Elgo Plastic Bricks!

[shanez]

My wife, who was born and raised in Mexico, had never played with Legos until a week or so ago.

I was thoughtlessly popping bricks together while playing with my 4 year old daughter and my wife was stunned by how easy it looked to create something but how difficult she found it. I told her Legos were just kinda something we "did" growing up and it was nothing compared to some of the complex Lego creations made by some people.

While we talked and blithely popped bricks together I told her about the plastic bricks I had when I was young. My dad had picked up this weird 10 gallon cardboard barrel full of them someplace. They didn't stick together like Legos and were actually kinda architectural in their nature.

I still remember many happy hours of my youth playing with those bricks.

Fast forward to now with the power of the interwebz and I learned they were a brand called Elgo and i found a box of them for $25 on fleabay:





I'm looking forward to many happy hours to be spent with my daughter playing with these things!

Nostalgia might have gotten the best of me as I also have a set of some stacking wooden guys called "Bill Ding" which are still available brand new on etsy:

 

[TheIronMonkey]

Do those flat, eight nubbed, red bricks have vertical lines on the sides that sort of emulate brick texture? I think I had these as a kid, but never knew their name; Legos didn't look like how I remembered them, but the flattened proportion of these seems very familiar.

 

[shanez]

Do those flat, eight nubbed, red bricks have vertical lines on the sides that sort of emulate brick texture? I think I had these as a kid, but never knew their name; Legos didn't look like how I remembered them, but the flattened proportion of these seems very familiar.

They indeed do have the vertical texture lines. The box included a bunch of doors and windows too.

 

[TheIronMonkey]

Wow, those must be the ones I had as a kid. It's coming back to me. I remember that white garage door! My older brother and I used to make sea vessels, fill up the bath tub with water and throw marbles to try to break them apart and sink the ships. My Mom hated the sound of the marbles hitting the tub. This is amazing—thank you for jogging these memories!

 

[shanez]

Found this in the bottom of the box:

 

[bullet08]

Nope. Growing up in S. Korea, I didn't play with those. But had latest American toys from automated astronaut going up a space capsule to a pallet gun that can kill a chipmunks from the black market. Any building toys were actual woods in the local park. Used to make emergency shelter during the fall when they trimmed trees. I did have Lincoln logs. Japanese toys were popular, but most of them were not bragged about after a Japanese/Korean assassinated president's wife. Those were some strange times.

 

[mikethompson]

Back in my day with played with a stick if we could find one. When there were no sticks we used rocks and rolled them up hills. Built character.

Never heard of Elgo bricks, but Lego is a familiar sight at my house. @scloyd Is pretty good with them, maybe he can post some of his military vehicles.

 

[mawnansmiff]

I used to LOVE playing with my little sister's Lego set. I would spend hours creating things and I reckon I would now if I had a set!

Regards,

Jay.

 

[scloyd]

Back in my day with played with a stick if we could find one. When there were no sticks we used rocks and rolled them up hills. Built character.

Never heard of Elgo bricks, but Lego is a familiar sight at my house. @scloyd Is pretty good with them, maybe he can post some of his military vehicles.

I love Legos. Here are some WWII vehicles I made.


I have several retired sets (unopened) to sell in the future. The Star Wars and Christmas sets sell for big money once they're retired.

As for Elgo blocks. Never heard of them. Interesting.

 

[trouttimes]

Never had legos or anything like them. We had chores.

 

[AJL67]

Growing up had neighbors with 5 boys in the family all about 2 years apart, they had several large shipping boxes of random legos, always a good time to go play at their house and just start dumping out 1000s of lego on the floor. Of course we would build little cities then go to war buy shooting our cannons at other people's cities, the cannons were a sling shot firing marbles, yes indoors, but that's how we rolled back then. Never broke a window or lost an eye in battle, though there were more than few dents in the walls. Good times!

 

[kcghost]

For some reason I never got into Legos or their ilk.

 

[ThermionicScott]

“Elgo” blocks are a new one on me! At first, I assumed they were a Lego knockoff that saved costs by not bothering with the tolerances needed to snap them together, but the real story is more interesting: Halsam Products Co. & Elgo Plastics, est. 1917 - Made-in-Chicago Museum - https://www.madeinchicagomuseum.com/single-post/halsam-products-co/

 

[augiebd]

We had huge boxes of Lego and meccano. Maybe my Dad over compensating because he never had toys as a kid. It was a lot of fun. Elgo is new to me as well.