Subject:
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Part numbers begin appearing on bricks in 1986
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.year.1986, lugnet.db.inv
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Date:
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Fri, 15 Jun 2001 06:56:57 GMT
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Viewed:
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47 times
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After some investigating and the opportunity to build two MIB Lego sets from
1986, I have concluded that this was the year that Lego elements began to
appear with their official part number.
The two 1986 sets I recently opened were from Town, but that is irrelevent.
What I did notice is that less than half of all of the different elements bore
the official part number. Some sizes of plates had the number, others did
not; similar findings for other elements.
Another note about plates. It also appears that the undersides of 4x and 6x
plates were modified. The modifications I noticed were that the hollow tubes
were changed from completely circular to the hexagonal (or is it octagonal?)
design we now have. This has some affect on gripping properties, I assume.
The second modification seems to be either cosmetic only or structural. On the
undersides of 4x and 6x plates, there used to be bars spaced every four rows of
tubes. The bar is not continuous as the tubes get in the way. This feature
has been removed from these plates now.
So, with the appearance of Lego part numbers and the removal of the bars on
undersides of plates, I have to conclude that this was a transistional year for
the incorporation of new molds used to create Lego elements. These changes
were not immediate and I cannot say that the changes did not start to appear on
elements prior to 1986 with total confidence. But I did a little more
checking:
The 1x5x6 castle wall element (part # 4444) debuted in 1984. I own all of the
sets from that first release of Gray castles, so I checked the undersides of my
wall pieces to see if part numbers were present. As it turns out, most of my
wall elements do not bear the part number. Those that do I assume were from
sets released in 1986 or later.
This is not conclusive proof, but I could not readily think of any other
elements to use in gaining more evidence.
If anyone else has more evidence to prove me right or wrong, I would be
interested to hear it. I am quite certain that 1986 was the year that part
numbers began to appear on elements and that plates received a slight
make-over.
......Just an interesting bit of Lego trivia......
__Kevin Salm__
....Lego brick enthusiast for over 20 years....
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