LEGO Historian

How about adding some smaller sets that aren't as pricey as the Green Grocer and Pet Shop sets... but following the same theme... Here's a building I put together a few years back... a Victorian Gazebo made of 105 parts. Nothing too difficult, and lots of very desireable parts... white curved (very rare right now) and straight railing fences, fancy Belville arches... and lots of inside and outside 45 degre corner blue slopes. I bet this one would be a parting out dream for Bricklink sellers... with all the desireable parts. And this is just the structure... you could add a few minifig musicians, some minifigs dancing, some white lamp posts and some greenery. Cheers, Gary Istok

C'est Magnifique! What I really like about this approach to building is that it provides a town setting in an almost "stage setting" 2 dimensional approach. When I see the prices that TLG wants for their PET SHOP or GREEN GROCER sets from LEGO... I see sticker shock for some people who cannot afford the over 1000 piece sets. This approach to 2 dimensional building is in my opinion a much better approach for TLG. That way if you want to finish off the building on all 4 sides, then you may go ahead and spend the extra money (on Bricklink or elsewhere)... but are not forced to spend large sums for them if you don't want them. I bet TLG would sell a lot more sets, at cheaper prices obviously, if they used this 2 dimensional approach. After all... do you all really want the same looking Main Street in each of your towns?? Again a great diorama... and some great ideas that maybe TLG could learn something from! A great layout!! Cheers, Gary Istok

Hello everyone! I have to be the oldest newbie around... not just age wise... (been collecting LEGO for 51 years)... but also because I joined Eurobricks 4 years ago (March 2007) posted twice... and then went off to spend so much time doing historic LEGO research for my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guides (on CD) that many of my acquaintances back in the RTL and early LUGNET days have made their way into the distant parts of the known LEGO Cyber Universe... But I'm finally getting close to finding (almost) all the answers of the ancient (and modern) history of our beloved bricks... that I thought I would go back out and see who is still with us among the old timers... as well as meet some new folks who have gone thru the bleak "Moyenage/Mittelalter" darkness of their Dark Ages and "walked toward the light".... back into the fold of AFOL'dom... (I came out of my Dark Ages in 1979). Cheers, Gary Istok Older than dirt, and Keeper of LEGO AFOL Space/Time Continuum.... :)

C'est Magnifique... My first post (even though I registered 2 years ago!)... As someone who has seen Ste. Chappelle several times, I immediately recognized the inspiration of this wonderful model. You captured the exterior of the model very well... and your inside is a unique use of trans colored parts to do what is actually impossible... to capture the walls of medieval glass that King (St.) Louis IX of France had installed to house Christ's supposed "crown of thorns" reliquary. When one sees the corrosive nature of time, the fact that Ste. Chappelle exists at all (especially after the French Revolution) is a miracle... But I must say... Job well done! Gary Istok

Hi all, From now until the end of the year, I am offering free 14 different old unused rock concert tickets from the 1970's with each order of my UNOFFICIAL LEGO SETS/PARTS COLLECTORS GUIDE (1949-80) on CD. Here are some of the tickets in question: http://www.redshift.com/~shifflett/Concert_Tickets.jpg More information about what is on the CD (as well as free downloadable chapters) can be seen here (and even ordered here): http://www.geminisystems.net/lego/ Or you can order thru my Bricklink store here: http://www.bricklink.com/store.asp?p=istokg&itemID=7386921 The 14 unused 1974-75 concert tickets have an EBAY store value of about $50. NOTE: You will be getting 2 sets of these plus some extras! They are: 1) BOB SEGER 2) REO SPEEDWAGON 3) SLY & THE FAMILY STONE 4) ZZ TOP & T-REX 5) SPENCER DAVIS with PRETTY THINGS 6) STRAWBS & GUESTS 7) NEKTAR and PAVLOV'S DOG 8) THE SENSATIONAL ALEX HARVEY BAND 9) COCKNEY REBEL 10) JO JO GUNNE and ARGENT 11) ALEX HARVEY/BROWNSVILLE STATION 12) SPIRIT & IRON BUTTERFLY 13) THE KINKS 14) LESLIE WEST Why can I offer these as free items with a purchase of my LEGO CD? That's easy! These tickets were all from the old Michigan Theatre located in Detroit. This 4,050 seat legendary and opulent French Renaissance theatre (where Frank Sinatra first met Sammy Davis Jr.) was tragically gutted and turned into a parking garage in 1977. The opulent plaster ceilings of the grand lobby and auditorium are still intact today. The current 13 story Michigan Building owner is an acquaintance of mine, and he let me explore the labarynthine remains of the former theatre. At 9 stories tall, the former theatre interior is America's largest indoor ruin. In the dark cold former theatre managers office I came across thousands of old historic unused theatre tickets from 1974-75. I felt like Captain Jack Sparrow did in "Pirates of the Carribean" when he came across a room full of treasures. The tickets were lying everywhere on all the furniture and spread out all over the floor! The current building owner said "take as many as you want". So I did! And now I can offer these as freebies to anyone interested in my LEGO CD. Note: the former Michigan Theatre was used by Detroit's own rapper Eminem for his Rap dueling scene in the movie "8 MILE". See here for more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Theater_(Detroit) I have so many hundreds of unused tickets, that I can afford to be generous! Note: these are UNUSED, and NOT ripped used ticket stubs! And then there's my LEGO CD with 1,265 pages... over 1,700 pictures of sets, parts and historic photos... and a 380 page Insurance Guide. Available now until New Years! Happy Holidays!! Gary Istok P.S. Those who order the LEGO CD/Tickets will be getting 10 free download pictures of the remains of the legendary former Michigan Theatre.

Well this is my first post here ever..... but LEGO colors is one of my specialties, especially for the years 1949-1980, since I wrote a book (Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide) on CD on the history of LEGO... The first LEGO colors of 1949 were red, white, orange-yellow, and light green. These were followed in the early 1950's by several other colors.... peacock blue, yellow, green, dark green, dark blue, light blue, blue, gray and clear. From 1949-53 these parts were available in Automatic Binding Brick (LEGO) sets. From 1953-56 they were available in LEGO Mursten sets. Then in 1956 TLG decided to put a brake on LEGO colors. Most of these colors were discontinued, and the only colors remaining from 1956-62 were red, white, blue, yellow and clear.... with baseplates also available in gray and green (as well as red, white, blue and yellow). Then in 1962 black was introduced as a LEGO color. In 1963, with the introduction of small LEGO plates, gray and green were once again introduced, although as regular bricks, they had to wait until nearly 1980 for them to be produced (later for green). Brown and Maersk blue were introduced in a few select specialty LEGO parts in the 1970's, with dark gray coming into production in the 1980's. But it took until the 1990's that a true explosion of many different LEGO colors really started to happen. And now today we are inundated with colors of so many shades, that folks on Bricklink and elsewhere are complaining about ordering what they think is one color, only to get another color in the mail. Besides all of these colors, there are a few other colors that are material related... namely to the Cellulose Acetate material which LEGO elements were made from from 1949 until the mid 1960's. There is CA red (a red-orange shade), CA blue (a brighter shade of blue than ABS blue), and CA yellow (a lighter "lemon chiffon" shade of yellow). So besides the naming system variations of LEGO parts, there are also this historic assortment of LEGO colors that aren't even addressed today!! It gets downright mindboggling! *wacko* Cheers, Gary Istok P.S. My UNOFFICIAL LEGO SETS/PARTS COLLECTORS GUIDE is still available on CD (1,265 pages, with over 1,700 picutres) on my website: http://www.geminisystems.net/lego/ Be sure to visit it to get some free downloadable chapters, as well as a LEGO Timeline, and a photo gallery of rare sets and parts!