LEGO Historian

Yes, there were some exceptions... those didn't come to mind though... but in 1985 I was at a Detroit area Kmart store, and saw a huge LEGO model of the Gothic style Brussels Belgium Town Hall (Hotel de Ville).... all made of tan and dark gray LEGO bricks!!!

Well since someone opened the LEGO "Pandora's Box"... let me add a few things from a historical and also sideline perspective (I stayed out of the great Bley War of 2004). And forgive me if I wander around on peripheral subjects... I've got too much to say.. For about 1/2 century the ABS (and prior to that in the 1960s... Cellulose Acetate) were produced for TLG by German chemical giant Bayer GmbH (the aspirin maker). Bayer is one of the worlds largest chemical companies, and had been making Cellulose Acetate LEGO parts, under the brand name "Cellidor" in the 1950s and 1960s. And when the switch to a more stable plastic was introduced in 1962-63, Bayer was the producer of the ABS plastic that replaced Cellidor. From 1963-73 the red and yellow ABS plastic was a bit of a darker color than it was after 1973. This was due to the colorization process by Bayer included Cadmium... a heavy metal. Red and yellow appeared to be more difficult to color... so the addition of Cadmium eased the process. However by the early 1970s... envoronmentalists and TLG themselves decided that having LEGO parts in land fills over long periods of time (centuries?) would not be good for the envoriment, and therefore removed most Cadmium from the colorization process. (Note: recent testing of modern LEGO elements still show trace levels of Cadmium in some LEGO colors, but the colors would not leach out of the bricks.) Gray LEGO elements had been used sparingly by TLG from 1953-62... in very few slotted bricks, but mainly in LEGO 10x20 thick baseplates. Then in late 1962 small plates started coming out in gray. This was followed by the large gray baseplate (50x50 studs) in 1964, and other larger gray plates and other (specialty) parts. The use of gray in regular LEGO bricks was introduced in the very rare and highly collectible 1650 Maersk Line Container set of 1974 that had a large number of 2x3 bricks in gray. However it wasn't until the late 1970s (when 32x32 roadplates were introduced, and the 50x50 baseplate was replaced by the 48x48 size)... that LEGO bricks were produced in regular sets (the 722 Basic Set was one of the first), as well as the new Technic (1977) and Space (1979) sets. Also, in Europe LEGO bricks spare parts packs in gray were introduced, but not in USA/Canada. Then by the mid 1980s the Castle System switched from the (375/6075) Yellow Castle to gray castles sets. So gray became more common in sets... but the gray spare parts packs were still only found in Europe. Now fast forward to 2004. The new gray was introduced. Well you know what hit the fan... and because the number of gray parts had always been greater in Europe than in North America... Europeans as a whole were "more" impacted by the switch to the new gray, although the outrage was on both sides of the Atlantic (and elsewhere). So there were some very very nasty fights on Lugnet, the main LEGO worldwide LEGO fan site back then. If anything... I do believe that it exacerbated the "diaspora" or proliferation of more LEGO fan sites, although that was also caused by other issues on Lugnet. So the goodwill that TLG was trying to achieve back in 2001 by starting LEGO Direct... the first AFOL related acknowledgement of the fact that there are adult LEGO collectors out there (TLG wasn't the fastest horse in the race on that one)... was sort of damaged in 2004 by many AFOLs who were outraged and felt betrayed by the color change. Now... the color changes happened to brown, dark gray and gray... but only gray had been made for many decades... brown and dark gray were of more recent vintage (late 1990s) and were not as impactful as gray was on the general AFOL community. And what made it worse was the fact that LEGO Town and other systems were nowhere as impacted as were the LEGO Castle, LEGO Space and Technic Systems. So there was a lot of arguing back and forth among the LEGO community over how big of a deal the change was. So Europeans were more impacted than North Americans (no gray parts packs sold here), and LEGO Town and other systems were not as impacted as were Space, Castle and Technic. Ugly ugly battles were fought in the online community in 2004 (and beyond). And like I said... this was almost like the "Tower of Babel" of LEGO... people started going off and starting other LEGO related fan sites as well. Now go to 2006. What happened around that time was TLG was loosing money in the mid 2000-2010 era. One way to cut costs was to move production of LEGO to cheaper sites... such as Mexico and the Czech Republic (China came later for Minifigs). Another way to save money was to stop buying colorized LEGO pellets from Bayer... which TLG had done for over 1/2 century. The best way for TLG to do that was to stop the storage of vast increases in the number of LEGO colors (remember by 1990 there were only about 8 LEGO colors, by 2006 there were over 40). So TLG stopped the importation of precolored LEGO pellets from Bayer, and just bought the milky clearish-white pellets from multiple sources and started handling the colorization process themselves at production time. So in doing their own coloring of the parts... using uncolored LEGO pellets from multiple sources, and adding color at multiple sites, with slight variants (temperature, quantity, etc.) the quality of "even-ness" of coloring of parts began to suffer. One of the first big sets that saw this problem was the color purple in the first Harry Potter Knight Bus. The colors became a problem... but TLG greatly improved their "replacement parts" service to compensate for this. And that is basically where we are today with the problems of variances in LEGO colors... it is a problem... and TLG will provide replacement parts when so requested. Well I've been long winded enough... but I think I covered the major issues... Oh... one last thing... trans-colored parts are not made of ABS plastic (although they were made of Cellulose Acetate prior to the mid 1960s)... ABS is not trans-clear... so Polycarbonate is used to produce those colors. Gary Istok P.S. I've pretty much gave away 1/2 chapters worth of information on the next version of my LEGO DVD... only available as a desktop download for future issues... with many new chapters... which will be out in about in 6 months and will be FREE to current DVD/download owners. I've been in weekly contact with the TLG Archives/Collections folks... and they have been finding many rare and interesting items never seen before... because I now finally have scans of old retailer/customer catalogs going back to DAY 1 of LEGO... 1949.... and been asking them to look for something.. and then we discuss what it is, where it was produced, and how/when it was used (a symbiotic relationship! ). Many new items in the next version, some never released.... sorry for the shameless plug!

Have you been to LEGOLAND Windsor? I don't know the differences between the parks)... but Billund (the town) and the farming communities of Jutland don't hold a candle to the charms of Windsor and the River Thames as far as Oxford! Windsor, has a very quainte medieval town charm... with its' nearly thousand year old castle... that is unbelievably magnificent... (been there before their LEGOLAND opened). Not trying to dismiss Billund here... but I spent 3 summers at Oxford... and England rocks!!

Interesting hypothesis... thanks for the link Fugazi. I knew that the TV panel print was underneath the WDR panels. Although you would have to open the box to see if the "WDR" panels were inside... it would be interesting to find out if there are any sealed polybags from one of these sets to prove this theory incorrect. There is only 1 occurrence of a non-TLG produced promotional item that I can think of at the moment. That was back in the 1960s, when an Austrian automotive company named "STEYR-DIESEL" bought 30 1:87 white/green #258 VW Vans, and added their own company's water decal to them as promotions. (From my LEGO Collectors Guide 1:87 Chapter...) Even though these were not produced this way by TLG... it doesn't stop them from being very valuable on the secondary market!

I just removed this from another thread, since I'm waiting to hear back from the folks at the TLG Archives... One set that had 2 variations came out in 1989... the 6661 MOBILE TV STUDIO SET (see images below). This set came with a "TV" pattern on two 1x4x3 blue panels, and two1x1 yellow tiles with the number "2" on them. The box and instructions also showed these parts. This set would have been just another regular LEGO set, if it weren't for a German TV Station... WDR (Westdeutsche Rundfunk) is a Television station located in Cologne (Köln) in the German state of Northrhine Westphalia (Nordrhein Westfalen). This TV station may have ordered a quantity of these 6661 sets for a TV station promotion. The specific reason for it is not known (yet). This set, possibly produced for a promotion, had the two 1x4x3 panels printed with the "WDR" logo of that German TV station. However, it appears that TLG printed the WDR emblem "over" the existing "TV" emblem on the 2 panels, with the outline of the (regular sets) TV emblem very faintly visible underneath. Also... the only difference between the regular set and the promotional set are the 2 "WDR" blue panels. This set came with the same yellow 1x1 tiles with "2" on them. This promotional set had the same box and instructions (showing "TV" on the blue panels) as the regular 6661 set. This WDR version of the 6661 appears to be very rare, since their existence was only recently found out. So the production distribution of this variation was likely limited to northwestern Germany. A 6661 set owner would have to break the seal, and open the box in order to see which of the versions he had. I just sent this image to the LEGO Archives, and they seem to be unaware of this variation. So they are investigating. Maybe they will find out just how many were produced, and for what exact reason?? Fugazi.... I know you will likely want to move this over to the LEGO TOWN section of Eurobricks... (maybe after we get an answer from the LEGO Archives?) I just posted it here as a set of "General Interest".

LMAO (no pun intended)... you and Faefrost must have been reading my mid when I first saw that sign.... I remember passing by a University of Michigan building in Ann Arbor Michigan, and seeing a sign for the first time.... "Natatorium"... which means bath house or pool house... I guess in this day and age it could also mean "Lubritorium"..... Then again... you gotta love those ancient Roman Latin words... such as "Vomitorium"....

I was going to do one of these models... the one on the 1958-60 Basic Sets boxes. This image is from a 1958-59 Retailer Glued Display model catalog. But thism model is so windows intensive... So I just put the lot of windows on Ebay today, since I decided to build something larger scale. But it's amazing how among all the classic windows the smallest ones are the most in demand... maybe it's cause they're the most versatile...

Just put up hundreds of rare parts (including very cheaply priced mint rare windows) up on Ebay... http://www.ebay.com/sch/istokg/m.html?item=150990861846&pt=Building_Toys_US&hash=item2327c1b616&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

Some of the nicest Service Stations TLG ever made were the first 2... the 1956-66 310 Esso Station, and the 1966-70 325 Shell Station. The streamlined Art Deco look of the Esso Station has a nice curve to it. The double doored Shell Station was also a very nice design, which came in 2 varieties... with solid yellow doors (shown below) as found in Britain and Australia, and trans-clear with yellow outlines, as found in contiental Europe. Neither of these stations was sold separately in USA/Canada... although the 725 Town Plan set of both countries had the Esso Station model in the set. These images are from my 2,800 page Unofficial Sets/Parts Collectors Guide as DVD/download in the chapter on Gas Station and Garage Sets and Accessories (still found in the Eurobricks Bazaar).

Rolf, I was thinking about creating a "NO STARCH PRESS" publisher book, like Allan Bedford did.... with soft cover... but all the images would have to be b/w. Coming up with a 280 page or so book would probably take me about a week! But then I'd have to leave out so much....

Rolf.... thanks for the recommendation... the original document is in 77 MS Word 2007 documents, individually PDF'ed and linked together thru the PDF Table of Contents. I was just checking and it did say it was MS Word 2007 compatible....

Another glued display item... a 1960s skyscraper made of LEGO... now restored..... There will be other new chapters as well... with the DVD download currently at 688MB... the new version will probably approach 1 Gigabyte and over 3,700 pages!! That's a lot of LEGO history!

I agree... grandiose is not going to work well with Cuusoo. I build a MOC about 10 years ago... and just today submitted it to Cuusoo. Not expecting it to make the finals or anything, but I thought I would put my toes into the water. About 4 years ago I showed the model to a lead LEGO designer who bought one of my LEGO Collectors Guides on CD (now as a download)... and he said that it could never be produced by TLG because it mixed Belville parts in with regular LEGO parts. Well it appears a lot has changed in 4 years... since that Belville fancy arch is now available in LEGO sets. But I decided to enter the MOC anyway, since it was for the Modular's line... which have always been very expensive and parts intensive. I kept my model streamlined (no frills or Minifigs), so in case it did make it (which I highly doubt)... it would be available at a really decent price, and some collectors would want to buy multiple sets to build larger versions of it. My Cuusoo contribution (still in the evaluation phase for 72 hours)..... "Victorian Gazebo for Modular Sets" is a Queen Anne style Victorian gazebo with spindles and Victorian "Gingerbread" parts... Not looking for votes here... just wanted to show it. I figured everyone's Modular's cookie cutter exact copies anyway... so if a set like this was produced... then each buyer could tailor his/her "village green" gazebo with their own Minifigs, greenery, lamp posts and fencing.... to make them unique. Plus at only 113 parts... 78 of which are a virtual "system" of 45 degree sloped bricks in blue for the slate roof, some folks might want to buy multiple copies to make a pavilion rather than a mere gazebo or bandshell. But even that would be presumptuous of me, since an inexpensive addition to the Modular series has about a snowball's chance in hell of getting votes....

Your kind words are much appreciated! Answer to your question.... 1) I'm older than dirt.... lol.... actually I got my first LEGO set at Christmas 1960 (a year before LEGO came online in the USA), from my uncle in Germany. Excluding the few years I've been in my dark ages (circa 1970-79)... I've been a collector for over 40 years. 2) my decades of knowledge about LEGO didn't hurt. Since 1998 I've been posting online about my knowledge of LEGO on websites such as RTL (Rec.ToysLEGO, Lugnet, Bricklink, Eurobricks, Brickblogger, 1000steine, as well as BrickJournal). I've been mentioned in newspaper articles... I am the only AFOL mentioned in the 1987 book THE WORLD OF LEGO TOYS, and have been on TV. 3) I have been in direct contact with the TLG Archives and Collections people since 2006, when I wrote my first 1000 page CD (Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide).... this original CD (covering the late 1950s to 1970s) spurred me on to write additional expanded CDs... and my latest was a DVD... (at 688MB... it was too big to be a CD) which goes back to "Day 1" of LEGO bricks (1949-1990s). At someone's suggestion, I was asked to make an online version of it... and now anyone who has either the DVD or online version will get future online updates for free. I attempted to try the kindle route... but due to the high resolution 6000 images I have in the DVD/download (with 1/3 million words in 73 chapters).... it would have required 14 Kindle books!!! 4) my contacts with the TLG Archives has gotten to be a weekly occurrence, since there is so much information in the sparse early years of the LEGO Archives (1949-70)... that I have been helping them complete their missing information, and they have been helping me, by sending me some very rare items (as seen in this thread and others on Eurobricks).... that I am using in my updates to the LEGO DVD/dowload (next version coming out in a few months... free to current DVD/download owners, discounted to previous CD owners). If you look in EBAY and search LEGO Collectors Guide... the image that shows all the wooden boxes is mine... and it lists the 73 chapters and over 200 subchapters that are in the guide. (NOTE: Eurobrick rules justifiably forbid me from providing a direct link.) 5) Last and certainly not least... there are over 100 LEGO collectors worldwide that I consider my LEGO friends who have contributed and helped provide images (I provide credits) that have helped me with my endeavor... and it is much to their credit that my encyclopedic reference guide is due. Gary Istok Still a kid at heart... P.S. http://www.brickwiki.info/wiki/Gary_Istok

I have a bazillion 2x2 45 degree slopes in trans clear.... and have been adding to this assortment of this size since the 1980s.... it would be sooooooooooo nice if TLG made this part in 2x2 double convex (outside corner)... so that I could actually make a glass pyramid similar to the one at the Louvre... (used as a skylight).... http://upload.wikime...dia_Commons.jpg I don't necessarily need the 1/2 pyramid peaks in trans-clear... a single 2x2 tile in that color would be OK.... but geeze... they've been making those 2x2 regular 45 degree slopes since time immemorial.... it would be so nice to have a nice trans clear pyramid!!!!!

Duq.... you took the words right out of my mouth.... AMEN to that!!! Also... they can add blue to the color palette. From the grapevine.... I understand that this part will be coming out in sand green pretty soon... but it's not one of the colors that a lot of people have a large quantity of other 33 degree parts in.....

Thanks lighingtiger.... boy I'm going to really have to brush up on my MS Paint... use it all the time, but never with such results!!! Also "Lubritorium" caught my eye... and I actually had to Google it... apparently it's a word that has fallen from common usage here in the USA... must still be in common use in Australia. Here we now call them "Oil Change & Lube"....

As rare as the Mosaik sets are... there is a pair of LEGO sets that are even rarer.... the 700/4 and 700/5 Automatic Binding Bricks set that was introduced in 1952 Denmark. From 1949-52 TLG was only producing larger 700/1, 700/2 and 700/3 basic sets. But TLG found this example of a 700/5 Automatic Binding Bricks Set in their warehouse. This set (nor the slightly larger 700/4) has never been found anywhere on the secondary market.... This 1952 Danish sheet was sent to Danish retailers announcing the introduction of the 2 new sets... and 1952-53 Danish LEGO catalogs mention the set numbers... but none have ever been found... Either the sets were not introduced in 1952.... or (more likely).... they were introduced in the next years (1953) box style in those 2 sizes (700/4 and 700/5) a year earlier. They are the 2 blue boxes in this series of all the 1953 LEGO box designs from the biggest to smallest (counterclockwise... 700/1, 700/2, 700/3, 700/3A, 700/4, 700/5, 700/6, 700A). From Chapter 5 of my 2800 page Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide download.

Very nice Streetscape!!! I love it... the signage really makes it very realistic. Where did you get those signs? I've always felt that the coolest actual1950s LEGO design was in the Town Plan scale.... 1956-65 Esso Service Station... it was the set that was the inspiration for the macaroni brick, and looked really awesome with the streamlined curves.... Here's a box image of a Danish, German and Swedish box type with basically the same set (from my 2800 page LEGO Collectors Guide on DVD/download)...

Who would have ever guessed that the 15 or so 1300/1301 Mosaik sets sitting on the left side of this 1955 Swedish Department Store photograph are worth about $30,000 combined today?? Also, above the LEGO sign above the counter is a display of some displays of LEGO Mosaik designs....

Actually there is a good new/bad news sort of answer to that.... The bad news is that TLG discards all of their LEGOLAND Miniland buildings after many winters of cold damage, and summers of Ultraviolet light damage. Somewhere in my 10,000 image collection I have a tragic picture of a large trash mound of discarded Miniland buildings waiting for the trashman to come a crush it in the garbage truck for crushing and disposal... Some models have been recovered by collectors and have been given to or are on loan to museums. Karl-Heinz Vogt of Germany is one collector who has done LEGO display model museum displays, such as this one... However most of the models that were meant for indoor display are often still around in peoples houses or garages... but often times neglected or damaged. I have a good Dutch collector friend by the name of Henk... and he finds (mostly damaged) old LEGO models... and restores them with vintage parts. For him it is a labor of love, and I applaud him for spending all the effort and time to do so. My LEGO DVD/download shows dozens of his models (soon to be even more in the next free upgrade).... unfortunately (as seen in the Palace Cinema pictures above)... the original parts have often yellowed, or in the case of Cellulose Acetate parts... they warp with age due to the fact that Cellulose Acetate is not a stable plastic like ABS is. ABS will discolor easier than Cellulose Acetate... but it will not warp. Here is an example of the many many buildings that Henk has found in garages, flea markets and lord knows where... and is lovingly restoring them..... this is a brightly colored version of the (now named) Elizabeth Tower, where Big Ben is housed from original bad condition to restoration.... Undergoing restoration..... And finally glued restoration.... You know... all of this discussion about restoration of old historic models has given me the idea of devoting an entire LEGO DVD chapter to Henk and his restoration work (and results) of his labor of love of gluing "wayward": and decrepit display models back to their original condition... using vintage parts and going to the painstaking trouble of gluing the parts back together. (Me and my other old collector friends affectionately call Henk "the gluesniffer"... since most people find gluing LEGO appalling. But since it was done by TLG, and since the models were mostly still glued together, we don't mind his use of glue. So just like I did Jim Hughes of the USA and his research into the LEGO company and LEGO sales (I devote Chapter 73 of the LEGO DVD/download to Jim)... and to Maxx and Arnoud of the Netherlands and their affection of 2x4 bricks and Pat. Pend. LEGO parts (Chapter 49 - LEGO bricks is devoted to them).... I am going to create in the next LEGO DVD version 2 (free to current DVD owners, and at a discount to LEGO CD owners)... a chapter on Henks "labor of LOVE" in preserving the model history of LEGO display models. And that large Houses of Parliament model in white? Henk has started collecting white 1x1x2 small classic windows in preparation of finding that model one day, with plans to restore it...

Right you are! Red slopes (2x2 and 2x4 slopes and peaks) were first introduced in 1958, with the other sizes introduced in 1959, and all 13 sizes (including that "L" 2x2 peak that was discontinued in 1972) were introduced in blue in 1960. It wasn't until circa 1970 that other color peaks came into production very slowly (and selectively). All the roof bricks on the Houses of Parliament are just regular studded bricks... which under the spotlighted part of the image makes them look like sloped white bricks... but they're not. The "gray artwork" version of the image shows the normal brick roof better.

From 1960-66 TLG produced a #238 Building Idea Book, which came in about 11 different variations over those 7 years, some in many different language versions. One of these was the 1963-65 International (no writing) versions of this idea book. One of the images that was shown in this booklet was of an image of the British Houses of Parliament (Palace of Westminster). This image looked gray, and looked like just artwork... Since gray bricks were not produced by TLG in the 1960s (just gray plates)... I had always thought this was not a photograph. It was only later that I realized that the shadows of the base of the tall square Victoria Tower were indeed real... that it convinced me that this was just an over-colorized display model. Well recently a LEGO friend found a 1960s image of this model... from a USA Department Store display... This very beautiful white model of the Houses of Parliament really consumed a bazillion 1x1x2 white windows... which at over $1 each in mint condition would make for a very very expensive rebuild today. This image inspired me to add a huge chapter to the next version of my LEGO Collectors Guide DVD/download... with about 400 images of old historic models that I have in my archives (some of which are already displayed in it). New updates will be free for current DVD owners, and at a discount for old CD owners... in the Bazaar... Of course some images will be from LEGO ads, such as the very first PALACE CINEMA of 1963... which is available in both advertising format... and glued (aged) display model....

I think I figured out a few things about the rarity of this set. 1955 was the year that TLG really started producing a lot of spare parts packs in different sizes. So they didn't provide a lot of parts to this set, expecting the buyer to purchase some of the small parts parts packs to supplement this set. Then the cardboard insert at the back of the set could be turned upside down, and more small parts for building mosaics could be stored there. Only 1 problem... this set was NOT at all popular. So a lot of retailers likely sent their stock of these sets back to TLG. In turn TLG probably reused the parts in other sets and parts packs, reused whatever cardboard partitions they could, and likely burned the boxes for heat in the winter time (remember TLG wasted NOTHING!!). This may explain why I only know of the existence of 2 of these sets.

Very very nice... I am very impressed with the amount of work and creativity you've shown!