LEGO Historian

Thanks for that "piece of the puzzle" Sixoh!! I didn't know that... But some other parts that were unique to that set were the 4x4 curved railing and 1x4 curved railing fence pieces... both in red. The cuved red railings only came out in 4 sets, the first one (3451 Sopwith Camel Airplane) produced in 2001 (6 years after the "nonintroduction" of the 6500 set). The straight red railings only came out in 1 set... the 2004 introduced #7075 Captain Redbeards Pirate Ship.... a full 9 years later. There are some other unique pieces from that set that were never introduced.... such as 1x2x3 low slope and 1x4x3 low slope white slopes with a red tile pattern. These are only known in white with a purple tile pattern, from the 4161 pink plastic Carrying Case of the same year (1995) as the ill fated 6500. Very unusual!!

One of my favorite LEGO E-Book chapters is Chapter 18 - LEGO Sets/Parts Not Put Into Production. Many of these made it as far as being added to LEGO catalogs... but that was it... they have never been found in production... so one of 2 things happened.... 1) TLG changed their mind about releasing the set after the catalogs were printed.... or 2) they used old parts images, not realizing that the final scheduled for production parts had changed since the images were created. In all areas it appears to be a timing issue, or an issue with using old stock or Idea Book images that did not match what was actually produced for sale. Here's some examples of sets not put into production.... 1) 1995 #9500 Holdiay Village Set.... shown in 1995 UK Catalogs... but never found in production.... 2) The famous 1979 Hospital Set... in the diarama of produced 1979 town sets... it looks nice along with all the other sets that were produced in 1979... however this hospital set (which I and others were looking for back in 1979-80... only to never find it).... because it was never released for production... and in this case it was never given a set number!! That rectangular HOSPITAL sign was also never released... although if any of these ever made it out of the factory.... the would be worth quite a bit!! 3)Another example of a set not put into production was one (of 2) that I became obsessed with! That was the #077 set of 1971-72. In 1967 the #070 set was introduced throughout Europe and Britain/Ireland/Australia (never USA/Canada). This was part of the 010 thru 080 basic set series of the late 1960s, and by 1969 the set had changed numbers and boxes to 011 thru 088 (although there was a different 010 basic set still sold), and the 088 set came later to replace the 080 Town/Train Set. However... the 070 set never changed numbers to 077.... except for Germany! The Billund Archives state that the 077 set was sold in Germany (only) from March 1, 1971 until Dec. 31, 1972. At the same time all other countries continued production of the 070 set until Dec. 31, 1972. Well when you look at continent European catalogs of 1971-72... most show the upper left image of box and model with the 070 number. In German catalogs they show the same box and models... but with the 077 number. I was skeptical about this... since it made no sense to change the set number (without changing the box or contents)... and only change it for Germany... Europe's largest LEGO market. Well to date no 077 set has ever been found on the secondary market... and no 077 set exists in the Billund Vault. So that made me even more suspicious.... Why had no 077 set ever been found, when Germany is Europe's largest LEGO market... surely one should have appeared by now? Well my suspicions were finally confirmed 2 years ago... when a good acquaintance from Connecticut USA bought a MISB 070 set from a German collector. When he opened it up... it contained a 1972 German catalog. For me, this was the proverbial smoking gun!! So here's my take... the 1971 and 1972 catalogs were produced with the 077 listed in the 1971 and 1972 German catalogs. And the Billund Archives updated their records to show that this set was indeed sold in Germany. But someone in the production department decided it would be dumb to re-number an existing set that was already in production as 070. So somewhere in Billund... there was a failure to communicate between the departments... and only the 070 set was ever produced... regardless of what the catalogs and archives said! Now many years later... still no 077 set has ever been seen... 4) The 1237 Service Station Set.... this set shows up in 1956 Swedish and Norwegian catalogs. It shows as a 1/2 Esso Service Station. It appears that the 1236 Garage set was able to be added to a 1237 Service Station set, and when put together, you would have the 1310 (also later 310)... Esso Service Station. Well the 1236 (later 236) Garage set WAS produced... as was the 1310 (later 310) Esso Service Station that combined the 2 buildings. But no Swedish or Norwegian 1237 set has ever been found. I do believe that this set was in the design stages, and the catalogs were produced... before it was decided that why produce the 1237 set, when the 1236 and 1310 sets already rendered the need for a 1237 set redundant. A few examples could possibly exist... but I doubt it. This 1956 never produced set was the first of many sets that made it into catalogs... but not into production. The Billund Archives have no information on this 1237 set... There are many other sets that were never produced, and are in my DVD/download 2,800 page E-Book..... ________________________________________ Now for some parts that were never produced..... 1) One of my favorite parts never released to production were the old red train small spoked wheels with 12 spokes instead of the 10 spoke spoked wheels everyone has! The 12 spoke variety show up in early 70s idea books, such as 240, 241 and 242... but none have every been seen on the secondary market. I would hope that at least a few made it out of the Billund Factory... but perhaps workers for the most part weren't privy to their uniqueness... and they may have all ended up destroyed... a sad scenario! Here a few images of them with 12 spokes.... from the 241 ideas book. The best way to look at them is as though you were looking at the face of a clock... line up 12-3-6-9 o'clock... and you won't need to count them all. 2) LEGO road signs for UK/Ireland/Australia.... The UK/Ireland/Australia catalogs of 1962-65 show striped road signs with the words "Coming Soon"... and the parts pack box inner drawer also shows them... but none have ever been found. These would have been produced by British LEGO Ltd.'s Wrexham Wales plant... but the labor intensiveness of painting black stripes just must not have appealed to the Brits... so this idea never came to fruition... although no one must have told the catalog and box making folks at British LEGO Ltd..... 3) Another part not put into production was a 1970s man's minifig hair piece. It resembles the girls hair without the pony tail. Never been found in any set... although it has been spotted in catalogs... 4) and then there are these royal minifig figures of recent times... never been put into production.... There's dozens and dozens of other rare items that never made it into production... this is just a sample teaser from my E-Book... still available for download! ;-)

Funny you should say that last line... it's sort of my motto on my new DVD/download/E-Book.... ... and as for those 2x8 and 2x10 trans clear bricks... there's fewer than 10 combined available on Bricklink.... they sell for up to $32!!

Thanks Shadows.... unlike the previous versions, this newest much expanced on... as an E-Book download (not a Kindle product) but just an interlinked 83 PDF chapters (as on previous CDs and the DVD))... will have future updates available for folks to download for free. That's why I'm trying to discourage DVDs (especially with all the new technology Laptops and PCs that are eliminating CD/DVD drives)... and make the new E-Book version (both PC and MAC compatible) of my comprehensive guide as a "living document" with future updates and new chapters (bringing it up to the 21st Century).... rather than a static CD/DVD where updates can only be had by buying the next version. Also having a complete 688MB copy on your computer desktop saves having to retrieve a CD or DVD (if you can find it... some previous purchasers told me they lost or misplaced their copy!! ) and it is as easy to get to as is the internet! So when I said this was my last CD/DVD many months ago... I did not mean that it was the last work on my LEGO sets/parts/items research.... it was just the last time that folks will have to purchase it. Once folks have the new expanded version... all future updates (including new chapters and newly discovered rare items)... will be free for the download for current (and future) owners.... so I'm going from a static unchanging guide... to a fluid ever changing and expanding (probably in 6 month increments) document with more added in the future.... I may get to 2012 yet! Plus one of the advantages of having an online reference source (most LEGO books are nothing more than picture pages put together with a timeline)... is that I can include external links that provide things that a book just cannot do... such as Chapter 71... "LEGO TV Commercials (1957-1999). Here's a sample of part of that chapter... (without the 7 images that are included in this short chapter...) _______________________________________ 71.0 LEGO TELEVISIONCOMMERCIALS (1957-99). LEGO bricks came out around the same time as Television (1949), and although it was only sold in Scandinavia for the first 7 years, by 1957 it had spread to other parts of Europe. The first British LEGO sets were introduced in 1960, and the first USA LEGO sets in 1961. In 1962 it had spread to Canada, Australia and Japan. By the mid 1960s it was sold in 42 countries, and today is sold in over 100 countries. The earliest LEGO commercial found so far was a 1958 German LEGO Town Plan commercial. This showed the entire family playing with LEGO. The LEGO box tops starting in 1960 showed adults as well as children on many of the box tops. But by 1966 LEGO became exclusively shown as being for children. Samsonite, the luggage maker, was the licensee for LEGO sales in USA (1961-72) and Canada (1962-85). In Britain, Ireland and Australia, a British chemical and textile maker named Courtauld’s was the licensee there under the name British LEGO Ltd. (TLG bought back the license in 1992). So today LEGO worldwide is produced and licensed by TLG, headquartered in Billund Denmark. Because there were several licensees selling LEGO worldwide, the commercials they produced varied greatly from region to region (not to mention in the local language). 71.1 LEGO Television Commercials (1957-99). American LEGO enthusiast Scott Kirkwood has assembled (still a work in progress) a large collection of commercials from different countries and years. These include many different LEGO Systems (Town, Castle, Pirates, Space, etc.) spread over many years. Scott has generously allowed linkage to his website. These can be viewed here (Copyright by Scott Kirkwood): http://www.fulori.co...LEGO/index.html _________________________________________________ There are 5 separate links to different genres of the world of LEGO, such as the evolution of LEGO bricks, USA/Canada LEGO, and the history of the LEGO family that are listed as external references. Enjoy!

Too bad... in mint I've seen it go for $75-$95! Now there's something to cry about.... Forum rules prevent me from publicly posting the link (since were not in the Marketplace page)... but if you're not sure where to find the download links... you can private EMAIL me, and I will send you a link with Paypal button. Also... the nice thing about the download (besides only taking 6-20 minutes to download 688MB)... is that should you ever lose the information (due to getting a new computer or a Virus eats it...).... I re-send the install instructions to old customer for free. I also have a $6.00 referral bonus for bringing me other customers (I'd send it to you via Paypal as well). Thanks!

It's now avialble as a download (only takes 6-20 minutes to download 688MB of data 2,800 pages, +6000 images (many historic), 73 chapters, and appendices onto your desktop... and you don't need a KINDLE to read it... each chapter is a PDF file that are linked to the table of contents. There's chapters on things like LEGO Counterfeits, LEGO history by country, LEGO logos over the last 78 years (over 30), LEGO instructions/catalogs/idea books/pamphlets, box artwork, prototypes, promotional items (Maersk/Ferry Lines, etc)... But one of the most useful chapters is based on LEGO parts that were ONLY sold in specific countries... this is a good way to identify rare items that a lot of people had no idea were so rare (the major online database list sets and parts, but generally don't mention if their exclusive to some countries... Examples: 1) 2x8 and 2x10 trans-clear bricks were only ever sold in the USA from 1968-70 2) The 4x4 corner brick (1955-72) was only sold in black in USA/Canada from 1963-66. 3) Green small plates made of Cellulose Acetate (with Pat. Pend.) were only sold in USA/Canada 1963-68. 4) The Canadian flag was only ever found in Canada sets 442 (Decorator Set) as a wavy flag, and set 369 (Canadian version of the Coast Guard) as a stickered straight flag 5) The large homemaker 1x6x10 door frame and 1x6x5 window frame were only found in USA set #5235 Homemaker School Room Set. 7) Green classic windows were only ever sold in Norway 8) A complete yellow windows set was only ever sold in Sweden. 9) 40x40 gray and green thin baseplates were only sold in a USA Samsonite set. 10) Waffle bottom plates in black and gray were only sold in USA Samsonite sets. 11) The rare Faroe Island wavy flag (1966-69) was only sold in the Faroe Islands (pop. 50,000, located in the North Sea between Scotland and Norway). Only 2 known. 12) The rare 1:87 HO Scale 1957-58 Opel Kapitän die cast car was only produced in Denmark and Norway. There are only about 8 of these prototypes known... value about $4000. They show up on the box top of every 1958-60 LEGO basic set... but were never released into production... just the ones sneaked out of the factory. There's probably at least a thousand other items most people never knew about LEGO that's found in my guide... I got a lot of info from the LEGO Archives/Collections/Vault.... as well as collectors from around the world.

For those of you who have my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide (1949-1990s), there's a few new parts for the chapter on Sets/Parts Not Put Into Production.... Those would be these 1x1 square and round bricks without studs. The only known ones were purchased from a former old time LEGO employee... and we weren't quite sure what to make of them.... here they are.... The 2 spare parts packs shown here are a Swedish (left) and Norwegian (right) spare parts packs of 1955, the first year for the 1x1 round and square bricks with the studs. It seems that the studless bricks were added to these early sets at a later date, but were not original to them... but the color (Cellulose Acetate plastic) and size, makes them appear that they are indeed LEGO bricks that were prototypes that "leaked" out of the factory many decades ago. I checked with TLG Billund Archives, and they have no records of these "studless" bricks. Well a Dutch collector just recently found some old 1950's LEGO slotted bricks, and a studless round brick was among them. This sort of confirms to me that these were made for possible production, but just never were introduced as such, and the remaining prototypes were either discarded... or... more likely ended up in employee hands. There are likely more of these out there... and they would likely sell for quite a bit, if they made it to the secondary market. It's rare old items like this that made me enjoy putting together the collectors guide for rare and common old LEGO... especially ones that TLG has no information on, nor examples in their collections. I'm sure there are many rare and valuable items still to be found... especially in northern Europe and USA/Canada, where TLG Denmark had somewhat loose controls in the early years as to what was being produced in those countries..... Enjoy!

Getting an exact date for switching over of LEGO parts from one type to another will always be a challenge. TLG always used up the remaining inventory of old parts before switching over... they NEVER threw anything away. A good example of that was the switchover from the old gray to the new gray. It started in 2003... but it took many years. With the switch from the solid stud to open stud, it was the same way... likely started around 1990 and took a few years for all sets to have the new minifig heads. Some even contend that some 1980s sets had open stud heads... a possibility if TLG decided to try out the new mold first in production in just a few sets for a while, before dedicating to the switchover. I remember the LEGO switchover from Cellulose Acetate to ABS plastic in the USA started in 1963... but was not completed until about 1971 (in Europe the switchover took only a few years). I remember having a 1966-70 325 Shell Station (not sold in USA/Canada). It had all ABS plastic, except for the one 2x3 white brick in the set, which was still Cellulose Acetate. Later, when I got a 2nd set... it too had this one Cellulose Acetate part. So for the minifig heads.... 1990-92 would be the closest approximate date for the switchover... but still not exact.

I know that I am "sort of" (lol) biased about LEGO history in other peoples (LEGO Sponsored) work when there are errors... but it has always baffled me when even LEGO employees admit that they know things are not totally correct in LEGO sponsored media... and yet it keeps remaining wrong in future media... But I just have to roll my eyes when TLG won't fix its' own faux pas.... I pitied the poor Fantasia book people (THE LEGO COLLECTORS GUIDE in English/German)... they must have been frustrated a few times at TLG. For example... 1/2 of everything listed under year 1963 in the first version of their guide was introduced in another year! I helped the Fantasia folks out in their second edition... on a few items... because the TLG team told them to ask me?? The problem is that the LEGO Archives prior to 1970... they are a little bit on the skimpy side... and sometimes the interpretations of what was written by someone 50 or more years ago.... is interpreted differently today... Or maybe I'm the one that's insane... after all isn't one definition of insanity.... "doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?" But then again... maybe TLG is not really to blame... the folks at Geas Konstharts Plastics company in Sweden today didn't even know that they produced LEGO for southern Sweden from 1950-51 (I have proof they did!). And the folks at Svein Strømberg & Co. in Oslo Norway... they knew they did produce LEGO from 1953-61... they just don't know what... lol. And therein lies another problem... 50+ years ago Norway, Sweden, USA and Canada (and to a lesser degree UK, Ireland and Australia)... all produced LEGO items that TLG Denmark wasn't totally aware of...

Hi all you Finland folks! I started a new thread on LEGO in Norway, Sweden and Finland in the early days in the GENERAL DISCUSSION thread. You might find it interesting! There's even a picture of the "barn" that made the first LEGO sets for Finland in 1959... I show old Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish catalogs, sets and other items that you might find interesting (they're all from my 2,800 page E-Book "Unoffiicial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide (1949-1990s) that's available. as a download, and has 6,000 historic images of old (and new) LEGO, including all the Finnish printed bricks and many other items.... Here's a sample chapter.... http://www.1000steine.de/brickset/miscellaneous/Lego%20Chapter%2048%20Vol2.pdf Finland items are mentioned in chapters 4, 9, 13, 14.

FYI... the record for longest set production was 700/1 Basic Set... 1949-64... or 17 years!

Getting back to the 1950s Norway....A/S Norske LEGO (as seen in an earlier advertisement)... was forced to change their name to A/S Norske LEGIO... this happened about 1954-55. And the reason for this was because TLG Denmark was probably not happy with the Norway LEGO licensee for putting the word "LEGO" on their "Mecline" sets and catalogs. Here is one side of a 1956 Norwegian catalog that shows both LEGO products (mainly in the area with the blue lines)... and Mecline, another building system toy... that as this catalog image shows... also had vehicles that looked similar to the LEGO ones.

Those strange "TERAPI" Educational sets I just mentioned do show up in this 1965 Danish catalog image... at least the image of one of the sets does... with the red top. Also shown are all the new 005-010-020-030-040-050-060 basic sets. When these basic sets came out, it freed up a lot of TLG workers time that was previously spent on hand packing flat sets in checkerboard brick patterns (1949-65). So now LEGO basic sets worldwide had loose LEGO parts packed inside the boxes, which now had paper or plastic compartments inside where the bricks were loosely stored. I'm not exactly sure when LEGO sets started to be packed by machine (instead of humans)... but loose box packing was a big step towards automation. Spare parts packs had loose parts since 1955, but it was not until 1964 that the first model or basic sets had loose parts (except for wooden box and Town Plan sets which were always loose parts). These are sets 010-020-030-040-050-060... On very rare smaller set was the 005 set of this same era as the 010-060 sets. This very small set was sold mainly in Scandinavia, and contained a unique 10x10 gray baseplate with cross supports underneath. Rare 700h 10x10 gray baseplate (with bottom cross supports) only found in this 005 Basic Set.

One of the interesting things about Finland is that a small percentage of the population speaks Swedish as their main language. So TLG made the Finnish catalogs Bilingual.... Finnish-Swedish. Here is a page of the 1966 catalog from Finland that shows all the text in both Finnish and Swedish. I got this from the TLG Archives, so I could get the image of the very rare Finland 710 Wooden Box Set. It was sold "with contents" and empty. Also still shown is the very rare continental European 810 Town Plan set (available since 1961) in some continental catalogs for the last time. And the very interesting TERAPI I - II - III sets are shown (Terapia in Finnish). These were wooden box Educational sets (with a plain red sliding top), mainly for schools and kindergartens. These were only sold in Denmark, Norway and Finland in the 1960s, but later became available in many continental European countries (and their LEGO catalogs) in the 1970s as Educational Sets 91, 92 and 93.

And.... starting in 1953 in Denmark, and 1955 in Norway and Sweden.... these are the box top designs for all the LEGO basic sets.... they no longer say Automatic Binding Bricks, but now say "LEGO Mursten".... with Mursten having the same meaning in all 3 languages (I won't say if it means bricks or blocks... because someone will tell me that it's a slightly different meaning in their language ). Also, there were many more (smaller) basic sets that were introduced around 1953-55. This is a Danish 1954 Retailer Catalog image that shows the contents that these sets had (the bricks were 1 row deep with the boxes hand packed in a checkerboard layout).... This is from my LEGO DVD download.... "Chapter 5 - LEGO Mursten & LEGO System Sets". This above image shows 4 colors being packed into the sets. The 4 colors could vary... but often red, white, yellow and green were the colors. Starting in 1955 the colors switched to just 2 (red and white) as the packing below shows. And this next picture is also from Chapter 5... it shows a worker at the LEGO factory in Billund hand packing these sets... My 2,800 page DVD download collectors guide has over 6,000 images... with many very historic LEGO images collected from LEGO folks around the world and from the Billund Archives/Collections/Vault!

Wow... it is a small world!! Next time you go there.... take a photograph! Here's the very first 4 LEGO basic set designs ever... from 1949-53.... most that you won't find in any online DB.... From top to bottom.... box designs for 700/1 (larger) , 700/2 (large) and 700/3 (medium) first LEGO sets.... 1) 1949-51 Danish and 1950-51 Swedish (Geas) box design (700/3 set). 2) 1951-52 Danish (lettering is different) box design (700/3 set). 3) 1952-53 Danish (word "LEGO" added) box design (700/1 set). 4) 1953-54 Norwegian (A/S Norske LEGO) box design (700/2 set). Images from "Chapter 2 - Automatic Binding Bricks (1949-54) of my LEGO DVD download E-Book.

I was mentioning Scandinavia.... and I forgot about Iceland!! The first sets sold in Iceland were starting in 1955, but under a different brand name.... SIBS.... although by 1960 the sets did start using the LEGO name. And the parts were shipped to Iceland, where the sets were assembled by residents of a Tuberculosis Sanitarium called "Reykjalundur". Here's another image from my DVD download/E-Book... showing Icelandic Tuberculosis patients putting together the LEGO sets (what no sneeze guard?).... this was in 1960.... There's an entire chapter of my DVD download - "Chapter 73 - LEGO Sales/History By Country".... that shows old black/white images from the 1940s thru 1960s related to the history of LEGO.

You are most welcome! Also, since you're from the Netherlands... I've been told by TLG Archives folks that some 1950s and early 1960s LEGO sets/parts sold in the Netherlands were produced in Norway. I've never found a way to confirm or identify this. The one peculiarity that Norway and the Netherlands share is that the 271 Traffic Policeman set (1956-65) was only sold in the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark. http://www.peeron.com/inv/sets/271-2

I noticed that there are a lot of Scandinavian folks on this forum... so I thought I would talk about some of the odd things that went on there in the early years of LEGO.... The official LEGO timeline for the 1950s (when Norway, Sweden and Finland started selling LEGO)... is well not very detailed (that's putting it kindly).... http://aboutus.lego....o_history/1950/ It doesn't mention Norway at all, it mentions Swedish LEGO sales starting in 1955, and in 1959 LEGO Sweden was established (??) and also in 1959 LEGO Finland was established. Well here's the real story about LEGO sales in the rest of Scandinavia.... The first LEGO sets started selling in Denmark in 1949 as Automatic Binding Bricks. Then in 1950 Automatic Binding Bricks were also selling in southern Sweden... but not produced from Denmark... but produced by a company called Geas Konstharts of Gisvaled Sweden. These first non-Danish LEGO bricks were rather odd... they were not made of Cellulose Acetate (the plastic that was used by TLG from 1949-63)... but of Polystyrene... a shiny plastic. These first Swedish sets had the same Automatic Binding Bricks boxes as those of Denmark. The only way to tell the difference was the brochure, or the bricks themselves... but not the box. Here's part of the first brochure from Sweden.... This is the oldest known building ideas image of LEGO parts, and dates to about 1950. The Geas Konsthart's brochure does NOT mention the word LEGO or Billund at all, which is unusual. An acquaintance contacted the still in production Swedish plastics firm a few years back... and they have no records of making LEGO at all. The production of these strange sets (mentioned in Chapter 2 of my LEGO DVD/E-Book Download) is still a mystery today, since the Billund LEGO Archives also have no info on these early Swedish sets. These sets were not popular in Sweden, and were discontinued within a year. Then in 1953 Ole Kirk Christiansen, who did some of his early carpentry apprenticeship in Norway (and married a Norwegian) thru one of his Oslo Norway contacts, got LEGO sales started in Norway. However due to toy import restrictions in Norway in the 1950s, he had to have a Norwegian company produced the parts and sell the LEGO sets there. This company was called Svein Strømberg & Co., which under the name A/S LEGO (later changed to A/S LEGIO) produced the first LEGO sets in Norway starting in 1953. Here is a late 1953 Norwegian ideas brochure page that shows the first set and parts pack numbers sold in Norway at the end of that year... There were 3 basic sets, 2 parts packs sold from Norway that year. There was also a wooden retailer box where loose bricks, windows/doors and baseplates could be purchased (an early PAB). Then in 1955 sales in Sweden were re-introduced (permanently this time)... and this time the parts were from Denmark (and also some from Norway) in the basic and parts pack sets. Since 1955 was also the intro of the LEGO System of Play... there were a lot of parts packs introduced, as can be seen in this image of 1955 Swedish packs... And finally we get to Finland.... the first LEGO sold in Finland was in 1959. Since there was a partial ban on toy imports in Finland as well as Norway... about 70% of all parts (mainly the non-specialty parts such as bricks) were produced in Finland, with the more complex parts imported from Denmark. The funny thing about Finland is that the first LEGO there was produced by a businessman by the name of Boris Strömsholm in 1959 in a barn-like building!! By the early 1960s the toy import restrictions were eliminated in all Scandinavian countries, and production was moved to Billund Denmark. I have a lot of images of unique LEGO items produced in these countries in my 2,800 page LEGO download (E-Book), and that includes sets, parts in unusual colors (windows/doors in green in Norway, in yellow in Sweden), as well as unique boxes in the local languages. And one of my favorite topics is the switch in 1967 of Sweden's going from driving on the left to driving on the right (they had a few unique Town Plan boards with left driving roadways). Enjoy.... (added 9/13) http://www.volvoclub.org.uk/history/driving_on_right.shtml

Ewwww..... it's been over 35 years since THE WORLD OF LEGO TOYS came out, and 13 years since THE ULTIMATE LEGO BOOK... yet ever book that comes out still has an erroneous timeline for the early years... 1) 1949 - first LEGO BRICKS - those slots on the sides of the 1949 introduce bricks were for.... windows and doors... which were also introduced in 1949. 2) 1953 - "first LEGO baseplate"?? Nope.... that came out a few years before in 1950... same dimensions (10x20), but thinner. 3) 1954 - "beams" (OK they got that right... the 2x8 and 2x10 were introduced that year).... "windows"?? The first windows (different look) were introduced in 1949, and the one shown here was introduced in 1956. 4) 1955 - "trees".... yes they were introduced in 1955... but in a different (1950s) style. In 1960 new thicker trees style came out... and in 1965 these same tree styles started having hollow bases to attach to baseplates (earlier ones had a flat bottom)... so these displayed trees date to 1965-70.... "small plastic vehicles".... yes the 8 Bedford 1:87 scale trucks were introduced in 1955... but the shown cyclist was a group of 5 introduced a year later in 1956. 5) 1957 "Flags and light bricks"... bingo!! They got it right... they were introduced in November 1957. 6) 1963 "One third elements".... plates... actually introduced in 1955 in 5 "waffle" bottom" sizes... and small plates (1x1, 1x2, 2x2, 2x3, 2x4) were introduced in the fall of 1962. 7) 1966 "4.5V Train Motors"... yes they were introduced in the summer of 1966... BUT in the fall of 1965 USA and Canada Samsonite had the first LEGO motor for use with wheels and gears... granted... not a train motor. 8) 1970 "Cogwheel"..... ummmmm in the fall of 1965 the 001 USA/Canada Gear Set had the first "Cogwheel"... For you folks who got my 2800 page LEGO DVD downloads.... the Timeline in Chapter 1 is correct...

LOL.... again... lazy... I looked at 3 pics of named beams... Danish, Norwegian and Swedish.... and the Swedish pic did not have a TOBAK brick (but the Norwegian pic did have TOBAKK and he Danish one did have a TOBAK brick... so I thougth hmmmmm.... the Swedish probably followed the Norwegian spelling... from now on I have to look at my "list by country" (a PDF list). I noticed that sometimes the same spelling is used by Denmark and Norway (but not Sweden) and other times the same spelling is used by Denmark and Sweden (but not Norway). VW SALG (Sales) is used by Denmark and Norway but not Sweden (which uses VW FORSALJNING)... and then Denmark and Sweden use GARAGE, while Norway uses GARASJE. I'll have to have you Europeans validate my PRINTED BRICK LIST in my LEGO Collectors E-Book on pages 8-9 and 13-16 in Chapter 48 on Printed/Painted LEGO.... http://www.1000steine.de/brickset/miscellaneous/Lego%20Chapter%2048%20Vol2.pdf

Although this is not the place, I would love to start a discussion about LEGO Finland... and see if anyone had any Finnish catalogs. I have a page of the 1965 and 1966 Finnish Catalog (I got it from the TLG Archives so that I could get an image of the wooden box sets from each European country (there's over 60, don't you know!)). Finland was one of those countries (like Belgium and Switzerland) that had bilingual catalogs (Finnish/Swedish), since something like 5.4% of the population of Finland spoke Swedish. But I digress...

LOL.... I knew that I wasn't 100% sure on the Finnish and Italian spelling... and was too lazy to look them up (Chapter 48 - Printed & Painted LEGO Parts) in my E-Book collectors guide.... and yes, you are correct... along with TAKSI, HOTELLI, TEATTERI, KIOSKI, ESSO HUOLTO and VW MYYNTI

I'm not getting involved in the Cuuscoo discussions or reasoning.... TLG does what they do without telling us anyway.... But I will give some historic background on the origins of TLG in the mainly Lutheran rural area of Jutland, where Billund is located. Many of the folks (at least back in the 1950s and 1960s) living in Billund area were/are members of a conservative Lutheran organization called (in English) "Inner Mission" (Indre Mission in Danish). And back in the 1950s employees used to get "glow in the dark" crosses that were given to TLG employees, and also sold to other religious groups and individuals... Brickpedia has a nice image of the LEGO produced cross and the box it came in... http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/Indre_Cross Also Wikipedia has some background on the organization itself... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_Association_for_the_Inner_Mission_in_Denmark Now as for religious LEGO items... back in 1957-62 TLG actually made a #309 Church Set (numbered #1309 in Denmark, Norway and Sweden only from 1957-58 before switching set numbers and dropping the first digit)... http://www.peeron.com/inv/sets/309-2?showpic=3585 Also, another church was shown on the box top of the continental European #810 Town Plan set of 1961-66... but the instructions inside never showed a church (those classic 1x1x2 windows for the church were not included in the set)... http://www.peeron.com/inv/sets/810-2?showpic=12261 Danes are mainly Lutherans (a rather conservative form of protestantism)... and the only reason for a church model was because a church was a likely town building back then. ___________________ On a different note was the fact that although today smoking is becoming universally frowned upon.... back in the 1955-70 era it wasn't as taboo. And even TLG produced printed bricks back then with tobacco in the local language printed on them. In the 1955-70 era there was always a spare parts pack box that had circa 7-8 printed 1x6 and 1x8 white bricks with different names. Common ones were GARAGE, CINEMA, ESSO SERVICE, KIOSK... etc. But one printed brick that was found in every continental European LEGO country was for tobacco. (NOTE: USA, Canada, Britain, Ireland and Australia did NOT have tobacco related printed bricks.) But continental Europe did. And here are some in the local languages... TOBAK (Denmark) TOBAKK (Norway, Sweden) TABAK (Germany Austria, Switzerland and because they sold the Swiss names pack... also Portugal) TABAC (France) CIGARETTEN (Belgium) SIGARETTEN (Netherlands) TABACCHI (Italy) TUPAAKKA (Finland) _____________________ Times change, and today some of these above mentioned items would be "politically incorrect" to sell today. And there are other things that maybe are OK for TLG to sell today, but not 50 years ago. Just food for thought.... you may now get back to your haggling....

That's a Faux Pas that's acceptable.... lol... When I started my LEGO Collectors Guides they (TLG) told me... 1) always capitalized 2) never just LEGO... but LEGO bricks or LEGO company (although TLG is OK).... etc. TLG already set a precedent for lower case "LEGO"... back after they started the first LEGOLAND in Billund in 1968, they came out with a 1x4 printed brick found in many 1970s sets (in red, white, blue, yellow or black)... that had it spelled "Legoland".