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Along with our continued collection of materials from Canadian Samsonite and early Shwayder Bros. history (you'll notice the archive now boasts ~20 new books and 100+ new images), I've also just returned from a trip to official archives in Denver to view their Samsonite material (with 250+ more images to share). I plan to construct a whole breakdown of what I visited and what information they had and what they shared, but all in due time.

Instead, over the next weeks, the archive is experiencing its first mass correction in a very long time, possibly more significant than Correcting My Biggest Misconception. In short, from the various avenues I'm absorbing information, I've since changed my mind on several things.

We'll start small.

695 Bulk Assortment

One of the first 'Mystery' articles I ever wrote was on the 695, created back in April of 2025, before the site had launched or even had a gallery. While a lot of the analysis has held strong and I still agree with most of the article's findings, at the time I didn't know the 695 Bulk Assortment's pamphlet was not originally intended for the 695.

As a result, while the pamphlet has provenance for 1965, it can no longer reliably be used to date the set, meaning we no longer have a confident 1965 date. Fortunately, 1966 appearances of the 695 are plentiful in newspapers and the 1966 Imaginations Inc. Order Catalog corroborates that date. It's only that our 1965 anchor is no longer reliable, meaning we can currently claim a 1966 date at the earliest. It is still possible the set released in 1965, but all the evidence currently points to 1966. So 1966 it is for now.

Which is completely okay, to admit a misunderstanding and explain where we've gone wrong in the past. This is how the archive is supposed to function, as I've voiced my criticisms of static sources and stubborn lore in the past.

Jumbo Bricks

This one is a little more difficult to show at this time, as it comes from my recent trip to the Denver Central Library. Essentially, my perception of who exactly was responsible for Jumbo Bricks has been refined. There's still room for further research, but the specifics are there.

According to a 1965 newspaper clipping from the Denver Central Library, the marketing manager for the LEGO divison of Samsonite (who was also a former Denver school teacher), T. G. Walker, had come up with the idea for the jumbo bricks sold by Samsonite starting in 1964.

According to online LEGO history lore, the jumbo bricks were designed by LEGO themselves and given to Samsonite to sell without any input from Samsonite, similar to the Samsonite gears/motor pak. That's a slight step further from what LEGO's own website claims:

"During a visit to the company in the early 1960s, a group of teachers spots a couple of large experimental bricks and expresses their enthusiasm...One particular brick attracts the attention of the LEGO Group partner on the North American market, the American luggage manufacturer Samsonite."

On a different page:

"[Samsonite] is very keen on a large eight stud brick measuring 4” x 2” x 1”. Samsonite places its first order for the large bricks, called Jumbo bricks, in early 1964 and at the same time expresses a wish to buy molds to be able to set up production of the bricks.....the molds for the JUMBO bricks are made in Denmark and sold to Samsonite..."

So, from what we have, Samsonite's marketing director likely visited Denmark and saw whatever "experimental bricks" is referring to. So he likely didn't originate the idea, though in my mind, it depends on the difference between the experimental version and the ones we saw released. However, important to note is that the newspaper also claims Samsonite designed the gears and motor pak, which just isn't true. It's possible they had influence in the idea, but it's difficult for me to say anything further than possibility.

In a weird way, it makes sense as a Samsonite idea, as it is disconnected from the contemporary idea of a LEGO "system". But we're just not privy to everything we need to determine who exactly did what, and we'll likely never be.

As a bonus, the article that gave the name T.G. Walker also continues to support my argued 1965 release date for the 120, 205, 285, etc. instead of the online 1966 date, which is nice to see when things line up. "For the merchant, Samsonite completely redesigned the package...the overhaul of the toyline is paying off."

But these corrections are relatively minor compared to my largest.

1972 Imagination Sets

A different Denver Central Library newspaper clipping quoting King D. Shwayder completely changed the way I saw these sets, contextualized so much that had previously been confusing, and even provided advanced insight as to Why US Samsonite lost the LEGO license.

In the article linked above, I go over the minutia of this. It isn't that the newspaper clipping had all the answers, instead it had one piece of information that everyone, including myself, had previously missed. The key to understanding the entire 1972 fiasco.

Quoting King D. Shwayder himself, he reported in August of 1972 that Samsonite's toy division experienced "extensive losses" in 1971, and that "we are hoping that the completely revamped, redesigned and repackaged line would be well received and enable the toy division to break even for the year..."

Samsonite's toy division suffered immense losses for 1971, and remember, by 1970 LEGO was a very small portion of Samsonite's total toy line. So much so it had its own dealer catalog:

And so the sudden shift to the cube sets becomes not the result of the loss of license, but a result of needing to save the toy division by massive cost reduction and streamlines. Thus the sudden shift was the catalyst for the loss of the license, not created in the aftermath. It explains a number of things I'd looked into but was never satisfied with (such as the Orgin of Imagination Set Inventories or Why Do 1972 Cube Sets Have Two Different Boxes?), as well as aligns with an employee anecdote very well.

Partially unrelated, but I've just realized how much I've written on these sets in particular compared to every other wave. It didn't seem that way until I've started grabbing links, and I'm surprised as they weren't very interesting to me when I'd first begun this project. It's possible the depth we've explored them has beaten out the 1965 wave, which is insane.

Regardless, there's a lot more to it and certainly more to look into, but I have no doubt about this premise over the previous one. The assumption the cube sets were designed to dump inventory is a very easy conclusion to fall into and could be reasoned with little to no evidence. Their sudden appearance in 1972 and drastic shift in design previously had no other mechanism to explain them, so it only seemed obvious they were only for dumping inventory and it is completely understandable as to how that was concluded.

Feel free to reach out to me via [email protected] with any materials I've not yet considered or accounted for.

I hold each of these as an example of what we should strive for in our project as we continue to unravel Samsonite and LEGO history: Not only should we be able to support what we claim, but we should see the evidence for what it says, not what we've always said.

It doesn't really matter what someone else says if they've not provided their evidence, so long as you have the receipts to back up what you say. That is ultimately what makes the difference, and that's why we specialize.

And that's what my ultimate goal has become with this project—to show the value in questioning what we think we know, to show the need for proper sourcing and attribution. Before, whatever you see must be trusted on faith to have been properly researched.

LEGO history desperately awaits that revolution. Not because everything ever published is wrong, only that what is incorrect will only ever solidify unless attitudes change.

Other Changes

There have been some minor changes already in place as well as some pretty major ones coming up. For one, inside of lightboxes, it now registers the scroll wheel for zooming in/out. Not that I think anyone really cares, but it was a big thing for me.

We'll talk more about the big structural changes down the line. One of which is a completely new search, one that I think is more user friendly than the gallery.

The main one you'll likely come to notice right now is that other Samsonite toys outside of LEGO have been moved to the US LEGO Samsonite side of the site. I think it makes more sense there instead of the Shwayder Bros./Samsonite side, as the toy division was part of the Loveland plant and inseparable in terms of context. It's just that the naming of the subject is perhaps a little confusing, as it should be US LEGO Samsonite (and other Samsonite toys), but I hope to reduce that confusion as we move forward.

Then of course we (finally) have 150+ original scans of Samsonite luggage/card table magazine adverts, but the metadata has been a mess with just the luggage styles. Hence why I'm changing our approach to better accommodate. And don't get me started about the Royal Traveller adverts, as I can't track when/where my examples came from :(

I think that's about it for now. Again, many things in the works including a complete revamp of the gallery and how things are searchable, integrating several things from other sites as well as my own ideas to make everything as intuitive and searchable as possible. And as always, the site will continue to be refined, expanded, and corrected.