93-Piece Set
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-2187
Advertised Part Count(s): 93 pieces
First Year Confirmed Available: 1965
Note: This set is one of very few that get an exception due to the overwhelming preponderance of evidence that this set belongs to 1965, predating its 1968 appearance. I've written an entire article on the subject: The 1968 Parade Magazine Promotion.
USA Only.
Most Likely Retirement Date: 1968
Only ever seen in Parade Magazine, September 29th, 1968, which seems to have been an internal clear-out.
Last Year Seen Available: 1968
Parade Magazine, September 29th, 1968
Aliases: 93-Piece Set, Special Set(093)
Note: "Special Set" may come from a box reuse (1967's 110 Chevron Station) and was not actually the original name of the set. The box does use the 093 number.
Retail Price(s): $1.99(USA)
Rarity Score(Index): 7/7
Known Box/Packing Variants
There is finally more than one known box for the 093. I'm not too sure of the years it belongs to just yet, but it appears from 1965 (from the form number for the 093's brochure) to 1967 (the season before the Parade clearout), there was a mail-in offer through Procter & Gamble. The box was plain and came with a quality evaluation card and B-2187:
The avenue for the offer is currently unknown and could have changed overtime. I reached out to P&G's archives with all the information I had, and this was the response from the senior archivist:
"Thank you for reaching out to P&G regarding the 1960’s promotional collaboration with LEGO Samsonite. Unfortunately, we don’t have any information on this endeavor. At that period in P&G history quite a number of our brands were promotion-based in their efforts to entice consumers to purchase. Most of those promotional items had no relevant connection to the brand. Because of this irrelevance and the exceptionally high number of those promotions, we do not have records on most of them.
We’ve searched what we do have as well as across our internal Sales moonbeams, where prominent promotions were sometimes reported on, but we haven’t found anything related to LEGO. Our Archives staff is greatly disappointed in this as we’re all LEGO fans, both from our childhoods and professionally due to LEGO’s wonderful archives."
So unfortunately, we're left to pick up the pieces. Again.
My assumption, based on my own anecdotal experience and my knowledge of Samsonite in general, is that it was carried out through a staple P&G household product that someone would've purchased consistently late in the year and within a few months. Remember, Oxydol was a P&G product, and we know that promotion took place from 1966-67 due to national advertising in newspapers and relatively common surviving examples. P&G had no record of that promotion either. The Oxydol one was much easier to document because of the sampler aspect. It appears this promotion was a simple mail-away similar to the later Kraft sets, possibly exclusive to a specific region.
We just don't know the original product this was offered through. Hence why one lot of Samsonite I purchased had over twenty of the pamphlets, as they were able to redeem many of the offers through box tops or whathaveyou. I'd also assume this only applies to anytime between 1965-67, given the work we've done in this article: The 1968 Parade Magazine Promotion.
The second known version is in a colorful box. This particular example comes from Bricklink:
IMPORTANT!!!
The below article was written before the discovery of the P&G promotion, but I've left it largely unedited as it demonstrates why the thorough nature of the site works. We knew about it before it was even found.
Box/Overview
The 93-Piece Set has remained an enigma since its box was first discovered. It has never appeared in a catalog, and before the compilation of this site, it had no known appearances at all.
I happened upon the below 1968 Parade magazine promotion when I was searching for any and all appearances of LEGO in North American newspapers:
It is the only known appearance of the three(technically four, counting the promotional truck model) sets, and thus is currently the most likely source of the boxed 093 that has been found. Though be careful, as this promotion may not be the source:
I've written an entire article about The 1968 Parade Magazine Promotion. Essentially, the promotion was used to clear out inventory of promotional/internal sets not intended for regular production.
As such, this set has a few things that rule out a 1968 release. For one, the box has two patents(1961-67) and "FOR ALL AGES" (1967+). Thus, this box in particular was created in 1967.
We have a 1967 source of the box, the 110 Chevron Station. So where does the 93-Piece Set originally come from?
Interestingly, the trail picks up in 1965. Check this out.
This is a table with 1961-65 sets on the left and 1965+ sets on the right. Each has a number, name, approximate piece count, and price. Notice that most of the 1961-65 sets have prices and piece counts that line up well between the two waves:
So from the above(putting aside the 717 and 725, which were model sets and wouldn't have a matching 1965 set), it's pretty clear that many of the 1961-65 sets were essentially repackaged with a slightly different piece count, most within +-10 pieces. The 610 has two potential sets, the most likely is also featured in the above Parade promotion(298 Deluxe Wheel Set). That leaves the 702 without a match.
But look at the 702's price/piece count. 93 pieces, $1.95. The 093 also had 93 pieces and sold for $1.99. Match found!
Which explains the promotional pamphlet (known via the 'B' designation) B-2187, which dates to 1965:
Which is verbatim the back of the 702 Basic Set:
Which would make the 1965 emergence of the above B-2187 especially weird, as the 702 Basic Set was retired that year along with the "LEGO System" branding. At least it would be weird, if we didn't have an established history of the 702 being used as a promotional set via the 702 Special Introductory Set in 1963-64.
As such, I believe that once the 702 was retired in 1965, it was decided that instead of having a 93-piece set on the market, Samsonite designated it as a promotional-only item. It may have not even had a box, it could've been as simple as a bag of parts with the above pamphlet in it.
What it was specifically used for between 1965-68 is up for debate. It could've been used in promotions, toy demonstrations, by toy dealers as samples, by salesmen, internal gifts, at toy fairs, etc.
And this is where we pick back up in recent times, to point to the newly discovered P&G promotional use of the 093 circa 1965.
Regardless, the set and even its associated pamphlets are incredibly rare today.
Contents
The set contained 93 pieces. It is likely it contained a similar if not the exact same assortment as the 702.