Subject:
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Re: More esoteric Lego history
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Mon, 6 Jun 2005 01:06:27 GMT
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Viewed:
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2525 times
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> Ya know, Eric told me about this a while ago. And with Jim mentioning the 4 sons of Ole Kirk Christiansen again. Well it got me to wondering about the family twist to TLG. I mean here we have Ole Kirk, who died in 1958 leaving his 3rd oldest son (GKC) in charge. Hmmmm, sounds like a recipe for family discord. It is no wonder that 2 of GKC's brothers left the company in the early 60's. Does that mean that the billionaire Lego family mentioned in Forbes Magazine only covers the descendants of 2 out of 4 brothers, since the others went to form the shortlived BILOfix company, and perhaps are the poorer cousins to the other two family branches?
>
> And with the 3 children of GKC... they started showing up on Lego boxes for the
> first time in 1953 (that picture in THE ULTIMATE LEGO BOOK and WORLD OF LEGO
> TOYS), when KKK (about 5 1/2 years old at the time) and his older sister first
> showed up. By 1955 all sets (with the exception of model sets, garage sets, and
> 1:87 cars/trucks) had Ole Kirk's grandchildren (from GKC) on the box tops of all
> basic sets and parts packs until 1960.
>
> Jim, in your original post, did you mean that KKK's older sister is the one that
> died in a 1969 accident? Or that both sisters were older. In Eric Strand's
> picture (the one that Dave Shifflett is questioning :-) I think it clearly shows
> that one sister is older and one is younger.
>
> Thanks for posting this info Jim! It sure does beg a lot of questions, doesn't
> it?
>
> Gary Istok
Yeah, every new fact I uncover raises many new questions, my head may explode
eventually.
I originally thought that both sisters were older than KKK but Dave has sent me
a high-resolution copy of the image above and it is clear that one sister is
older and one younger than KKK, but I dont know which is which, I do know
this:
Kjeld and Hanne were driving back from a movie in the town of Give in Oct
1969, their car, a Morrison, slid off the road and hit a tree, Hanne was
killed and Kjeld was seriously wounded. GKC was so upset that he seriously
considered selling the company. A prominent Danish businessman Vagn Holck
Andersen convinced him not to sell. Anderson was then hired by GKC and spent
the rest of his career at Lego as a go-between for GKC and KKK.<1>
The burial records for Hanne and the rest of the family are likely pointed to by
this Danish church information:
Kirk Christiansen (familie) (-1970-), Billund, s. 2293, 2295, 3539
and
Christiansen, Hanne Kirk (+før 1973), s. 2295
and
Christiansen, Ole Kirk (-1919-24-), (legetøjsfabrikant), Billund, 2326, 2329
note 5.
Good luck with that but let me know if any comes up with anything!
From early on it was clear that Gotdfred was the most interested in the company
and GKC favored him. I would think that the 2 brothers leaving was
at least in part protest, but this is only speculation.
The role of the rest of the family in the Lego fortune is unclear. The first
board of directors in the 1940s had OKC's 2nd wife on it to represent the
family, and the board has continued since then to include a family member not
directly associated with the business, the current board (2005) includes
Mogens Andersen, husband of Gunhild Kirk Andersen (Christiansen).
KKK alone (not the entire family) is listed in the Forbes list, he makes money
from Lego but moreso from several holding companies such as Lego
holding and KIRKI AG. KIRKBI
owns all of Legos intellectual property and Lego makes sizable royalty payments
each year to KIRKBI, according to the 2004 financial statement this
was 121 million DKK. So both the Kristiansens and Lego use KIRKBI as their
"bank". All of the shares of Lego holding are owned by KKK and his 3 children.
all of the shares of KIRKBI are owned by KKK and Gunhild.
<1>It should be noted that currently KKK owns a Ferrari, Porsche and a
"practical" VW Phaton, but the rest of the family is interested in horses, KKK
owns a horse farm on a island in Denmark and a 50,000 acre farm in the scottish
highlands.
--jim
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: More esoteric Lego history
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| (...) Hey Jim, Got some more info from a Danish collector from a nearby Danish town, on the event that almost changed Lego history... (and KKK was not behind the wheel)... ----- "I know Hanne died in a car crash. Some years ago I talked to a woman (...) (19 years ago, 7-Jun-05, to lugnet.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: More esoteric Lego history
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| (...) Ya know, Eric told me about this a while ago. And with Jim mentioning the 4 sons of Ole Kirk Christiansen again. Well it got me to wondering about the family twist to TLG. I mean here we have Ole Kirk, who died in 1958 leaving his 3rd oldest (...) (19 years ago, 5-Jun-05, to lugnet.general)
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