second column, 3rd down), but there is now way I can logically come up with the number "15"??

Hi, no I've not seen this... but it has all the signs of being a SPIELZEUGRING product. TLG based products have numeric numbers on them, and sometimes mention the printer company. TLG started using print numbers in late 1961... as 3 digit numbers in ascending order. It then went to 4 digit numbers, and by the 1970s it went to 5 digit (ascending) numbers, and later the ascending numbering went to 6 digits and beyond. Here's an early example of a USA Samsonite 4 digit brochure that is TLG sanctioned. It says "FORM NO 2369", which helps identify it as dating to about 1964. Without an identifying paper item number, the MODEL TEAM TRUCK brochure was likely a product of the German Toy Association... and not TLG.

LegoGal, I'm with you.... I'd settle even for a CVS store display! This store display image brings back memories of when I was visiting relatives in Germany in the 1980s and 1990s. I remember going grocery shopping there and LEGO was sold among the groceries there... not just sets, but spare parts pack boxes as well. I used to be amazed at how cool it was finding spare parts pack boxes back then... a true anomaly for those of us in the USA, where spare parts packs were only sold by LEGO S@H (although I was amazed to find one independent toy store in Somerville NJ that sold spare parts packs back in the mid 1980s). We in the USA are so used to finding LEGO in big box toy stores and department stores... now that independent toy stores are becoming dinosaurs. I'm adding a new chapter to my LEGO DVD/download collectors guide, on LEGO toy stores... to show AFOLs today how things have change for LEGO over the last 60 years... and how different (even today) LEGO is sold in different parts of the world. Here's a few sneak previews.... Göteburg Sweden department store 1955.... Odense Denmark 1960 toy store window... USA Detroit department store window 1962... ... and the 5 decades in toy stores and window displays since then!

Well now you can buy the new LEGO House set... nestled in between the condiments aisle and laundry soap aisle, at a Billund grocery store (not so) near you! The sign in front of the display is the same as that outside the perimeter fence at the LEGO House construction site...

The number of different LEGO color bricks really took off since 2000. This is after a period of 45 years since TLG produced a lot of different brick colors. From 1949-56 TLG made a very large number of brick colors... however most of these were only 2x2 and 2x4 slotted bricks. Then from 1956 until the 1990s there only about 8 LEGO brick colors. In recent years the number of old slotted brick colors discovered has increased by quite a bit. However that number has stabilized at approximately 24 colors. Here they are... Interestingly enough, although most of these 60 year old bricks are made of Cellulose Acetate, some have been shown to be made of Bakelite... a shiny hard plastic used in electrical applications such as light bulb socket fixtures, electrical switches and outlet attachments.

When I was first researching my earliest LEGO collectors guide back in 2006, I spent a lot of time fruitlessly trying to find boxes for many of the 1950s and early 1960s 1:87 cars and trucks... but never did find any. It wasn't until many years later that I discovered that all the 250-260 LEGO Bedford Trucks, and VW buses/vans/Beetles were never sold in boxes... but sold by LEGO retailers (Europe and Australia) from retailer boxes of 5 trucks/cars... Here are some examples (from the collection of my Belgian collector friend Rohnny) of cars/trucks that were individual sales, although some did come in small plastic garages.... However, once I found that LEGO retailers sold these 1:87 vehicles from these very rare retailer boxes, I was wondering how did the retailers promote the fact that they had these retailer boxes sitting behind or underneath their display counter. It wasn't until recently that I finally found a satisfactory answer. It seems that retailers had display panels that had these 1:87 vehicles mounted to them, along with a description and a price. These display panels could be mounted on a wall or onto a countertop board. It was these display panels that let LEGO collectors know that the retailer had these 1:87 LEGO vehicles for sale out of sight somewhere... (Note: some of the cutaway plastic garages have disappeared from these display panels.) This is the first time some of these very very rare retailer display panels have appeared online. It pains me to look at this, because TLG took a group of very nice 1:87 vehicles and destroyed them by cutting off 1/3 of the vehicle, and mounting the remainder to these panels. Over $2000 worth of 1:87 vehicles were destroyed in this way!! By 1965 these cars/trucks were replaced with newer Mercedes trucks and other cars... henceforth housed in individual cardboard boxes.... thus eliminating the need for these display panels! It's items like these that you won't find in any online LEGO database!!

(Trans: first LEGO toys were wood.) Yes! LEGO wood toys, 1932-60. LEGO bricks, 1949-present. Oui ! LEGO jouets en bois 1932-60. Briques LEGO 1949-présent.

Sigh.... even I... the "keeper of the LEGO Orthodoxy".... have strayed from the true path... and had purchased some Tyco bricks back in the late 1980s. At the time I was very annoyed with the TLG folks in Enfield (I had wanted to buy thousands of parts that they were willing to sell me, but changed their mind on). So I bought 2 of the large Tyco red castles... still have the parts, which had 98% of the quality that LEGO had (back then). There were a few Tyco parts that I thought were absolutely wonderful, which I treasure greatly... namely equlateral triangle bricks... and bricks that were triangle bricks with a 1x2 brick attached to 2 sides of the triangle. You would be surprised what awesome builds you can do (in Castle) with walls that don't require a 90 degree angle!!

Or if you have Microsoft Office (necessary if you want to use MS Word)... Office Manager has most of these features as just dropdown toolbars.