LEGO Historian

The only actual military vehicle TLG ever made was a Chevrolet military truck from 1952-57, the 906 Chevrolet at 1:43 scale with steering knob on the rooftop... This was one in a series of 20 different Chevrolet trucks (such as gravel or coal dump trucks, Esso or BP tanker trucks, or Milk, Esso and BP barrel trucks, as well as Chevrolet wagons for ambulances, police wagons, aviation fuel trucks, etc). The 1:43 Chevrolet Trucks came in about 40 different models and attachments, and were sold in Denmark, Norway and a limited number in Iceland. Interestingly enough the 906 Military Truck was only sold in Denmark. Norway, which suffered much worse in WWII than did Denmark, did not sell this 906 Truck... they sold 901 thru 905... and then starting with the 907 truck and beyond. I'm currently finishing research on these unique LEGO Chevrolet Trucks and Wagons, and creating a 60 page collectors guide about them. These were never part of LEGOs "System of Play". No other LEGO vehicle has been produced since the 1950s that is remotely military... except for the antique airplane models of the 21st century.

That's a very good point! I wonder if this is the same for Maersk blue LEGO elements? Maersk blue is a trademark color of the Moller-Maersk Corp. Although some loose Maersk parts have made their way out of model shops in bulk (some parts such as Maersk blue 1x1 round bricks were never sold in sets, and only came out of the Windsor England model shop)... I bet that with Maersk sets now switching over to the medium azure color... that Maersk blue will be retired as a LEGO color.

The minifig stiffs were replaced by LEGO minfigs in 1978 (although pre-1978 introduced sets still had the older stiffs). But one interesting set... the 1592 Town Square Set of 1980-83 (UK and Dutch set versions)... came out with the last use of those minfig stiffs... the Town Square black statue with black 1x1 minifig head and stovetop hat.... as seen in the box top image in post #13.

One example that I can think of (off the top of my head) is the very old 376/560 Town House set of 1978... The 1592 Town Square set of 1980-83 is another.... I don't have any classic space minifigs with stickers applied (all of mine were printed)... but I do have some of the 590 Engine Co. No. 9 stickered minifigs.... from a sticker sheet... the button down uniform front...

The x103 Female "Pigtails" hair piece was actually the very first hairpiece of the minifig type. It originated during the first year of the "minfig stiffs" era (no arms or legs) in 1975. Sets such as 365 Wild West Set and 148 Central Station Set had these hair pieces before the 1978 introduction of regular minfigs. For male hairpieces, the 3901 of 1979 introduction was the first first mens minifig hair. From 1975-1978 men minfigi stiffs and minifigs had either the cowboy (3629), or the policeman type (3624), or the fireman type (3834) hats, and never had hair pieces until 1979.

For the most part sloped LEGO elements have a textured sloped surface. These parts almost always have a printed pattern. The reason for this is that the textured surface is a very poor surface for adhering a sticker to... they come off relatively easily, unless the sticker also attaches to the smooth side of the slopes. If given a choice between a poorly adhered sticker, or a slope with a printed pattern, the latter is usually preferable.

Sadly the golden era of LEGO printed parts by language (1955-72) are loooooooong gone....

LEGO horror stories are out there for the faint of heart.... LEGO Australia once (back in the late 1990s) took their entire inventory of spare replacement parts, and wanted to get rid of them. They tried to package some up for cheap sale to customers, but someone complained about getting just random parts. So they decided to discard the entire remaining inventory... 3 dumpsters full of new (old) LEGO parts went into the trash!! Also, somewhere I have a photo of old Miniland LEGOLAND models that were "weathered" and replaced by newer models. Someone took a photo of the resulting 6 ft. tall mound of discarded models, awaiting destruction.... What made the discarded mound even more heartbreaking is that as LEGOLAND models are replaced, they are replaced with models with more current parts. These discarded models had the old 1956-80 discontinued classic windows....

That prospect is probably a serious source of worry for TLG... when being able to distinguish between real and bootleg (versus actual fake) LEGO parts raises problems in the collectors marketplace...

Modulex morphed from a subsidiary of TLG producting architectural and industrial systems, to a separate TLG owned company doing likewise, to a company producing signs. The documentation on this is surprisingly sparse, and the majority of Modulex architectural building parts seem to date to the 1960s. There is so little information available on the Modulex company since then. But "LEGO" or "MM" logo'ed Modulex parts date mainly from the 1960s, all of which appears to originate from Europe. I've never heard of anyone in North America unearthing a trove of these parts that don't have a European provenance. Also, unlike old LEGO parts which were heavily played with, Modulex parts always seem to be in rather good condition. Much of these parts survived in great quantity, and in excellent condition. So the differentiation between new and used Modulex parts is very little. I would assume that most Modulex parts originally were owned by businesses. Later when these became unneeded, the businesses divested themselves of these parts by giving them away, usually to employees. Because of the "play potential"... one would assume that little of the Modulex was discarded. Interestingly enough, there are no Modulex "sets" such as there are LEGO sets... only what we would consider Modulex "parts packs"... sometimes grouped into a large assortment.

Thanks folks... I thought I was losing my mind!! Interestingly enough... when I used the Modulex searchword... it didn't find this particular thread...

Alright? What's going on here?? I just posted on a Modulex thread about this exact subject just a few weeks ago... but the thread has vanished? I even posted a link to my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide chapter on Modulex?? But the posts are all gone??

LEGO founder Ole Kirk Christiansen's 3 great grandchildren (Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen's 3 children)... left to right... 30 year old Agnete Kirk Thinggaard, 35 year old Thomas Kirk Kristiansen, and 36 year old Sofie Kirk Kiaer Kristiansen. Although Thomas is on the LEGO Board of Directors, none of the 3 are interested in running the family business, as did their father, grandfather, and great grandfather. As a reminder... when Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen was born in 1947... his birth certificate had a typo in the name field... Kristiansen instead of Christiansen. Later in life he started using the Kristiansen spelling. And Kjelds older sister Gunhild had 3 sons. The oldest of which is 30 year old Anders Kirk Johansen, who several years ago purchased the large 5 story palatial manor house near Copenhagen, called Rohden Manor. Anders spent many millions to restore this 42 room residence, where he and his 2011 married bride throw parties for Denmarks elite and even royalty (the Danish Crown Prince and his wife are family friends).... And here's the royalty connection. Just outside of a reception this image shows Sofie Kirk Kiaer Kristiansen and her husband Christopher Kiaer Thomsen (right) along with the Danish Crown Prince Frederik and his wife Princess Mary (left)... The Kristiansen/Johansen connection to the Danish Royal Family is not just friendship... but also vis a vis being the Godparents for their kids. Being from the Kristiansen/Johansen family... richest in Denmark... it also has its' social perks! One of the reasons so much about the LEGO founding family is so obscure is because they really do like to keep to themselves and not be in the limelight. However, when you're Denmarks richest family, and socialize with the Danish Royals... it becomes very difficult to stay out of Danish high society magazines... which is where much of my research has been done. Lots of Google translate from Danish to English!

Royalty is a bit much as a description... but the LEGO owners do hob-knob with Danish royalty. I was doing research for my next forray in LEGO history for my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide DVD download... and came across some new things that are still rather unknown among most AFOLs. Everyone knows that 66 year old Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen is the 3rd generation TLG owner. He and his wife Camilla have 3 children... 36 year old Sofie Kirk Kiaer Kristiansen, 35 year old Thomas Kirk Kristiansen, and 30 year old Agnete Kirk Thinggaard.... The 3 children each own 1/3 of Kirkbi AG, the sister company of Kirkbi A/S (the owner of TLG) This gets really complicated, but the end result is that the 3 children each owns 12.5% of the LEGO group of companies. Kjeld and Camilla.... (note: Kjeld just celebrated his 66th Birthday yesterday... December 27)... Kjeld's mother, the nearly 90 year old dowager LEGO lady herself.. Edith Christiansen is shown here with her daughter (KKK's older sister) 67 year old Gunhild Kirk Johansen, along with her husband Mogans Johansen. Gunhild and Mogans have 3 sons. Edith is the widow of the late (1920-1995) Godtfred Kirk Christiansen (managing director and owner of LEGO Co.), and daughter-in-law of the late (1891-1958) LEGO founder Ole Kirk Christiansen. Here are Gunhild and Kjeld exactly 60 years ago in 1953... on the box top of a (1953-55 era) 700/3A basic LEGO set...

Sadly... automation only went so far in keeping major LEGO production in Denmark and Connecticut... Even with a totally automated production and packaging system, it wasn't enough to prevent the production of LEGO from offshoring to Mexico and Hungary/Czech Republic... with specialized minifig production going to China.

In the early days (1949-56) of slotted LEGO bricks, MRA (Mold Release Agent) was used to easily get the LEGO bricks out of their mold. In this image (the right column of bricks is modern) we see some of the MRA as a residual color on the older bricks... easily seen on white and yellow bricks... (Image from my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide chapter on LEGO Plastics.)

Sigh.... packaging LEGO sets has come a long way since the 1950s and 1960s....

Well since this thread is open... I thought I would ask my question on it... I had a question about the LEGO FABULAND tree, which comes in the regular (7 holes) tree and the printed (7 holes) tree. However... recently when I was putting together a chapter on FABULAND in my Unofficial LEGO Sets Parts Collectors Guide (DVD download)... I came across a FABULAND tree I had never seen before. I was wondering if anyone here had seen this, and if so, could tell me anything about this apparent prototype FABULAND tree. Thanks for any information! Gary Istok

Post edited... problem solved...

Your tube count is off.... for 2x bricks the formula is......... (STUD COUNT / 2) - 1 = TUBE COUNT

I am not surprised by this bootlegging. However, TLG and their deep pocket licensees such as LucasFilms, Marvel and others, are awash in the cash they made off of these licensed minifigs, and I'm sure they have sent their legal bloodhounds out to close down as many of these as they can find. The CMFs are a billion dollar gravy train for TLG and the licensees, so they're certainly working overtime on this problem. I'm not going to lose any sleep over this... and I doubt that the TLG employees that worked on these aren't either. After all they're just hourly paid employees that make these megabuck designs for TLG. Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, his 3 children Thomas, Sofie and Agnes, and Star Wars George Lucas are the billionaires that are suffering the consequences on this... Sorry I sound so callous... but the reality of the situation makes me so... P.S. Since his sister sold him her share of Kirkbi A/S (the parent company of TLG) in 2007... Kjeld has given each of his 3 children a 12.5 % stake in LEGO, while he retains 62.5 %. They're worth a combined $7.3 billion. I guess that the rest of us that aren't worth 10 digits... we have enough other stuff to worry about....

Just got some newer higher quality LEGO images... The German 1957-62 700 Wooden Box sets... you won't find these itemized like this on any reference site... This wooden boxed set has a 2 piece Masonite top which has a 1950s Town Plan board scene on the underside of the 2 pieces (when put together)... German box types... upper left 1957, upper right 1958, lower left 1959, lower right 1960-62... Contents.... Box top 2 piece Masonite board (Germany only)... 2 piece Masonite board layout.... Only the German 700 set has room for a 2 piece sliding lid in the wooden box (left). The 700 set of all other European countries only has a 1 piece lid (right) with no Town Plan scene on the underside.

At first I was going to make the point that sometimes TLG will change something because it might reduce the need for another production run of a particular (1x8 black plate?) part. However, this scenario would not be known when the instructions are designed and printed... so increasing the versatility of usage for secondary type LEGO models could be a more reasonable answer. There is at least 1 known example where TLG did take some action to avoid another production run of a particular part. That was in the 2006 version of the 10152 Maersk Ship. TLG was almost out of Maersk blue 2x4 bricks for that set... so they contacted the model shops to cover the shortage of these, rather than making another production run. The only way that we know this to be fact is because the Maersk blue 2x4 bricks that were obtained from the model shops... was because the four 2x4 Maersk blue bricks in many of these 2006 10152 sets date to a pre 1990 design (no cross supports on the underside... they are 3001old rather than 3001 mold types). However... this scenario may likely have been because TLG wasn't sure that another Maersk model was in the future lineup for TLG.

The problem with describing things based on their function, is because with using so much SNOT (studs-not-on-top) techniques today in many LEGO sets, that many items have many functions. This is true even without SNOT usage. For example, so many of the Modular sets have parts used in ways that most of us would not have envisioned... such as the lower 2x2 part of a 2x2 turntable can be used as a building architectural embellishment for an English Tudor half-timbering effect. Also... the descriptions of parts aren't always apparent at first... such as your 1x1 clup example. Since that clip has no studs on top... it is not considered a modified plate... but instead a modified tile. It would be a 1x1 tile with a clip "modification" protruding from the top of the element. All modified plates have at least a stud somewhere on the top of the element... while modified tiles do not. Even the 1x2 jumper plate... while I have always assumed that it was a tile. But the fact that it is a tile with a central stud... changes the characteristic of it to be a plate... since all modified plates have studs somewhere on the element. Also, interestingly enough we don't always use the same nomenclature as TLG does. One example is "sloped bricks". TLG often calls these "roof tiles". But this name is foreign to so many AFOLs. That may partly be because the in some countries real roof tiles are hardened terra cotta physical tiles... in other countries they are dark slate slabs, some countries they are light colored stone slabs or even thatch... and yet again in other countries they are bendable tar material. So calling them tiles seems foreign to so many of us... while the term "slopes" has a more universal appeal.

Thanks rollerbones! What astonished me with Modulex was the fact that there are so many different Modulex parts in Bricklink under the decorated tiles heading. But then again... today the company that Modulex morphed itself into is now the worlds leading sign company! And speaking of signs.. the Youblisher format that shows my LEGO guide chapter isn't the best way to show it. Here's a chapter on LEGO printed bricks that shows how my collectors guide is seen when downloaded to a computer... http://www.1000stein...ter 48 Vol2.pdf