Wal-Mart 60th anniversay booklet now in our library
Posted by Huw,
If you purchased 10715 Bricks on a Roll from Wal-Mart in January and you sent off for the exclusive 60th anniversary booklet you may have received it now.
For the rest of us, we have high-quality scans in our library, thanks to Matt Hocker.
You'll find it, and the pull-out instruction sheets for building three models from 10715, in the miscellaneous section of the library.
Within the booket is a diagram of a periodic table of (LEGO) elements, which warrants further examination after the break...
As far as I know this is the first time LEGO has published anything on paper relating to element categorisation.
Of course, elements are categorised within the company, and these internal names have been exposed via Customer Services and also (I believe) LDD, but they are often bit odd, having lost something in translation from Danish to English.
This chart provides reasonable English names for the categories, although some are a bit vague and do not always directly relate to how we, the community, categorise them. For example, you'll notice that tiles are missing entirely. That's because LEGO considers them to be plates. I suppose that prevents the need to decide whether plates with a reduced number of studs (e.g 1x2 and 2x2 jumpers) are plates or tiles...
It would be great to be able to go through our parts database and assign the appropriate abbreviation to each element, but I think we'd never reach agreement on where some of the more esoteric ones should go!
Still, if you're looking for a way to organise your own collection of parts this looks to be a good starting point.
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What if you live in a country without any Wal-Marts?
Then you view our scans :)
About the periodic table,
First observation: Decorative category is very broad!
Second observation: There is a few duplicate entries like Tubes and Power Functions in different categories (Decorative & Technic)
Glad to see the brick separator in there...
This promotion was a nightmare for me.
My wife—just to be nice and surprise me when money is tight—bought this set for me knowing as a collector that I’d want the booklet. When it came, there had been a packing sticker on the vintage reproduction LEGO packaging that had been ripped off damaging the box.
After collecting LEGO for over forty years, the pieces in this set were not anything special; it was all about the packaging. Walmart could do nothing because the set was sold out and they didn’t know if they were getting more in from the supplier. Our operater made it sound like there were other complains about damaged packaging.
Walmart told us we were put on a waiting list to be flagged if the product came back in stock. We called LEGO who also couldn’t help but as they have great customer service, they did offer us a generous compensation (after they looked at our order history and literally laughed at how much we have spent just through them). I checked Walmart.com throughout each day, and the product came back in stock.
We got no notification through the waiting list we were put on, and the person my wife talked to to request return shipping for the first didn’t know anything about a waiting list. The second product came in good condition, now I just had to wait for the booklet to arrive.
My post office is small and run slowly, so I gave it a day or two past the time the confirmation said to expect the booklet before I e-mailed LEGO. The shipment was delayed from the supplier, so I was told to wait until this date. That date passed. Nothing.
So I e-mailed again and was told a manager would look into it. A booklet finally arrived, but it was damaged by the post office by shoving it into a mailbox that was too small to hold it. The damage is but creasing, and was 75% corrected by flattening between two books, but why didn’t LEGO stamp a “do not bend” on the mailer? Debating if I should follow up with LEGO.
Oh, to have this in poster form!
I got my booklet in the mail the other day and I am absolutely enjoying it! The black envelope it comes packed in is such a nice surprise. It makes an already cool booklet extra special.
Also, Has anyone else noticed that the wheel that they used for the "Wheels for Large Axles" category is part 11208, which connects to the small axles. If I had to guess, they were probably going for part 55982, but instead used an image if 11208.
I thought Wal-mart could be found everywhere in world. Despite the fact the very few Wal-mart here in China sell LEGO but clones...
"The 2000s was a decade of rapid growth" uhhhhhhhhhhhh
^ It absolutely was--no where to go but up when you're at the bottom. They got Star Wars in 1999 and you can probably figure the rest out from there.
I just purchased this set this past weekend when I found it for $20 at a local Walmart, but haven't opened it yet.
Is the book promotion still ongoing?
I got something like 375 out of 15,000 on my book cover. They must not be burning through these very fast.
1996 - Lego's first website. Also the year I graduated college. Man, I feel old...
I have the same question as @SithLord196. Is this still ongoing? Is there something inside the box to request the book?
FYI - I just went by a HUGE stack display of these in my local Walmart so they are out there....like the truth. I believe!
I just went to:
https://rewards.lego60th.com/info
Promotion Has Ended
We’re sorry, but the last day to submit receipts was 03/09/2018.
So I guess all the sets on the shelf won't be getting the special promotion.
Kind of feels like it's too late to consider this 'official' element categorisation, because I've got so used to using (mostly) Bricklink/Peeron terminology already. However, it is still interesting to see how TLG themselves think their pieces are categorised - the designers suggested that they all have their own terms for certain elements so I don't think there's any code to stick strictly to.
So it's in the library, why not the database?
The periodic table is by far the most entertaining part of the whole thing. The instructions for the cameras are pretty ho-hum. And the rest of the book is fairly mundane. I'd love to do try my hand a larger one at some point. But I've got to many projects going on right now to take on another at this point.
I was quite surprised to get one of these. I thought I was too late in my submission and that these would have all been claimed by the time I did mine. But was pleasantly shocked when it came in the mail last week.
I'm impressed with how extensive the history section is. I wouldn't have expected it to mention specific competitors like Tyco or to talk about more business-related things like the 2006 outsourcing to Flextronics (and subsequent insourcing in 2008). Normally in something aimed at consumers like this I'd expect more of a focus just on milestones in the toys themselves. Although on that note it's good to see both Bionicle and Ninjago called out considering what a big splash each of those themes made.
The periodic table is a nice resource, even if its utility to fans might be a bit limited. It's cool to see how constraction parts are broken down (arguably in a more sensible way than the more theme-based breakdown used on BrickLink) and which part families are considered to be related.
One of the parts I've seen the most attention called to on social media is actually one I have the most issue with: the "Top 10 sets" page. It's cool to see how the community has ranked sets, but it feels incomplete without mentioning where and when the survey was conducted. The fact that no sets post-2008 made it onto the list makes me a bit suspicious that it might not have been an especially recent survey. Certainly today I see a lot less excitement for the Town Plan and UCS Star Destroyer than, say, Assembly Square and the UCS Millennium Falcon. I also think that the Emerald Knight may have displaced the Santa Fe Super Chief as train fans' most beloved set.