Shirleyking Posted August 18, 2013 Posted August 18, 2013 (edited) Hi I have been trying to find out about my Lego. My father was the plastics engineer for Samsonite Bill King he worked for Mr Swayder back in the 60's. He used to bring home the extruded prototype parts from Samsonite when they first got the rights to produce and sell Lego. I put it away many many years ago and the other day pulled it out. I have gas pumps brick of all sizes gears ESSO flat bed trucks with trailers gas tankers and dump truck lol there blue and white.a garage with little door that opens trees light poles windows motorcycles well you get the picture. I was told to talk to legohistorian does anyone know how or can you help my to figure out if its worth Thank you Shirley Edited August 18, 2013 by Shirleyking Quote
eurotrash Posted August 18, 2013 Posted August 18, 2013 It sounds like an interesting find you have there! Legohistorian is regularly on these forums. Quote
Shirleyking Posted August 18, 2013 Author Posted August 18, 2013 There are more pics but cant upload sorry Quote
Faefrost Posted August 18, 2013 Posted August 18, 2013 There are more pics but cant upload sorry Normally we upload the pics to someplace like Flickr and then just link or embed them here. (There is a recently updated set of instructions on how to do this with the new Flickr somewhere around here, but I'll be darned if I can find it now that I look for it?) Quote
LEGO Historian Posted August 19, 2013 Posted August 19, 2013 Hi I have been trying to find out about my Lego. My father was the plastics engineer for Samsonite Bill King he worked for Mr Swayder back in the 60's. He used to bring home the extruded prototype parts from Samsonite when they first got the rights to produce and sell Lego. I put it away many many years ago and the other day pulled it out. I have gas pumps brick of all sizes gears ESSO flat bed trucks with trailers gas tankers and dump truck lol there blue and white.a garage with little door that opens trees light poles windows motorcycles well you get the picture. I was told to talk to legohistorian does anyone know how or can you help my to figure out if its worth Thank you Shirley I could feel the psychic pull of this thread.... lol... OK... I think this is going to be a very interesting thread.... I will need to see some images, but I can give you some background and maybe help you upload to either flickr, or you can EMAIL them to me and I can post them from my flickr account. Posting images here is a little bit tricky with the changes flickr went thru... Some background... The 4 Shwayder brothers founded the company originally known as "Shwayder Bros." in 1910 (originally by Jesse Shwayder). The USA LEGO boxes say... "LEGO by Samsonite" but the Denver based company was still known as "Shwayder Bros.". In 1965 the company changed its' name to Samsonite". I had always wondered about where the early Samsonite LEGO was produced. The first Samsonite LEGO for USA and Canada was produced by the Stratford Ontario Canada Samsonite plant. The first mention of a USA plant was not until April 1965, when a plant in Loveland Colorado opened up. But was all USA Samsonite LEGO for the USA made in Canada until 1965? That's still a puzzle to me. Also... all of those specialty parts... the Esso Pumps/Sign, the small 1:87 cars in garages and the 1:87 Bedford trucks were all made in Denmark and shipped to the USA. Mostly just the bricks and windows/doors were produced in North America. I had a 231 USA Samsonite Esso Service parts pack that had "Contents made in Denmark" on the box, as did the small garages with the 1:87 scale cars (red and gold foil sticker on the bottom of the garages confirm this). Shirley, if you email me pictures of some of the Samsonite items, I will post them here for you... my Email address is istok.gary@gmail.com Thanks, Gary Istok P.S. Will post more later about Samsonite and Shwayder Bros. Quote
LEGO Historian Posted August 19, 2013 Posted August 19, 2013 Shirley, These were the 1:87 cars in garages. Ironically I've only ever found them in 1 USA/Canada Samsonite catalog. They were sold from 1962-67. These came in small garages, and on the underside of the garage they had "Made in Denmark". These came as #261 thru #268 (8 different cars). And here are the Bedford trucks from a 1961 Portuguese catalog. Ironically the trucks were ONLY found in the USA/Canada Samsonite 725 Town Plan set... and then only the 250 Bedford Esso Tanker Truck, the 255 Bedford Fire Engine, and the 256 Bedford Tow Truck. The others (251, 252, 253, 254, 257) were NEVER found in any USA sets, nor were they sold alone. So if you have some USA samples of these Shirley... they were likely just Samsonite company examples shipped over from Denmark. Like the cars... the Bedford trucks (sold 1955-65 in Europe) were all made in Denmark. And here is the Samsonite LEGO spare parts pack list of 1963-65. The 231 (Esso accessories), 232 (road signs), 233 (lamp posts), 235 (garage kit), 242 (flags), 245 (lighting pack)... were all made in Denmark, and the Samsonite LEGO parts pack boxes mention that. Early 230 (trees/bushes) were hand painted and made in Europe (5 tree types, 1 bush type), while later 230 packs had 1 type of tree (Pine) and 1 bush type... these were made by Samsonite of unpainted green plastic. All of the other parts were made by Samsonite in USA/Canada. Quote
Shirleyking Posted August 20, 2013 Author Posted August 20, 2013 That's it those pics are the 1st I've seen of my Lego pieces :O). I will send you pics this weekend.. Thank you so much G Shirley Quote
LEGO Historian Posted August 25, 2013 Posted August 25, 2013 Hi Shirley, thanks for sending me the pictures... I'm just posting the major ones... Here's the first one... the large blue Samsonite case.... This is known as the Loveland Carrying Case, and is LEGO item #501... There is no way to identify this as a prototype or a regular item, that I'm aware of. Although this shows up from time to time, as a LEGO item, there are no examples for sale at the moment on Bricklink. I would guess the value of this item at about $80-$100. And here is the main image of the parts that you have put away.... Here are many of the more valuable items... the 1:87 trucks and LEGO Town Plan accessories... which were ironically all made in Denmark... If the tree is unpainted green plastic... then it is probably among the most valuable items... being a recognizeable prototype... And here are the bricks... This image shows some of the rarer parts... the 1:87 Bedford vehicles (#250, #251, #252, #253). Only the Esso Tanker truck was ever sold in the USA... the others never were. These trucks were all made in Denmark. Here are the LEGO Samsonite gears and LEGO wheel accessories. These items are all relatively common, except the small red gears. These 14 tooth gears should always be white... so these are test strikes... and rare... More about these items tomorrow.... Quote
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