L is for Lego's Dirty Little Secret

One of the drums I keep beating, one of the windmills I will continue to tilt-at, is the theft by Lego of the Hilary Page design of the Kiddycraft Mini Bricks, a scaled down version of his pre-war self-locking bricks.

So - as we shall see in a second - when I saw this German language version of one of the first sets we had as kids, the stand-alone 'pre-fab' garage, I had to get it up here.

 

One of the 'excuses' Lego have used for the similarity of their product in recent years has been that they 'improved' the product with the addition of the rods and tubes at the centre-points between the studs, to 'jam' the bricks together, and as those huge propagandist tomes from Dorling Kindersly have had to address the plagiarism, that's the line that's been taken, to explain the fact that the one is a copy of the other!

But here we have a set, admittedly early, and European, yet manufactured some time after the brand had become popular outside Denmark, and sometime before they lost the court-case brought by Kiddycraft in the UK, in which the rods between the studs are absent. These are a direct copy of the UK bricks, with the exception of the weight-balanced door, and the two specialist receiving bricks, but by then Airfix had similar bricks in their Betta Builder!

 

So, when Jørgen Vig Knudstorp said in 2009 "On January 28, 1958 the LEGO (R) Group patented the LEGO (R) brick with its now well-known tubes inside..." He was being a bit disingenuous, as the Kiddycraft design was the one which had gone International in '56! What we have here, are Hilary Page's self-locking 'Kiddybricks', stolen by Ole Kirk Christensen and exploited by his son, Godtfred.

And the thing is, the later tubes/rods were an innovation, or 'novel addition', they did not change the outward appearance, nor the function of the bricks, very important in Patent Law. The very patents Lego would use for years against all-comers including Tyco, and it was not until the courts protected Mega Bloks, after these facts started to gain wider recognition, that things changed and some began to realise Lego are just another 'evil empire'!

The early products were made from cellulose-acetate, which tends to warp over time, and while you can use hot water or a hair-dryer to restore shape, there's often associated shrinkage, so the bricks and components no longer interact with others, or the modern product. Not a problem on Kiddycraft's original urea-formaldehyde bricks, nor Airfix's polystyrene or Blue Box's polyethylene ones.

 

Other Points

Apparently 'Award-winning' journalist Erin Blakemore writes "LEGO says Kiddicraft told the company it was fine to use the design, but in 1981 they formally bought the rights to Kiddicraft bricks from their inventor’s descendants.", and while the "but" is telling, she fails to mention that they had already, by that point, lost a UK court case and been fined a large amount of money (for the day), neither a fine nor a subsequent IP purchase would have been necessary, if they had that permission.

 

And they bought from Hestair-Kiddycraft (to save their arses), not the 'decendents', his widow had, by then, sold her stake in the Kiddycraft company to Hestair.

 

On the Brick Fetish (and other) website/s, the story is told that "Although Hilary and Oreline visited Ole and Godtfred in 1949, and perhaps, even left drawings and samples, Page was never aware that Lego produced a version of his brick.", yet while it is true Hilary (who would commit suicide a few years later) never knew the depth of the deception, not even Lego have ever claimed that there was a meeting. Indeed, with their mawkishly-sentimental animated history of the product (which you can find on YouTube), they claim he found the bricks (made - in the video - to resemble the much later Tri-Ang 'Pennybricks') at a trade fair.

The idea seems to come from a Daily Wail article by Adrian Lithgow, back in 1987, and the truth is likely that the trade-fair exhibitor, from which the bricks were stolen by Ole, was probably Hilary or someone from Kiddycraft?

 

While Miniland states "Along with the new [injection moulding] machine, Ole received several sample parts showing its capabilities. Among these were samples of a toy brick made by Injection Moulders, Ltd, of London. It was Hilary Fisher Page’s Kiddicraft brick. Interlego A.G. v. Tyco Industries [1989] 1 A.C. 217. During cross-examination, Godtfred indicated that He and Ole had received Kiddicraft samples, which served as the basis of the original Automatic Binding Brick.", ie, no trade fair, let alone no meeting?

 

However it happened, it was theft, straight-up, pure & simple thievery, piracy, plagiarism. 

Without the Star Wars franchise (which can't have been cheap), Lego would have gone under in 2004, and in producing figures with lightsabres and ray guns, not to mention 'star fighters', they broke their own golden 'no war toys' rule, except . . . they had already broken it with the knights & castles, the Wild West and the pirates & Red/Blue-coat soldiers, so, even within their own mythos, Lego are a bit crap!

And the above all matters; had they paid for a licence, Hilary Page may not have felt the need to kill himself (over something else), and yet, without a licence fee payable, they remain the most expensive bricks on the market, by a country mile!

KUM is for Rotor Ship!

Very much a follow-up to this old post;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2013/11/this-article-has-been-long-time-in.html

. . . and it's been ready to go for a while, but I hadn't got round to it, until I mentioned it in the previous post and thought, "Yep, nice bit of Dime Store tat for Christmas!".

So first-up are the two from storage, which I managed to dig out of the Garage and shoot in the autumn before all the heartache with Katie-cat and Mum, after which I sort of lost interest for a bit, the military one has lost two blades, but still looks the part and has the RAF roundel/National marking missing from my other khaki example. While the blue/white combo' is the one in Fairylite marked packaging.

 

All four 'on the tarmac', except it's now-five-and-a-half, as we shall see in a minute, no, it might be six-and-a-half, because I think I ended-up with the ACME one, but it went straight to storage.

 

I re-shot the Injection Moulders' (IM) Rota Ship's box again, it had a good outing last time, but what the hell! I love how the end folds down into a launching garage, which has all the graphics of a 1950's amusement at Coney Island!

 

And this is the rather tatty Fairylite box

 

But this is new, joining the fleet in February '21, according to the photo's! This is the Cheerio (UK) packaging of the same machine (all marked - REGD DES Nº  844987) from Thomas/ACME, and it goes one better than Injection Moulder's box-end, the whole box (less the bottom panel!) is an aircraft hangar!

 

It's more simply marked ACME HELICOPTER, suggesting it came via the Canadian parent of Cheerio, via Thomas/ACME themselves. The other two shots are from the Intermaweb-thingy, and show a really nice colour combination in grey/red and a lovely marbled-heliotrope one, rather ruined by the extremities, in a red which is from a different part of the colour-wheel and clashes!

 

Quick one, it can't have escaped your notice that after 15-years of rubbing along happily, someone has decided to competitive-blog against me? I haven't the faintest idea why, but he's been doing it for over a year, and he did stop responding to eMails a few years ago, his mucker didn't, but he did, and now his mucker seems to have joined-in anyway?

 

Anyway, I like to Blog my collection, and increasingly I have the archive to hand, or, at least about 14 meters of it (A4), there's a similar amount in the storage unit, and if I wholesale scanned that, the tag-list would take half-an-hour to scroll at full speed!

Now, in blogging, my collection or archive, along with submissions, I will use the occasional eBay or other image, to enhance a post, like this one, 90+% mine, but if I started using the stuff I've kept off the Internet, wholesale, as they do, we'd be here 'till 2525! And, apart from submissions, that's all they've got? eBay, Worthpoint, Scalemates and Google?

 

If they really think that it's a good idea, to start a war, now? I'm up for it, I'll start digging out all the stuff I tend to leave to them, or in the past have sent to them? Think about it. What is it about Christmas that brings out the worst in some people?

While this, this is the KUM! And it's the dog's bollocks! It's a W. Germany knock-off, of the Thomas/ACME gear-ratcheted helicopter with a truncated tail, and enlarged crew-compartment for the fitting of a pencil-sharpener! How cool is that? Too cool for cyclical flight-training school, that's how!

 

They might be planeings, but they're not helicopterings, are they! The shaving-compartment, which was missing off the one we saw earlier today, although that had the pencil-feed from the back. KUM have produced a wide range of novelty pencil-sharpeners, and could be worth a side-collection on their own. And this collage was made in April 2022, coincidence happens!

 

I loved it so much I shot it thrice! This is the 'half' referred-to above! Here posed with a combination of Atlantic Italian Air Force and Preiser Luftwaffe accessories! So there you go, yet more on the Thomas-ACME-IM-Fairylite-Cheerio-KUM et al (don't forget the French and Scandinavian versions!) helicopter!

N is for Nostalgia - Badges!

OK, well, after a seven-day figure-fest, let's have something completely different with a bit of a nostalgia hit to boot, after all if we collect toys we already have an interest in juvenile popular culture!

Another of the magic drawers shot on the way to storage, it's where all the badges that come in with mixed-lots end-up, after the drawing-pins, building blocks, broken chalks & crayons, buttons, Lego, lumps of hairy, brown Plasticine, marbles, Meccano, and other detritus have been removed!

This might . . . I stress MIGHT . . . and only 'might' . . . be the only surviving example of the badges in this Giant Plastics Corp., set (third image down), but it may be from another source altogether! A photo-realistic (because it's a 1:1 photograph, as a print!) army badge, reproduced as a paper sticker. It's actually quite an unusual higher-function/rear echelon logistics/construction unit - ADSEC Wikipedia.

Figurals; A cat stamped from polished sheet steel (stainless), a relief-flat setter, a similar Tyrolean/Bavarian [very-]young couple stealing a kiss, the two dogs came from Bulgaria, while the rabbit is channeling both Miffi and Hello Kitty (or even the new Chi) but is none of those franchise's characters, but rather a generic; possibly a gum-ball machine prize?

Finally the National Children's Homes (NCH) crocodile/alligator in Santa suit is a teeny-tiny example of multiple-shot moulding, a technique akin to over-moulding, but with each colour laid side-by-side, originally; separately, increasingly now; at the same time.

Also figural, this is interesting both for being a motorcycle (speedway memento?) and being marked on the back with the Injection Moulder's logo, whom we last saw selling Thomas cord-pull helicopters here.

This is a lovely little thing, a simple pin-badge in pressed, tin-litho, not sure if the alphabet is Chinese or Japanese but I think the latter, and the equivalent of a 'penny toy'? The sort of thing 1960's or early '70's parents would buy a whole card of, and hand out as 'attendance' prizes to all the kids at a birthday party . . . "I'll be ya' best friend . . . "

Oh, if I had a decent sample of these I'd need a new Blog! Brass, die-cast alloy, plastic, card . . . stars, medallions, shields, name-plates, we all had several of these on our way through childhood, Sheriff, Deputy, Posse, Marshal, Fire Chief, Police, or here (in plastic) 'Special Agent' . . . where would a 20th Century adolescence have been without at least one of these?

I hate this creature with such a vengeance he's got 'air-pellet receptacle' written all over 'im! However, some, many, were taken in by the Disneyfication of the whole planet, so just for them . . .no, I'm not going to clean the little shit!

Look at his dimwittedness, shining, beacon-like from his fizzog, listen to his whining voice (it's there, in your head, right now! "Oooh! helloooo pluuu'tooo!"), wonder at his inordinate earning-potential, imagine my extra Google-traffic - whatever I say about the horrid, mawkishly-sentimental little fu . . . deep breath Hugh, deep breath . . . calm down; go and have a coffee!

At the other end of the badge spectrum from anthropomorphic plastic twats are these, given away by arms manufacturers, to adults, at defence shows! Heavy alloy, base-metal or pewter models of whichever killing-machine they are flogging that day, here we have a faux-gilded 105mm howitzer (presumably from BAE Systems) and an Oerlikon ship-defence auto-cannon.

I may have some more of these somewhere (tanks, helicopters and 'planes), I've had a lot of luck with the Farnborough Airshow over the years; Dad used to get us all-area tickets when the Tiger Moth was on display, while in the 2000's I was working as a chauffeur and a lot of our work was for BAE or their clients, so we were in and out, all day, for the whole gig and got given a lot of stuff.

 

At that level of corporate hospitality the stuff is given-away like rain, indeed; umbrellas (full size, posh ones) were another common freebie, leaving me and family possessing a lifetime's supply of them - I recently took half-a-dozen to charity! Once I had a party of Turks visiting Thames Water facilities for a whole week (8-seat V-Klass) and they left all their umbrellas with me and I struggled to give them all away! We (they - the rich and powerful) have killed the planet with this shite!

T is for ACME, IM, PP et al...

This article has been a long time in the making, and wouldn't be as full as it is without the help of two other collectors, both of whom I bow to as possessing superior knowledge to me in these matters. This is in every sense of a word off-abused; Iconic, both as an example of early plastic and as an instantly recognisable toy. The real purpose of this article is to cover the various makes, as while it may be instantly recognisable, if it's loose you may not know who made it - and that won't be much easier at the end of the post!

The reason I consider it to be such an iconic early plastic toy is that it was produced, licensed and copied by so many companies or as 'brands' and it showed how a simple mechanism in a plastic toy, if robust enough, could produce the same level of 'playability' as a much more complicated (and expensive to produce) metal clockwork or friction-motors in the previous staple - tin-plate toys.

The thanks go to Bill Hanlon and Adrian Little, who have both helped with images and information.

Bill's Website is here;        American Dimestore

Adrian's is here;                       Mercator Trading

So the first incarnation seems to be the last photographs to join this article - taken the other week. Designed by Islyn Thomas, originally for The Acme Plastics Manufacturing Company of New York in 1945, it looks very modern, lacking a rear rotor would cramp it's style in the air somewhat, but 'junior' wouldn't have known that!

It is so modern in fact, it seems to represent a shape that wouldn't be built for some years, being given a 'nose' that was lacking in the Sikorsky R4 Hoverfly, the only volume production airframe at the time, but then it was sold as a Bell Helicopter - none of the early models from that company looking anything like the toy, however, there would have been some drawing-board designs that could have led to this shape being adopted, and - due to the war - there were some close connections between toy makers and defence companies.

The box is square using the longest dimension, and the simple mechanism meant you could pull it along by its little string and the rotors would revolve. Faster you pulled - the more action you generated...bargain!

The fogging on the wheels would suggest a material other that styrene, possibly a cellulose-based polymer. Although Cellulose-acetate was used on early ACME and Thomas toys, I've never seen one of these helicopters in that material, they all being in polystyrene.

By 1947, it would seem that the ACME contract with Thomas Manufacturing Corp. was coming to an end (or at least the order for helicopters had been filled?) and on Bill's website we see a generic letter offering the helicopter to all-comers. Above - courtesy of Bill; is a collage of various boxes, by various manufacturers including a French company who obviously took Islyn up on his offer. The box is now based on the maximum breadth dimension.

Because Thomas had a UK arm near Swansea in Wales, the UK versions were probably sourced from there rather than the 'States, however the mould-sharing regimen of the time, US import/export [protectionism] tax implications and order-filling may have led to all sorts of relationships between companies, boxes and contents!

However as this letter (also supplied by Bill) shows, Injection Moulders (IM) were talking to the US parent. In 1953 there is another letter from IM (on Bill's site) talking about a new Sikorsky helicopter, and that they have "...re-hashed it again...", this may well be the following one....

...and this is where my own efforts toward this article finally kick-in, as about 18 months ago I had the luck to secure the following by IM at the bun-fest on the steps of the stand at Sandown Park before the doors open;

The box and contents are given a space-age feel but very much in the style of Buck Rogers, Dan Dare or Flash Gordon, what they thought in the 1950's the world would look like in the 2000's!

The Inter Cities 'Rota Ship' in a fetching gold with a folding flap that turns its box into a garage. Unlike the Acme model, this (and most others) carries the Thomas patent number.

Although I had started to collate this article when I did the text-less space-ship articles some time ago, as soon as I got this I lent it out for a book project, so everything was put on hold for a while longer.

 

We've seen the green one before, with a question mark over it's being Tudor*Rose or Kleeware, I now suspect it is another IM version/issue but could equally be either Thomas or Poplar Plastics, and - again on Bill's site - there is a nice shot of several of these with the generic box . The broken rotor'ed one we looked at last time has the original RAF roundel, while the complete one I got about a year ago has lost it.

Fairylite, who we looked at the other day were an importer/re-packager of other peoples product and their model could have come from anywhere, even Hong Kong where this helicopter was copied, but I feel it will be one of the UK factories (Thomas, Poplar or IM) who supplied it, as the HK ones tend to be glossier and of less quality.

While most of the models in this article are mono-coloured (ignoring the rotor/wheel mechanism). bi-coloured ones are common and came in a verity of combinations.

This is the original set of two drawing that accompanied the patent application for the rotor/wheel mechanism, it's freely available from the Google patents site. All the assemblies were firmly glued in the factory which has probably helped so many to survive, although rotor-blade do go missing!

The model is quite adequate for 20/25mm war-games and I have tagged it as HO - OO, which in the best traditions of Airfix covers a multitude of sins.

Thanks again to Adrian and Bill for their input, images and samples to photograph.