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): 298 pieces

Parade Magazine, September 29th, 1968

First Year Confirmed Available: 1968

USA Only.

Most Likely Retirement Date: 1968

The Parade Magazine Promotion was only ran once.

Aliases: 298-Piece Deluxe Wheel Set

Retail Price(s): $6.99 (USA)

Rarity Score (Rarity Index): 7/7

Box/Overview

This is going to be one of the shortest coverages for a LEGO Samsonite set. Put simply, I'm not aware of any surviving examples of this set, nor am I even confident that I would be able to identify this set in the wild. I'd assume it used a plain mailer box typical of catalog sets, likely a similar size box to the 301 Wheel Set.

Bricks and Minifigs in Loveland displays a plain box set that would match the assumed size/date of the 298 Deluxe Wheel Set, but the only thing that makes me weary is that it shipped from Samsonite themselves, which we saw with Imaginations Inc. Sets only when the mailing address changed from Newark, New Jersey to Denver. So I don't believe it to have been the 298.

It's also important to clarify this set may have had an earlier distribution/availability, as it borrows nearly all of its attributes from a set last sold in 1965, same as the 93-Piece Set that also appears in this one promotion. The Treasure Chest (with Bonus Truck Model) from the same promotion is its own can of worms entirely.

About the only thing left to note is that it earns its name/piece count from its predecessor: the 610 Super Wheel Toy, following the same name change as the 605 Wheel Toy, changing into the 021 Wheel Set for 1965+. I go much more in depth about this in The 1968 Parade Magazine Promotion.

My goal is to eventually scan the Parade promotion in full color, but unfortunately it is a very difficult newspaper supplement to get my hands on. Even worse, by sheer luck I stumbled upon and purchased the exact one that this promotion was in, but it was completely missing, meaning that the promotion was also limited regionally in some regard.