Subject:
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Can I hang out here for a while until it's safe at lugnet.general?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.org.ca.rtltoronto
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Date:
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Fri, 21 Jan 2005 04:40:42 GMT
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Viewed:
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469 times
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Hello folks in Toronto.
I thought I would hang out here for a while, until the Lego uncivil war is
over.... Since I live in St. Clair Shores Michigan, a northern suburb of
Detroit, and since I can see the Essex Co. Canada shore from the highest point
in my city (across Lake St. Clair) I thought I would chat with you folks for a
while. I do have some "Canadian" questions for you folks for my upcoming Lego
CD on the history of Lego.
I have a 1962 Canadian Samsonite Lego catalog. I am pretty sure that Lego first
came to Canada in 1962, is that correct? TLG's own website timeline says 1961,
but I don't believe that is correct. One reason was because back in 1987 I was
on Canadian TV (on "THE JOURNAL") which was on at 10:00 PM. The reason was the
celebration of the 25th anniversary of Lego. I believe the previous year (1986)
Samsonite of Canada (a Beatrice Company) relinquished the license of Lego in
Canada back to TLG in Billund. Peter Eio (USA Lego president) was also on the
25 years of Lego in Canada segment.
The segment on Lego was on The Journal for about 10 minutes. There was an 82
year old woman in Manitoba (IIRC) who was the queen of Lego in Canada (she built
a copy of each provincial capitol building). There was also a man in Montreal
who had like 10,000 different drawers for all his sons Lego (yeah right, his
son's Lego). And they sent a news team down from Toronto to interview me as
well and showed some of my Lego buildings (back then I only had about 300,000
pieces). It was a great opportunity, and later, I got a call from Henry
Wiencik, the author of THE WORLD OF LEGO TOYS, who interviewed me over the phone
for the book (I'm mentioned on page 30).
The relationship between TLG and Samsonite of Canada appears to have been a
rather friendly one. I mean today TLG celebrates anniversaries based on the
1962 date, correct? Well in the USA the relationship between USA Samsonite and
TLG appears to have been not so good. It is impossible to get any info out of
the company in regards to this but I can tell by some of the awful sets that
were produced in the early 1970's. USA Samsonite dumped zillions of Lego sets
onto catalog sales promotions at Sears and Penney's prior to the date of giving
up the franchise, and there were Samsonite sets available mail order for over a
year after (August 1973 I believe was the last date). 1972 was the year that TLG
took over in the USA (1961-72 were the Samsonite years). But Lego does not
acknowledge those years when doing their anniversary celebrations. They use the
1972 date. So they had their 25th anniversary in the USA the year after you
folks celebrated your 35th anniversary in Canada. Go figure.
Anyway, I wanted to say HELLO!
Gary Istok
(A Red Wing fan!)
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