Made to be Played: Over Generations
Posted by benbacardi,
LEGO has focused heavily on sustainability in recent years, developing paper bags to replace plastic and exploring new materials for making bricks, such as the successful Plants from Plants initiative.
These are laudable goals, but LEGO benefits from a degree of inherent sustainability too, as unlike many other toys, LEGO parts are rarely thrown away. Instead, there seems to be a broad understanding that LEGO is relatively easy to sell, donate or store in readiness for younger relatives.
Myself, CapnRex101 and Huw are going to write a little about their experiences of this process, beginning with me passing my childhood LEGO sets to my children:
I'm not as young as I used to be. That's a fact that I'm having to begrudgingly accept more and more as time goes on and my own children get older.
I grew up in the early 90s, and a lot has changed since then. Even LEGO has changed. There’s a lot more licensed sets, a lot more tie-ins with TV shows, even within their own IP. There’s a lot more specialised parts—although, even back then, there were more than people remember now. But what hasn’t changed are the things that make LEGO special: the freedom, the space for creativity and imagination, and the studs. The original LEGO brick from the 1950s still fits together perfectly with those made today, which is a testament to their design, and something no other competing brand has really managed to pull off to the same extent.
An old photo from my parents' archives of a model I built in the early 1990s.
When my brother and sister and I were younger, we had a large white box with a hinged lid that contained a whole heap of LEGO—a mix of sets and random bricks, minifigures and other characters. Sometimes it would be sorted neatly, other times it was a chaotic mess (mostly after we’d finished playing with it). When we grew up and moved on, my parents kept the box, and I remember it came out again when my brother had to spend a while bored in hospital, where he passed the time sorting it back into its respective sets. We (well, probably my mum) had cut the boxes up and kept the artwork. Some of them had my name written on them in childish handwriting with a biro.
A collection of my old set manuals and box cutouts, with my name scrawled on a few.
Nowadays, some of it lives at my brother’s house, some at my parents’, and some at mine. In each case, it’s not in a box in the loft gathering dust, like many childhood toys would be thirty years later—assuming they were kept at all. Instead, it’s still fulfilling the purpose for which it was made all those years ago—made to be played.
Our large play bag full of LEGO. Some decades-old parts are obvious to spot, others much less so.
We have a large bag hanging in our lounge full of LEGO. It opens out into a playmat, and my two children regularly pull it down and spend a happy afternoon being creative with the bricks inside. It’s a mixture of parts from Classic boxes, sets they didn’t want to keep separate for play or display, and miscellaneous LEGO of my own from that large white box. Bricks that are more than thirty years old mixed with bricks that were bought yesterday—and you can’t tell. To my children, there’s absolutely no difference—they’re all just LEGO bricks, to be played with in the same way. It doesn’t matter to them that some are seven times older than they are.
A recent build by my children that uses a mixture of parts from modern sets and parts from the 1990s.
When they visit their grandparents, it’s a similar situation. There’s a box they make a beeline for, full of parts of all shapes and sizes. The most recognisable pieces here are the Fabuland sets that my parents bought my siblings and I when we were the same age as my children now—fantastical animal characters, large, specialised fairground parts, and colourful fences. The ratio is probably tipped in the other direction here—most of the parts are older, only a handful of recent sets mixed in. But the play remains the same. By the end of the afternoon, Fabuland characters from the 1980s will find themselves riding around in vehicles made with parts from the 2010s, while minifigures from recent years try their hand at fairground games printed on bricks forty ago.
A small fairground built using large Fabuland pieces as well as modern LEGO parts and minifigures.
LEGO holds its value purely for this reason. It lasts, for decades, and never becomes obsolete. Us AFOLs may care about the condition of the box, or whether the instructions are intact, but that’s just us—to a child, it’s the bricks inside that matter, and they remain the same. When my children are older, I will pass the family LEGO on to them, and watch them get the same joy out of it with their children it as we have with them. They probably won’t realise that some of the bricks were from their parents’ childhood, or their grandparents’, or even their great-grandparents’—and they don’t need to, because LEGO was made to be played, over generations.
#MadeToBePlayed
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77 comments on this article
I still have most of 'my' childhood bricks. As there were five of us kids, and three of us interested heavily in Lego at the same time, it all got spread around a fair bit and muddled as to who actually owned what. It's more like the Family collection was split in thirds, and we each ended up with a piece of the whole. I also luckily never had a dark age, so I never sold it all and have to start from scratch again. (I admit I have sold some stuff, like Galidor and some Bionicle, to a local Lego resale shop, but never my whole collection - you'll have to pry that from my cold, dead hands!)
As for my parents, my dad still has his and never let us touch it as kids or even adults. My step father let us play with his a bit, but nowadays it's all boxed up. My mom didn't really have too much growing up due to lack of budget, and what she did have was sold at some point.
Nice to see old and new parts working together as they should.
Personally still have loads from my own childhood, even of I did sell off a large chunk if City to save up money to buy a Death Star.
None from my parents, however have 891 and 6841 from a box at my grandparents that used to belong to my uncle.
I never had Lego as a child. I'm not sure why exactly. Maybe because we were poor?
I started buying them for my children, and 1300 sets later, I guess I'm addicted :).
My wife and myself both have our LEGO sets from when we were both children. How we kept them was a bit different though. She doesn't have any original boxes, but had sets saved in plastic bags, sealed up with the instructions and then several very long and thin tubs that you could store under beds, full of pieces.
I still have all of the original boxes and instructions that I still keep all of my sets in. The one thing we do not do is mix our old stuff with our new sets. (at least not my stuff). We have tons of new sets for us and our daughter to play with and we pick up bundles of bricks to do whatever with.
I have already started to tell my daughter to keep everything in tact, so she can sell it all once we are gone.
What a lovely article. And I agree, Lego itself is inherently reusable and I tend to dislike the kids receiving other plastic toys, which often end up in the bin.
Our family lego box contains a few recognisable parts from Guarded Inn and King's Castle, but not a huge amount.
Mostly what I love about Lego now is that my favourite set - Barracuda Bay, for how gorgeous it is - is also my 7 year old son's favourite set, for how playable it is. Few other toys have such broad appeal.
I grew up playing with parts that were from my Mam and her siblings. I added more from sets I got in the late 80s and early 90s. My much younger brother then added even more from the early 2000s.
From what I thought was a huge 5 litre tub of parts, he ended up with an 80 litre box on wheels about 75% full. All the parts from the 60s onwards are still there and none of us saw any difference connecting the old with the new bits.
I do wish my sisters had more of an interest in Lego so we could have had some of the parts from sets that were seen as "for girls". When I go through older parts lists on Brickset there are some really nice bits and pieces in those sets.
My dad had a gigantic box of LEGO that he had plaued with as a kid, and when I was six he just gave the entire thing to me. Nowadays,I'm keeping my own internal LEGO collection with more modern pieces, but I still hope to play with them alongside my children in the future!
I'm 68 and have had LEGO since I was 5. I gave almost all of it (5 vanloads!) to Autism UK a few years ago, including one each of the three monorail sets, retaining only the railway-themed sets. But that just made room in the garage for collecting new LEGO. I think I might be an addict. But I have 2 granddaughters who are LEGO-mad so it's probably a genetic condition??
I still have all of my childhood LEGO. I even kept all the parts that broke over the years (don't ask me why, I don't know myself why I kept those).
Compared to the size of my collection nowadays, this historic part is tiny by comparison. All the pieces of my childhood sets fitted neatly in about twelve small plastic containers, slotted into one compartment in one of my shelves back then. And all the instructions fitted into one rather small binder, which was less thick than some modern instruction manuals for a single set.
How I miss those days.
Which is also a reason why I have stopped buying modern sets almost entirely and have rather changed to tracking down and obtaining some of the sets from my childhood that I never got. Especially Classic Space and old Technic.
I was quite lucky to find some great sets on the secondary market over time, much like I tracked down some of my favorite Matchbox plastic model kits from the Eighties.
My parents otoh never had any LEGO. They grew up right after WWII, and back then families in Germany, especially displaced ones like my parents, had far different priorities than expensive toys. Only my uncle, who was a little bit younger, had maybe three or four sets in the early Sixties, but all of those pieces have warped over time and don't hold together anymore. They can't be combined with modern pieces either, so at least when it comes to these sets, they didn't hold up well.
And some of my childhood LEGO has yellowed a bit over time, but retrobrighting has taken care of most of that.
It's weird, but the thing that always blows my mind isn't the compatibility or the the lego "System" with its specific geometries, but rather the colors. The colors always (almost always, looking at you dark gray) match, regardless of the era. I just think that's kind of wild how they've kept the exact same color palette all these years.
Seems kind of obvious, but it's one of those things you never really pay any mind to until you suddenly realize it.
I still have all my childhood LEGO sets (although I appear to be missing that yellow Model Team Jeep), and in the past half a decade or so I've nearly completed my Castle collection by buying second-hand sets which were complete and in good shape.
My parents never had LEGO, but I see a lot of young parents pass on their love for the brand to their kids, and even get back into LEGO themselves, and building with their kids, creating nice memories along the way.
None of my parents or siblings had Lego. I got my first set in 2002. It was the set 4176, loved the chrome parts it had. But now most the set is gone and what remains is in a tub with parts of other old sets I had.
The oldest still complete I have in my collection is 7034 that I got in late 2003. Very few sets from my childhood are still complete. I have many 80s, 90s and other early 2000s sets nowadays but all of them purchased recently.
I find it unlikely that I will get to have children someday, and none of my nephews or nieces have interest in Lego. So I have no idea if my sets will be passed to another generation. Well, in the meanwhile, I will keep collecting as long it is possible.
Part of my fear with Lego replacing plastic sourcing is potential faster degradation, as that would in large part defeat the purpose of the sustainability effort, for the very reason outlined here.
My dad immigrated when he was 27 into the country we live now, and recently I went back to his birth country to visit my family over there and my grandma (his mum) pulled out a huge box of Lego from when he was a child. It was incredible seeing all these classic space and castle pieces and holding the original instructions felt like handling ancient manuscripts. It's a feeling that's hard to describe but nonetheless I packed all of the Lego into my bag to bring home. Lego really is timeless
I have some Lego from my Dad, but it is kept seperate.
I have pretty much all the Lego I had as a kid. All my other toys disappeared in garage sales over the years, but thankfully my parents kept the Lego.
My old stuff sorta got mixed with my newer stuff. The last year or so I've made it a goal to get the older sets back together and that has given me a lot of joy.
I got a few classic spacemen from my dad, as well as other old figures from some family friends. Still have a great memory of using sharpie to draw a new face on a head piece that had long lost its print.
All of my Lego was passed on to younger family members when I grew out of my 1st 'Lego age'. I've since re-bought most of the sets I remember having, earliest being 212-1 Small House, although the bricks don't so much 'stick together' as 'balance on top of each other'! https://brickset.com/sets/list-76092.
I didn't have any Lego passed on from my parents, as Lego didn't exist then... well, maybe as wooden toys! My Dad's building toy was Bayko! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayko
@sjr60 said:
"I didn't have any Lego passed on from my parents, as Lego didn't exist then... well, maybe as wooden toys! My Dad's building toy was Bayko! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayko"
Man, that brings back happy memories! Every year one of the things I was looking forward to on our holiday in England was playing with the Bayko my father's friend had from his childhood.
Granted, kids nowadays would never be allowed to play with such a "dangerous" toy, but back then we loved it, and I still do.
" The original LEGO brick from the 1950s still fits together perfectly with those made today"
They might fit together but they sure as hell don't *stay* together. Those early bricks were bad. I had my Dad's 60s era Lego bricks mixed in with my own as a child, and I knew which were which. I vastly preferred the sets from my own childhood. Most things from the 80s onwards are pretty serviceable.
This article is such kismet for me. I've been spending the past week going through my brother's childhood LEGO that had been stored in our parents' attic and reconstructing all of the sets and placing them in their original boxes for him. He collected Town and I collected Castle. I had retrieved my Castle sets and reboxed them years ago when I moved out of my starter house into my forever house. Now I'm doing it for him: three bins of loosely constructed sets plus a huge cardboard box filled with the original boxes and instructions. So much fun to stroll down memory lane.
One of my regrets in life is donating my childhood LEGO before my first marriage. But the regret does power my want of modern LEGO, even though my wallet hates me. AFOL retirement plan maybe :)
@AustinPowers said:
" @sjr60 said:
"I didn't have any Lego passed on from my parents, as Lego didn't exist then... well, maybe as wooden toys! My Dad's building toy was Bayko! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayko"
Man, that brings back happy memories! Every year one of the things I was looking forward to on our holiday in England was playing with the Bayko my father's friend had from his childhood.
Granted, kids nowadays would never be allowed to play with such a "dangerous" toy, but back then we loved it, and I still do. "
Yes, all those metal rods made very effective weapons!
I am the oldest of nine children and I had an older stepbrother who gave me his old legos from 1999 when I was six. I then got some more when I turned seven and have never stopped ever since. I have scrounged legos from peoples attics and basements and yard sales adding them to my ever growing collection of bricks and figures. I have lego from the eighties and the nighties mixed with lego from the two thousands, all the way to the current day.
All of my younger siblings have played with or are currently playing with Lego and have all been doomed to follow there older brother in his interest of Legos at some point in time.
@MisterBrickster said:
"" The original LEGO brick from the 1950s still fits together perfectly with those made today"
They might fit together but they sure as hell don't *stay* together. Those early bricks were bad. I had my Dad's 60s era Lego bricks mixed in with my own as a child, and I knew which were which. I vastly preferred the sets from my own childhood. Most things from the 80s onwards are pretty serviceable.
"
The old bricks were made from cellulose acetate, the new ones are made from ABS (Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene).
I also remember that the old ones degraded over time.
A really nice article which brings back a lot of memories!
Looking forward to the other articles!
While i say that I still have my childhood Lego i've still got to get it back from my Dad.
I own my mom's lego, some of my grandma's lego and of course my own original collection. Our family is of the opinion that you should _never_ throw away or sell LEGO; We pass it on to the next generation.
My and my sibling's duplo collection (two huge carver crates) has since passed to my nephew :)
@UProbeck said:
" @MisterBrickster said:
"" The original LEGO brick from the 1950s still fits together perfectly with those made today"
They might fit together but they sure as hell don't *stay* together. Those early bricks were bad. I had my Dad's 60s era Lego bricks mixed in with my own as a child, and I knew which were which. I vastly preferred the sets from my own childhood. Most things from the 80s onwards are pretty serviceable.
"
The old bricks were made from cellulose acetate, the new ones are made from ABS (Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene).
I also remember that the old ones degraded over time."
Yes, and objected very strongly to attempts to whiten with hydrogen peroxide. I managed to turn a load of previously fairly straight cellulose acetate bricks banana shaped, though nicely whitened!
I had some Lego as a kid, but nothing big. I dreamed though, and as an adult, I've collected a lot from the 80s and 90s. I do run across some with not enough hold, and some are damaged too much to be useful. By and large though, they're all still perfectly good if used. It really is incredible how well they hold up, and I can use new parts with them just as easily. I can't imagine many of my other toys like this; Playmobile perhaps (though I never had many), and matchbox cars if they were metal.
I really love that barring brittle browns and some CS stuff from the 70s (also brittle), almost all of the stuff I have works perfectly well with new or old.
Still have the Lego from my parents and other family, from the 60s and 70s. Everything fits, just don't expect ANY clutch power. And a lot of it has horribly warped over the years, something which also seems to depend heavily on the color.
Also have my own stuff from the 80s. Tought we always took reasonable care of it, yet when I tried to rebuid everything for the first time in probably 3 decades, many pieces were VERY loose, and some also seems rather brittle, especially transparent pieces. Technic stuff seemed to have survived better in general. except for the old style of wheels, many of which have broken under the pressure of the rubber tires.
And now have my own post dark ages stuff, and there's also the next generation in the form of my nephews and niece. Who have an insane ammount of stuff, yet still don't seem to have much of a clue what to do with it. Might not help that they have sorted everything just by color....the horror, the horror.....
As for other construction toys that (in the shadows of Lego) have stood the test of time:
* Fischertechnik (since 1966), still fully compatible, and quality always has been on a level any other toy manufacturer can only dream of. Still have the stuff from my childhood, and I have tried to present it to my youngest nephew just so he would have his own stuff instead of always following his older siblings, but unfortunately never really worked out.
* And obviously Meccano (since 1898), the OG construction toy. Never had the real deal, we had some East German knock-off, Constructo. My parents still have it, when we got the kids to play with it they were just flabbergasted that not only were you expected to build a tractor from hundreds of pieces with just 3 or 4 (not so great) photographs, but even had to figure out what lenghts of bolts you had to use. Instructions that require you to use your brain.....the horror, the horror...
At first,when I was a AFOL, I collected them as a nice and colorful additon to the "ambience" of my home and for my friends to gawk at. Then I became a DFOL (Dad Fan of Lego) and all the collectibles, including my old toys became actual toys to be played with. NOthing can compare to watching your son destroy all you have built (See Lego Movie) and play without any symmetry or rules, mixing parts and playsets; for you to build it back again with no instructions.; just because they prefer it back to how it looked, to again unbuild/ deconstruct them, put them in their mouths and leave them on the floor. For the joy of parenthood. --- But I digress... Lego is made to be played with time and time again by young and old.
So now I’m feeling old. Although I ticked the parent box on the survey they are both pre-LEGO kids (well, was in my Dad’s case as he’s no longer with us). But my grandma on Dad's side was Danish and there was always a box of LEGO at her house, presumably stemming from cousins who are 10-20 years older than me and my brother. I managed to retain the box when Farmor went into a residential home and it got mixed in with our sets.
I’ve now got all the old stuff and keep it separate from my post dark age collection.
I still have all my Lego from when I was a kid. I let my kids play with my old Town sets, which they do from time to time, but I also have a lot of old classic space that I haven't let them touch, nor do they even know about yet. I honestly don't know what to do with it either - my space Lego was one of my favorite toys as a kid, so I have a lot of nostalgia for it, but it also has a huge resell value now.
It's all in really great shape, so I don't dare let my kids touch it and ruin its value. Or should I? I don't know what I value more: my memories, memories of playing with them, or... cold, hard cash. It's a dilemma!
I still have all my childhood (1990-1999) lego sets, still in theyr own boxes with manuals.
When I was a child, I played with lego as everyone else, but my father teached me to save them in their own boxes, so today I still have almost everything in excellent conditions and with no missing bricks (sort of...)
The only loose sets come from second hand buys on ebay during the years.
@chief7575 said:
"My wife and myself both have our LEGO sets from when we were both children. How we kept them was a bit different though. She doesn't have any original boxes, but had sets saved in plastic bags, sealed up with the instructions and then several very long and thin tubs that you could store under beds, full of pieces.
I still have all of the original boxes and instructions that I still keep all of my sets in. The one thing we do not do is mix our old stuff with our new sets. (at least not my stuff). We have tons of new sets for us and our daughter to play with and we pick up bundles of bricks to do whatever with.
I have already started to tell my daughter to keep everything in tact, so she can sell it all once we are gone."
I tell my kids and wife the same, just hope she won't sell them for what I told I got them :)
Great article. I could write my own similar story! All of my childhood bricks (less a few that “friends” stole from me back in the 1980s), the instruction manuals, and many of the boxes managed to survive in my parents loft until 2020 when I reclaimed it all. The boxes are still with mum and dad because my own house is now full!
I’m very much of the minifigure generation, I haven’t got much that’s earlier than 607 and 608-2 apart from a 149 that must have lingered in the local toy shop well into grey rails era.
Still planning to rebuild it all and replace the missing/broken bits, but the problem is, I keep buying more secondhand bulk lots! Maybe it’s a retirement project for twenty years time.
I loved this article and the comments also. Mine started in 1978. The first set I remember playing was 644, little police squad set. It's lost over time but at least I still have my 374 Fire Station built. I have been collecting since.
Yes, both my wife and I have lots of childhood LEGO sets in various degrees of assembledness. Although both of us have siblings, the respective LEGO collections ended up in our (that is my *harhar*) care and custody.
And there are some gems there: My older brother was born in 1972 - there is some blue and grey train stuff for example.
In our home we had these boxes you described: Big boxes with countless bricks, plates, special parts. We never kept the packaging (why would we?) but we luckily kept instructions.
Some things were kept assembled to this day, but most things eventually went into the LEGO parts box to be played with and rebuild into lots of new things.
There's a black seas barracuda somewhere in there...
Same here. My collection and recent spare parts and those purchased on Bricklink are in my basement, in the little room dedicated to them. But among the set I have purchased since I came out of my DA, I keep a few ones (mainly Marvel, Ninjago, Friends) in the living room along with an old denim blue stringed bag (referenced as a set in Brickset database) literally filled up with my old lego parts, which survived all the time from my childhood. My old grey and yellow castles are in the Lego room downstairs, but all that is in the living room is for kids who are coming (mostly my two young nephews) regularly to see us. No use to say that even if they are always happy to build their own creations for a moment, there is always the moment to come when they ask "Can we go down and see your Lego?" So we go down, and always come back up to play with one or two SW or Marvel sets more, so that the fun is bigger, for their (and my) true delight.
I still have all my childhood Lego as well as my mum's. Hers from the 70's (My dad never had Lego)
Here in Poland we had Lego since very late 70s. In the 80s, when the socialist economy crashed hard, Lego was a luxurious toy. I remeber vividly that the colours and quality of plastic was waaay better than anything else on the local market. These colours were so vibrant and consistent. It's funny when you realize how small the colour palette for lego was back in the 80s. My parents did not play with Lego, but they gave me gifts with what limited resources they had. Most of this Lego got given away to distant cousins. But one box of lego technic survived. In the meantime I have acquired plenty of bulk bricks from different decades and contrary to what article says these bricks from the 50s and 60s don't work very well, but they sure are compatible! It's really amazing how lego doesn't really loose value and sometimes even gains value. Both financial as well as "play value". And it works as a toy even if you're left with incomplete sets from the past.
I loved LEGO when I was young (late 70s). However our family did not have much money to spend on LEGO so it was a rare Xmas present or two but those basic sets were wonderful.
But then it was all disposed of by my father who was furious with my younger brother due to his poor school performance so all the toys in out house were thrown out (early 80s).
My return to LEGO soon followed after moving out and with a disposable income (mid-90s) and have never looked back. My kids outgrew their LEGO in their teens and I have packed it away should they want to return to it or for their kids.
My childhood Lego was pre-minifigures and was mostly a mixture of random bricks, although I know I had a set of Samsonite gears, and another with a battery-run motor and lots of the original wheels. That was, I think, given to relatives or a thrift shop when I was about fourteen and entering my Dark Ages. I bought a few small sets in the '90s which I still have. Since I have no children I am going to have to find a way to ensure that my large AFOL-era collection moves on to another generation. I must admit that the fact that Lego lives forever is a big part of its charm for me!
As many others here, I also have my LEGO collection from my childhood in the 80s. Though I stopped buying/wishing new sets from the mid 90s, I never put my collection away, nor did I ever consider selling it. As I moved from my parents, the collection stayed there for some years, but it was not theirs to sell. They patiently waited for me to get more space, so I could pick up the collection again...
Even a few sets from the 70s, most likely bought for my older sister. Since I have started buying second (third?) hand LEGO I have also gotten sets/bricks from the 60s/early 70s - and probably also the 50s, though these are not my main focus.
The quality of the LEGO in those shots is amazing. My childhood LEGO was played with very roughly by comparison. I'm jealous, but also happy for you. Play well!
I believe my parents had some lego, but it must have been long gone after I came into the picture. Never experienced it in a generational way.
Never had a dark age either.
Kept everything. 928 on display in my son's bedroom. Still swooshes.
I distinctly remember getting my dad's old Lego as a kid one day, which had been stored away in my grandparents' attic. A lot of basic bricks obviously, old wheels, train parts, and 60s-era idea books that absolutely fascinated me. I even managed to put together a complete (and functional!) 118-1 Electronic Train eventually that my dad had won in a Lego building competition at a local toy store.
I've since sorted out the handful of cellulose acetate bricks that have deformed over the decades and set them aside; the rest are still part of my regular collection. Many have scratches and nicks, some have discoloured a little, but they work as well as they ever did.
My earliest pieces are Fabuland-era and other 1970s sets that my older cousin had as a kid. He must have given them to me when I was 3 or 4 years old. I don't have any complete sets from that time and the only Fabuland-style figures I have are human ones tragically, but I do have a large barn-like building (slightly broken with sticker residue). My earliest complete set is also late Fabuland-era, a Police-themed set with the police officer from the first photo above that must have come in a bucket or box. I also have that little red block girl from the last photo above—in fact I have two of the set she came in. Fun times. My earliest minifigure set was a plow that my great-grandmother got me, probably in 1988. My baby sister was so jealous that she tore the instructions and ate a page, so I still don't have two steps in the instructions today.
Excellent point about LEGO's longevity and how people hold onto these robust toys for many years. Which brings me to my concern about LEGO transitioning to, more expensive, renewable plastics. Brickfanatics has a great article on this and got me thinking. Do we know if renewable plastic will be as durable and be able to stand up to the test of time like the current bricks? I'd hate to spend more money on a set to only see it fall apart and need to be "renewed" with a replacement set. https://www.brickfanatics.com/lego-replace-oil-in-bricks-expensive-plastic/ Others thoughts?
I don't have any of my own childhood LEGO, but I did rebuy sets I had back then (the 70s) on eBay several years ago when my own kids got into LEGO. Not a piece of their LEGO is going anywhere, quite aside from what I continue to buy and build. Some day it will be fun to pass this stuff on to their kids, when such exist.
I read this post with avid interest and a bit of nostalgia. I have been an avid collector of LEGO ever since I received my fist set in 1975 (125 Universal Building Set). Like the author, when I was younger, many of my sets from the 1970's ended up in the giant denim playcloth storage bags that were once sold by LEGO (I still have both bags). They hung on a hook in the kitchen closet in my parents' house when I was young, and I and my brother would bring them out and spread them out on the floor on Saturday mornings as the cartoons played in the background. Eventually, as I moved into the Town and Space systems, I kept those boxes and sets were stored inside them, and all the boxes fit nicely into an old wooden toybox my grandfather had built. They still are there to this day. Most of the newer sets I have (City, Harry Potter, Creator, Train, etc) are in separate totes except for what has been traded or sold off. However, my collection is large enough and I unfortunately have no children of my own to pass it on down to. I expect I'll be the only one in the nursing home one day who will require a LEGO room !
@netlife said:
"I'm 68 and have had LEGO since I was 5. I gave almost all of it (5 vanloads!) to Autism UK a few years ago, including one each of the three monorail sets, retaining only the railway-themed sets. But that just made room in the garage for collecting new LEGO. I think I might be an addict. But I have 2 granddaughters who are LEGO-mad so it's probably a genetic condition??"
OMG!!!
You are incredibly generous!
If it was me, I would have at least kept the monorail sets! They are wonderful!
What a great article!
Very nostalgic.
My parents bought a lot of LEGO for me and my brother when we lived in Singapore and a couple other places when we were 5-10 years old.
Thankfully, they kept ALL the boxes and instructions, including some absolute gems (Airport Monorail, Black Seas Barracuda, Galaxy Explorer, Model Team Whirl & Wheel truck & chopper, some classic Castle & Pirates & Space & City & even Fabuland sets!), even through multiple overseas moves - for which I’m eternally grateful!
I basically almost forgot about LEGO for over two decades …. until I had my own kids & started buying small sets for them - and they were equally excited to play with all of my old sets from the late-80’s and 90’s!
As the article points out, it’s amazing that the parts from the 80’s is (mostly) still in excellent condition, and fits perfectly with the brand new parts!
No other toys (except Hot Wheels / Matchbox cars) seems to survive decades like LEGO does, and even those cars tend to be heavily scratched and paint faded.
And now I’ve come out of my Dark Ages with a vengeance (scouring FB marketplace & op-shops for 2nd-hand gems), and bought hundreds of sets for myself, and nearly as many for the kids!
Sadly, the my oldest kid has grown out of LEGO, and my other two barely build or play anymore (but still appreciate LEGO), so I’ve slashed my LEGO buying and am selling off surplus sets …… but I will save most of the good stuff for THEIR kids (hopefully)!
And so the cycle continues …..
I've lost or broken some of the pieces, but I still have most of my childhood Lego, except for a few sets that were in storage when I put off paying my storage bill for too long. I particularly regret losing 6276, which is why I was so happy to get my hands on 10320. My dad (not to be confused with My Dad) had gotten rid of his childhood Lego by the time I was born, so I've never played with any that old. He's been known to comment that he thought he had something impressive because he had bricks that lit up, to which I say that I did, too, although 6780 (my first set with electronic functions, as well as one of the first sets that was mine, as opposed to the small jumble of bricks I shared with my brother) also had a brick that made sound. My brother also gave my his childhood Lego several years ago, so I have two childhood collections. My third nephew is the only one who's really interested in Lego; his two older brothers have mostly lost interest in it (although I did buy 31156 to give the oldest one for Christmas, as he plays ukulele and guitar) and the youngest never really got the hang of building and just likes to play with the finished models, so I stopped buying sets for him.
I was at the county fair yesterday and they have prizes in the kids' division for Lego models. A lot of kids just build a set and enter it, but I saw an original creation of a Western chase scene, with at least 5 figures from the 1996 Wild West sets... clearly inherited.
(Second prize went to 71761 and first prize went to a clone brand's knockoff version of the Old Fishing Store.)
Mom's still got the childhood box. She's even added on to it for the grandkids. She did it the same way as the original, buying at garage sales.
You could get used Lego cheap in the old days in Colorado because of the Lego factory nearby.
We only had a few Classic Space sets aside from the big cardboard box.
My Dark Age started when I was about 10 and lasted until they started making really cool Star Wars sets (circa 2010). My dad's building toys were Erector Sets and Lincoln Logs.
I detest Erector Sets. Lincoln Logs still have their charm. I keep a batch of them in my mountain home for kids to play.
I don't have any Lego from my childhood, but I have bought most of my childhood sets as an adult.
In 1999, my wife and me had two main projects, to have our own sweet home and to get married.
For the wedding we had ask our family to spend us bricks for our house.
So a week before the wedding, we went by my parents when they were away and I searched for my old Lego. But I couldn't found them. I thought my parents have given them to my nieces.
I was a little disappointed, but ...
... the day of the ceremony, we were opening all the presents we had received, a lot of plants (a Belgian tradition) and a heavy package specially for me from my father.
My old wood beloved Lego box including my 4.5V train and blue tracks.
Very nostalgic with the best memories of our own worlds and favourite characters and colours.
I’ve got all our childhood stuff to sort and enjoy - loads of hobby to stop me moaning about modern sets that I’m not the target for, lol.
I have completed my dad's old Space sets. 6940, 6927, 6820. In the 80s in Poland they were very hard to get and very expensive. After years I myself am looking for bargain offers of used sets from this series, because the prices of new ones are crazy (I try to avoid discoloration and damage as much as possible). Of course I also have all the sets from my childhood and I have a huge sentiment for them. I have all of my old City sets, Star Wars and other themed sets from the 2000s on display in a glass chest of drawers. I recently completed 7744 and will soon take on Coast Guard.
My first sets were from late 80s and early 90s and I received new sets until the late 90s and early 00s. I had just over 100 sets. I still have all my childhood sets. Lego was the only toys from my youth that I kept when I became an adult. I had them all in a big plastic container outside in my parents shed when I got married and moved away. They stayed there until 2013 when I started seeing ads for The Lego movie. It brought me out of my dark ages, and I went and got them out of the shed and hauled them home and started building again and the magic returned! I have since made sure they are in good shape,100% complete and have slowing been acquiring any sets that I always wanted as a kid. I've got about 400 sets from the 80s and 90s now!
I have virtually none of my childhood Legos left. During my dark ages, some much-younger cousins who were into Star Wars moved to my country, so I gave most of my collection to them.
The Lego that my brother and I shared when we were young was well played with from the mid-1970s to mid-1980s. With leaving home, we agreed to a split of the collection by colour in general (apart from some specific sets that were clearly mine or his). He still reckons that I as the elder brother did the dirty on him and got the better share of the joint collection! 30 years on we have built our own collections either side of the Atlantic, but the accusation still lingers...
I had to sell a sizable chunk of my original collection at one point to help with paying some bills, but there were a few complete sets and a lot of loose parts that I was able to keep. I've been rebuilding my collection of older sets since.
@huw there are two new options for the poll, but in two other languages besides English. I just had cleared my cache / cookies, and this pops up... I also had to vote a second time in order to see the results. It certainly is strange!
We had my mums lego and then me and my siblings. However we sadly sold it all during my teens. We also had my dads old lego.
I still have all the sets from my childhood and a couple of years ago I checked them all to be sure they were complete. Only a handful of parts was missing, surprisingly, although the white was overall very yellowed of course. I rebuilt quite a lot of them and they are now in a purposely built display cupboard in my work room.
What a great article and a good trip down memory lane. I still have my Technical sets from 1978: 855 and 857. Unfortunately my Town sets are all gone. I still have my LEGO branded 787 Storage Cloth.
I lived my childhood under communism, and the first time I saw Lego at a colleague (his father brought it from France) I fell in love. We exchanged two 14-caliber anti-aircraft bullets (unloaded, we had them as an ornament in the display) for his bag full of Legos,
The following summer I went on a trip with another family, and I fell in love with their daughter, so I gave her all the Legos. For a kiss :)
Now I buy Lego "for our children".
I have exceeded 500 sets, and my wife laughs at me, says that I buy out of frustration because I didn't have it when I was a child.
It is possible, but the most frustrating thing is to see that children are no longer interested in creative toys, they are very easily corrupted by screens :(
Indeed, we have bought and are buying new sets (Speed Champions and Botanic are favorites), but I am also looking for old, collectible sets at decent prices, not from speculators.
10 Euros for the Millenium Falcon is an irresistible price, or 50 Euros for 8466
I wish you all as many pleasant experiences as possible and happy building!
I was 90's kid. Do have my childhood LEGO bricks, not complete and I do not mix them with my post dark ages bricks because old ones have heavy play marks on it. Love(d) LEGO!
I'm 51. Lego didn't exist (in brick form at least) when my parents were children. The collection started with me and my brother. I kept mine and my brother kept his. When he had a daughter in 2004, she inherited my brother's stuff and I added to her collection at birthdays and Christmas. When she moved off to college a couple years ago, they gave all the sets to my son. He's currently 6 and has access to my GIANT collection (about 1/4th of which is assembled into a city) as well as all their stuff. (I've marked the stuff my niece donated with a special marker in the Brickset database so that if she ever wants it back for HER kids, we'll know what sets there were.)
Just like my 'second vote', I have to 'qualify' my response:
I am a 'First Gen' Lego user in my family; neither parent, nor aunts or uncles, grands (although they had reeealy cool model railroad/Marx toys so...)...but I'll jump forward a bit: my parent gave my 'bucket o' bricks' to my neph., and I'm not upset. I'm mean yes, my SPACE (sorry, reflex:)) parts are in there, but I've track replacement and work-arounds...
Which set is it in the center of the second picture? Thanks.
I'm 45. Still have my puppet figs from 333, tree, door windows and wheels. As for the bricks, don't know. Everything is mixed up.
My parents still hold on to my brothers and my child hood bricks at their beach house. it was great while my kids were growing up, and more recently, I have reconstructed a few of the older technic sets we have out there. We are probably waiting for Grand Kids or Great neices and nephews before we see these parts brought out on a regular basis, but I cant wait. I suspect I shall probably add to the collection in the meantime.
@Givememorebricks said:
"Which set is it in the center of the second picture? Thanks."
Looks like it could be 510
Thank you :)