Random part of the day: Plate 2X2 Angle

@cm5878:
375-2 beat it by one year, with tiles pinched between two rows of studs. Illegal if you do it with a plate, still legal (and used as recently as 21309/92176) if you do it with a tile. And Technic parts beat it by two years. While the half-pin wouldn't come out until two years after this, it's still considered a legal technique to attach a 1x1 by putting the single stud in a Technic pin hole. However, this may be the first part designed with the specific intention of building SNOT.

@ElephantKnight: I don't associate it with a particular set, but considering my first encounter with it was in white in 6780, I'm going to have to disagree with you on that.

One of my first LEGO pieces, as my first set was 6861.

What a great set of adventures I had with that set!

That funny/eerie...I was JUST thinking about this part, as a part of a potential build...

@peterlmorris said:
"One of my first LEGO pieces, as my first set was 6861.

What a great set of adventures I had with that set!"

What a beginning! Not my first set, but the first one I bought two of- so many great space parts.

Yay, the 2x16 plate mount for a radar dish!

@PurpleDave :
The "plate between two rows of studs" is illegal now, but it definitely was in use in 1973... in 560-2 Heliport!

I hear being invaded by these is how England got its name

@560heliport
But @cm5878 said _legal_ SNOT, not SNOT in general. Plate between studs is illegal SNOT.

@PurpleDave said:
" @cm5878:
375-2 beat it by one year, with tiles pinched between two rows of studs. Illegal if you do it with a plate, still legal (and used as recently as 21309/92176) if you do it with a tile. And Technic parts beat it by two years. While the half-pin wouldn't come out until two years after this, it's still considered a legal technique to attach a 1x1 by putting the single stud in a Technic pin hole. However, this may be the first part designed with the specific intention of building SNOT."

The old tile without groove is still illegal to be used that way. I guess, they just didn't care about demaging the parts so much back then :)

@ElephantKnight said:
" @Formendacil said:
"Ah, yes--the "Galaxy Explorer Bracket" as I sometimes think of it.

Or the 7111 Droid Fighter Bracket, as I *really* think of it."

It's the Mystic Mountain Time Lab Bracket, and you know it. At least, in old grey, and maybe slightly bent,

But if it's black, or white, its 100% Blacktron."

No no no, 6875 Hovercraft is where this is from, pure Futuron :-) Coincidentally my first set

I thought the Erling/headlight-brick would be the earliest "legal" example, but this element predates the old headlight by a year or so.

@PurpleDave said:
" @cm5878:
375-2 beat it by one year, with tiles pinched between two rows of studs. Illegal if you do it with a plate, still legal (and used as recently as 21309/92176) if you do it with a tile. "
There are tiles between two rows of studs on the deck of 10294 Titanic too.

I probably used more of these in MOCs as a kid in the '80s than any other part. So useful! Although, when we did get true SNOT _bricks_ it was a revelation. I would have first encountered the part in either 889 or 6950 (one of my favorite sets EVER), so it still screams "Classic Space" to me.

Unfortunately, it also seems to have been one of the most fragile parts from that era, as a good number of my originals are broken.

@oukexergon said:
"Always very pleasantly surprised when this piece shows up in a new set. You'd think after all these years and so many bracket pieces, this one would be obsolete. But it's still going strong."

Yes yes yes. I just recently bought a couple of 30560-1 just to get more of these in a small economical set.

@legonard:
Is it? I see that the grooveless tiles were on the way out right around the time the minifig era started, and it doesn’t appear my brother and I ever owned any. We did have some Homemaker figs (one of the few themes to use grooveless tiles), but they were from 114, which each of us received a copy of as our first LEGO sets. 114 doesn’t include any tiles. 375-2 shows groovy tiles in its inventory, so again, still legal SNOT.

Anyways, I wonder why the grooveless tiles would be illegal to pinch between studs like that. Was it the same height as a plate, or was it just a tiny bit thinner like the groovy tile? I know the groove is necessary to allow minifigs to grip the edge, but I’m not seeing any printed 1x2 tiles that date back that far, so it’s possible the groovy tile design was never created with minifig hands in mind, and it was just a happy coincidence that the geometry worked out so nicely.

Any examples of a grooved 1x2 tile being used as, say, a telephone handset in an early set with minifigures?

And having thought about it a bit more, I guess SNOT can be said to have truly started on the introduction of the first wheels way back when, though that does feel somewhat tenuous. Regardless, this is a great part and I loved its use in the 7777 Train ideas book in a car transporter wagon build!

@cm5878:
I don’t know of any tiles that were intended for minifigs to hold until the first stamped envelope, or the “100” bill. However, I’m going to have to agree with you on the old wheels being an earlier SNOT element. Look at the box art for 114. See the windmill? Yeah.

The only thing that comes to my mind when I see this brick is any classic space LEGO set. It was found in just about nearly all of them in its only appropriate color - grey!