Samsonite was an American manufacturer of LEGO sets which introduced the very first USA LEGO catalog for Christmas of 1961. LEGO and Samsonite created a partnership to produce and sell LEGO in the US. The result was a 9-year license for exclusive North American distribution rights. Samsonite began marketing sets under the name LEGO by Samsonite in the US in 1961 and Canada in 1962.
1965 LEGO Sets
By 1965, LEGO employed more than 600 people as production scaled rapidly. Packaging was redesigned to feature only buildable models, improving clarity and consistency. In North America, Samsonite introduced the first LEGO gears—designed in Billund by Knud Møller Kristiansen—allowing mechanical motion and simple transmissions. Though initially exclusive to the U.S. and Canada, these parts marked LEGO’s first step toward functional construction.