Let's reminisce about Lego

[DeeBye]

There can be no debate that Lego is the best toy any child will ever own. It was for me. I cannot recall a point in time when I didn't own a boatload of the stuff. My ownership of Lego predates my memory.

This is the first Lego set that I can consciously recall. I think I got it for Christmas.


It's a Lego Technic set 850 circa 1977. I must have only been 3 or 4 years old when I got it. I remember having to ask my father for help putting it together. This was the first Technic set I ever had, and I was way too young to do it alone. Over the following years I must have rebuilt the same model a thousand times over. I can almost picture the instructions from memory. The alternate model from the same set was a road scraper. My childhood dog George chewed a portion of one of the tires off. My parents still have all of my childhood Lego sets stored away. I can't wait until my own son is old enough to play with them. He's working on Megablocks now, but when he's old enough not to eat tiny Lego pieces he gets to inherit the whole lot.

When I was in my late teens I started collecting Lego again. I was still infatuated with the Technic stuff. I think I bought pretty much every Technic set in that era. This was my favourite model.



This is the Lego Technic set 8857 circa 1993. It was a fairly large model, featuring a working front suspension, a 4-cylinder engine, and a working differential.

I still collect Lego sets every now and then. This is what my aunt-in-law bought me for Christmas two years ago.



They sit on top of my computer case and guard the contents :shuriken:

For a trip down Lego memory lane, check out Brickset.com. It has a really huge archive of old Lego sets.

[Urza-DSF]

Oh god, if I still had the time I would be buying up every non film-liesnced lego set that was out there. I used to adore one series in particular: the Space Police. I dunno if you remember that one Dee, but there was a huge (to a kid) three section spaceship where you could open up the top and disconnect the sides so you could position the guys and extra vehicles inside of it. Theres actually a new pirate ship set out that I've been itching to just go out and buy for absolutly no reason at all...maybe one of these days...

[Nystul]

I just had a big drawer full of lego bricks of various colors, almost all the same size and shape. I tried to make them into working replicas of Optimus Prime and friends, with varying levels of success.

[roguebanshee]

Someone stole all mine a few years ago. :(

[Alram]

Take a look at this site. It is full of pics of case mods made from lego blocks.
http://members.cox.net/richw/lego.htm

Here is one of many examples.

[Occhidiangela]

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Is that a light saber in his hand, or is Darth just happy to see R2D2?

Occhi

[Minionman]

I never actually got legos in any series, but also used to have a big box full of them. I mostly got space ship type things, they were a lot of fun.

[ShadowHM]

And, as a parent of children who love Lego™, let me reminisce about jammed vacuum cleaners, sore feet from stepping on the damn things, the never-ending "Put those things all away when you are done with them", the drawer full of (usually torn) instruction booklets and the ever-diminishing storage space where they all get tossed in heaping buckets.

:P

As an aside to DeeBye:

Before you start adding more Lego to your son's possessions, I suggest you take a look here: Magentic Building Kits from Lee Valley Tools

I know there is a store near you. And you would not believe what your l'il engineer will come up with, if you give him a chance to have at them. If you start with one of the base kits, you can, just like Lego™, add on as birthdays, birthday parties, friends and family contribute. My kids love them. :wub:

[Occhidiangela]

And, as a parent of children who love Lego™, let me reminisce about jammed vacuum cleaners, sore feet from stepping on the damn things, the never-ending "Put those things all away when you are done with them", the drawer full of (usually torn) instruction booklets and the ever-diminishing storage space where they all get tossed in heaping buckets. 

:[right][snapback]71319[/snapback][/right]

Amen, on the scarred soles of the feet and the resort to buckets.

Still, good toy, and as far as I know my kids did not eat many of them. :rolleyes:

Occhi

[Munkay]

Oh god, if I still had the time I would be buying up every non film-liesnced lego set that was out there.  I used to adore one series in particular: the Space Police.  I dunno if you remember that one Dee, but there was a huge (to a kid) three section spaceship where you could open up the top and disconnect the sides so you could position the guys and extra vehicles inside of it.

Was it this one?
I just happened to stumble upon the same one on eBay. :whistling:

Cheers,

Munk

[Munkay]

I must say, great post Dee. You brought up some memories of good times for my roomate and I.

My two personal favorites were of the space lego series.


Little munk spent hours playing with both of these.

Cheers,

Munk

[LochnarITB]

There can be no debate that Lego is the best toy any child will ever own.  It was for me.
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At this point in time, there may be no debate. However the Lego you are referring to is a bastardization of the true Lego blocks of my childhood. Now they've got all the custom pieces that go in each set. In my day, Lego blocks were just that, blocks. You had squares and rectangles in thick or thin and various colors. The closest they came to custom pieces were the door and window blocks. You had to use your imagination to build the things you wanted to instead of putting together the 3D puzzles much of the Lego series is today.

The toy set that trumped Lego, in my day, was the Erector Set. They had nuts and bolts and girders and pulleys and motors. I built cars and cranes and ferris wheels and...

Oh, and looking around because of this thread, I found this site that you may want to visit (if it isn't already your homepage :P ) YoungBuilder.com.

[DeeBye]

As an aside to DeeBye:

Before you start adding more Lego to your son's possessions, I suggest you take a look here:    Magentic Building Kits from Lee Valley Tools

I know there is a store near you.  And you would not believe what your l'il engineer will come up with, if you give him a chance to have at them.  If you start with one of the base kits, you can, just like Lego™, add on as birthdays, birthday parties, friends and family contribute.  My kids love them.  :wub:
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Wow, those are neat. There is indeed a store just a few minute's drive from me. I shall check them out. Thanks.

[DeeBye]

The toy set that trumped Lego, in my day, was the Erector Set.  They had nuts and bolts and girders and pulleys and motors.  I built cars and cranes and ferris wheels and...
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Meccano was pretty cool too.

[[wcip]Angel]

Ahhh. Some of the best times I had as a kid was when I'd spend hours with a friend or parent building some sort of medieval castle or futuristic monorail/space station out of legos. I think the fun of it lies in being able to build something that will look really cool in addition to improvising as you go along, making it even better. Lego allows you to build something of your own; something concrete. (though not *of* concrete :P) As an "adult", I've often played with the idea of going back to lego..

I suppose there's still a child deep within..

This is not my picture. I found it on Google:



Also, I never had legos outside. :)

[DeeBye]

Ahhh. Some of the best times I had as a kid was when I'd spend hours with a friend or parent building some sort of medieval castle or futuristic monorail/space station out of legos.
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My brother and I used to build gigantic warships. We'd spend days working on them. They would be probably 4 feet long. They'd have all kinds of mobile gun turrets and rocket launchers. We'd add secret compartments which, when opened, would spring forth attack subs and mini-warboats. We'd have a veritible army of little Lego men all assigned to specific tasks on our war vessel. We'd play with our creation for a few days, then destroy it and start all over again.

As an "adult", I've often played with the idea of going back to lego..
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Call me childish, but I loves me some Lego. A couple of beers and a new Lego set will keep me entertained for hours B)

[Brother Laz]

I remember scouring the second-hand shops for that elusive six-wheeled M-Tron space crawler. :)

Lego went downhill at about the time I grew up and stopped playing, ie. Rock Raiders time. I believe they'll probably release a set with *one* piece in it soon, cause putting together multiple pieces that are less than half the size of the actual box is, like, hard for the War3 hero arena generation.

Blizzard should look at some of the '85-'95 space sets for Starcraft 2 methinks... :)

[Minionman]

Was it this one?
I just happened to stumble upon the same one on eBay.  :whistling:

Cheers,

Munk
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That one was neat. I used that one for awhile. The two pictures after it were also cool.

I didn't notice any series they were part of, they were just space ships, so were cool.

[Urza-DSF]

Was it this one?
Cheers,

Munk
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HOLY CRAP!! That is exactly it! And my brother had the red "flying saucer" in the post directly below it! Heh, damn the thing is still cool as all hell ^_^

[Sir_Die_alot]

I remember scouring the second-hand shops for that elusive six-wheeled M-Tron space crawler. :)

I had that. Took me over an hour to assemble it... and less than a week to disassemble it and make new stuff out of it. :w00t: I never found as good of a use for the windshield as I did the other pieces of the set. Big pieces like that were just hard to find a place for. :whistling:

One of my last design phases was robots. I came up with a good arm build with a wrench as the hand and varius hinges. (Since during my phase of legos the lego robot arms were in no sets) I remember digging through my 40 pounds or so of legos and every once in awhile finding a wrench and going "AH HA! Another hand!" After weeks of that I ended up with a robot that had 12 hands. I had no idea I had bought so many sets that came with wrenches. :shuriken:

Edit: Found the first set I ever owned http://www.brickset.com/search.aspx?Set=6941-1