Davids garage vs. Jay Leno's garage

My car collections have changed over time...I sold a lot of them to fund legos and make more room for legos!  Jay Leno would be so proud of my cars, it's just that my cars aren't real!

Here are the car collection I've had and sold for legos

Cereal box cars fron 50s

Matchbox cars and hot wheels

My coveted matchbox collection

Hubley cars!

Lensdey??? Cars

Tootsie toy (?) metal cars...wheels are metal making them pre ww2. Plastic used to save steel

The sale!!!

Now I have some great lego cars instead!

(addendum 1116 I referenced Jay Leno and now found out he's burnt and injured...get well soon, so sorry to hear this)

The lego garage! The perfect end to finding the toy garage every kid wants!

 I have to chuckle about the lego garage sets, both an older version and the one from a few years ago.  

I don't know what is fascinating to kids about toy parking garages, except that it gives a place to park all those toy cars.  Here's how I think the lego garage came to be (via some non lego toys).

First garage toy I had!  Teaches you to not drive off the second floor! 

Also not good for teaching staying in your lane on the ramp when one car covered both lanes!

This playschool garage was only available to me at the nursery at church, I was there every Sunday!!!!  The only good thing about being separated from parents while in the nursery (fighting with other children for this toy).

As I got older, this garage you could design the way you wanted it, you could move the ramps etc...and matchbox cars fit in it!  It was sponsored by BP fuel

The height of this garage made it so desired by kids and the elevator was battery operated..it didn't get any cooler than that!  The ability to park 10 cars was mind blowing 

Now came the cumulative sum of all the features of the above childhood into the earlier lego parking garage set

This set has all features of the above non lego garages...cars, rails, elevators to multiple levels, people, motorcycles...what more could a kid want???  All the pieces could be made into any configuration as seen by the alternate builds on the back of the box.  This set also highlights Shell corporations sponsorship.

Then, a few years ago lego made a second version.  

Interestingly, there is reference to Octan fuel company (a fictitious company) vs.  A real company (Shell) The cars are rounded out and the elevator goes all the way to the top.  I don't know which of the lego parking garages is bettter??, but the concept of toy parking garages has sure come a long way!!!

This 1982 lego creation was all "mine"

 This was my first moc i did on my own...it was for a 6th grade project on coal ...I used an aquarium with a shoebox, Styrofoam peanuts, and Legos.  (The red clips on the one machine..whatever it was supposed to be, were from the 383 set.)  I had plans to make better coal mining equipment, but I put off the deadline too long!

The red clips in set 383 above

My equipment looked like alligator jaws.  I have to admit my moc wasn't the best quality!!!  But i was the founder of lego and STEM!  But Mindstorms and robots by lego did surpass me.

The price is right...except at the big box stores

 My favorite thing in the 80s was to leave my parents and look at the toy aisles....it was customary to look at each box of the same set to see if they made a mistake with the price tag...usually the ones in the back that had been put out earlier

My major find was a dollar off the spaceman set at gold circle...mom had to get me that!

I saved a dollar off the $3.99 price!!

Image from brick economy 

Flash forward to 2 years ago at a big box store 12/26.  The price for set was 20$ or so off.  The compassionate highly focused cashier rang up the set and said it wasn't on sale "because that's not what the computer said" I went and got the tag on the shelf and brought it back to her...she said "I cannot believe you took that off the shelf" to which I said" well it's not doing anybody any good!". I thought the big box store security was going To get me booted out but they were arguing at the register about getting their employee discount on legos! 

Hard work to get this set at big box store!!!

25$ vs 45$ ..I'm just lucky the computer didn't say $70 because thats what the wheel said

Image From datagenetics.com

Ha ha I thought the price is right ended with the showcase showdown, the price was right for me, but it ended in the cashier/register showdown

Foundational lego piece

 It seems like now days anyone who talks about legos has a certain style or theme of legos that they like and reference in their mind.  But I think there's a generation of builders that trace their lego memories back to one piece that wS the center and foundation of legos and that is the green baseplate.

It could be the foundation of a house, an uneven terrain for lego cars to manage, a massive car or wagon when 4 wheels were attached, or the balcony of a huge tower.  It was like kindergarten or a rite of passage where any lego collection started

Any model from lego or moc starts with pieces coming together in perfect order and sequence, the key is the solid foundation for all other blocks to build upon .

Excitement of mail order

 In this day and age it's so hard to think of having to wait for mail deliveries but thats how lego used to be even into the late 80s.  There were always service packs to order and here is examples of this...in reality I only ordered 1 time

Nowadays the catalogs are so different and wouldn't it be amazing to be able to buy these pieces again at the old prices!

Tribute to open lego buildings

 I touched on 493 set being the first open set in a prior post, but found some pics that really show this.  

I remember paying with the above sets, but the play was limited to bringing cars in and out of the bays for parking.  Then came the open bud concept started with set 493

The sets below really show how far this building concept has come

The word playability used to describe lego sets is sure enhanced with the open building concept!...also see the Disney castle and now the daily bugle set.