Friday, December 30, 2005

Reliable Easylock

"Reliable Easylock" bricks are the Canadian version of "American Bricks," which went through many versions in the United States, and were the Lego-counterpart of my childhood.

In one of those eBay surprises, the instruction sheet with several sample structures was hidden under the bricks, and the bricks turned out to be apparently a complete set or nearly so, in reasonably good shape. Certainly there are enough bricks to build anything pictured for the smaller set on the plan sheet, and there may be enough to build structures intended for the medium set.

The cardstock roof pieces were missing, but a substitute was quickly created, and original American Brick roof pieces are typically unusable due to warping and battered edges anyway -- presumably the same would apply to Reliable Easylock cardstock roofs.

Good Block Play.

5 comments:

Herman said...

bad colors! are there colors in the set besides red and that hideous yellow?

but it's cool you got the instruction set

Alan said...

Older American Bricks have white instead of yellow, but from descriptions in eBay listings, they tend to yellow with age. I suspect soft plastic of the "Reliable Easylock" would have been even worse for that, and yellow was probably a better choice.

It seems American Bricks were switched to yellow later on -- though that might have been for other reasons. They went through some ownership changes: Halsom => Elgo => Playskool.

For red brick buildings, white doors and windows is a classic color scheme, with yellow a somewhat distant second.

Alan said...

I might add that American Bricks were intended just for structures, and they hoped you would buy enough to build entire towns.

Glen said...

Thanks for posting this. I had a set when I was kid. I think there are probably still a few pieces kicking around the house. I always thought my set was American but when I saw the pictures I knew mine was the Canadian version. I wonder which came first? Anyway, I enjoyed that set for years. It was one of my all time favourite toys.

Alan said...

Glen -- I'm glad the blog gave some pleasure to you. :}