International LEGO® Day 2023

On January 28, 1958, the LEGO® Group officially filed the first patent for the LEGO® brick in Denmark. Consequently, today marks the 65th anniversary of the brick. Because of this momentous event, fans around the world designate January 28 as International LEGO® Day. However, I learned this year that the designation is not official. Internally at the LEGO® Group, the day is simply referred to as the anniversary of the patent. That’s a little boring in my opinion, so I’m going to go ahead and wish you all a happy (unofficial) International LEGO® Day 2023.

For my own little celebration, I decided to build a couple of sets from my pile of shame (i.e. my huge stack of unbuilt LEGO® sets). Back in 2020, I acquired the Buildable 2×4 Brick in Teal on Black Friday. The set came free with purchases over $200 CAD. The teal brick represented the second buildable brick offered as a gift-with-purchase. The first was the Buildable 2×4 Brick in Red from November 23 – 24, 2019. Similar to the teal brick, it came with purchases over $200 CAD. I missed out on the red brick. As luck would have it, it suddenly re-appeared in the VIP Rewards Center in early December 2022 for 1000 VIP points. I jumped on that offer.

My red brick recently arrived, so I decided to build both sets in celebration of International LEGO® Day 2023 and include them in my video messages on social media. I won’t do a full review of these brick sets, but I will give you a rundown. Here are the set specifics:

The build process for each brick is fairly similar. However, the bricks are slightly different, resulting in some differences in the instructions too. I suspect this arose from parts availability. Correct me if I am wrong, but there is a smaller selection of bricks in teal than in red. The difference is most prominent in the tops of the studs. The red brick has a solid 2×2 round tile, whereas the teal brick features 1×1 round quarter tiles. Additionally, the red brick employs 1×6 and 1×8 bricks in the walls, while the teal brick uses 1×4 and 1×2 bricks. With that said, the display bases are identical, and if you have the instructions for one, you can easily modify the parts to build the brick in any color.

There are slight differences between the parts included in the red and teal buildable 2×4 bricks.

Why would you want to replicate this build? Firstly, why not? Secondly, I suddenly had a fun idea while building these. I have collected the Minifigure brick costume characters available through the Minifigures Series and Build-A-Mini (BAM) tower. I’m starting to have a nice assortment. Additionally, it just so happens that the LEGO® Group produced the brick costume in red and teal already. Displaying these bricks with their brick costume Minifigures looks good on a shelf.

Now, I have to see if I have the correct bricks in all the other brick costume colors. I am displaying all my Minifigures with a hairpiece or hat that matches their costume, so I’ve changed the hairpieces on the Minifigures Series characters (red, blue, and green). Sadly, I don’t have a light blue hairpiece yet that matches the light blue costume. However, I remain on the lookout. How do you display your 2×4 buildable bricks? Let me know in the comments below or reach out on social media.

Happy (unofficial) International LEGO® Day 2023!

-Tom

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