The First 15 LEGO Sets Ever Made (With Years)

The First 15 LEGO Sets Ever Made (With Years)

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The first-ever LEGO sets offer a fun trip back in time for fans of the world’s most popular brick building toy company.

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The First 15 LEGO Sets Ever Made (With Years)

For over 70 years, the LEGO brick has been the world’s premier construction-based toys. Though LEGO started out selling wooden and later plastic figures and toys, they are best known for their modular bricks. The first major expansion of the LEGO brand was in 1955 with the introduction of the Lego System. Instead of just selling the bricks themselves, the company would sell the bricks in sets that came with instructions on how to build specific buildings and structures.

2020 marked the 65th anniversary of the Lego System, a long history that covers an enormous variety of themes and licensed franchises. Determining exactly what the first ten LEGO sets were is a difficult task due to several sets being re-released with different production numbers for foreign distribution.

Updated May 3, 2022 by Declan Lowthian: The history of the LEGO system is somewhat confusing, so this updated list includes several more sets from the first wave in addition to some of the major releases that came after. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it does cover a variety of LEGO’s early forays into brick-based building sets.

15 Automatic Binding Bricks Instructions Predated Proper Directions (1950)

The First 15 LEGO Sets Ever Made (With Years)

Though they are not technically part of the LEGO System proper, the Automatic Binding Bricks catalogs released between 1950 and 1953 are an important step immediately preceding LEGO’s modern structure. LEGO’s Automatic Binding Bricks were not sold with specific builds in mind, but the catalogs included some ideas for what could be built. These included lists of how many of each brick would be needed, but lacked the step-by-step instructions of later sets.

14 Garage With Automatic Door Kicked Off The Town Plan Theme (1955)

The First 15 LEGO Sets Ever Made (With Years)

The first LEGO sets are all based around replicating buildings seen in a small town. The more fantastical Castle and Space themes would not come about till the 1970s. The LEGO sets’ initial focus on the mundane can be seen on display in one of the first, a one-car garage. The set would come with a plastic door that served as the door to the garage and could be open and closed.

In 1955, the LEGO Company was creating a bunch of different toylines alongside the LEGO Brick, including a line of plastic 1:87 scale vehicles. These plastic vehicles were compatible with most LEGO sets, including the garage. A version released in the UK a year later even included one of these cars bundled in.

13 Esso Station Featured A Real Fuel Company (1955)

The First 15 LEGO Sets Ever Made (With Years)

Prior to the introduction of LEGO’s own fictional fuel company Octan in 1992, all of the first LEGO sets included the logo of real world companies. the 1955 Esso Station set featured with the logos of the real-world fuel company Esso, which would later become a part of Exxon-Mobil.

The set itself is rather basic, coming with only the bricks to build the storefront part of the gas station. The pumps themselves were released separately from the Esso Station set. The set was also advertised as an expansion by placing the previously released Gas Station set alongside the Esso station set.

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12 Small Store Helped Fill Out A Street Scene (1955)

The First 15 LEGO Sets Ever Made (With Years)

The Small Store LEGO set came with the bricks and instructions to make a small store. The store itself had a large window in the front with a door in the back. Like most earlier LEGO sets, the store architecture was very blocky. The store itself was a rectangular cube with two bricks on top representing the store’s sign. The sign in the Scandinavian releases identified the store as a bakery, which was carried over to the German release where the sign specifically identifying the store as a Pretzel Bakery.

11 Small House Was Modular In Design (1955)

The First 15 LEGO Sets Ever Made (With Years)

The Small House is unique among lego sets in that it has three different variations. The main variation was a house similar in shape to the Small Store set. The other two variations added a curve to one side of the house on either the left or right side.

Interestingly, the advertising for the Town Set line featured houses with roofs on them, despite there not being a proper house set with a roof until 1964. This suggests that LEGO wanted roofs to be designed by the individual rather than having the set come with a pre-designed roof.

10 Town Plan Accessories Helped Make A Town Come Alive (1955)

The First 15 LEGO Sets Ever Made (With Years)

In addition to full sets, LEGO’s first theme included several accessory sets to help builders expand their towns. These included trucks, cars, and trailers, some of which also came bundled with later sets. There was also a set called Painted Trees and Bushes, helping to add some greenery to a town otherwise full of garages and gas stations. Later sets included road signs, but a package of eight of these was released in 1955 as a stand-alone set. Finally, individual bricks could be purchased to customize parts of the down, including additional doors, windows, and the so-called “Name Beams” that identified a building as an Esso station or bakery.

9 Esso Filling Station Included A Truck (1956)

The First 15 LEGO Sets Ever Made (With Years)

The Esso Filling Station is an improved version of the previous year’s Esso Station set. While it kept the same design, the station now came with a built-in garage and plastic gas pumps, both missing from its predecessor. The set likewise comes with a plastic Esso branded Bedford tanker that was released the previous year by itself. This set is also the first LEGO set advertised as a stand alone, rather than a component of a larger town that a person would assemble from various sets.

8 Fire Station Was The First Of A Long Line (1957)

The First 15 LEGO Sets Ever Made (With Years)

Fire stations have been a recurring design in LEGO’s various Town and City themes. 1957 saw the release of the first, simply called Fire Station. The design here keeps the basic red and white brick coloration seen in the rest of the sets from the Town Plan theme. The fire station also came with two garages for storing vehicles from LEGO’s plastic vehicle line. Similarly, the set came with a plastic Bedford fire engine that was exclusive to the LEGO set itself, rather than a repackaging of a previously released vehicle. The fire truck also came with a ladder that could extend longer than the truck itself.

7 Church Has Yet To Be Replicated (1957)

The First 15 LEGO Sets Ever Made (With Years)

The 1957 Church set would be LEGO’s only set to be based on a Christian church. This is likely a result of the company preferring to stay apolitical by avoiding most depictions of religious buildings. Even in their themes inspired by medieval Europe or by real-world architectural wonders, LEGO has yet to make another church, or indeed a religious building of any kind.

The Church set itself is a simple church with a single bell-tower and a congregation room. It is made mostly out of white bricks with the roof tiles being made out of red brick. Some later releases of the set also have a brick with a sticker stating “Anno 1762” on them, indicating the supposed year of the church’s construction.

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6 VW Auto Showroom Featured The First Licensed Brand (1957)

The First 15 LEGO Sets Ever Made (With Years)

One of LEGO’s first licensed sets was based on the cars of the Volkswagen automobile company. This license came out of LEGO’s plastic car line being based on Volkswagen’s car design. The first LEGO set of this licensed theme was based on a showroom for VW cars.

The set came with two plastic VW Beetles that could be placed on display within the Auto Showroom. Due to the set’s design, however, the Beetles would have to be placed in the set by removing the roof rather than driving them in. The set also came with two plastic lamp posts to be placed in front of the showroom.

5 VW Garage Continued A Theme (1957)

The First 15 LEGO Sets Ever Made (With Years)

The other set from the Volkswagen license was the VW Garage. The garage itself stood out from previous sets for several major reasons. First, the set was white and blue in coloration rather than red and white like the rest of the Town Plan theme. Second, unlike previous garage sets it did not come with garage doors. The VW Garage also came with a green and blue VW Beetle, a stop sign, and parking sign, allowing builders to really start populating their towns with detail.

4 Boats Branched Out To Sea (1961)

The First 15 LEGO Sets Ever Made (With Years)

After 1957, most new set lego sets were re-releases of the previous 9 sets with minor variations. This was mostly due to 1958 seeing an improved version of the LEGO brick that is still used by LEGO today. The improved brick allowed for more versatility and durability. 1961 would see the first set to take full advantage of the new brick design: Boats. In some ways, Boats is the first lego set in what would later become the Creator theme in that it was meant to be used to construct a variety of different kinds of ships and port buildings. Unlike later LEGO boats, these sets could not float on water.

3 Wheels Introduced Movement (1962)

The First 15 LEGO Sets Ever Made (With Years)

Though not a full set, the advent of LEGO wheels in 1962 was a major milestone in the company’s journey to its current status as the largest tire manufacturer in the world. The first wheels were sold in sets of either Large or Small Wheels and were intended to be used in the construction of homemade vehicles.

These brick-built LEGO vehicles would eventually phase out the old 1:87 scale plastic vehicles used in the first LEGO sets, as they allowed for more creativity. One of the first sets to use these wheels was the Farm Tractor, released in 1963.

2 Train Started A Long-Running Line (1964)

The First 15 LEGO Sets Ever Made (With Years)

LEGO has been making trains since the 1930s, but those were wooden toys completely different from the LEGO bricks fans have come to know and love. The first LEGO set to feature a proper train made from bricks was released in 1964. This set made use of the recently introduced wheels to create a functional train, though it lacked the tracks common to later train sets. The first LEGO train showed a marked improvement in design from the early Town Plan theme, though it still used the classic red and white color scheme and would fit well in terms of scale. The first motorized LEGO train came along just two years later, this time with tire-less wheels meant to roll along a track.

1 Gears Made Things Technical (1965)

The first LEGO set to utilize gears and power was released in 1965. This set included a small battery case with terminals built into its studs, allowing it to provide rotational force to a power unit. in several different configurations. When combined with a full suite of colorful gears in many different sizes, builders could create all manner of technical contraptions and introduce some dynamic movement into their builds. The instruction manual, just six pages long, is mostly how to connect the battery, though it does feature a Ferris wheel to help inspire aspiring engineers.

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