Random part of the day: Plate 1X1 W/ Holder

I remember the inception of the earliest version of a 1 x 1 plate with horizontal clip and recall thinking how revolutionary it and other ‘modified’ parts were. 1980, I think, but could be wrong. It was over 40 years ago!

The one and only - clip, there to serve your needs.

Wow, almost ten million! I have several of these in several colors. Guessing around a hundred. I use 'em for everything. However, some of mine have had one of the "jaws" crack or break clean off.

Much more useful in boat building than Blacktron Building, but it does come in black and white, so it has made an appearance or two in Blacktron. 6933 has a couple holding walkie-talkies.

Not exactly the same part, but today I pulled some old light gray thin O ones (4085a) out of a random vintage (mostly) haul I got last week...completing a bunch of sets from that haul.

These two for sure used them, maybe one other I'm forgetting (might not be space)
6847 Space Dozers
6848 Interplanetary Shuttle

@SimonSpace70s said:
" @Harmonious_Building said:
"Imagine all the walkie-talkies these have collectively held. "

To say nothing of lightsabers and blasters"

And shovels, and spears, and many other minifig tools and weapons...

why does the information say its introduced in 2010!? i know these since my childhood. that is more than 20 years earlier!
and it only has appered in 502 sets? that cant be right either.

@Galaxy12_Import said:
" @Oli said:
"why does the information say its introduced in 2010!? i know these since my childhood. that is more than 20 years earlier!
and it only has appered in 502 sets? that cant be right either."

This is only the latest "update" of a typical 1x1 clip piece. You are correct in remembering an earlier introduction and being included in many more sets, but it wasn't this particular style."

what style do you mean? or latest introduction? it is exact the same part. a new colour should not make it a new part or does it?

@Oli said:
" @Galaxy12_Import said:
" @Oli said:
"why does the information say its introduced in 2010!? i know these since my childhood. that is more than 20 years earlier!
and it only has appered in 502 sets? that cant be right either."

This is only the latest "update" of a typical 1x1 clip piece. You are correct in remembering an earlier introduction and being included in many more sets, but it wasn't this particular style."

what style do you mean? or latest introduction? it is exact the same part. a new colour should not make it a new part or does it?
"

Good explanation in second post. Lego regularly re-engineers parts a little bit, changing external or internal structure to aid durability or functionality, to to align them better with the ‘System’. New ones usually ‘better’, but sometimes they also lose some functionality

In 6552 it is used as a fish. Yum

I just learned recently that hash symbols directly before set numbers are very useful.

It's the difference between this 6552 and 6552 :)

(wow, and I only just noticed the tip on how to do this directly below "Add a comment" :D )

@bwaaatch said:
" @Oli said:
" @Galaxy12_Import said:
" @Oli said:
"why does the information say its introduced in 2010!? i know these since my childhood. that is more than 20 years earlier!
and it only has appered in 502 sets? that cant be right either."

This is only the latest "update" of a typical 1x1 clip piece. You are correct in remembering an earlier introduction and being included in many more sets, but it wasn't this particular style."

what style do you mean? or latest introduction? it is exact the same part. a new colour should not make it a new part or does it?
"

Good explanation in second post. Lego regularly re-engineers parts a little bit, changing external or internal structure to aid durability or functionality, to to align them better with the ‘System’. New ones usually ‘better’, but sometimes they also lose some functionality
"

new, old? what difference does it make? it is still the same part for the exact same function. they all break sooner or later. the newer ones have far less quality in my experience. they shouldn`t make new part numbers. that is just redicilous. so how often has the 2x4 brick been reinvented?

I own a good 500 of this exact variant of the good ole clip it seems. Interestingly, only a single one in yellow (at least coming from sets). And my single yellow one is in....

...the all black 76139 :)

@Oli said:
"new, old? what difference does it make? it is still the same part for the exact same function. they all break sooner or later. the newer ones have far less quality in my experience. they shouldn`t make new part numbers. that is just redicilous. so how often has the 2x4 brick been reinvented? "
Actually, the 2x4 brick has had many different subtle changes over the decades both to its exterior and interior. Only the major ones have been tracked by Brickset and BrickLink. But none of them have ever been given different design IDs to my knowledge — the 2x4 brick has always been 3001. Maybe LEGO doesn't think any of those changes matter enough.

I love the use of this piece on 6877 where it locks the canopy in place

How can you find out how many you own without doing multiple different searches/counts?

216 - I found a way, but it involved adding up. Gah.

I was gonna say, now here's a part I know I have lots of. Except that this is actually the new version of said part, not the one I grew up with, so it turns out I only actually have *one* of them.

I've owned (in completed sets, at least, maybe more if you count ones from random part lots) 33 of the 4085 version and 24 of the 60897 version. Special mention goes to sets 5919 and 7171, both of which apparently used both versions of the piece *in the same set*, with different colours using different moulds.

(...but only according to Brickset's inventory. Brick*link* shows those two sets both using the same version - the thick 'U'-clip - for all instances of the part. Hm. I wonder which is accurate...)

In any case, 58 in total doesn't... sound like very many, all things considered.

Interesting to note that the random piece of the day over on peeron.com is the earlier 4085a variant of this part.

@ThatBionicleGuy:
It’s...more complicated than that. Officially, the Type 3 “thick U” clip had been introduced a few years before, and should have been the only version in use by the time those two sets released. In practice, leftover parts from the Type 2 mold may have still been in inventory rather than being destroyed. People also screw those clip plates up _all_the_time_, even listing newer parts as alternates for sets that retired a year or more before they were first documented. But in this case, there appears to be an additional problem. I got two copies of 40076. In the copy I built, I got two Type 3 clips. In the copy I didn’t build, I got one Type 4 clip...and one Type 2 clip. In dark-bley. Using a mold that was supposedly retired in the mid-80’s, with a color that wasn’t introduced to 2004. Clearly there’s still a really old mold that didn’t get pulled from their inventory, and it shows up periodically.

Glad that the general 1x1 clip piece has been updated over the years... sooo many broken clips from my 1980s/early 1990s collection... (ALWAYS SLIDE it in from the top/bottom, am I right?!) ;)

Set 6679 's Back-of-the-box says these are good for fish

@unslipped:
One of the odd problems with both clips and minifig hands is that the hard corners at the opening can dig into the parts instead of spreading open to allow it to pop into place. This is especially true for polyethylene parts, because it’s so much softer than ABS. The Type 4 version pictured here has a huge advantage in that the tips have a very large radius that offers no hard corners. However, I did run into a problem that I’ve never encountered in quite the same way before. In packing up a few models that use C-clips, the items that were secured in the clips got pushed so they were angled in the clips, and where such a thing would have caused the Type 3 clips to crack, this just left the Type 4 clips permanently loose (or at least that seems to be the case).