The Unknown 905 Doll Set Variant

___

When I first began exploring and compiling sources for this site, I never expected to break so much new ground in LEGO's history. It's been incredibly cathartic to straighten out a complicated, fragmented history into a consistent narrative, one that allows for a better understanding of Samsonite's timeline and surviving products.

The issue with wanting to explain everything is that sometimes we come across something without an explanation.

While I was browsing 1965 newspaper clippings, I came across this odd image from The Gazette, March 25th, 1965:

I'd never seen this variant shown or mentioned anywhere before. Why does the 905 Doll Set have a capsule on it? Why would this have been created in the first place, and why does it only show up in 1965? Why do no catalogs or dealer documents show this set?

While there isn't one primary source we can point to, there are things we can know about this rare variant and exactly why it existed.

As mentioned elsewhere on this site, the 905 Doll Set was one of if not the most common set to find on 50%+ discounts. Even though it released for the 1963 Christmas season and was last seen in a 1965 dealer catalog, it remained on shelves beyond that 1966 date:

It even made it into 1968(after a 1965 retirement!), according to the Richmond Times Dispatch this toy store still had seven copies:

But that's not nearly the worst of it, as it also made it through the 1968 Christmas season into 1969(four years after retirement!). This one is from May of 1969:

The same newspaper, The Buffalo News, posted the same advert in December 1969 with an even lower price:

The canister version, exclusive to Sears, only appeared once, in 1963. It is the only set that did not return to the 1964 Christmas catalog, despite the tall box version still being available. Notice the 1905 Doll Set in this 1963 Christmas catalog:

Versus the 1964 catalog, where the 1905 Doll set has been replaced by the 1610 Super Wheel Toy—even the 1605 Wheel Toy remains available in 1964:

The above problems contextualize everything. It's safe to say that the 905 Doll Set was the worst selling mainline set of Samsonite's entire run is not an unfounded claim.

But why did this set in particular have so much trouble selling at even half price?

The issue lies in marketing.

Since the introduction of LEGO to North America in 1961, Samsonite usually promoted sets to boys and girls. They usually opted to show both men and women in prepared images:

However, no matter how much LEGO or Samsonite as a whole attempted to be inclusive, this advertisement from 1967 gives a good idea as to how you'll find toys categorized and targeted through the 1960s:

Toys designated for girls were of the "homemaker" variety (you'll see that term in particular). My Three Worlds Inc. catalog puts toys for 3-12 year old girls under categories called "Future Family Makers" and "Housekeeping", with the caption "Our society—happily—recognizes the essential role of women."

I think that is a pretty clear indication as to how toys were marketed back then.

So why would the Doll Set have trouble selling?

Most toy stores designated construction toys as primarily boys toys, as seen above. And LEGO, especially by 1965, would've been primarily known as a construction toy. Not only would girls have been alienated, some parents would have also not purchased it, considering it a "not appropriate" toy.

That's an assumption from the evidence, but the gender divide is pretty clear in the next ad from 1965. Notice that this set avoids using the word "doll" and instead refers to them as "figures":

Also notice that the capsule added to the set covers the words "Doll Set" and "Make all Kinds of Dolls". It's unknown whether the lower portion of the set still said "Doll Set" or if that was also intentionally obscured.

Similar to the one shown above, this one from 1965 refers to the set also making "an airplane, truck, train, or boat", which matches toys that were commonly targeted to boys during the 1960s. it also specifically uses "he":

I see this being a deliberate attempt to minimize the doll branding and instead target boys, which means that for one reason or another girls were not getting this set. To use the 022 Doll Furniture as an example, if you're familiar, rather than the decision to minimize the doll branding, on that set the LEGO branding was minimized:

As that is an unprecedented choice for LEGO Samsonite up to this point, as well as considering the examples we've seen thus far, it's pretty clear what happened. At some point in 1965, likely the last of the 905 Doll Sets ever produced, they were rebranded into "Special Sale" sets specifically targeted to boys.

It seemed to work too, as these sets never reappear beyond the 1965 Christmas season, while the ones without the capsule sat on shelves all the way into 1969.

But I'd like to prove this actually happened and was not limited to a few select stores or was a one-off experiment by Samsonite.

This Detroit Free Press ad from November 4th, 1965 from the Sears Toy Dept. shows a tall box 905 Doll Set with its top chopped off. Note that in this one, the "figure" is referred to as a robot:

Or this one from Hawaii, where the price is even lower and the price on the set's card has been removed. This is a fantastic indication that this is not reusing an unrelated image but instead an image of the actual item for sale, as they went through the trouble of removing the price instead of leaving it or using an image of the normal 905:

That isn't the first appearance of the set in Hawaii either, as the obscured Doll Set appears in late September of 1965 with yet another price. It's likely the image above reused the same image as below and chose to cut off the price and print it elsewhere instead of white it out again:

This one from the Syracuse Herald Journal uses the price and image of the Special Sale Doll Set, but the description of the 205 set. It marks another deliberate use of this image, but may be a mistake in either direction:

Here's another image of the 905 set with the capsule and the large card on top:

And here's one without an image of the 905, but instead the text from the 905 Special Sale's large card:

The next example is of the most perplexing images, as it is the same image of the box from the others(if you line up it with others, its the exact same), but pictured in a completely unique background. I'm unsure which one is the original, though this gives the best view of the bottom of the box as of yet, as most examples deliberately place the airplane model in front of that part. It also predates all examples by several months, appearing as early as April 1965:

All things considered, I think we can confidently conclude that the 905 Doll Set variant with the capsule did in fact exist for the 1965 season, as well as why it would've been created. The marketing shift seems to very clear in that regard.

That isn't to say that the normal 905 Doll Set disappeared for 1965 either. This ad from late August shows the normal tall box verson next to a 1605 canister (which also helps demonstrate the 1905 likely didn't continue production after the 1963 season):

This one from April also shows the normal version, though notice that the description for both of these contain the word "doll":

However, this one from November simply refers to the set as "Lego Building Toy":

And this one from December shows the normal tall box version without Doll Set obscured, but the name is "Larger Lego Building Set" and the description matches the one given to the obscured version, calling the dolls "robots":

That's all the images I have thus far, but I think we've made our case exceptionally clear.

Overall, I'm very proud to have dredged the knowledge of this set from being lost forever. Now only if a surviving example would come forward...