Subject:
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Early Lego Licenses
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Thu, 10 Jan 2008 03:36:11 GMT
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6400 times
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Here are some notes from the upcoming edition of Brickfetish. Let me know what
you think.
Lego Early Licenses
By the early 1950's it had become clear to Godtfred that the Danish market was
becoming too small
to support the growing company and he would have to look to foreign markets for
growth.
In 1952 Ole decided to expand the factory, at the time an expansion much larger
than what was needed. Godtfred protested the new expansion. After all, they had
just paid off the 1942 factory and didn’t need to go right back into debt,
but Ole simply said "I’ll decide what's to be built - your job is to raise the
money!" The final cost of the expansion was 350,000 DKK. Godtfred was so upset
with his father’s plan that he handed in his resignation.
However, the resignation was only temporary; within months Godtfred was showing
samples of the bricks to possible export partners in Norway and Sweden. It
appears that among the people he met with was Axel Thomsen in Lerum, Sweden.
Axel Thomsen and his wife Grete were Danish expatriates living in Lundby, a
northern suburb of Göteborg, Sweden. Greta was rather adept at designing
miniature dollhouse furniture and in 1947 Axel sold some of these designs to the
Swedish department store Ferdinand Lundquist. In 1948 the Thomsens moved the
fledgling operation to Lerum, Sweden and began production of not only dollhouse
furniture but dollhouses as well. The company became AB Lundby Leksaksfabrik.
The Lundby dollhouse, considered a classic Swedish toy, is still sold to this
day.
Norway
Lego's first foreign partner was Svein Stromberg in Oslo, Norway. Svein
Stromberg & Co. A/S was a manufacturer of plastic houshold goods.
Because of import restrictions after the war, it was not possible to import
finished plastic toys into Norway so Godtfred licensed the Lego toy molds and
sold their technical expertise to Stromberg. In exchange Stromberg promised to
set up a separate sales division for the Lego toys, under the name Norske Lego
A/S. (however I have seen a number of these toys on auction sites labeled
Norske LEGIO). Godtfred licensed a number of his molds, including the Ferguson
Tractor and the Lego Mursten.
Norske Lego, however, did not just manufacture and sell Lego toys, but, again
because of import restrictions, toys from a number of different manufactures,
including the Copenhagen-based Tekno die-cast vehicles, which were sold under
the name Mecline.
Sales apparently went rather well and Lego made a profit from the royalties on
molds, etc.
Sometime later, as import restrictions were lifted, the manufacturing reverted
back to Billund. However it appears that sales were still handled by Stromberg
via Norske Lego until Lego set up their own sales company, also called Norske
Lego AS, in 1962. The newsales company was in Sandvika, Norway
Sweden
Automatic Binding Brick sets were sold in at least Southern Swenden as early as
1950-51. Exactly how long these sales went on is unknown, but likely not long,
as only original Swedish ABB sets are known to exist
Lego's first real marketing to Sweden started in 1955 with the System i Leg and
Lego Mosaik sets. These sets were manufactured in Billund and at least for a
short time by Norske Lego. Exclusive rights in Sweden were given to AB Lundby
Leksaksfabrik in Lerum, Axel's dollhouse company.It appears that Lundby also set
up a separate sales company for Lego as literature from the time shows only Lego
sets, not Lundby dollhouses.
So from 1955-1959 Lego was distributed in Sweden by Lundby. In 1959 Lego set up
their own Sales company Lego Svierge AB which wasalso located in Lerum.
Germany
Godtfred showed the System of Play at the 1955 Nuremburg Toy Fair and German
buyers were less that excited. To them, accustomed to relatively high-quality
metal toys, this cheap plastic toy was of no interest. But Godtfred decided to
try test sales in Nortern Germany for the 1955 Christmas season and met with at
least some success.
Were not done with Axel Thomsen yet. He moved to Germany in 1954 and set up
another toy factory in Hohenwestedt. In 1954 Thomsen had moved to Germany and
was operating toy factories in both Hohenwestedt and Lerum. In January Godtfred
met with Axel in Hohenwestedt after a trip to the Danish consulate in Hamburg
and Axel agreed to help sell the toy in Germany. By Godtfred did not want a
distributor like his arrangement with Lundby in Sweden; he knew that Lego would
be lost in a sea of German competitors with a distibutor. He needed someone who
could work full-time with Lego and Thomsen did have his own little dollhouse
empire to run.
After a visit to Billund, where Godtfred showed Axel his plans for the System i
Leg, Axel sold his German factory to his son (either Bjorn or Harald, I am not
sure which) so he could work on Lego full time. Axel became the General Manager
of Lego Spielwaren GmbH, Lego’s first true foreign sales company. The
headquarters were set up in an old rail hotel in Hohenwestadt (which Axel owned)
and the company was incorporated on 1 Dec 1956.
As toy analysts predicted, Thomsen initially had difficulty selling the toy,
particularly to larger department stores, who wanted discount pricing (and
Godtfred NEVER discounted price). The first large store to carry Lego was
Karstadt in Hamburg, but Spielzeugfachgeschäft Rasch (also in Hamburg), then the
largest toy store in Germany, refused to stock the toy; they wanted no part of
the "plastic junk." So Axel provided small toy shops with elaborate window
displays and quickly filmed a black and white commercial and had it shown in a
Hamburg cinema. The result was enough demand that Walter Rasch had no choice but
to stock the toy.
After this Lego had much more success in Germany, but retailers still complained
about the toys' quality. It is largely these German complaints that drove
Godtfred to develop the stud-and-tube coupling in 1958
Switzerland
While Godtfred was negotiating with Axel Thomsen he was approached by John
Schneidegger, a Zurich businessman, about marketing the toy in Switzerland.
Godtfred met Schneidegger in Frankfurt while on a trip to return Ole from a
convalescent holiday.(by this time Ole's health had deteriorated to the point
where he spent a considerable time in the relatively warmer climate of Germany).
Schneidegger was so impressed with the System of Play that he agreed to be
general manager of the Swiss sales company. Lego spielwaren AG, based in Zurich,
was opened in 1957.
Iceland
In what would be their most unusual license arrangement, Lego licensed the molds
for Lego Mursten to SÍBS in Iceland in 1956. (SÍBS is the acronym for Sambands
íslenskra berkla- og brjóstholssjúklinga (Icelandic Association of Tuberculosis
and Thoracic Patients), but you probably knew this already. Reykjalundur was
sold to private investors in 2004 and is now Reykjalundur Plastiðnaður
(Reykjalundur Plastics Industries, Ltd).
SÍBS was established in 1949 in Reykjavik as a rehabilitation center for
tuberculosis patients and included an occupational therapy center, Reykjalundur.
Arni Einarsson, the director of SÍBS, was looking for relatively simple plastic
products for the patients to manufacture. Through a third party, Elmo Nielsen of
the Copenhagen wholesale company Elmodan, he obtained Lego Mursten molds in
1955.
From 1955-1960 the Icelandic sets were not sold as Lego, but under the name SÍBS
kubbar (SÍBS building blocks). Later SÍBS bought the boxes and packaging
directly from Billund and the sets were sold under the Lego name.
Later, in 1974, SÍBS began Duplo production and they continued to mold, package
and distribute Lego until 1977, By this time the system became simply to large
and complex. Lego in Billund took over manufacturing and packaging but, due to
the small size of the market and the unusual nature of the licensee,
Reykjalundur continued the distribution of Lego in Iceland, a practice that
continues to the present day.
--Jim
http://www.brickfetish.com
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