Changes to 2x4 brick

EvilTwin

Recently I was given a biscuit tin of old Lego when a relative moved house. Nothing very interesting in it so it'll probably go to a charity shop. But I did notice that some of the 2x4 bricks were missing the little reinforcement thingy on the middle tube underneath the brick which is present on modern bricks. I'm curious when that change happened. Anyone know?
The picture shows what I mean. Top, newer bricks; bottom, older bricks.

madforLEGO

Paging @Istokg @LusiferSam

Fizyx

Looking at Bricklink, it looks like the 2x4 bricks with were produced up until around 2006.

madforLEGO

I think the brick missing their posts occurred stayed until around the early to mid 80's IIRC, but that is just a guess (I think that @Istokg may have already addressed this in another thread, but I am too lazy to look for it)

Fizyx

Fizyx said:

Looking at Bricklink, it looks like the 2x4 bricks with were produced up until around 2006.

@madforLEGO said, there is an even older version that didn't have center posts, although I'm not sure what the timeframe on those was.

LusiferSam

Fizyx said:

Looking at Bricklink, it looks like the 2x4 bricks with were produced up until around 2006.

That's very, very wrong.  Somebody screwed up the inventory on 2006 Maersk ship 10152.  The 2004 and 2005 version don't have these, and they are basically the same set.  Istokg knows way more than I do about the Maersk sets and Maersk blue parts.

There are something like 60 or 70+ variations of the 2x4 brick.  Nearly half of those are early bricks, ie slotted and hollow bottom bricks.  Old logo, new logo, mixed logos, straight letters, open O, pat pend, obscured, void, ID, side pip, stud pip, CA, ABS etc. and etc.

The ridge that runs the length of the brick showed up in the early 60s.  Not sure on the how or why it was put there.  I've got CA brick that say pat pend with the ridge, ABS that say pat pend without and ABS with the ridge but are void.  Your two older bricks look like there's a glob of plastic on either side of the center tube.  These are obscured.  Normally these bricks would have said pat pend, but at some point in the 70s Lego started to obscure this in the mold.  Once the old molds were finished the new molds didn't need this treatment.  So these bricks were molded sometime in the mid to late 70s.

There are a few other 70s variations, like slotted tubes and void bricks.  Void bricks have few or no marking on the underside.  It's at this point where the ridge was dropped and the reinforcements on the center tube shows up.  I've not personally seen a brick with tube reinforcements and a center ridge, but that doesn't mean they weren't made.  The pip was then moved from the side to the stud.  This was all some time in the late 70s and early 80s.

Modern 2x4 bricks are obviously ABS with the pip on the stud and modern logo.  Underneath they have the reinforcements on the center tube and say ©LEGO, have a part ID number, mold number and position number.

Something really important to keep in mind is that all of these changes were gradual.  There are never any true hard and fast dates of when these changes took place, just general time frames.  As Istokg will tell you Lego never throws anything away.

Sorry if there any grammar or spelling issues I missed.  This is a longer the normal for me and longer I go the more I miss.

Fizyx

LusiferSam said:

Fizyx said:

Looking at Bricklink, it looks like the 2x4 bricks with were produced up until around 2006.

That's very, very wrong.  Somebody screwed up the inventory on 2006 Maersk ship 10152.  The 2004 and 2005 version don't have these, and they are basically the same set.

Glad to be corrected.  I just did a surface level scan on BL, and that's about as deep as my knowledge goes :)

DeMontes

Fizyx said:

Glad to be corrected.  I just did a surface level scan on BL, and that's about as deep as my knowledge goes :)

Not just wrong, but very very wrong...oh dear that'll teach you to not do a thorough in-depth research article before posting on a blog ;-)

madforLEGO

madforLEGO said:

I think the brick missing their posts occurred stayed until around the early to mid 80's IIRC, but that is just a guess (I think that @Istokg may have already addressed this in another thread, but I am too lazy to look for it)

Sorry, I meant the ones missing the post reinforcements where phased out in the 80s IIRC

LusiferSam

Sorry that didn't come across the way that I indented it.  A lot times databases like BrickLink, Peeron and even here, will make blanket statements on topics that have a lot of subtlety to them.  And I realized that after my last post that there are a couple of different answers being offered to EvilTwin's question which has a lot of subtlety to it.  I frankly am just as guilty of making a blanket and not dealing with the subtleties of the issue.  So I'll apologize for that.

My answer was about when the elements were created.  Fizyx's answer was about when the elements were used.  The blanket statement is this normally happens around the time same.  For rare colors or rare parts the answer is a lot more nuanced. 

If you have a rare color like Maersk blue elements could have been created 30 or 40 years ago.  Maersk blue is used only in Maersk models or set as far as I know.  Lego run short on 2x4 Maersk blue bricks for the #10152.  Rather than mold new 2x4 they got some from the model shop.  This model shop bricks were from the late 70s or early 80s. 

So what I said to begin with was basically wrong.  Fizyx was right when he they were last released in 2006.  But that doesn't mean that's when the bricks were made, which is what I was try say and failing to get at.  The bulk of the transition happened in the late 70s and early 80s.   But some of these transitions happen at lot later.  And it still is possible that model shop still has some older rare bricks that could released.  It seems unlikely but the case of #10152 shows that it is possible.

Fizyx

Ha, no problem!  I didn't take it badly at all.  Like I said, I just did a cursory search of Bricklink, and you're 100% right that BL doesn't take into account all the things you said!  I actually think the fact that they would dip into a stash of much older bricks for a set with rare elements/colors is a really neat tidbit that I never would have considered in a million years.  I think it just goes to show that you're exactly right:  There's not a good black and white answer to a lot of questions like these even in easy cases (as the molds gradually change for popular pieces/colors), but especially when it comes to more rarely produces elements.

Actually, I had some fun finds of my own yesterday when I got my own order of used 2x4 bricks from Bricklink... as I was sorting through them, I noticed at least three different mold variations, which I never would have picked up on without your very informative comments!

Aleydita

I think you need this page:

http://www.leggodt.nl/items/lego/parts.php?group=2&withimages=yes&language=en#top

Aleydita

And this:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/sets/72157648936541745

LusiferSam

Aleydita said:

And this:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/sets/72157648936541745

OMG that's great resource!  I knew about the leggodt page.  But this WRme2 flickr album is fantastic.  There's a ton of detail I've not seen before.  I'm going to be digging through these for days.