FOR SALE: Grangemouth Marbled Lego

cillablack

Hi folks

My Mum was a Primary School teacher in Falkirk so they got loads of the Grangemouth lego, the marbled ones. She's given me some to sell for her. See photos. Will probably pop it on ebay too.If anyone is interested, drop me a message.

Cheers
Lauren

cillablack

A few more photos. The blue and white one is a personal fave. 

akunthita

Oh, my... these are beautiful!

drdavewatford

Very cool! I have absolutely no idea what these are worth - do you have a price in mind?

cillablack

£20 a brick, £30 a brick for the ones in the first photo :) Had a lot of messages about them already with offers :)

drdavewatford

cillablack said:

Had a lot of messages about them already with offers :)

Great - best of luck!

kbenjes

I'll take one if you ship to US.

cillablack

Drop me a message :)

cillablack

A few have now gone - see marked image. If you're interested in buying any others, message me :)

cillablack

Most bricks are now gone, the only ones left are the reds and yellows.

DeMontes

thanks @cillablack for the fast posting as mine arrived safely today.  If anyone is in any doubt about the beauty of Grangemouth bricks, I took a photo of these little beauties as soon  as they arrived....

cillablack

Hi folks, 

Mum found more bricks! Lots of absolutely lovely ones. See below and message me if you'd like to buy any or want any other images of any. The first photo is a whole new lot, I still have some remaining ones from the previous posts - I've not put them all together. 

Cheers
Lauren

cillablack

Hi folks, 

I've only got these ones left - lots of lovely red and yellows. Mum is on the hunt for more but I think the loft has given up its treasure!

notboring

Would love to obtain some beautiful bricks to add to the Lego display at TheAmsterdamToyMuseum.com

If you ever have more gorgeous ones to offer, please drop a line to [email protected]

Then come to Amsterdam!

DeMontes

There are some on eBay at the moment ( not my listing btw) depending on how deep your pockets are...

KungFuKenny

DeMontes said:

There are some on eBay at the moment ( not my listing btw) depending on how deep your pockets are...

I was a bit shocked at the asking price - over $100 US for one 2x4 brick!  There are 7 watchers, though, so I suppose everyone has their passion...

vanvonfull

if i was a lepin-like company, i would be making these.

SumoLego

I'm still kicking myself for not buying all of these up.  Thanks for resurrecting this thread...

Istokg

First of all, to charge $100 for a marbled 2x4 brick, it would have to really be an amazingly marbled brick.  All of the ones I currently see on Ebay don't even come close to that in value... maybe 1/2 the value.

Early LEGO slotted bricks (1949-54) were the only ones actually sold by TLG as "flame bricks".  I have an image of the 1953 retail catalog that lists the 2x4, 2x3, 2x2, 1x2 bricks in either solid colors, or "flame bricks", which were at a reduced price.

In the past 2 years I've done a lot of research on the companies that do the LEGO test striking of the marbled bricks, and Bayer Corp. of Germany did the testing (including marbled bricks) for LEGO in continental Europe and Asia.  Borg-Warner of Grangemouth Scotland did the testing of LEGO bricks for Britain, Ireland and Australia, and Borg-Warner (Marbon) of Washington (near Parkersburg) West Virginia did the testing for USA/Canada (Samsonite and later TLG).

The Marbon bricks are by far the rarest, and they produced few marbled bricks, since so few have been found in the USA/Canada.

The Bayer test bricks (and to a lesser extent the BASF and Borg-Warner/Amsterdam) bricks were the ones produced out of Leverkusen Germany (near Cologne), and are much more common, but usually in solid rare colors.

The Grangemouth Borg-Warner test bricks were produced in Scotland until 1978, when the production of LEGO bricks from British LEGO Ltd. was moved from Wrexham Wales, to Denmark (and more recently also to Czech and Hungary plants).  As the story goes, 2 Grangemouth Borg-Warner employees were caught producing marbled bricks by a LEGO representative in the UK, and the molds were taken away from the company.  However, since 1978 was the year that British LEGO Ltd. LEGO production was moved from Wrexham Wales back to Denmark, it seems probable that the employees were aware of the impending end of LEGO ABS testing (via 2x4 bricks), and they may just have taken the remaining ABS pellets that Grangemouth had in inventory, and produced a lot of mixed pellet 2x4 bricks that were given away locally.  So there may be a lot more Grangemouth LEGO marbled 2x4 bricks still out in the wild in Scotland.

1978 was also the year that TLG moved the production of LEGO from the Fujishu Corp. of Japan, back to Denmark under the LEGO A/S banner.  So Japanese produced LEGO production ended as well.

And as we all know TLG brought brick testing inhouse from Bayer in the early 2000s.  Unfortunately the end result was a poorer quality control of colors when TLG mixed the dyes with the milky white raw ABS at the last moment.  That's a whole other topic.

And the Borg-Warner plant in Washington West Virginia had LEGO testing (under both Samsonite, and later under TLG) for many years.  The result is that these Borg-Warner Marbon test bricks didn't seem to make it out of the factory very often, and are much rarer than those of the UK and continental Europe.

I have a whole new expanded chapter in my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide coming out in early 2021 that shows not only Grangemouth and Bayer/BASF bricks, but also bricks from Marbon in the USA.  For those of you who currently own my online computer desktop collectors guide... the future updates (whole new guide) is free to you!

Some teasers.... ;-)

USA Borg-Warner Marbon sampler given out...






Rare Bayer marbled test bricks from "Maxx".  Most Bayer test bricks are single color, many in unusual or never produced colors.  How Bayer got this exact marbling in each color combination of test bricks, is a mystery.




Some TLG Automatic Binding Bricks "floor sweepings" turned into marbled bricks that were sold to LEGO customers as individual parts... but as cheaper "factory seconds". 

The 10x20 ABB baseplate was produced by the 1950-52 Swedish plastic maker Geas Konstharts, when Automatic Binding Bricks were licensed out for production of ABB to Sweden.




USA Samsonite Marbon "milk chocolate" color test brick, with the usual "open O" Samsonite logo....

DeMontes

KungFuKenny said:

DeMontes said:

There are some on eBay at the moment ( not my listing btw) depending on how deep your pockets are...

I was a bit shocked at the asking price - over $100 US for one 2x4 brick!  There are 7 watchers, though, so I suppose everyone has their passion...

Indeed, I personally wouldn’t pay that but maybe someone else would!

DeMontes

This one I paid a bit more than I Normally  would admittedly:

KungFuKenny

DeMontes said:

This one I paid a bit more than I Normally  would admittedly:

That example is beautiful— I could see my budgetary self- control slipping if it was for sale!