123/127/305 LoveLand Dubl-Fun Block Wagon
General Information
The following information has been collected from original newspapers, catalogs, and magazines, some of which are freely available for reference below. The rest can be found in the site’s gallery. No aggregate catalogs (BrickLink, Brickset, etc.) were used.
Advertised Part Count(s): 20 pieces
First Year Confirmed Available: 1967 (USA)
USA Only.
Most Likely Retirement Date: 1972
It appears alongside the new 1972 line in late-1972 trade magazines.
Retail Price(s): $2.50 - $5.00 (USA)
Discounted Example(s): $1.27 (1969)
Rarity Score (Rarity Index): 5/7
Known Box/Packing Variants
There will exist at least three variants, with a suspected fourth.
There is the 1967-68 box:
For 1969, when Samsonite moved away from LoveLand branding and instead marketed toys like the block wagon under "Samsonite Pre-School Toys", the box changed to an open cube much like the ones seen in the 1970 dealer catalog:
Also shown in that catalog, the set number changed from 123 to 127.
Much like the rest of the pre-school line, wherein the boxes were updated to be closed fully and no longer have a viewport inside, I suspect the LoveLand wagon got a similar update if the previous iteration truly existed. Again, I've no images to show as boxes for the wagon are quite rare.
The box would've been updated again in 1972 when all toy lines were redesigned and repackaged. Annoyingly, the set changes numbers again from 127 to 305.
Box/Overview
Introduced in 1967, the LoveLand Dubl-Fun Block Wagon was Samsonite's first foray into developing their own toys. The LoveLand name was introduced in 1967, intended as a marketing brand to indicate a product family, used similarly as "LEGO" or "Samsonite". It was named after the city in which the Samsonite LEGO plant was located, and was introduced during the first expansion of the plant in 1967.
In the same year, the Block Wagon released alongside the 501 LoveLand Carrying Case. They both carried the LoveLand brand:
These would grow apart after Samsonite stopped using the LoveLand name in 1969. The block wagon went on to be absorbed into Samsonite's pre-school toys while the carrying case went on to be used more as a LEGO product.
I've been cooking up some thoughts about why exactly Samsonite used LoveLand for marketing instead of just Samsonite, when they went on to do exactly that for their toys 1969+. I won't get into it too much here, but from 1963-66, Samsonite had a supermarket division in which they produced items such as toothbrushes, kitchen items like clocks or knives, or even hair dryers. From what I've seen, that division was gone by 1966, which I suspect that failure may have played a role in avoiding to use Samsonite when marketing their own toys. Couple that with their name being reduced to fine print on their own LEGO products 1965+, there seemed to be a very keen interest for Samsonite to avoid direct association, at least at first.
Interestingly, in the same season the block wagon was released, a similar LEGO Samsonite product that had sold since 1965 retired: the 042 Jumbo Brick Pull-Toy:
What's fascinating about that decision is that Samsonite kept Jumbo Bricks in production without its compatible pull-toy addon. It's just a weird decision, but personally, by inspection the block wagon was a much better toy.
Contents
According to the box as well as the above dealer catalogs, it contained the following pieces:
1 wagon, 5 poles, 4 cylindrical blocks, 8 square blocks, and 2 rectangular blocks
These parts could also be purchased separately via the 128 Blocks and Poles, which I'm not sure exactly when it became available.