"Fabuland" gone from cauldron piece

Crazylegoman · Post by **Crazylegoman** » Sun Oct 12, 2008 12:36 am

I imagine most of us have a couple if not several of the black cauldron piece:

This piece started out as a Fabuland piece. On the bottom it had the word "Fabuland," but it wasn't just the word; it was in the same balloony font as the yellow word Fabuland that was on the boxes of those sets.

This cauldron piece is in the 7979 Castle Advent Calendar. As I was going through my Advent Calendar, I looked on the bottom of the cauldron piece, and the "Fabuland" had been removed! It was not a new mold though; it was apparent that the old mold had had the word soldered/ground out. You can clearly see where the word "Fabuland" used to be. If you know that that's what used to be there, you can even barely make out the word.

This change does not affect the way you can use the piece whatsoever, but I thought that it was really odd that LEGO would remove it. Does anyone know why LEGO would want "Fabuland" to not be on the bottom of the cauldron piece anymore?

David

KarenJ · Post by **KarenJ** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 3:46 am

I got my two 7979's but have not opened them up yet. You opened yours???

I will check my other cauldrons. I have quite a few of the Harry Potter ones but never bothered to check those.

You are making me want to rip open my Castle Advents...

Brickzone · Post by **Brickzone** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 9:11 am

I think the harry potter ones all have "Fabuland" printed on them.

I too won't know about the Advent Calendar one until December.

Post by **JoshWedin** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 1:46 pm

I've opened one of my Advent Calendars. The Fabuland has been removed in the fashion that you describe. I compared it to my other cauldrons and it looks like they added "Lego" as well.

Just for reference purposes, here is all the "vital" statistics of my cauldrons:

New (from Advent Calendar):
Fabuland has been ground out of the mold. It says "Lego" and is from Mold 01, cavity 6.

Old (from Harry Potter)
Fabuland is legible. Doesn't say "Lego".
Cauldrons are from Mold 01, cavities 4 & 7.

Based solely on mine, it would appear that Lego only has one cauldron mold.

For those who don't know, each Lego mold has a series of "cavities". The number of cavities is how many pieces that mold can make in one shot.
If you don't know how to check this, look on the bottom. You will see a number similar to this: 6 - 01

The first part is the cavity number and the second is the mold number.

Hope this helps,
Josh

Foamrider · Post by **Foamrider** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 2:24 pm

My calendar cauldron has also been defaced. I am curious why they are taking the effort to do so, as Fabuland isn't exactly a stain on their name.

Brickzone · Post by **Brickzone** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 2:50 pm

Maybe it is just an issue with recent ABS in the old mold, the way some new slope bricks have only faint texturing (or indeed none at all).

Blueandwhite · Post by **Blueandwhite** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 3:34 pm

It appears that they've deliberately removed the text from the mold leaving a 'bulge' where the Fabuland mark used to be. In its place they've stamped the LEGO brand logo. Perhaps one of our legally inclined members could shed some light on this. I'm wondering if the Fabuland trademark has fallen out of use for too long requiring LEGO to make the change. As it stands it now looks as if the bottom of the mold has been defaced as the fabuland logo has been sanded down to a rough looking baloon pattern.

ffilz · Post by **ffilz** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 5:47 pm

Well, LEGO has canceled the Fabuland trademark:

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=ubc453.2.2

It may be that they don't want to confuse people, or it may be that with the Fabuland trademark being open game now, they don't want to risk having to pull sets from the shelves because someone else acquires Fabuland or something "too close" as a trademark in the future.

Frank

Peppermint Pig · Post by **Peppermint Pig** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 6:02 pm

My guess is they're doing this to prevent branding confusion.

KarenJ · Post by **KarenJ** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 1:50 am

Josh, That is really interesting! I never knew that about the cavity/mold #'s. I knew that they couldn't be a date (although they look like one). I just took a cauldron out of my general collection and the numbers are 5 01.
I have a bunch of MISB Potter sets that I'm reluctant to open. I'm also reluctant to open the Castle Advent Calendars.

Thanks for the info.

Post by **davee123** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 2:56 am

The one from my advent calendar is also etched out-- I've asked over on the Ambassador forums what the reason is for doing this, but nothing yet.

For the record, all my cauldrons are also from mold #1-- I've got slots:

#1 - 1 normal
#2 - 2 normal
#3 - 3 normal, 1 etched out
#4 - 2 normal
#5 - 1 normal
#6 - 2 normal
#7 - 2 normal
#8 - 1 normal

DaveE

plums_deify · Post by **plums_deify** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 2:12 pm

Foamrider wrote:My calendar cauldron has also been defaced. I am curious why they are taking the effort to do so, as Fabuland isn't exactly a stain on their name.

It's all about branding. Fabuland, while certainly a great line, hasn't been around in YEARS. Rebranding their moulds to saty LEGO is a better business move. Altering the moulds themselves is probably pretty easy, and a relatively inexpensive way of reinforcing the LEGO brand.

Foamrider · Post by **Foamrider** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 2:15 pm

Darkie wrote:
Foamrider wrote:My calendar cauldron has also been defaced. I am curious why they are taking the effort to do so, as Fabuland isn't exactly a stain on their name.
It's all about branding. Fabuland, while certainly a great line, hasn't been around in YEARS. Rebranding their moulds to say LEGO is a better business move. Altering the moulds themselves is probably pretty easy, and a relatively inexpensive way of reinforcing the LEGO brand.

True, but my piece does not even say LEGO on it, which is why I was confused.

plums_deify · Post by **plums_deify** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 2:21 pm

Could be a test phase in between removing the Fabuland brand and replacing it with the LEGO brand.

Crazylegoman · Post by **Crazylegoman** » Wed Oct 15, 2008 12:10 am

I suppose I didn't even stop to think of this from the other direction, but why did LEGO put the word "Fabuland" on the piece in the first place? Pieces that first appeared in Technic sets never had the word "Technic" on them; same with Dacta and BASIC sets, etc. Are there any other pieces that started out in Fabuland sets that have "Fabuland" on them?

David