Vintage set of the week: 47 1/3 elements (plates)
Posted by Huwbot,
This week's vintage set is 970 47 1/3 elements (plates), released during 1969. It's one of 31 System sets produced that year. It contains 47 pieces.
It's owned by 21 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
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30 comments on this article
A whole 47 and 1/3 pieces?! How many half cents is that worth?
Very 'vintage'. Certainly don't see elements like that anymore! Oh, hang on...
Maybe this is just my childhood memory being bad, but something that always confused me was LEGO plates were 1/3 the size of a brick but on those Jumbo Mega Blocks plates were 1/2 a brick. No idea if regular Mega Blocks were the same.
PLATES [heck] YEAAAAHH!!!
Great set to bring with you when there's some downtime at Woodstock!
So 5 types of gray plates, 5 types of black. How do you get to 47 pieces?
Wasn't this one of the last sets of this type to have different colored versions available under the same set number?
@PJMcC: There were multiples of each type.
At first glance I thought that box was a washing machine.
@GSR_MataNui:
TLG may have come up with 1/3 plates, but I’m pretty sure Tyco created 1/2 plates. They had both M/M and F/F “plates” that could be combined to make a normalish 2x2 brick. The male version looked like a standard plate from the side, but with studs projecting from both surfaces. From at least one surface, the plate and studs would need to have been hollow to prevent dimpling (and significant increase in plastic usage). The female version looked like shaped pasta, being completely hollow from top to bottom, and basically consisting of just the outer wall, the center tube, and some connecting walls on all four sides. Half plates were necessary because the height of a hollow stud is slightly more than half the thickness of a LEGO plate. Solid studs with logos on top are even a hair taller than that. To make this work in the LEGO System, the male version could be as thick as a normal plate, but the female version would need to be twice as thick to keep the studs from intersecting.
Anything thinner than 1/3 brick isn’t really possible without shaving down the studs (which would affect clutch). And 1/2 brick is the only other option that allows full brick height. It wasn’t until this past year that I’ve ever seen a 2/3 “plate” (86996 1x1x2/3).
@goldenguy880:
You mean that phone booth?
Set name tells it like it is.
First Accessories set that allowed you to buy mixed plates of 5 coulours!!!
In 1966 you could buy plates but that was 1 coulour like470-1
@PJMcC
"So 5 types of gray plates, 5 types of black. How do you get to 47 pieces? "
Feel free to count;)
http://peeron.com/inv/sets/970-2
@watcher21:
I count 141. Bricklink notes that there are three variants of this set, with red/white, blue/yellow, and black/trans-clear being the color pairings. Peeron’s inventory shows light-grey instead of trans-clear, and that is definitely not black or clear pressing it’s nose against the window in this pic. Worse, Bricklink’s set inventory mixes up the color breakdown again, showing red/white, black/blue, and yellow/light-grey, so the notes don’t even match their own inventory (and neither match the boxes), and the piece counts aren’t consistent (47, 48, and 46 respectively).
Anyways, to answer the question of how two colors gets you 47pcs, each box comes with 3x 1x1, 4x 1x2, 5x 2x2 and 2x3, and for 2x4 you get 7x red/black/blue paired with 6x white/light-grey/yellow.
... I think I preferred the seedy underside of the Fabuland health-care system.
I'm no longer calling them plates.
Now they are 1/3 elements.
So there are 47.33333 pieces there?
@PurpleDave
Sorry my bad thank for correcting me.
@ao_ka said:
"I'm no longer calling them plates.
Now they are 1/3 elements."
I’m seriously considering ditching ‘dual-moulded’ as a descriptor and using LEGO’s internal name of ‘K2’. ‘Triple-moulded’ is ‘K3’ and so on. The designers don’t just use the Kx naming convention in writing; they say it too.
Like Pick-a-Brick in a convenient box, yet priced so you can actually afford the bricks and don’t instead feel the need to turn to Far Eastern marketplaces.
@PJMcC said:
"So 5 types of gray plates, 5 types of black. How do you get to 47 pieces? "
Actually there's no gray or black pieces, here's the inventory:
https://rebrickable.com/sets/970-2/47-13-elements-plates/parts
They're red and white.
Not sure if correct at all, but weren’t they still called slimbricks at that stage?
Tbh, I'm angry at myself that I didn't buy parts packs like this, white bricks, doors & windows, roof slopes etc. ehen they were sorted by colour thematically. I wasn't into buildings yet, you know...
The real vintage thing about this is that plates were so new they were still being called 1/3 elements.
And the box art. And shape. And of course supplemental packs of basic parts (that are not specialized parts like city benches and stuff) Remember those?
So, anything but the parts here is vintage.
Unless... it has grey parts...
@goldenguy880 said:
"At first glance I thought that box was a washing machine."
You're not the only one!
Holy old set, Batman!
@Zordboy:
You’re in luck! As Friday’s RSOTD, it’s still open until Sunday’s RSOTD posts in 9 hours 42 minutes.
@nkende:
Look in the window on the box. If you’d read the comments, you’d know that there are three variants of this set, each of which came with plates in two colors. This one has black and grey on the box, and visible through the cellophane window on the front.
It's curious that there is no Lego branding on the box (at least, on any of the sides that are visible) except for the studs on top of the pieces. Or any of the safety messages and so on that appear on Lego packaging today. Clearly 1969's kids were smart enough to know not to eat them, throw them at each other, etc.
Or maybe it is their mishaps that are the cause of the messages on the packaging today. In which case, thank you, 1969 kids, for your sacrifices
Love the font and package design.
Strange the carton appears to show black plates, but are red and there is no Lego Logo anywhere? I would be surprised if anyone who still has this set has all the 1x1 plates as sure they would be lost in the first week! With no 4x1 plates you would need a lot more 2x1 plates, and lose the 3x2 plates as not really needed.
@ambr:
There’s a version of 970-2 with red and white plates.
There’s a version of 970-2 with blue and yellow plates.
This is a version of 970-2 with black and light-grey plates.
Doing even a little research on this set shows that they didn’t differentiate between the three versions, and also that, in spite of the fact that each box shows you what colors are included, _nobody_ seems to be able to post the correct inventories for all three sets.