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http://m.johnlewis.com/mt/www.johnlewis.com/lego-building-plate-grey/p230443945#page_loaded
DaveE
So in addition to being rare it is sought after if you are brick-linking the set
And the other non gray colors being cheaper all has to do with demand =/
It's now in a thicker, printed wrap. No idea why.
Ah! Well I rescind all my moaning, as many know I am a connoisseur of all things made from Mongolian Space turtles.
Here's how the original large baseplates were packed (they were 50x50 until the late 1970s)... the 1964 introduced 799 gray 50x50 baseplate was wrapped in cardboard and then cellophane over it....
The backside of the 799 also had cardboard over all but the middle portion to show part of the baseplate...
Then in the late 1960s USA Samsonite went off and did their own thing... and produced a 079 50x50 baseplate in either gray or green (not found elsewhere in green). They just put a piece of cardboard on the front, and shrinkwrapped the entire baseplate...''
And here's something you won't see anywhere else... how the very first LEGO roadplate... the rare and unique USA only Samsonite LEGO 078 roadplate (1970-71) was packaged....'
There was a backside to this as well... with a pair of flaps (as found in my collectors guide :) ).
Because these large baseplates required such a huge box, it took until the 21st century for LEGO sets to actually have boxes large enought to contain the large (50x50 or 48x48) baseplates (such as the Taj Mahal set).
The only 20th century set to have a huge base plate was the 367 Airport Set (another USA Samsonite Exclusive of 1970-71). The parts came separately and the retailer had to include one of these separately wrapped 078 roadplates with the sale of the airport set... a very unusual arrangement. Ironically no one has ever found a box to this 367 airport set, and I'm thinking that it wasn't packaged in a normal way... perhaps in a brown box sold alongside the colorfully wrapped 078 roadplate.
Brown box sets were common among USA Samsonite Department Store Mail Order sets, and a 4th generation Samsonite company family owner (Shwayder was their last name) mentioned once that the reason Samsonite lost their LEGO license.. was because they often sold LEGO the same way they sold luggage!! :o
But I digress..... (sorry for the history lecture)....
Also, does anyone remember many, many years ago, lego made some grey baseplates with a space/lunar theme? They had pre-formed mounds/banks and bunkers etc....
TLG Denmark had their hands full with just Europe. By 1961 there were over 11,000 independent toy stores in continental Europe selling LEGO.
The USA Samsonite license was purchased back by TLG in 1972 (after litigation starting in 1970, where TLG claimed USA Samsonite LEGO was underperforming). The Canadian Samsonite LEGO license returned to TLG in 1988, and the Courtauld's (British LEGO Ltd.) license for UK/Ireland/Australia returned to TLG in 1992.
I've got this (and way more) discussed in my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide chapter on LEGO Sales by country (see Brickset Marketplace). :)
Actually those 50x50 baseplates that came out in 1964 were sold until the first 32x32 road plates were introduced in 1978.... and TLG discovered the lowest common denominator between 50x50 and 32x32 is larger than most residences!! :smiley:
So they switched to 48x48 to make it a 4:9 ration (4 48x48 = 9 32x32). That is not to say they threw away all the old 50x50 baseplates.... they just slowly disappeared into the retail sunset once supplies were exhausted....