Does anyone else play with Legos?

[Hatchdog]

I too had Lincoln Logs, my dad's old erector set, tons of Legos, and a few other toys along those lines. What I liked was that everything built, after the first couple simple things, was from the blueprint in my mind. And the designs changed occasionally during the builds. I remember when Lego first had wheels, and then when the blocks for the wheel axle could be mounted vertically, for helicopter rotor blades and such.

We just had a local pool tournament that asked for us to bring unwrapped gifts for the Toys-4-Tots program. I brought a couple Lego items, and was amazed that an entire isle at WalMart is dedicated to Legos. I also liked that so many of the donated toys that day were Legos. They're a fantastic invention.

I downtown Spokane there is a Lego store. We’re going next door today to pick up my wife’s new computer and if I get the chance I take a pic of the inside.

[daytime dave]

Looks great RSB.

I had Lincoln Logs, erector set and Legos. I too put the legos all into one bin if they came as a kit. I preferred to build my own designs. One of my classmates in 5th or 6th grade made a castle that was amazing.

Now, outside firearms and knives, I like my 1/64 scale cars and trucks and my newly acquired S scale (1/64) model trains.

[RetiredSeabee]

Friends of ours have made a very successful business out of Legos. They started out selling kits of retired Lego sets that they made from bulk purchases of the bricks. Assembling the kits and printing the instructions. Sold them all over the world They were very popular in Australia. They eventually changed to creating custom mini figures. They sold several to NFL players One set they made a bunch of money on was a replica of Lambeau Field with the players from one of their championship seasons. It was given to Donald Driver when he retired. One of their figures of Franco Harris was featured on a HBO NFL show that had a section on the immaculate reception.

Here is another one of my recent sets as I recall it had 920 pieces and I put it together in two days working about a total of 8 hours.

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[brm4450]

I had Lincoln Logs, Erector set, and Tinker Toys. I did however help my sons and daughter build multiple sets with Legos. Big sets, little sets you name it. One son lives in Denmark where the toy maker, also known as the Lego Group (stylised as the LEGO Group), is a Danish construction toy production company based in Billund. We still have a huge tub of Legos that all my grandkids play with. (Danish grandkids have a plethora of them also)

[daytime dave]

Awesome falcon RSb.

[Vaquero]

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He was facing bankruptcy, had four sons to feed, and the world was collapsing around him—
so he made a toy that would outlive them all.

Billund, Denmark. Early 1930s.

Ole Kirk Christiansen ran a small carpentry shop. For sixteen years, he’d built furniture, ladders, and ironing boards for local farmers. He was skilled, proud of his work, and just getting by.

Then the Great Depression hit.

Orders vanished almost overnight. No one was building. No one was buying. Ole had a wife, four young sons, and bills he could no longer pay. His business—his life’s work—was slipping away.

He was a craftsman facing ruin.
But he was also a father.
And fathers find a way.

Ole looked around his workshop at the scraps of wood left behind from furniture orders that would never return. And he made a simple, radical decision:

If people couldn’t afford big things, maybe they could afford small ones.

He started carving toys.

Wooden yo-yos. Pull-along ducks. Little cars. Animals. Nothing flashy—just beautifully made, with the same care he’d always given to furniture.

People told him it was pointless.
“Toys won’t save your business.”

Ole disagreed. He lived by a rule he refused to abandon, even in desperation:

“Det bedste er ikke for godt.”
Only the best is good enough.

Especially for children.

The toys didn’t make him rich. They did something more important.
They kept his family alive. One month at a time.

A Name for a Belief

In 1934, Ole named his tiny toy company LEGO, from the Danish words leg godt—
“play well.”

Years later, someone pointed out that lego also means “I put together” in Latin. Ole hadn’t known.

It fit anyway.

For years, LEGO was just wooden toys—a struggling Danish workshop trying to survive.

Then Ole and his son Godtfred noticed something new spreading across the world: plastic.

Cheaper than wood. Moldable. Durable. Colorful.

In 1947, Ole made a terrifying gamble. He bought a plastic injection-molding machine. For a company barely surviving, it was a massive risk.

In 1949, they produced simple plastic “Automatic Binding Bricks.”

They stacked.
But they didn’t hold.

They fell apart too easily. They weren’t satisfying.

They weren’t good enough.

Nine Years of Refusal to Quit

For nine years, Ole and Godtfred experimented. Failed. Tested. Refined.

Until 1958.

Godtfred created a breakthrough design: studs on top—and tubes inside the bottom. A coupling system that locked bricks together firmly while still allowing endless creativity.

Structures stayed built. Creations didn’t crumble.

On January 28, 1958, they patented the design.

The modern LEGO brick was born—the same one still used today. A brick from 1958 still clicks perfectly into a brick made now.

Ole Kirk Christiansen died later that year.

He never saw what LEGO would become.

What He Left Behind

Godtfred carried on. LEGO expanded across Europe, then America, then the world. Sets. Minifigures. Cities. Spaceships. Castles. Theme parks. Movies.

A global phenomenon.

Today, LEGO is one of the most valuable toy brands on Earth. Hundreds of millions of children—and adults—have built with those bricks. Families pass them down like heirlooms.

All because a bankrupt carpenter refused to compromise on quality, even when carving toys from scraps to feed his children.

Ole’s original workshop still stands in Billund. The first LEGOLAND opened there in 1968—in the same town where a desperate father once carved wooden ducks to survive.

The legacy of LEGO isn’t just survival.

It’s a philosophy.

When everything is falling apart—you build.
When the world says no—you adapt.
When others cut corners—you insist on quality.

You play well.

Ole Kirk Christiansen had almost nothing—and created joy that outlasted him, his sons, and generations beyond.

“Only the best is good enough.”

Every click of a LEGO brick proves he was right.

That’s not just a toy company.

That’s a legacy.


RP

[The Happy Kaboomer]

NOPE!.............