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.

Instructions: B-2258

Advertised Part Count(s): 321 pieces

Childhood Education, Vol. 44 (1967)

First Year Confirmed Available: 1967(USA)

Childhood Education, Vol. 44 (1967)

USA Only.

Most Likely Retirement Date: 1970-72

Currently, the retirement date is hard to confirm. The last appearance of ads in education magazines like Instructor is in late 1969, but the 321 has a variant that exceeds that date.

Last Year Seen Available: 1969

Grade Teacher, Vol 86 (1969)

Aliases: School Set, Master Set

Retail Price(s): $7.50

Rarity Score (Index): 6/7

Known Box/Packing Variants

There are two known variants of the 321's outer box:

321-box-comparison

The variant with the solid color logo, produced sometime between 1970-72, can come with all black trays:

321-black-trays-contents

Why it exists is largely a mystery. I suspect it was a 1972 set, but that's hard to definitively prove without the parts.

The 321 and 060 Jumbo Brick School Set are the exception to the patents rule, as they never got updated boxes with the 1968+ eight patents like the 322 has, instead they only always have two:

Box/Overview

The 321 School Set (paired with its partner the 060 Jumbo Brick School Set) released in 1967 as a new wave of education exclusive sets. They were a refresh of the previous line of educational sets (see LEGO Samsonite Institutional/Educational Sets), with the difference primarily being the size. The 321 had only 10% the number of pieces that the 7100 Educational Set contained:

box top image

Contents

In a relatively plain box, it'd have five large trays and an assortment of basic parts.

The set also came with a special pamphlet for the set, giving examples of models and classroom activities:

The full manual is linked at the top of the article under Instructions, can be found in the Books tab of the site, or you can access all pages just by clicking the image above.