Most people think of LEGO as the company that makes little plastic bricks that children (and adults) assemble into imaginative creations. Last year, the company released hundreds of different products , almost all of which are centered on those plastic bricks . However, the company did not start out that way.
In fact, its founder was a carpenter, and the first toys were handmade out of wood, including a firetruck, a duck, and a train. The bricks didn't come until much later, and they almost didn't happen at all. That turns out to be a pretty consequential decision when you think about it.
Those bricks are played with by millions of people, and they have made LEGO Group the world's largest toy company, with more than $9.6 billion in revenue last year. Still, it wasn't until LEGO Group's founder, Ole Kirk Kristiansen, took a trip to Copenhagen in 1946 that he saw a demonstration of an injection mold machine that would eventually change everything.
"Spurred by his natural curiosity and interest in technology, Ole Kirk started looking into plastic production in the mid-1940s," said Signe Wiese, LEGO Group corporate historian. "He starts a collaboration with his brother-in-law, Martin Jørgensen, based in Copenhagen. In a series of letters between the two (dating between summer 1945 and late 1946) the early steps into plastic molding are discussed by the two.
" In 1947, he placed an order for a British Windsor SH triple-injection molding machine. While the exact cost is hard to pin.