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After the site launched in August (launched as in it was finally hosted on the web), I've been continuing in expanding the site's content and incorporating suggestions, corrections, and new discoveries.

But I never planned for it to be this way. Instead, when I first set out to document LEGO Samsonite, I thought I'd spend a month or two putting this site's information together and that'd be it.

Here we are, seven months later, and there's still so much to do.

What I've regretted, and in retrospect may have been a blessing, is that in the past there was no means by which a visitor of the site could know at any given point:

  1. What is being worked on.

  2. What has been recently added.

And most importantly, for returning users:

  1. What has been amended.

While we have an immensely rigorous approach, there's still things that we miss in the first go around. Just recently, Stratford Bricks sent me an image of a Canadian 002 Motor Pak, which I'd never seen before. As a result, I changed the 002's article from:

"Currently, there is only one appearance of the 002 Motor Pak in a 1967 Canadian newspaper, and it only refers to "LEGO motor and gear sets", which may not even be referring to the 002 but instead the 003(a set we do know sold in Canada in 1967). As of now, I'm not confident in claiming a Canadian release for the 002."

to:

"Stratford Bricks helped me immensely here. Canadian appearances of the 002 in advertising are very rare, only being corroborated by surviving examples and pack-in paperwork. I'd venture to guess, as the Canadian 001 has provenance in 1965, the 002 released in 1965 as well."

And, realizing my ignorance, I've since started purchasing Canadian materials that undoubtedly prove the existence of the 002 in Canada:

Regardless, the example above is a very important thing that I feel should be highlighted, and a news section is a great place to do so. It not only demonstrates how we handle uncertainty, but also the willingness to adopt new information into our ecosystem. At least when it is well supported.

I initially wanted to do something similar to Wikipedia, in which each article has an edit history. But the logistics behind that are complicated, especially for the setup we have for this site. It's built on a blog framework and large changes like that would spaghetti things out.

So I instead reskinned an abandoned part of the site from my original vision. Remember, this was not initially built to be a Samsonite archive, I didn't realize my interest in the subject nor the sheer amount of progress to be made. I initially thought I needed a general LEGO section, and have never used it since. The articles in there were written before the project had been properly connected to a database or even been given a name. I still think about something like that sometimes, but that would largely be empty and I find this to be a more useful contribution.

So it was a fairly easy thing to adopt, I just wish to demonstrate the usefulness a section just for news, especially in a niche like LEGO Samsonite.

This will also be a nice space to update on what I'm working on, what is planned, what has been completed, maybe even hauls, etc. I've moved things around, made mobile improvements, etc., but that's not exactly newsworthy to me. Maybe the mobile improvements, as that's been bugging me forever, but I would like something a lot more substantive to justify writing up an entire article.

Currently, I've just completed my article on Was There a System to Determine a LEGO Set's Inventory? (1961-64), in which I was able to demonstrate a compelling connection between basic brick numbers and retail price as well as a very structured system for specialized parts. As a result, I suspect the 1965 sets had a similar system and I'm currently compiling inventories for that.

I've also began writing out the history of LEGO Samsonite (finally). Currently I have completed the preface, and I'm currently writing a chapter on historiography. Then I will likely do an abridged version, and then we'll get down into the nitty-gritty.

Then there is something I suggested in To Do. I thought it'd be fun to compile collection lists. You know, this is every variant, this is every normal retail set, this is a (theoretical) complete Samsonite collection, this is my collection, etc. That last one is more for myself, but I think it's a fun thing anyway.

I've said it before, but my goal is not to bloat the site with a million articles. I want information to be reachable, but I also want all of the information to be available, which is where the challenge comes in. It's one thing to write a summary, it's another to research with receipts. And so that's the constant challenge, in which the depth is absolutely needed to cover all our bases, but it also risks burying things that otherwise would've been useful.

You can already see it in the Samsonite page, as even though it's organized by categories/subcategories, there are almost 150 articles. That's a lot.

But those are details for down the road.