About three or four years ago, on our annual pilgrimage to the Skaerbaek Fan Weekend, a series of events played out that brought the largest single creature I have into my collection: a gigantic, yellow elephant.

Learning Through LEGO

For those not familiar with it, Skaerbaek Fan Weekend is one of a number of AFOL Networking Events attended by LEGO User Groups (LUGs) and supported by The LEGO Group. This one is in Denmark and is a huge gathering of AFOLs from around the world which takes place at the end of each September. The annual gathering happens in a holiday village with about 80 cottages surrounding a community centre. Each cottage sleeps six or so and for the last several years my husband and I have shared a cottage with fellow BrickNerd contributor Sue Ann, her partner, and another AFOL couple from the UK. The cottages are, naturally, Scandinavian in style and are very compact, so it really helps to be good friends with your cottage-mates!

Sue Ann and I have long shared a love of collecting LEGO creatures, and we regularly nerd out together about what we’ve recently picked up or found out about. Sue Ann and her partner are avid charity/opp shop gleaners and, in this particular year, they found a hardback book from 1988 called "It's Playtime! From Birth to 24 Months" showing all the Primo toys currently available. (Primo was LEGO’s “baby” product line.") It describes how your child will develop in their first two years, and how playing with these toys supports early development stages.

Inside Front Cover & Table of Contents of the book

The book is a strong reminder that although what we as AFOLs often see as “LEGO” are the sets they produce, there is a tonne of research and development that go into the design of those sets and their play experiences. The LEGO Company has always taken the fundamental concepts of child development and play very seriously, and this is as true today as it was when that book was published. The LEGO Foundation “…aims to build a future in which learning through play empowers children to become creative, engaged, lifelong learners,” and they are involved in programmes, projects and research around the globe.

They recently published "What We Mean by Playful Parenting in the Early Years" which concentrates on the birth to three-years-old period. The summary distils some of the findings from the LEGO Play Well 2018 Report, which is described as “… a cross-cultural survey of attitudes and behaviours undertaken in nine countries – China, Denmark, France, Germany, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.” The following summary is great for those of us who might not want to read the 94 pages of the full report!

The LEGO Foundation aims to build a future in which learning through play empowers all children to become creative, engaged, life-long learners. Parents are fundamental to that aim, as they are heavily invested in their children’s development and learning. While this is true across all ages of children, this leaflet has a critical focus on children from birth to three years old. The importance of parenting for infants and young children in this age group cannot be overstated.

If you’re not familiar with the work of The LEGO Foundation, it’s worth a look at their extensive knowledge base. It might give you a different perspective on their end product: the sets and parts we all love.

An Elephant of a Tale

1998 was actually near the end of the relatively short lifespan of Primo products (1995-1999 according to BrickLink), but despite this build system falling prey to LEGO’s decline at the turn of the century, it has left a rich seam of creatures to collect for those interested.

I already had a few bits of Primo, most prominently my storage tub bird that I featured in my first article, but I’d never really dug into the detail of everything that was available. Halfway through the book appeared "Amy Elephant, set 2022-1."

It’s safe to say that an immediate bubble of chat and research started. I love that there are so many play features included:

It’s a sit-on toy if you remove the wheels.
It’s a ride-on toy if you leave the wheels in place.
It’s a pull-along toy with its built-in retractable ladybird-on-a-string on its trunk.
And it has a built-in storage compartment under its removable saddle.

We quickly searched BrickLink to see if there was any more information and if anyone had one for sale. Amazingly enough, there was indeed one for sale and at a reasonable price! One potential snag: it was in The Netherlands. Considering that postage for something that size was going to overshadow the sale price, I immediately messaged the seller and explained that I could collect it on my drive back to the UK in a few days if that would be convenient.

Being deep in Skaerbaek-event-mode I assumed the seller would be familiar with the AFOL community, even if only tangentially. However, they were not at all, but had found BrickLink and were using it to sell old LEGO they were clearing out. I have no idea what they really thought of two adult-and-childless Brits turning up on their doorstep and me being very excited to “meet” this elephant; but, being Dutch, they were typically and beautifully welcoming, and invited us into their home for coffee and cake. It was a perfect break during the long drive; we shared stories, promised the elephant would be well looked after, and continued our travels back to the UK.

Primo elephant, showing removable seat and pull-along string.jpg

Depending on how the dates fall, it is often the Great Western Brick Show (aka STEAM), held at the STEAM Museum in Swindon, UK, the weekend after the Skaerbaek Fan Weekend—and so it was in this year.

Over the course of the weekend, someone from the community gifted me a copy of the English-language edition of the book that had led to my discovery that this incredible creature existed. (I’ve asked all the people I can think of if they recall clearly who it was. I believe it was Ann of Minifigforlife—her minifigure collection is superb!—but both our memories of it are fuzzy. So if it was in fact you, or you know who it was, please leave me a message in the comments!)

Also in attendance at STEAM were two LEGO graphic designers (I’m very sorry to say I have forgotten their names!). Sue Ann and I had been having a conversation that we didn’t think the stickers on my elephant were the original eyes, and these guys confirmed it. There was talk about them maybe being able to find the original files so I could restore them to their original form, but that never panned out and got lost in the post-event haze of things-that-never-got-followed-up, through no one’s fault.

A Herd of Pachyderms

Whilst researching for this article, I learned that there are in fact two versions of this elephant: one with a bow-tie and one without. Beyond that, the set has different names in the UK (Edward) and Australia (Amy).

Names, Dates & Bowties in LEGO Catalogues

It seems that the name is territory-specific rather than bow-tie-related, which I think is really interesting. My thanks to Sue Ann for the Australian catalogues and to Huw of Brickset for the UK ones. I’m fascinated to know if the yellow elephants have any other names in other territories—does anyone have any 1998/1999/2000 catalogues they’d care to check?

1998 LEGO Catalogue for Australia. (Image credit: Sue Ann Barber)

1998 LEGO Catalogue for UK. (image credit: courtesy of Brickset.com)

1999 LEGO Catalogue for Australia. (Image credit: Sue Ann Barber)

1999 LEGO Catalogue for UK (image credit: courtesy of Brickset.com)

2000 LEGO Catalogue for UK (image credit: courtesy of Brickset.com). The elephant did not appear in the Australia catalogue this year.

Until I dug into this, I had always referred to my elephant as Amy, as that is the first name I knew them by. But now I feel that they are in fact a pretty fabulous non-binary being and share the 11th Doctor’s assertion that “Bow-ties are cool!” I’ve tried to make a blended name for them and so far have settled on “Edmy.” I don’t know yet if it will stick!

I think that Edmy’s body must be one of the biggest single pieces that LEGO has ever produced for a retail item. I think aside from the play tables, and anything for theme parks/store displays, they must be near the top.

Use your mouse to explore this interactive 360 view of my elephant.

Home at Last

So many things and people came together for me to have my Edmy Elephant, and I’m grateful for all of them and the friendships that they embody. I think that there are probably so many pieces of AFOLs’ individual histories-in-the-fandom that could read exactly like this. The connections that were involved in me getting Edmy means that it will always be one of the favourite items in my collection.

This really only leaves one question. Does anyone have a non-bowtie version I can purchase to complete the pair? ;-)

What are some memories of how you have expanded your collection? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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