Subject:
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The Rarest LEGO Bricks? Half Circle Macaroni Bricks.
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Fri, 29 Oct 1999 14:55:22 GMT
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Viewed:
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634 times
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Well, just when I thought I've seen it all......
Yesterday I received a LEGO package (of pieces and parts packs from the
1950's) from a gentleman in Denmark. And among them was something that
really startled me. It was a parts pack from 1956 that had macaroni
bricks (nickname for the 2x2 quarter circle bricks). What really
shocked me was the fact that there were 4 different types of macaroni
bricks, 3 types of which I had never seen before. They are:
1) The type that is still in use today 45 years later.
2) The same as type 1, except they don't have that missing "notch" on
the bottom outer edge of the piece that makes building them onto a
baseplate possible.
3) A "half circle" macaroni piece (the exact dimensions as 2 macaroni
bricks plased end to end), with 2 of those notches.
4) A "half circle" macaroni piece without the 2 notches.
The only complaint I have with the current macaroni bricks is the fact
that when stacked (or staggered) they have those unsightly holes (from
the notches). In the very earliest LEGO (from the mid 1950's), TLG took
care of that problem by having some of the macaroni bricks without those
notches. But probably around 1958, they discontinued 3 of the 4
varieties of these bricks, and only kept the variety we still have
today. Too bad, because I really like these notchless pieces.
I went back to Hortst Lehner's fabulous website of early LEGO catalogs,
and saw that in the 1957 catalog the parts pack #224 shows a white
quarter circle brick, and a red half circle brick (I probably thought it
was 2 quarter circle bricks). Check it out:
http://horst-lehner.mausnet.de/lego/katalog/gk57/GK57-2.JPG
Then in Horst's 1958 catalog it shows only the quarter circle bricks
(parts pack #224). At this point, the half circle bricks were already
discontinued. Check it out:
http://horst-lehner.mausnet.de/lego/katalog/gk58/GK58-2.JPG
So these half circle macaroni bricks and the quarter/half circle
macaroni bricks without notches were only produced from the early 1950's
until 1957. Maybe we should nickname the half circle macaroni bricks
something more appropriate ..... how about the ......... "Rigatoni
Bricks"? (heh-heh)
Gary Istok
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