Subject:
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Re: What makes 375 a Legend? (Was: New legend is up ))Color Variants(()
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.castle
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Date:
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Sat, 13 Jul 2002 21:35:29 GMT
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Viewed:
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878 times
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"Erik Olson" <erik@olson.pair.com> wrote in message
news:Gz5rII.Hpo@lugnet.com...
> In lugnet.castle, Twan Theeuwen writes:
> > [snip]
> > I'm don't want to offend anybody, but I'm genuinely
> > surprised that so many people seem to think the original
> > Yellow castle was so appealing.
>
> Different timing in Europe and the U.S. In the U.S., Castle was
> introduced first in pictures in the 6000 Idea Book in 1979. All
> the kids I knew stared at the Castle pictures long after we had
> become familiar with our Space sets and so on. Attempts to
> use space antennae as swords were unsatisfying. Then, finally,
> we got Castle in Summer 1981 (Christmas 1980 in some U.S.
> cities like Dallas, Texas.)
Thanks, this fully explains my confusion.
(On hindsight I could have found out myself had I compared
US catalogs over this period with European ones.)
> I was told by the Playmobil executive here that Knights sell
> better in the U.S. and Indians better in Europe. It's a case of
> marketing each other's mythologies, he said. (This might not
> be entirely true.)
I can imagine that this has an influence on sales, after all if
something comes from far it is perceived as exotic, exciting,
which may well increase sales figures.
OTOH we did play in a Castle setting quite a lot and kids
nowaday still play knights & kings etc. WWII oriented play
was also very common, which was real close both in time
and distance.
Thinking about it we mainly replayed what was on TV, e.g.
while Ivanhoe ran we played knights and when Battlestar
Galactica hit the screens we starting flying spaceships.
> Maybe this reinforces your observations: Yellow Castle more
> legendary in country with no naturally occuring castles. (18th
> century cannon forts notwithstanding.)
Probably this indeed has it's influence on different popularity
of the Yellow Castle between the US and Europe. Nevertheless
I think that the major reason is that because of the different timing
in releases the Yellow Castle got much more competition in
Europe (and sorta lost this).
> Another consideration is that, if one were the right age for Yellow
> Castle, possibly one missed Gray Castle entirely.
Yes, I did miss Gray Castle entirely. I entered dark ages around
age 14-16, that's '82-'84, just before Castle sets started coming
out in force.
Initially I assumed that the 375 was released during my dark
ages. Only when I found out it was released in '78 (over here)
I realized that I was 10 at the time and very involved with Lego.
This is where I started wondering why I don't have any strong
memories about this particular set.
Twan.
--
Twanneman@planet.nl
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