An interactive story
🎧 Turn your sound on: Jhully and Lizzie talk!
Chapter 1
Before plastic, there was a carpenter.
Billund, Denmark
The Great Depression hit Denmark hard. In the village of Billund, the carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen had fewer and fewer customers… so he started making wooden toys to keep his workshop alive.
Sources: Statistics Denmark · The LEGO Group
Rarity · 1935
The quacking wooden duck (1935–1960) was made in several versions. Today a good one can sell for over $1,000.
Why so rare? LEGO's wooden toys were sold almost only in Denmark, and many broke from years of play.
Collector's challenge
A wooden duck once sold as "LEGO" for more than $170… but it was a copy made by another brand (a twin sold for just $20). Collectors avoid this by checking small details.
Which one is the real LEGO duck? Pick one.
Source: The Brothers Brick · Eurobricks (the copy was made by Verhofa, Germany) · drawings for illustration
Then & Now
Drag to compare
Guess the price: the 2020 set cost 599 Danish kroner (about $90). What is it worth today, sealed?
Sources: Brick Architect · BrickEconomy (values change over time)
LEGO's strategy
LEGO now sells its own wooden past to adults. Exclusive and limited editions make collectors hurry: if you miss it, it's gone.
Sources: Brick Fanatics · BrickEconomy (values change over time)
January 1936
The company officially became LEGO, from the Danish leg godt, "play well". And in Latin, lego can mean "I collect".
Its motto, "Only the best is good enough", was taken seriously: Ole once made his son re-varnish a whole batch of ducks overnight. That care is why these toys still survive, 90 years later.
1942 – 1949
On 20 March 1942 a fire burned the factory down. Ole rebuilt it. In 1947 he bought a machine to mould plastic, and in 1949 came the Automatic Binding Bricks: hollow plastic bricks that stacked… but didn't lock yet.
Sources: The LEGO Group · History of Lego
How it started · How it ended
First · 1932
1 piece
A wooden toy, carved and painted as one piece.
Last · 1949 · the biggest set of the era
The first plastic LEGO bricks came in this gift box: enough to build a house with a red roof.
See the set ↗0 pieces
Sources: Brickipedia · BrickEconomy · each square is one real piece · Photo: Brickipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
Your turn
Drag the 4 wooden parts onto the outline (or click a part, then its place). 0 / 4
Your duck is rolling! Your first collector card is waiting.
Collector card · #1
1935★★★★★
Made by hand in Billund from 1935 to 1960. Early versions are the rarest.
Chapter 2
One brick that fits every other brick.
28 January 1958 · 1:58 pm
LEGO patented a brick with studs on top and tubes underneath: the tubes grip the studs. For collectors, a brick from 1958 still clicks onto one made today, so no LEGO collection ever goes out of date.
Sources: The LEGO Group · Brick Fanatics · US patent 3,005,282
1958 – 1960
Ole Kirk Christiansen died in 1958 and his son Godtfred took over. On 4 February 1960 a fire destroyed the wooden-toy stock, and LEGO decided to make only plastic from then on.
That is why the wooden toys stop at 1960: a closed chapter that collectors can complete, but never add to.
Sources: Brickset · History of Lego
LEGO's strategy · 1955 – 1961
0 / 760 pieces
Every brick fit every other brick, so LEGO sold a System of Play: start with a Town Plan, then add one more house, one more car, one more tree. The Town Plan 810 (1961) had 760 pieces and a printed street board.
This is where "completing the collection" began: the town was never really finished.
Source: Brickipedia: 810 Town Plan · drawing for illustration
Value of retired sets · 1961 → 2008
Your guess: what is a sealed 10184 worth today?
Retiring a set does not guarantee it will be worth more: condition, a sealed box and demand matter most.
Sources: Brickset · BrickEconomy (values change over time)
The collector's challenge
Six bricks of the same colour can be put together in 915,103,765 ways. LEGO itself used to say about 102 million, until mathematician Søren Eilers counted them all.
Rarity of the era
51 pieces · $4.25 new → about $3,570 sealed
A tiny showroom with Volkswagen Beetles, first sold in 1957 and still in shops into the early 1960s. Almost no sealed copies survive, so collectors rank it among the rarest sets of the era.
Sources: BrickEconomy (an estimate, not an auction record) · Brickipedia · drawing for illustration
Other collectors
Collectors of 1950s and 1960s LEGO look at much more than the bricks. Tick what you would check:
Sources: Brickset · The Brothers Brick · Brickpicker
How it started · How it ended
First · 1958
1 brick
The 2×4 with tubes: the piece every set since is built on.
Last · the biggest sets of the era
The record of the era was a big US tub of basic bricks made by Samsonite. Among themed sets, Town Plan 842 held the record until 1978. See the sets ↗
Sources: Brickset: largest sets · Brickipedia · BrickEconomy
Your turn
A brick only clicks onto the bricks below it: build the house from the bottom up. Drag a brick to its place, or click it, then its place. 0 / 5
Click! Your second collector card is waiting.
Chapter 3 · 1978 is coming soon.
Collector card · #2
1958★★★★★
Common as can be, and still the most important piece: every LEGO brick since clicks onto it.
