Random set of the day: Gear Wheels with Chain Links
Posted by Huwbot,Today's random set is 879 Gear Wheels with Chain Links, released during 1979. It's one of 12 Technic sets produced that year. It contains 87 pieces.
It's owned by 203 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
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26 comments on this article
Hey, I thought this was Random Set of the Day not Random Parts of the Day! Did the clocks change AGAIN? Ugh.
Nice parts pack! I have tracks, but no chains. I have used drivebelts however.
@MCLegoboy said:
"Hey, I thought this was Random Set of the Day not Random Parts of the Day! Did the clocks change AGAIN? Ugh."
r/beatmetoit
Technic before SERVICE.
Service was something you could order from a catalog , example :
5239 : 34 Cross Axles
5241 : Gear Rack and Wheels, Wedge-Belt and Crown Wheels
5243 : 70 Chain Links
Huh, I didn't know that chain links were that old.
@Brickbuilder0937 said:
"Huh, I didn't know that chain links were that old."
I did. I recall in ‘78 or ‘79 MOCing a cable car that zipped down a length of chain over 10’ long. Don’t remember where I got all the chain pieces from, but I had loads.
Excellent box art! If Technic was a country, this would be the flag.
Does anyone else wish TLG would bring back or at least re-create those chain/belt links that had the Lego studs on them...just me?
Wait, so LEGO used to make simple parts pack sets for LEGO Technic, consisting of just random extra gears?!
Why don't they make stuff like this anymore?! Now there is an entire community of MOCists out there that only buys LEGO sets for the parts, and this will be ideal for them.
Not very swooshable.
@Zander said:
" @Brickbuilder0937 said:
"Huh, I didn't know that chain links were that old."
I did. I recall in ‘78 or ‘79 MOCing a cable car"
Can't of been MOCing in '78. That was before such pretentious terms had been invented and it was still known as 'playing with Lego' :-)
Sadly the chain links are Part 3711 Technic, Link Chain, and not Part bb0076 Technic, Link Chain, Large with Studs (Bricklink).
I remember using the studded ones as minifigure ice skates at Christmas in 1979!
I could only dream of chain links when I got my first wannabe Technic set 802-1. Had to make do with elastic bands!
I got respectively bought 870, 871, 874 (3x), 877, and 878 back then to expand my models and create other machines. For some reasons this one appeared less useful to me.
About 875 and 876: At that time you only got yellow, red, and blue technic bricks - imagine how many of one coulered supplementary beam / liftarm packs would there be today.
Ah, the good old days, when Technic wasn't called Technic yet and it was still about gears, not panels...
@brick_r:
I believe those were exclusive to North America as one of the parts that Samsonite cooked up during their lease of the LEGO brand. If that’s true, I don’t know if the designs would be owned by TLC or Samsonite.
@Duq:
Huh. It’s obvious that brick-Technic awkwardly grew out of System before becoming its own standalone system with beam-Technic, but I didn’t realize the Technic brand name came later. Still, the text on the front of the boxes for 856, 857, and 880 (all released the same year), as shown in Brickset’s archive, all have non-English text that hint at the roots of the Technic branding. 880 even says “LEGO’s tekniska program”, so there was probably an informal name they used internally to refer to it before someone realized they needed to formalize a trademark.
@LegoDavid said:
"Wait, so LEGO used to make simple parts pack sets for LEGO Technic, consisting of just random extra gears?!
Why don't they make stuff like this anymore?! Now there is an entire community of MOCists out there that only buys LEGO sets for the parts, and this will be ideal for them. "
If they release something like this today it will have 10 different colours in it...
The set seemed a bit mean as still needed some Technic bricks to attach all these gears to?
The chains usually came with motorbikes starting from 857, and for the helicopter undercarriage in 8844. I could never think of why you would want to buy separately for anything else, maybe a tracked vehicle but there were plenty of tracked vehicles like 856 already. Interesting how the medium 16 tooth gear which is used most with these chains is missing as I don't think it existed when this set came out?
As a kid I always thought it was cool that the catalogues showed these parts packs, but I never saw them in the stores, so I always wondered how you’d get them.
It wasn’t until later that I realized you could just order then through the mail.
@PurpleDave said:
" @brick_r:
I believe those were exclusive to North America as one of the parts that Samsonite cooked up during their lease of the LEGO brand. If that’s true, I don’t know if the designs would be owned by TLC or Samsonite."
Interesting. The chain links I had in the ‘70s definitely had studs on them. I distinctly recall attaching bricks to them. But that doesn’t disprove what you said. I was in the UK at the time but I had family members travelling often to the US for work, so it’s possible that’s how I got them. It would also explain why I thought it might have been ‘77-‘78, rather than what I said above about it being ‘78-‘79.
@sjr60, Yes, I was ‘playing with LEGO’. I just used the term ‘MOCing’ so the millennials here would understand! :~P
@brick_r @PurpleDave @Zander
See @bassplate post- he or she knows the right part!
@LegoDavid said:
"Why don't they make stuff like this anymore?! Now there is an entire community of MOCists out there that only buys LEGO sets for the parts, and this will be ideal for them. "
Why sell people so many useful pieces for just a few bucks when you can also sell them multiple much more expensive sets just to get some of those useful pieces ;-)
@bassplate said:
"Sadly the chain links are Part 3711 Technic, Link Chain, and not Part bb0076 Technic, Link Chain, Large with Studs (Bricklink)."
I remember those....but I think those were for use with the old style of gears, not the ones from Technic?
It's interesting that whilst all the parts in this set are still available today, almost all of them were altered slightly (the axles and the big gear being the only exception).
@Zander:
@560heliport:
The gears I was thinking of were indeed Samsonite exclusives, and include parts 741, 742, 743, and 744. They had studs on one side, and were pocketed with antistuds on the other, allowing them to be used like plates. But there were also European sprocket gears, which are referred to as g9, g15, or g21. The studded chain links work with either set of gears, and so the design probably came from Billund. The Samsonite sprocket gear designs may be owned by Samsonite, and at least two of the other sprocket gears had a red core fit into a blue or yellow gear. The LEGO Company has shifted away from multi-component parts in recent years. Glass is no longer glued into windows, pin connectors are now molded in one piece, and I don’t see them bringing back an old gear system where they’d need to manufacture the gears from component parts. If they ever did bring back sprocket gears, it would likely involve a completely new set of parts. More likely, they’d probably expand the cog gear system that currently consists of just 32072.
In the USA, the early Technic sets were not called Technic, they were Expert Builder. In 1986 they got renamed Technic.
I remember buying this set in 1980, I bought it for the chain links. Probably wanted to make something out of the 8888 idea book. Was one of my last sets I bought as a kid.