Above is a 1971 USA advert for Modulex.

Even if you're extremely familiar with LEGO Samsonite and their products, you may be surprised to learn about this collaboration. I myself was too.

If you are interested in the broader history of Modulex, I recommend you seek other sources. Below will be primarily concerned with Samsonite's distribution of Modulex, which is virtually undocumented and to my knowledge has never been properly explored.

You can learn more about Modulex in general, as well as find specific documents referenced below via the Modulex Library, compiled and curated by Rylie Howerter.

You should know two things going in. One, Modulex was originally created as an architectural aid, but became very popular as a charting/graphing system by the late-1960s. Two, Modulex operated as its own company apart from LEGO and was not part of the original LEGO license. It was not manufactured by Samsonite and had no relation to Loveland.

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It was announced in May of 1969 that a branch office at 519 N. Tejon St. in Colorado Springs would be responsible for the distribution and sale of Modulex: The Colorado Chart Company. It was a subsidiary of Samsonite.

However, that company name is almost never mentioned again, not in any archived magazines, newspapers, trade publications, etc. Instead, when job listings for Modulex salesman began to be posted in late 1969, the entity responsible for Modulex changed to International Management Systems, Inc. (IMS). It can be seen on most Modulex materials distributed by IMS, take for example the back of this Modulex board:

IMS was the Colorado Chart Company, simply rebranded after its formation but before the official release. It can be found in one Modulex instruction sheet, presumably prepared before the name change. IMS was seemly built around this one partnership, with possible hopes of further expansion. But at least in the beginning, this was an incredibly small operation as both given addresses were either homes or very small buildings.

Regardless, demonstrations for Modulex began proper in the US by February of 1970, as seen in the newspaper clipping below.

Sales were ready to begin by March 1st, as a 1970 pricelist shows. You can click on the image to view all pages or click here, as it is much better at showing you exactly what was for sale than I could simply write. The initial line was quite expansive and ambitious for its release.

Adverts were ran in newspapers across the US soon after, this one from March 25th:

A collection of instructions, brochures, and flyers were brought over to the US for distribution. Virtually all materials were printed in Denmark and were reconfigured examples of pre-existing paperwork.

Presumably, Modulex handled all production and packing in Denmark. If none of the paperwork was produced in the USA, then it would be highly unlikely for any of the elements to have been either. Not only would it have required a hefty workforce and plant, but there were so many unique molds/colors that it would've been extremely costly for IMS to produce even a percentage of Modulex's US assortment. IMS was clearly a sales company, going off the name alone.

The parts themselves used unique packaging for the US. Below was a simple box of basic parts:

Adverts were run extensively in early to mid-1971 throughout business-related publications such as Power, Electrical World, and Architectural Record. But strangely, beyond 1971, International Management Systems Inc. disappears from all print media. All 1972+ advertisements for Modulex no longer mention IMS or Samsonite. By mid-1972, the office of International Management Systems (1400 West Alameda Avenue) was sold off and became a tire store.

Rylie, the curator of the Modulex Library referenced above, helped me immensely and provided an address for Modulex's "executive offices" in the USA for 1972+: 3295 Northcrest Road N.E. Suite 104, Atlanta Georgia 30340. Phone (404) 934-8489. I place that address at 1972+, as it first appears in association with Modulex in 1972, again with no mention of Samsonite.

In this transition, most of IMS's sales/distribution force was retained by Modulex, with a warehouse/shipping office in Colorado under the GM Dale Kincannon, 2065 Cilton St. Aurora, Colorado 80010. Then there were sales offices that each covered a region of the US, i.e. New England, Pacific Northwest, Detroit, etc.

So we know the timeline, as well as what happened after Samsonite's departure, but what I'm most curious of is why exactly Samsonite left?

Did Samsonite decide to back out shortly after, or did Modulex pull the plug? The extremely short window could speak either way, and I'm not sure that we'll ever know. If anything, however, the retainment of the majority of IMS's sales force and distribution network speaks to a mutual agreement, not anything controversial or damming.

According to a Canadian newspaper (National Post, September 30, 1972), a company called VISIrecord began distributing Modulex to Canada. That newspaper also relays that Modulex was new for Canada in 1972, which is useful in demonstrating that IMS operated only within the US.

Author's Note

For most casual readers, you won't be interested in the next part of this article. I simply feel the need to justify why this article has been organized with LEGO/Samsonite Toys materials, as it operated completely independently from their LEGO license as well as all relevant Samsonite channels in this section.

Put simply, the readers interested in LEGO are much more likely also have experience with Modulex and would benefit from it being easily accessible, rather than buried in other Samsonite ventures on a different page they wouldn't have a need to check. On the same token, anyone interested in Samsonite products/history is less likely to have an interest in Modulex.

So it's a matter of proximity in terms of reader needs. While I recognize the importance of keeping the site very well organized to keep information intuitively accessible, I also welcome a little bit of rule bending for the sake of a better user experience and discovery for those that wouldn't know that it happened but would be very interested in learning about and looking into such.