Subject:
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PRIMA... the Swedish LEGO Connection...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Thu, 4 Jul 2013 00:10:43 GMT
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Viewed:
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24623 times
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Unlike Italy's MINITALIA, and Japan's OLO, PRIMA was a LEGO product that appears
to have NOT been produced by TLG. It appears that a Swedish LEGO plastics
producer by the name of GEAS KONSTHARTS of Gislaved Sweden (in south Central
Sweden) produced LEGO products in their own factory, and with their own
plastic... but with LEGO provided molds.
When LEGO bricks first came out in 1949, they were called AUTOMATIC BINDING
BRICKS, and were only produced for Denmark.
Then in 1950 it appears that TLG licensed the GEAS KONSTHARTS Plastic Company of
Gislaved Sweden to also produce AUTOMATIC BINDING BRICKS for the Swedish market.
A Geas Catalog can be found here on Joao Mimoso's LEGO website...
http://www.legos.tabacaria.com.pt/Pt2/txtBk/50a.htm
And here is a Geas set (5 color parts... made of shiny Polystyrene instead of
Cellulose Acetate)...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/82930629@N08/8341422541/sizes/l/
Here's the regular TLG AUTOMATIC BINDING BRICKS catalog of 1950-52... as found
in Jim Hughes catalog...
http://brickfetish.com/catalogs/dk/dk_1950.html
And here's a regular TLG AUTOMATIC BINDING BRICKS set, with Cellulose Acetate
parts (from Lothar Gastleiter's Flickr page)...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68072414@N03/6234920550/
Then in 1952 TLG Denmark decided to change the name of their AUTOMATIC BINDING
BRICKS sets to "LEGO Mursten".
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68072414@N03/6234921152/
However GEAS KONSTHARTS was likely prevented from adding the word "LEGO" to
their sets (and also prevented from starting to put LEGO logos onto the GEAS
produced bricks system for Sweden).
That's when it appears that GEAS KONSTHARTS had to use a new name... and PRIMA
became the choice, likely around 1952 or so. Here is a PRIMA set, along with
the PRIMA catalog... from Rohnny Sweenen's Flickr page...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/78913630@N02/8138022616/sizes/l/
Then in late 1954/early 1955 PRIMA came out with a catalog showing new parts...
these were likely new TLG parts "prototype molds" without "LEGO" on them that
may have been sent to GEAS to produce these products for PRIMA sets...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68072414@N03/8717618524/
And the PRIMA parts... which were also introduced into LEGO sets from 1953-55
(but with LEGO logos)... can be seen here with waffle plates in green and
yellow, and macaroni bricks in the same colors...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/82930629@N08/8290327990/sizes/o/
Now if all this doesn't sound confusing enough... here's the same catalog page
from 4 different catalogs... the TLG Automatic Binding Bricks page (upper left),
the GEAS Automatic Binding Bricks page (lower left and upper right... and early
and later version)... and a GEAS PRIMA page (lower right).
And to make this all even more complex... TLG Billund has no records of any GEAS
connections with LEGO!!!
Gary Istok
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: PRIMA... the Swedish LEGO Connection...
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| ... then in later 1955 the REAL LEGO came to Sweden. GEAS KONSTHARTS likely had their license revoked to produce LEGO like bricks (using real LEGO molds without the logo on the studs)... and another firm started producing actual LEGO. That company (...) (11 years ago, 4-Jul-13, to lugnet.general)
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