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): 297 pieces

The Toronto Star, October 4th, 1972

First Year Confirmed Available: 1972

The Toronto Star, October 4th, 1972

Most Likely Retirement Date: 1972

The set only has two surviving appearances (and thus two limited sources inn 1972), so unless other evidence arises, it likely only was produced for 1972.

Last Year Seen Available: 1972

The Leader Post, November 15th, 1972

Aliases: Special Lego Set, Special Set

Retail Price(s): $6.99(Canada)

Rarity Score(Index): 8/7

Currently no known surviving copies still exist and due to the nature of the packaging, it is unlikely many remain.

Box/Overview

While I'd come across things I hadn't seen before on the US side of things, I hadn't expected to make any discoveries for the Canadian side. I mainly went into it expecting to confirm dates, but came out with a much better understanding of what I'd already seen along with many, many questions about what I hadn't.

The 297 Special Set is one such question mark. It's not cataloged anywhere online nor has it ever even been mentioned. At first, I only knew about it from this one newspaper clipping, which was, at the time of discovery, the only evidence of its existence:

I've since found one more image, a completely unique image of the physical set. This corroborates the existence of the set as well as the strange packaging shown in the other advert:

From the picture, it seems to have been a plastic bag filled with basic parts. The top of the bag has a card with the LEGO logo and text that is unfortunately obscured due to the print/scan quality.

No surviving examples are currently known.

Contents

The set appears to have been an assortment, which likely means that its inventory varied. The models pictured around the set are the 319, 320, and 330 Model Makers, while the majority of the parts pictured within the bag are basic elements, so I think they're just "decoration":

Given the timing, it could have been that Samsonite of Canada also needed to liquidate parts they'd produced, hence the creation of this one-off parts pack.