Subject:
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A quick LEGO History
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Sat, 23 Dec 2006 19:19:34 GMT
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Viewed:
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2160 times
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Someone on a local Detroit area Historic Preservation site asked me if "LEGO By
Samsonite" meant that Samsonite sold the company to LEGO.
Well I went off on a long tangent, and I thought I would cut/paste it here on a
LEGO forum. Since I wrote this from memory, I may be off by 1 year in my
Beatrice Corp. dates. Enjoy!
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LEGO (The LEGO GROUP) started as a small Danish firm in 1932. By the late
1950's they were expanding throughout continental (non-communist) Europe, but
the company was not large enough to handle some of the foreign markets, such as
Britain, Australia, USA and Canada. So they licensed the product to other
companies.
Courtaulds (today known as Courtaulds/Sara Lee), a textile and chemical maker in
Britain got the license for Britain (1960) as well as the British Commonwealth.
Courtaulds started their first overseas LEGO sales in Australia in 1962.
In USA and Canada (only British Commonwealth country not handled by Courtaulds)
the license went to Samsonite in 1961/62. Back then the company was still known
as Shwayder Bros. The 4 Shwayder brothers founded the steamer trunk company in
Denver back in 1910. Their famous "Samsonite" line came later. In 1965 they
changed the company name to Samsonite.
Around 1974 Samsonite was purchased by that famous multi-national conglomerate
Beatrice. In the 1980's Beatrice was gobbled up by that huge leveraged buy-out
by Kraemer-Kohl-Kravitz (sp?) Wall Street brokerage firm. Beatrice was
dismembered and sold off (the sum of the parts was worth more than the whole).
And Samsonite again became an independent company.
The USA Samsonite license was revoked in 1972 (via legal action, because LEGO
complained that Samsonite was selling LEGO just like they were selling luggage).
The Canada Samsonite license continued until it was sold back to LEGO as part of
the levereage buyout in 1986.
The (British Commonwealth) Courtaulds license expired in 1993. So today TLG
(The LEGO Group) produces LEGO for all countries worldwide.
INTERLEGO AG is the Swiss company fully owned by TLG owners Kirk Kristiansen,
and his sister Gunhild. INTERLEGO owns all the LEGO Patents. The LEGO Group is
the Danish company that produces and distributes all LEGO products, and handles
all sales and marketing.
Kirk and Gunhild (3rd generation family owners) are today a billionaire family.
They no longer need to license LEGO products out to anyone, because they are no
longer "too small"! :)
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NOTE: a lot of this information was researched by Jim Hughes (Ohio) and Eric
Strand (Texas). Eric even had the pleasure of EMAIL correspondence with a 4th
generation Shwayder family member!
Happy Holidays!
Gary Istok
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: A quick LEGO History
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| (...) Gary, Good, concise history! I've heard bits and pieces of this before, but never quite so linearly told. I always find this stuff fascinating. Thanks for sharing this. - Kelly (17 years ago, 23-Dec-06, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: A quick LEGO History
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| (...) So, out of curiosity, why is this usually called the starting date? I always hear it quoted that Lego started in 1932, but I'm not sure why people quote that rather than 1895 or 1916. From what I know (from 50 Years of Play book): 1895 - (...) (17 years ago, 24-Dec-06, to lugnet.general)
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