European sets with American warning stickers?

OldTownBricks · June 5

Has anyone seen this before? It appears to be a European set with stickers containing the USA specific warnings and info.

560Heliport · June 5

It's been mentioned in the "What are you buying right now?" discussion. It appears that, due to the Mexico factory being shut down (and maybe other ligistics issues), LEGO has sent European-made sets to North America, and the stickers are to make them compliant with US laws. I wonder if these will sell for more on the aftermarket?

ReesesPieces · June 5

You mean this is all they had to for the Lego House sets they teased us with???

Astrobricks · June 6

ReesesPieces said:

You mean this is all they had to for the Lego House sets they teased us with???

I seem to recall suggesting exactly this 🙄

bpk2300 · June 7

Picked up the Hall of Armor #76125 tonight at Target and it’s covered in the US stickers. I think it’s kinda neat. A lot of sets there had them, including Harry Potter and Minecraft.

Astrobricks · June 7

Has anyone looked at the tape seals on the boxes? What factory are they from?

bpk2300 · June 7

Astrobricks said:

Has anyone looked at the tape seals on the boxes? What factory are they from?

Interesting point you bring up. I just checked and my Hall of Armor set doesn’t have tape seals, but instead has thumb push tabs.

KingAlanI · June 7

Seen that before with imported food/drink like Mexican Coca-Cola but not with LEGO. Makes sense as a way around trouble with the Mexico factory. Didn't see any such sets at the Target near me.
Like packages an odd size in Imperial measure because it's a round number in metric

560Heliport · June 8

I looked at several sets at West St. Paul Target- some had the thumb-press thingies instead of tape, for instance #75273. When I got home I checked my box for that set, bought in January, and it has tape seals. The codes I looked at seemed to be all different. The only one I remember was 08HO for #41381.

CCC · June 8

560Heliport said:

I wonder if these will sell for more on the aftermarket?

If it is a lot of sets that it is being done for, then I doubt it.

gmonkey76 · June 8

CCC said:

560Heliport said:

I wonder if these will sell for more on the aftermarket?

If it is a lot of sets that it is being done for, then I doubt it.

But what if it's a "rare" mistake with an upside down sticker? Surely I can sell that for thousands on Ebay.

Astrobricks · June 8

bpk2300 said:

Astrobricks said:

Has anyone looked at the tape seals on the boxes? What factory are they from?

Interesting point you bring up. I just checked and my Hall of Armor set doesn’t have tape seals, but instead has thumb push tabs.

I believe the thumb press boxes have the same information embossed near the UPC code. It’s usually on the area of the blank white rectangle, which sometimes is not next to the UPC.

Astrobricks · June 8

Here is a copy of the letter codes again.

H = Nyíregyháza, Hungary
    R = Ciénega de Flores, Mexico
    S = Kladno, Czech Republic
    Q = Purkersdorf, Austria
    B = Shenzhen, China (Not Confirmed)
    M = Billund, Denmark (Not Confirmed)
    O = Billund, Denmark (Not Confirmed)

Blockwork_Orange · June 11

Maybe the earlier produced sets are now rarer than the ones with the stickers.

On a related topic, I wonder why LEGO hasn't just adopted a universal package that has all the information on it for all the markets. I don't think most of the world would mind if their boxes had the number of pieces printed on them.

Istokg · June 11

Somewhere I have a 1970s set with the USA set number (back then the USA had different set numbers from the rest of the world). This set was the EU version with a USA set number sticker over the set number on the top of the box. When I find it, I will post it. I just migrated all my LEGO images to a new computer... 34,000 from 1949-2020, most of which are used in my upcoming updated Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide! No wonder I can't find things at a moments notice... ;-)

Astrobricks · June 11

Today at target I noticed a bunch of sets with the add-on stickers. I looked for the factory codes. A few sets had tape seals and some had the codes printed in that empty white rectangle. The factory codes were either S or H (Czech or Hungary).

Cyberdragon · June 16

European sets don't have small parts warnings?

Huh...European kids must love eating Lego then...*devious thoughts ensue*

XD

MugenPower · June 16

Cyberdragon said:

European sets don't have small parts warnings?

Huh...European kids must love eating Lego then...*devious thoughts ensue*

XD

I'm sure you're joking around, but the US is such a litigious society that I'm surprised the whole box itself isn't just a huge warning label at this point.

klinton · June 16

Calm, rational discussion of an interesting development in our little hobby. This is why this forum is invaluable. This same discussion on the Brickset FB page looks like this:

560Heliport · June 16

That's hilarious. Why would TLG put stickers on the boxes if they weren't required to? They would just include the sticker sheet in the box, and the instructions would show us where to put them! ;-)

Istokg · June 16

Apparently Mr. Nußbaum is German... and therefore would not see a USA version of set 42093.... WITH parts count...

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5015319/uploads/editor/66/6j16cyn2a8q0.jpg

Istokg · June 16

Ditto for the USA Jurassic Park T-Rex.... with parts count...

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5015319/uploads/editor/yp/y5requnrxaid.jpg

bpk2300 · June 16

Add the above to the long list of reasons why I deleted my Facebook account back in 2012

autolycus · June 16

If anybody really wants to, they can send these links to Herr Nußbaum:

https://www.nist.gov/standardsgov/compliance-faqs-packaging-and-labeling-us

https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/rules/rulemaking-regulatory-reform-proceedings/fair-packaging-labeling-act-regulations-0

karrit · June 17

This is why I'm not a fan of FB. I have an account but it is mostly to access info from companies I do business with. It bugs me how may companies force one to use FB, Twitter, Instagram,et al. to receive the latest news info from them, join contests and such.

CCC · June 18

Cyberdragon said:

European sets don't have small parts warnings?

Huh...European kids must love eating Lego then...*devious thoughts ensue*

XD

They do, they say "Warning! Choking hazard. Small parts." in many languages on the sides of the boxes.

autolycus · June 18

My 20th Anniversary Slave 1, ordered during May 4 promos, arrived yesterday. It has the stickers. The one on the front is not quite aligned. I had to put the box away to avoid my OCD! :D (I don't really care about the alignment, I just can't let myself stare at it)

KingAlanI · June 24

At Target
#21044 #21051 #76895 #75551 #41366 #41374 #41378 #11005 #60197 #60215 #75214 #10713 re-stickered
Most of what is there is regular North America production but most of that has been there awhile rather than a restock and one of the aisles is looking pretty empty

CCC said:

Cyberdragon said:

European sets don't have small parts warnings?

Huh...European kids must love eating Lego then...*devious thoughts ensue*

XD

They do, they say "Warning! Choking hazard. Small parts." in many languages on the sides of the boxes.

And since those languages include English, French and Spanish, LEGO wouldn't need to add any

I doubt different dialects would matter for such a short phrase and I rarely see such translations. For example except for Simplified and Traditional Chinese Magic the Gathering cards are printed in only one version of a language.

I also see German, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, Korean, Russian, a few Scandinavian presumably including Danish, 2 other Asian (Chinese dialects? Chinese and Japanese?)

CCC · June 26

It may also be due to prominence or position on the box, the size of the text, and so on.

KingAlanI · July 8

LEGO case at the WalMart near me has mostly unstickered sets but a stickered #75957

cody6268 · July 9

When did they start producing LEGO here in the US again? Perhaps this refers to the stickers on the box?

Astrobricks · July 9

cody6268 said:

When did they start producing LEGO here in the US again? Perhaps this refers to the stickers on the box?

They didn’t. The factory for NA product is in Mexico. It was shut down for a while due to COVID. The stickers are relabeling of European production so it can be legally sold in the US.

Astrobricks · July 15

Astrobricks said:

bpk2300 said:

Astrobricks said:

Has anyone looked at the tape seals on the boxes? What factory are they from?

Interesting point you bring up. I just checked and my Hall of Armor set doesn’t have tape seals, but instead has thumb push tabs.

I believe the thumb press boxes have the same information embossed near the UPC code. It’s usually on the area of the blank white rectangle, which sometimes is not next to the UPC.

At the risk of continuing a conversation with just myself... :)

I bought #75249 at Target last week, and it has normal NA box labeling (no stickers). However, it is the kind you open with thumb tabs, so no tape seals. In the white rectangle near the UPC is a small 2D bar code and the codes:
223S0
025759.
I don’t see any embossed codes on the box anywhere.
If the “S” above means the Czech factory, then they must be doing NA labeling over there. But the 223S0 code doesn’t quite track with the decoding previously posted here. The trailing 0 probably means 2020, but I’m not sure about 223. Maybe second day of 23rd week, or third day of 22nd week? That would be end of May, start of June by my count.

Maybe 025759 is a time stamp accurate to the second?

European sets with American warning stickers?

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