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): 704 pieces

1968 Bon Marche / Pomeroy's Christmas Catalog

First Year Confirmed Available: 1967

The first dateable reference appears in mid-1968, but this is not the origin of the set. I've written a dedicated article as to why I'm confident about the 1967 date for release.

Most Likely Retirement Date: 1969

The set makes only discounted appearances in 1969, but that may be due to its purpose/availability instead of a discontinued production.

Last Year Seen Available: 1969

The Saginaw News, October 24th, 1969

Aliases: Master Discovery Set

Retail Price(s): $14.99-$19.99(USA)

Discounted Example(s): $12.88(1968), $12.88(1968), $14.99(1969),

Rarity Score(Index): 4/7

Known Box/Packing Variants

The set has no known outer box variants, but the inner trays varied.

The 1968 version will have the similar format to the 004 Master Builder Set, what with plastic trays:

And a 1969 version with the single piece gray tray(apologies for bad quality pictures):

The set will vary in inventory, especially for specialty pieces like the town plan elements.

Box/Overview

The 704 Master Discovery Set had a previously speculated provenance, popularly being cited as an FAO Schwarz exclusive. This was never able to be confirmed as it never appears in any FAO catalogs.

Instead, the set seems to have had two lives: one as a mail offer (similar to the 005 Discovery Set's) in late 1967 and in 1968 at general retail, mostly in Allied Department Stores including Bon Marche, Jacobson's, Pomeroy's, Jordan Marsh, Marshall Field's, etc.

The set's box was directly taken from the 004 Master Builder Set though with a very important detail for corroborating our 1967 release date:

Notice that it still has two patents(diagnostic of 1962-1967) and has been updated to say "FOR ALL AGES"(diagnostic of 1967-71). Age ranges were removed from the 1967 idea book, which makes it the perfect candidate for a 1967 production. Of course there's more nuance at play, which we go into in the 704's dedicated article.

The rest of the box is exactly the 004 Master Builder's with minimal adjustments.

Contents

The Master Discovery Set seems to have been created as a one-off inventory clearance set, which we will get into below. I've also written a very detailed article about the 704 here and also its mail offer here.

For now, just know that the likely reason the 704 was created in the first place was inventory clearance. Not only had the town plan era come to an end, but many sets were also retiring in 1968(the 021 Wheel Set, the 003 Master Mechanic, the 615 Basic Set) along with another refresh of the supplements line coming in 1969. I also strongly believe Samsonite's US subsidiary was not running deep logistics in part production and probably often overproduced parts.

The image below corroborates the clearance aspect. While the set has been assumed to be a 004 (which released with 670 pieces) with an accessory pack, the image below speaks against this:

Not only is the set advertised to have 671 pieces (which is a small difference on its own), but there is nearly double the amount of wheels that should be in a 004 as well as a random blue gear. That example alone is highly atypical for a Samsonite set, as while their quality control was subpar at best, it'd be very difficult to accidentally include an extra blue gear. Especially for a marketing photo.

It definitely makes much more sense as a complete inventory clearance set, as it'd be odd for Samsonite to use their largest set at the time to flush ~30 specialty pieces of stock at a time. I clarified and delved deep into this in the articles above, but essentially there is no way Samsonite was running deep logistics to determine exactly how many of each piece to produce to meet demand. Instead, it is much more likely parts were produced immensely liberally with the sets they would go into (and quantities they were needed) as an afterthought.

I'm not saying there was no planning whatsoever, only that logistics had to be very complex and nothing is ever ideal.

As a result of all of this, the 704's inventory was highly variable.

Historical Examples

While I was researching Discovery Playthings, I ended up buying a 1968 catalog and stumbled upon an listing for the 704 at a Discovery Playthings in Jordan Marsh:

Though it's important to note that the set's name likely wasn't created to reference Discovery Playthings, but instead referencing the 005 Discovery Set, as both the 005 and the 704 began as mail-in sets, and 'Master' was just Samsonite's way of naming their largest combination sets.

The 704's "prototype" box can be seen on the cover of the 704's brochure(notice that it still has the age range on the front). It supports our 1967 date, as the prototype box still has the age range: