Subject:
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Re: A quick LEGO History
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Sun, 24 Dec 2006 07:57:04 GMT
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Viewed:
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2349 times
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The 1932 date is when toys were first produced. Prior to that, it's more
Christiansen family business ventures.
1932 = startup of toys.
1949 = bought their first injection molding machine, and started making the
Automatic Binding Bricks.
The "selling Lego like they were selling luggage" were the exact words from a
4th generation Shwayder family member, as were the words "license revoked".
TLG first started selling LEGO themselves in 1973, which is why that is the year
they use for USA LEGO sales. Kind of sour grapes if you ask me, since Canada
sales anniversary starts from their 1962 Samsonite origins. The USA LEGO
anniversary date should be 1961, regardless of what transpired in 1972.
Actually I believe that the process to get the license back started in 1970.
Because that was the last year that USA Samsonite had anything that even
resembled a normal sales lineup. The 1970 USA Samsonite LEGO catalog appears
normal (Eric Strand Image):
http://home.comcast.net/~strand_lego/3449-US/
But then something happened. There is no normal 1971 or 1972 Samsonite LEGO
catalog. After the 1970 catalog, the only known USA Samsonite LEGO catalog is
this one (Eric Strand Image):
http://home.comcast.net/~strand_lego/8031/
I call it the 1971-72 catalog, although it was likely produced in 1972, since
there are 2 versions to the basic sets shown.
Here are the 2 versions of the #103 Samsonite LEGO set (Eric Strand Image):
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=980468
The one on the left is the 1971, and the on the right is the 1972 version with
SAMSONITE in larger letters that LEGO. Samsonite knew that their time would be
up shortly , so they didn't care how large they put their company name on the
LEGO boxes. Also, note that these 1971-72 sets have huge parts counts.
Samsonite wanted to get all of the remaining LEGO bricks out of their Loveland
Colorado warehouse inventory before their time was up in 1972.
In fact they sold off the remainder inventory to some of the large USA mail
order companies, such as JC Penney and Sears. Here is a Christmas 1972 JC
Penney page with Samsonite LEGO sets. Unfortunately the end date is cropped off
on this picture, but it stated that these items were available until August 25,
1973.
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1299195
This picture shows that by 1972, Samsonite had exhausted their inventory of
yellow plastic and bricks. Only the remaining yellow Samsonite gears were still
available until the end of the production line.
_________________________
In 1972 TLG brought a team of folks to the USA to start a new USA LEGO company
in Connecticut (not yet Enfield). They set up shop, and sold the first sets
starting in 1973.
These 1973-79 USA TLG sets were the same, but had different set numbers than
those sold in continental Europe, Britain and Australia at the time.
Samsonite of Canada must have followed the wishes of TLG much better than the
USA subsidiary. In 1973 Samsonite of Canada was still selling the older
Samsonite sets sold there since 1966.
In 1974 Canada started selling LEGO sets with the set numbers that had the
EU/UK/AUS set numbers, but still had "Samsonite" on the box. By this time
Samsonite (USA and Canada) had been bought by Beatrice International Corp.
Samsonite of Canada continued LEGO production until 1986, when the leveraged
buyout and dismemberment of Beatrice was completed.
And the rest is history...
Gary Istok
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: A quick LEGO History
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| (...) So, out of curiosity, why is this usually called the starting date? I always hear it quoted that Lego started in 1932, but I'm not sure why people quote that rather than 1895 or 1916. From what I know (from 50 Years of Play book): 1895 - (...) (18 years ago, 24-Dec-06, to lugnet.general)
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