LEGO Historian

In 1970 British LEGO Ltd. came out with the first Weetabix set, the Weetabix Castle... but there's another thread on Weetabix sets... But also in 1970 Kelloggs came out with another Town set, this one called the LEGO VIllage.... another competition.... This set I have the rare good fortune (from my UK friend Chris).... to find completely intact.... from the shipping box..... .... to all the separate set boxes that made up the town in the contest..... or the separate buildings and vehicles that make up the town..... This is a nice collection of sets and parts from the largest LEGO promotion that British LEGO Ltd. had ever put out during their 1960-92 years of producing LEGO in the UK. Just some more items for my collectors guide.....

British LEGO Ltd., which had its' LEGO factory in Wrexham Wales (1960-92), had a few contests/promotions with British Kellogg's Cereal..... which has their largest UK factory.... in Wrexham Wales as well. One of these competitions was in 1967, where you could win an 810 Town Plan Set, and a LEGO motor set.... The competition involved finding mistakes in this Town Plan image.... looks like this youngster got either frustrated or bored and never sent it in..... A few of these 810 Town Plan sets have survived, and are differentiated from the regular Town Plan sets, by the fact that they contain Shell Service Station parts, instead of Esso Service Station parts. The irony is that the promotional flier shows Shell, and the cereal box backside shows Esso. Esso was the LEGO Service Station since 1955 (the actual set (310) came out in 1956, but the accessories came out a year earlier in a parts pack and 1:87 Bedford Esso trucks. In 1966 Shell replaced Esso as the Service Station of choice with the 325 Shell Station. What appears likely is that British LEGO Ltd. had a lot of leftover 810 Town Plan Set boxes and Town Plan boards.... but ran out of (Denmark supplied) Esso accessories. So they created a sort of mixed set... and gave them away as promotional items in 1967. Here's an 810 Town Plan layout... but using a continental European right driving board, instead of a left driving UK board....

Don't I wish.... I only have an image archive with over 16,000 images.... thanks to many dozens of AFOL friends from around the world. Unfortunately... I have not a single leaked part!!

Sometimes TLG likes to throw us for a loop... such as the rare 1976 (Germany only) 1601 Schmidt & Co. Factory Set.... (Conveyance Set). Germany only... OK... must be a promotional set for Schmidt & Co? Nope.... a dead end. The only thing I can think of is that this was a promotional set for Germany's two independent toy store associations... SPIELZEUGRING.... and VEDES. But I've not yet found any advertising for either association that includes this rare set. What is interesting is that if this was planned as a Germany only set by TLG.... then why is the age writing in 8 languages on the box top? Maybe an trans-European safety issue?? But this set may yet reveal some secrets!! More to come...

OK... when I first started my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide back in 2006, I lumped all the "special" LEGO sets under the "Promotional Sets" category, But in the time since then I have found that there are so many different ways that TLG sponsors LEGO sets for other companies and organizations... that it becomes very complex indeed. There are mail in proof of purchase type sets, contest sets, sets you find when going on a cruise, and now of course, sets you get only at a particular Danish Airport, or an Asian Hotel!! Recently my German collector friends Olaf (Germany) and Chris (UK) posted some images that I had not seen before of promotions of a different nature. My friend Olaf posted some images about the Danish "MD" Dairy company that today is part of the Arla Dairy company... Many of you know of those rare 1952 (MD) and 1581 (Arla) milk truck sets. Well sometimes the affiliation with LEGO and other companies is more than just a LEGO set. With the 1989 released 1952 Danish MD Milk Truck sets, there's a little emblem on the upper left part of the box.... And most people would just leave it at that.... But there's a reason that this little traffic emblem and Minifig are there... and that is a little known Contest that MD had back in 1989-90. It involved buying cartons of MD milk and cutting out little cardboard roadway emblems to put into a contest for Danish Children. This contest involved getting a 16 page LEGO booklet (with lots of colorful LEGO scenes) from your grocer or possibly sending away for it in the mail. Here's the front cover.... Apparently this contest involved the children learning about traffic situations, and cutting out the right symbols from the MD milk cartons, and taping them to the right page of the booklet.... This particular page of the booklet is missing image #12. Apparently one helpful purpose of this exercise of cutting and taping these images, was to learn about traffic and safety... And here are the contest rules (in Danish), as well as some of the prizes that could be won...... And here towards the end of the 16 page booklet, it mentions that you can also order the very rare 1952 MD Milk Truck, or fill out the necessary info for the competition (for other regular LEGO sets) and mail it all in. I had never seen this particular contest before... but it looks very involved and requires a lot of milk purchases to get all those coupons!! FYI... in the year 2000 MD Foods of Denmark and Arla of Sweden merged to become Arla Foods, headquartered in the university city of Aarhus Denmark.... not that far away from Billund. And while I'm showing the company products... here's the Arla Milk Truck of Sweden of 1990.... another very highly sought after rarity.... Both of these trucks (1952 MD and 1581 Arla) are very valuable, and in great demand... when found!! More promotional oddities to come...

Good job on the variations.... my eyes now require magnifying glasses for studs reading.... The "Narrow Open O" logo was unique to Samsonite. So when LEGO production started in 1961 at the Stratford Ontario Canada Samsonite plant, the first LEGO sales of 1961 went to the USA, with Canadian sales to follow in 1962. Among these first bricks were a mix of both the "Narrow Straight O" and the "Narrow Open O" bricks. So the beginning date for the Narrow Open O should be 1961, not 1968. All of my green CA plates (only sold by Samsonite) have this same Narrow Open O variation. And these were introduced by Samsonite to the USA/Canada market in late 1962 or early 1963. LEGO production for the USA continued from Stratford Ontario until April 1965, when the Loveland Colorado Samsonite LEGO plant (in a suburb of Denver) opened up. For the USA... from 1961-65 the LEGO parts were produced at the Stratford Ontario Samsonite plant, the boxes were produced at a Detroit Samsonite plant, and the model shop was also located in Detroit. Detroit and Stratford were only 150 miles apart. Here is a "Narrow Open O" Samsonite 1x1 blue plate from a "retooled" mold.... Samsonite parts were notorious for the poor quality on the parts, and this retooling shows it.... (photo: Yodoba)...

Special offer of 1/2 off on my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide.... only $14.95, instead of the $29.95 original price, for a short time. If you are interested, just Paypal me $14.95 ( istokg@earthlink.net ). No shipping costs (you download it from the CLOUD per my instructions) and no Customs fees!! This offer won't last long!!

OK.... this is an easy one for me (since I wrote a 2800 page collectors guide on LEGO)..... First of all... unless this set did some traveling.... I assume that you are in the UK, Ireland or Australia.... The box is a 700K wooden box set, which sadly has most of the paper box cover torn off. That would be this set on the left.... Also included in that box are parts from a Homemaker Kitchen Set. The large blue smooth baseplate, and that oven range knob 1x4 brick..... .... and a UK version of the 494 White Fence Spare Parts Pack.... (in continental Europe they are red)... The 700K wooden box set dates (that version) 1962-64. The 263 Homemaker Kitchen dates to 1975-77. The 494 White Fences Parts pack dates to 1966-72. My Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide (a computer desktop download of 2800 pages).... shows all 5 versions of the 700K wooden box set, as well as 2 versions of the Contents List that comes with that set. I'm having a 1/2 off sale right now on my guide in the Bazaar! ;-)

Duq, Those are from the 1963-65 Architectural Sets series... from parts packs 518-521... small plates sizes 2x4 (518), 2x3 (519), 2x2 (520), and 1x2/1x1 (521). These were very unpopular, and therefore a shortlived series of sets/parts packs. The 3 sets were 750, 751, 752. These were only sold in continental Europe. This is the only source for those strange 8x11 gray plates, and those 8x11x3 trans-clear boxes. I have an entire chapter in my LEGO collectors guide devoted to this short lived, but very interesting series of sets. They never caught on because there really weren't enough parts (unlike smaller scale Modulex) to build much of anything with these... most of the parts in the sets were plates... and you can't do that much with just plates and bricks...

I'm going to put in my 2 cents here... and it's nothing profound or technical or historical about LEGO... it's just about something very elementary.... running out of space for your LEGO collection. I have a good friend in the UK... his name is Chris Bull.... and he's a big time LEGO collector/addict. However... he started running out of space to store his LEGO... his wife was getting on his case... and as luck would have it, his mother-in-law had a nearly empty attic that he could use to store part of his vast collection. So that has helped him out tremendously, and gotten his wife off his back. But that got me to thinking.... just look how many billions and billions of LEGO parts are produced in sets and as loose parts every year. Just look at how much of this is stored away, warehoused if you will in your own homes. Granted new people start coming into the hobby every year... but they too are going thru the motions of getting hooked, having sympathetic spouses (although I know of some divorces that included LEGO in the blame game). But as those LEGO Modular sets gobble up more and more display space... and closets, basements and attics get fuller.... I have this uncanny feeling that at some point in the future... there will be a bubble. Now granted that'll make some of you very happy... oh boy cheap parts on the secondary market. But as I see more and more CMFs end up in curio cabinets on people's walls (being cranked out by the millions in China)... I wonder if new entrants into the LEGO market will continue to sustain the exuberant prices that some very common sets/parts in the last 10 years have been bid up to. There's 61 Cafe Corners and 58 Green Grocers for sale right now on Bricklink... can the good times continue on and on??

In the early years of LEGO (1949-56) during the Automatic Binding Bricks and LEGO Mursten years, I started a color chart for the LEGO colors of that era, which is in my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide. And at the time there were 24 color variations (before TLG dropped it down to just 7 colors for nearly 40 years).... Now of course this count is expanding as new (old) colors are found, mostly in Norway and Sweden.

Nice find with the Citroen 5imon!! That's one of the rarer 1:87 LEGO vehicles, since it was only produced from 1965-67. This vehicle is known in 5 colors.... white, red, blue, light gray and black. The black ones are extremely rare. Here's how they look with and without the box they were sold in (image from my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide - Chapter 36 - 1:87 Scale LEGO Cars/Trucks)...

I've had a bunch of yellowed classic windows in mint that I put in a bright sunny window sill... and within a month they were white again. On the otherhand, I've had white parts (mint) stored in my basement in twilight darkness for over 20 years... and they still yellowed. Other than white parts, all my other 30 year old LEGO parts have fared quite well without discoloration. And any comparison of older versus newer LEGO colors is not a fair comparison. Newer parts are generally brighter in color... likely some changes in the coloration process. Newer red bricks for example are made of a brighter red plastic than older ones.

Well, I'm still finding out about this set, but I think I have the answers for the mysterious existence of this rare 6661 WDR version of the 6661 TV version of the Mobile TV Studio set of 1989-90s. WDR (West Deutsch Rundfunk) TV Station in northwest Germany, headquartered in Cologne, was 1/2 of a larger TV station that split in two in 1955. WDR started broadcasting on Jan. 1, 1956. So the 6661 Mobile TV Studio Set, which was first released in 1989, was a nice set to make for a 35th Anniversary keepsake for the 1991 Anniversary date. Here is the box for both versions... Well WDR executives wanted a quick anniversary souvenir... and one of them saw the 6661 TV version in a toy store. A few calls from WDR executives to some LEGO executives, and a batch of the "TV" panels were redone with "WDR" over the "TV" printing on the 1x4x3 blue panels (you can see the overprint). These new panels were sealed into the inner polybag of the set. And the end result was a 6661 Mobile TV Studio with the German WDR logo on it... Since this was done as a rush job, neither the instructions, nor the box top were changed, and unfortunately neither the Billund Archive/Collections, nor the German LEGO Advertising Department were notified. These special WDR sets were likely sent directly from Billund Denmark to Cologne Germany, in time for the January 1, 1991 35th Anniversary of WDR. Now to add the changes to my collectors guide chapters on LEGO Sets and Promotional Sets. More LEGO Mayhem!!

Some followups on this.... apparently I was a little off my mark... some of the old time collectors do have Cellulose Acetate LEGO elements that have shrunk somewhat, although my experience has been mainly just the warping part of it. The parts may have been stored for many years in conditions not well suited for Cellulose Acetate, such as hot humid attics. So all the old time collectors that I've shown these images to seem to agree that it is indeed LEGO... it just didn't fare too well over the last 50+ years.

L@go, what you just mentioned about not knowing who designed the Statue of Liberty, a relatively recent set, does not surprise me at all. The record keeping and archiving of information at TLG is... and I really don't wish to insult them... but it is appalling!! In producing my 2800 Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide (a computer desktop guide only now)... I have worked with the very nice folks at the TLG Archives and Collections now for 8 years. And throughout all those years of all the generous facts that they have given me from their archival records... I've had to discard about 1/4 of the information, because I have found evidence to the contrary. Record keeping, especially in the early years has been very sparse. And in many case it's just a matter of the information they have not being interpretated correctly. In my 8 years of research, I have found many sets and even parts that they have no information on. Even the LEGO Vault does not have every set they ever produced, they are missing quite a lot of sets from the early years, and have had to buy many sets on the secondary market. And sadly so many of the employees of the earlier (or even more recent) years have left the company, are retired or have passed away and the information is lost or obscured. I have had a lot of conversation (mainly Email correspondence) with folks such as folks at USA Samsonite, Canada Samsonite, UK British LEGO, or people who worked in Billund. I am compiling a series of anecdotes or stories about LEGO milestones or histories, before they are lost forever. One of the new chapters in my LEGO collectors guide are individual stories that could otherwise be lost forever... at least the "why" and "how" of some LEGO reasoning of why things were done. Here's some of my anecdotes from people I've been able to talk to, as well as my own investigations... http://www.youblishe...s-Barber-Shops/ http://www.youblishe...LY-LEGO-MODELS/ http://www.youblishe...nal-LEGO-Items/ http://www.youblishe...d-Actual-Model/ http://www.youblishe...st-LEGO-Wheels/ There will be about 40 different anecdotal stories in this chapter, one of 80 chapters in my voluminous collectors guide.

Well it looks like some more rare Norwegian sets are about to show up for the first time... such as the previous Fire Station set.... FALCK was only an emergency roadside services company in Norway called FALKEN... so there is likely a Norwegian box with the real name of their fire station... "BRANNSTASJON". And this LEGO Garage Set 1236 was sold in Denmark and Norway.... however Norway doesn't use the word "GARAGE" like almost every other country in Europe... they use "GARASJE" (there is a 1306 VW GARASGE set with that printing on the box).... Here's the way the Danish box looks.... so looking foward to seeing a similar box with "GARASJE" on the boxtop and on the brick inside! Now putting together the last few missing pieces of the LEGO puzzle... and then I will have it complete... for adding to my LEGO collectors guide!!!

Well going back to a post on page 2 of this long thread... my German collector friend Lothar just today finally found a rare set that I thought would exist... but had not yet come to light. That was the 308/1308 Fire Station Set of 1957-62 with a German language brick on the box top. A late 1957 German pricelist mentions that besides all the 3 digit LEGO sets (which all German sets had at that time)... that a pair of 4 digit set numbers show up on the pricelist. One was a 1307 VW Showroom Set, which we found in a German language box top (VW VERKAUF). The other one listed was a 1308 Fire Station set that had not yet been found (would have FEUERWEHR on the box top). Well one finally has surfaced. Here are the known versions of the 308/1308 Fire Station Sets (so far)... The upper left is the newly discovered German FEUERWEHR 1308 Fire Station, the upper right is the Danish FALCK 1308 Fire Station. The lower left is the regular (rest of Europe) 308 Fire Station, with LEGO (universal box) shown on the box, but the local language brick (BRANDWEER, POMPIERS, POMPIERI, FEUERWEHR, FALCK, BRANDSTATION, BRANNSTASJON) in the box. And the lower right is the later (1960-62) universal box. Now the remaining mystery is this... is there a 1308 set for Norway with BRANNSTASJON on the box top, as well as a 1308 set for Sweden with BRANDSTATION on the box? Or, because FALCK... the emergency services company also operated in Norway, and for a short time (late 1950s and early 1960s) in southern Sweden... would they have sold just the 1308 box with FALCK on the box top... as they did in Denmark..... Stay tuned! P,S, Another set variation to add to my LEGO Collectors Guide!

Oh I have no doubt that those bricks are real.... in the 1950s TLG did some strange things with their molds and plastics. That could have been from one of the earliest LEGO molds of 1955. Is there a "shelf" near the bottom of the outside wall near the base of the brick? That shows at least that it dates to 1955-57. Newer macaroni bricks have the outside curve of macaroni bricks as being equally thin throughout. But earller bricks were thicker at the top, and had a thinner base, hence the "shelf". Also when TLG started making new parts... some of them were made in different plastics, and that may not be Cellulose Acetate, but may be another plastic that appears to have shrunk. Cellulose Acetate warps... but it does not shrink. Here are some early macaroni bricks that came from a mold that TLG produced... but it was for a company in Sweden called GEAS... for their PRIMA bricks.... And here are very rare early TLG 1/2 circle macaroni bricks made out of Cellulose Acetate.... except the yellow one (no LEGO on the studs) was a GEAS PRIMA brick made of Polystyrene. I've had to modifiy several of my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide Chapters to incorporate some of these strange and unusual LEGO "hybrids".

Thanks Roger... I've been very busy researching LEGO in Iceland, Norway, Canada and Scotland/Wales. Some new things discovered!! AHA!! That's you with the Craigslist ad.... someone made me aware of it, and I thought.... smart way to approach it!! If you do find any rare or unusual parts, please let me know.... also interested in stories and anecdotes! I just got an interesting anecdote about those newly discovered Grangemouth bricks from Scotland. Seems that when a LEGO rep found out about a pair of Borg Warner guys using the LEGO mold to make marbled bricks at their Grangemouth plastics plant... not only did TLG demand the return of the mold, but Borg Warner lost the account for making LEGO pellets for British LEGO Ltd.... at their Wrexham Wales LEGO plant (British LEGO Ltd. was owned by Courtauld's Corp., the LEGO licensee for Britain, Ireland and Australia).

Ummmmm no..... TLG started using 4 digit set numbers with the introduction of the Town Plan system in 1955, and then just in Denmark, Norway, Sweden (mostly). The basic sets remained at 3 digit set number (700/1, 700/2, 700/3, 700/3A, 700/4, 700/5, 700/6).... but the model sets and spare parts packs had a "1" as the leading 4th digit. In the rest of Europe starting with Germany coming online in 1956, there were only 3 digit set numbers, the "1" first digit was not used in the rest of Europe. Then in 1958 TLG changed the 4 digit numbers of Denmark/Norway/Sweden to match the 3 digit numbers of the rest of LEGO Europe. Here is a very nice and colorful 1956 Danish LEGO Catalog (2 sided)... that shows the 4 digit set numbers.... From 1958 until 1980 most all LEGO set numbers were 3 digits. However, there were two Educational sets that did have 4 digit numbers.... 1) the 7100 USA/Canada Samsonite Wooden Box Educational Set introduced in 1963... 2) the 7000 Canadian Samsonite Suitcase Set introduced in 1976 (and its' 7170 Refill Pack)....

Wow... you hit some really good points there Jodawill.... I don't mind people buying Minifigs to play with or put into panorama LEGO scenes.... but this obsession with the CMFs and other items is very reminiscent of the Baseball Card craze of the 1980s and we know where that ended up... same place as the "valuable" Princess Diana Beanie Babies.... They've got factories in China cranking these out by the millions in 3 shifts a day.... Whenever I hear "collectible" I want to run the other way.... And your points about the baseplates is spot on!! Why does TLG keep messing with them? Not just the baseplates, but the road plates as well. End of rant....

Thank Jared! For some reason Canada has always been the "stepchild" of the LEGO universe. The big markets were continental Europe, Britain/Ireland/Australia (same British LEGO licensee for all 3), and USA (Samsonite from 1961-72 and TLG from 1973-present). But Canada had a long history as a LEGO licensee (1962-88), and there are a LOT of sets that have "Canadian variations". For example... the 1975 era LONDON BUS SET was sold in Europe/Australia under the 384 number, and also in Canada, but in a different box, and the USA number back the was 760. This was shortly after Samsonite lost their LEGO license in the USA, and TLG was paranoid that Canadian sets might sneak their way into the USA, so they used unique set numbers for the USA from 1972-79 for the same sets. Since Canada has a smaller market than either USA or Europe.... the Canadian versions are more valuable than those sets produced elsewhere. That's the type of information that my collectors guide likes to zoom in on. Also, I've recently obtained a copy of every Canadian LEGO catalog from 1976 to 1992, before being incorporated into the USA catalog. I'm trying to figure out how I can give those images as freebies for my collectors guide (as well as the first catalogs of 1962-65).

It all depends on the Ebook! For nice images for kids.... I agree! But for a reference guide having a desktop guide that can be downloaded to your PC or MAC, IPod or Smart Phone or Tablet can be handy. My Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide as desktop download, makes buying future updates to collectors guides unnecessary! TLG produced such a vast range of sets and parts... that new (old) stuff is appearing all the time... this way my 73 chapter (all PDF files linked together via a Table of Contents into a 668MB 2800 page document).... has all future updates free to current owners.... Check out a chapter... http://www.1000steine.de/brickset/miscellaneous/Lego%20Chapter%2048%20Vol2.pdf Easy on the eyes... no page tears or lost books! Although many people do like to have a hard copy, I will grant you that!! Which is why I make mine printer friendly.... except it would likely require too many print cartridges for 2800 pages and 7000 mostly color images....

RIght now I'm trying to dig up more information on USA/Canada prototype/test bricks. Now that the Grangemouth Scotland test bricks have been discovered... more interest is in all of these different and unique bricks.