Your rarest Lego item?

Brickman

A large plush minifigure with the classic face, not the new construction and police figs. And 10x 2x2 large LEGO bricks that are 4x4 inches. I want to get some 2x4 ones.

Istokg

Recently Daniel, a Swedish collector friend found an LEGO item that I had never seen before... a double sided printed brick to a European Church set from circa 1960.

The 309/1309 Church Sets of 1957-61 have a printed brick that matches one of these 6 different known examples....



But Daniel found this double sided printed brick.... (mirror image)...



This brick matches 2 of the 6 known print patterns, one used from circa 1958-59 (middle right of previous image), and the other side has the circa 1960-61 brick style (bottom right of previous image).

There are 2 known double sided printed bricks... the Belgian 308 Fire Station set with Dutch/French (BRANDWEER/POMPIERS), and the Swiss 308 Fire Station set with German/French (FEUERWEHR/POMPIERS).

Although I know of only one example of each of the double sided fire station bricks, there are others out there somewhere. With this double sided Church Set brick... the reason for it's double printing is probably related to the change in the box design, although there are 2 different bricks known for that design.

Here is the 1957-59 309/1309 Church Set box design....



Here is the 1960-62 309 Church Set box design...



So far this is the first know double sided printing for this set.

Just more things to add to my LEGO collectors guide next upgrade (free to current owners).

Those red, blue and black pencil thin printed bricks with AD 1762 on the left of the first image, those are for UK based 309 Church Sets where thin printing was the norm for printed bricks in the 1960s.

These very rare 309/1309 Church Sets could command up to a thousand dollars for a MIB older version.

bkpr

Pitfall69 said:

bkpr said:

The rarest piece I have is the blob-head Leia from #10198.

Did you find this in your set or did you purchase Leia by herself?

I found her in a set :)

sstoroe

Silber334 said:

Maybe not even close to rare. But I do have the lego mini sets that came with a bottle of coke I bought in Japan back in 2002.

http://homepage2.nifty.com/long-river/regosa.htm

Wow! These are really tough to find. I just recently went on a hunt for all of these and i could only find them on Bricklink and eBay at pretty crazy prices for some of them.

Istokg

The Kabaya promotional sets are often shown just in polybags. But these Japanese confectionary promotional sets are found in unusual original packaging... such as these Ramen Noodle type packages for the 7209, 7210 and 7219 series of Dinosaur sets that were packaged with candy.

One of my latest challenges in updating my Unofficial LEGO Collectors Guide download document is adding all the promotional sets in their original packaging to my chapter on LEGO Promotional Sets. Most online databases just show the polybags... but I like the challenge of including the packaging that these interesting sets came in. The Japanese Kabaya LEGO sets that came in candy containers are probably the most famous of the confectionary LEGO sets.... but still hard to find in their original packaging. For 2004 sets, these appear to be very rare....

LusiferSam

Well the church Anno brick I have is the middle one of the black text bricks.

Few words put more more dread in me than Kabaya. These are hard as heck to find and always expensive. After biting the bullet and buying the Castle and Ninja sets, I'm still looking for two of the Kabaya Adventure sets.

I should really look over my collection and update what I think my rarest items are.

AdeelZubair

Istokg said:

The Kabaya promotional sets are often shown just in polybags. But these Japanese confectionary promotional sets are found in unusual original packaging... such as these Ramen Noodle type packages for the 7209, 7210 and 7219 series of Dinosaur sets that were packaged with candy.

One of my latest challenges in updating my Unofficial LEGO Collectors Guide download document is adding all the promotional sets in their original packaging to my chapter on LEGO Promotional Sets. Most online databases just show the polybags... but I like the challenge of including the packaging that these interesting sets came in. The Japanese Kabaya LEGO sets that came in candy containers are probably the most famous of the confectionary LEGO sets.... but still hard to find in their original packaging. For 2004 sets, these appear to be very rare....

They look like noodle packaging...I didn't know you can get ABS noodles...

Pitfall69

bkpr said:

Pitfall69 said:

bkpr said:

The rarest piece I have is the blob-head Leia from #10198.

Did you find this in your set or did you purchase Leia by herself?

I found her in a set :)

Do happen to still have the set with box; if so, could you tell me the number on the seals?

jasonord69a

My rarest item is a sealed Santa Fe train and I also have a couple of Fabuland animals.

sonsofsceva

I have some of the old style trees and bushes, gears, and wheels that were in a box of LEGO given to my boys by another family. Otherwise, the only 'rare' items I have are the Castle sets I received for my birthday when they first came to the US #6083 and #6077 (no yellow castle, though).

Istokg

sonsofsceva said:

I have some of the old style trees and bushes, gears, and wheels that were in a box of LEGO given to my boys by another family. Otherwise, the only 'rare' items I have are the Castle sets I received for my birthday when they first came to the US #6083 and #6077 (no yellow castle, though).

Those old Samsonite gears were only sold in USA/Canada from Oct. 1965 until 1973, and never in Europe. They attached themselves to the old LEGO wheels and turntables.

The first set... the 001 Gear Set was introduced in 1965. My collectors guide shows the nearly dozen other Samsonite sets that were sold in retail stores, mail-order, educational or institutional programs that had these gears... mostly in the same gray plastic tray (often as part of larger sets)....

ozzie_owl

Not sure if this has been discussed elsewhere, but I couldn't find anything. I'm interested in buying a few of the TT exclusve bricks. Is there any price guides out there?

sstoroe

Are you talking about the figures in Acrylic from the video game company?

ozzie_owl

Yeh, those ones.

sstoroe said:

Are you talking about the figures in Acrylic from the video game company?

piratemania7

Honestly, I don't know. I am not sure I have anything that is LEGO that isn't actually a LEGO Brick or set. In terms of rarest it could be a castle or pirate minifigure from the late 80's or early 90's. Rare to me not to some (or most).

waitingforlego

I got Batman of Zur-en-Arrh at San Diego Comic Con last year. http://brickset.com/sets/COMCON036-1/Batman-of-Zur-En-Arrh

Drmnez

null
I think a lot of us are confusing rare, with personally value... Or something like that

Istokg

I wish I had these... but I don't.... I just posted this image on the LEGO 1:87 Cars/Trucks thread.... a group of 6 LEGO prototype VW Vans/Pickups (dating to about 1965).... they were sold at auction by TLG a few years ago... and the group today would probably fetch over 30,000 Euros!!   :o

Istokg

Also... there are some VERY RARE #658 VW Pickups that were produced with a rope as keychains... these commemorated a Boy Scout Jamboree in Denmark in 1967 for Nigerian Boy Scouts, sponsored by a Nigerian Missionary Radio Station called MURYAR BISHARA...

The thought of these sitting around forgotten and collecting decades of dust in some villages of Nigeria... while they could fetch 1000 Euros each.... makes me want to cry!!   :/  

LusiferSam

This is the greatest photo, but recently received this item: Army Gun.  It's easily one of the rarest I know of.  It's remarkable small, but in near perfect condition. 

Niels_T

Hmm talking rare items, hmm well don't know if this qulifies, but actually had it for some time, and got it with some strange Lego, so kinda knew it was from there.
But it was first recent i figured out what it was watching video from @DadsAFOL and figured it was left overs from molding process. And know they are recycled today, and properly also back in day, got this  between 60's lot, so not many survive I guess.

Happy digging :-)

juddtaylor

I just bought a bunch of bulk Lego and it came with some really ancient pieces. There was a white "CAFE" piece 1x6 with tubes, and at least 2 4x12ish plates (white) where the bottom were squares for each stud.

Tonight I'll put all the old stuff aside as I'm washing things so hopefully I can ID some of this ancient stuff.

Niels_T

juddtaylor said:

 2 4x12ish plates (white) where the bottom were squares for each stud.

Tonight I'll put all the old stuff aside as I'm washing things so hopefully I can ID some of this ancient stuff.

Maybe some of these

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=3036old

juddtaylor

Yeah, now I think they are the 4x8 waffle bottom ones. The CAFE brick is more of a mystery.

Istokg

Norway and Sweden were the 2nd and 3rd country to start LEGO sales, which came first is a matter of debate...  but my friend Arild in Norway has been finding some really rare LEGO items from Norway lately... just blowing my mind on the rarities....

One recent find was a 1235 Garage Kit.  Back in the 1955-70 era you could build a LEGO garage with counterweights to hold the door open.  This was a 5 piece mechanism, including a garage baseplate, a garage door with a pair of counterweights attached, and a door frame.  You had to just had to buy extra bricks and build the garage with windows and those waffle bottom plates just discussed here.

This set was sold under the 1235 number in Denmark, Norway and Sweden from 1955-58, and elsewhere it was sold under the 235 number until 1970.

Well it appears that in Norway alone, this Garage kit also came with a printed brick... with an "AUTO" decal with auto symbols.  This is a very rare brick, since no other European country had an AUTO brick... but the artwork for such a brick was found in LEGO literature in the 1950s all over Europe!!



Another rarity was the garage baseplate... most of the time these were white, but red ones are extremely rare, and can command over 100 Euros each.

Istokg

The 10th known Opel Kapitän LEGO 1:87 auto appeared today!  These were made in Norway by the LEGO licensee there (A/S Norske LEGIO).   They must have had a lot of problems with producing these, because many of the now 10 known prototypes have issues regarding the "glass inserts" or the roof.  Of course that would help explain why they were never put into production!

This particular example belongs to another Norwegian collector.  As far as I can tell 1 is in the USA, 3 are in Norway, 1 in the Netherlands, 1 in Denmark, and 4 in Germany.

Even in their damaged state, these are worth thousands... only 4 of the 10 don't have problems with the roof/glass.




Another image for my LEGO Collectors Guide Prototypes Chapter....  :)

Istokg

OK... my friend Lothar from Germany always finds rare stuff that no one has seen before... and he's done it again....

Here are two LEGO flags... the one on the left is a known flag, and possibly an error inverted Luxembourg flag.   It was apparently produced by accident in 1957 when the LEGO country flags first came out, and produced in limited quantities.  I figured that if this flag were the Luxembourg flag, rather than correct it, TLG may just have decided to stop producing it, since Luxembourg is such a small country.

Then this weekend my friend found this flag on the right.  It looks like the same type error, but maybe it was the Dutch flag that was produced inverted.



So now we have 2 error flags... although it was also mentioned that this flag could possibly have been used as the State flag for the German state of Schleswig-Holstein... the northernmost German state on the Danish border, and the location of Hohenwestedt... the German LEGO HQ town form 1956-1999.  But I don't see TLG making state or provincial flags... so I think these are error flags.... either both for the Netherlands... or for Luxembourg (left, discontinued) and Netherlands (right, corrected).

Early LEGO error flags are known for the USA as well.... such as this no star flag....




And then there's the rarest and most valuable LEGO flag of all... the Faroe Island flag.  The Faroe Islands are a chain of islands midway between Iceland, Scotland and Norway.  With a population of only 50,000... flags that were made exclusively for this Danish protectorate were only shipped to the island chain in Flag parts packs....



Images from my LEGO Collectors Guide chapter on Town Accessories.

dragon114

my rarest item is the baseplate from 6079-1

arbiter

I don;t really have much rare items, bit I have an old Lego Space suit that slips over a minifigs head that has a little antenna, white and black piece, I have two weird blaster looking pieces, one is white and the other black, and I also own a complete Jango Fett's Slave I, not really that rare, as well as wookiee catamoran and wookiee attack. I also have a Bionicle Toa Lhikan...

Pitfall69

^Is this the "space suit" you are talking about?

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=6023

I don't know about your "blaster pieces" without pics.

Jango Fett's Slave 1 isn't all that rare, but Jango is worth some money ;)

hkcrazy88

I wouldn't say this is "rare" but it's super special to me so I thought I'd put it in. I have a #4558 complete with box. My grandfather loves trains, mostly Lionel type, but my grandmother bought him this train. His health has declined so he sold most of his trains so I was over the moon when I found it at my Mom's! I can't wait to put it together and have it running!

danstraindepot

hkcrazy88  That's a great set!  Enjoy.