Subject:
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The first Lego color change of 1962-70
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general, lugnet.color
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Date:
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Thu, 15 Jul 2004 23:34:10 GMT
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Viewed:
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1721 times
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Well I see that the color change of 2004 has generated some strong emotions...
The first color change (of modern Lego starting in 1957) was that of 1962-70.
TLG replaced Cellulose Acetate with ABS Plastic, and in doing so the colors red,
yellow and blue changed quite a bit, especially red. Any of you who find old
Lego will agree. The red Cellulose Acetate pieces were more of a red-orange
color, the yellow pieces were a bright lemony yellow, while the blue pieces were
a lighter brighter blue. The changes to ABS plastic can hardly be noticed in
black, gray, white or green Lego, except that the CA pieces were shinier.
Unfortunately, USA Samsonite Lego had a large quantity of old Cellulose Acetate
granules left over (in red and yellow), and USA sets still had old pieces,
especially yellow, until 1970. Europe pretty much completed the switch by 1963.
Samsonite sets from the mid to late 60's sometimes had dark red (ABS) sloped
bricks along with red-yellow (CA) regular bricks in many of their basic sets.
And interestingly enough there are some pieces in yellow CA that were never
available in Europe (small yellow plates, 1x2 and 1x4 bricks with the posts
underneath, while the 1x6 and 1x8 bricks were still produced with the old (pre
1965) "postless" molds.
The 60's were a very confusing time for USA Samsonite Lego. Today's color
change is relatively minor compared to the chaos of the 60's.
This topic gets discussed in greater depth in my upcoming new cd/book.
Gary Istok
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