Category:Pennybrix

1960s: "How to build with Pennybrix" [image info]

1960s: Pennybrix "Extras" [image info]

1960s: "You can build a house, just like Periwinkle Pennybrix" [image info]

1970: Clockwork Pennybrix [image info]

The Pennybrix plastic bricks system was introduced by Tri-ang in around 1964, as an attempt to produce a more "Lego-like" system.

Aimed at younger children, the four most basic individual Pennybrix pieces were available from toyshops separately, with a standard "one unit" piece – the counterpart of a square Lego "four by four" brick – costing exactly one penny (the others costing 2d, 3d and 4d for the 2,3, and four-unit bricks).

Periwinkle Pennybrix

In order to make the Pennybrix system more attractive to children, Tri-ang invented the Periwinkle Pennybrix character, who was supposed to live in a house built using Pennybrix.

Periwinkle had white trousers, yellow boots, a red waistcoat, blue jacket and blue top hat with a feather, and Periwinkle figures were included in some of the sets.

The instruction leaflet for how to use Pennybrix was called "Periwinkle Builds a House", and was illustrated in colour like a children's book, so that children could engage with the character and identify with Periwinkle building his house.

Toward the end of the product range's life, Periwinkle was joined by a second character, Mortimer Mole.

Description

Pennybricks were functionally similar to Lego bricks, with a hollow base and normally four or eight protrusions on the top surface to allow them to be clipped together, either as a column or with staggered offsets, just like Lego. The main difference with Pennybrix was that instead of four protruding "pegs", the bricks had four L-shaped protrusions towards the corners, which did roughly the same job.

Given the simplicity of the main bricks, the roof pieces were surprisingly sophisticated, with corrugated push-together tiles and half-tiles, spine tiles, joint pieces and concave "valley" angle tiles to allow roof sections that intersected at 90 degrees.

Colours

Main bricks were red, corrugated push-together roof tiles were blue, doorways and windows were tan stone-coloured, and wheels and axle blocks were yellow.

Main sets

• A 100 –
• A 200 –
• A 300 –
• A 400 –

At some point these seem to have been joined by a Periwinkle Road and Railway Set, with a red locomotive and clip-together track with channels for the wheels to run in.

~1970: Clockwork Pennybrix

By the time of the 1970 Rovex Triang trade catalogue, the range seems to have been simplified to two "Clockwork Pennybrix" sets.

• A 250 – Clockwork Pennybrix
• A 350 – Clockwork Pennybrix

"Extras" sets

• A1 – 2 "Three" Bricks, 8 "Two" Bricks, 4 "One" Bricks, 5 "Half" Bricks
• A2 – 1 Door, 4 "Four" Bricks, 3 "Three" Bricks
• A3 – 3 Windows, 3 "Four" Bricks
• A4 – 1 Window, 1 Garage Door, 2 "Four" Bricks, 3 "Two" Bricks
• A5 – 16 Angle Bricks, 2 "Two" Bricks, 8 "One" Bricks
• A6 – 1 Chimney Tile, 14 Tiles, 4 Half Tiles, 2 Half Bricks
• A7 – 6 Ridge Tiles, 3 Valley Tiles, 1 Chimney Tile
• A8 – 1 Fork Ridge Tile, 4 Corner Ridge Tiles, 3 Tiles, 2 Half Tiles
• A9 – 4 Corner Valley Tiles, 1 Two-Way Ridge Tile, 4 Tiles
• A10 – 6 Wheels, 6 Axle Bricks

External links

• Pennybrix (architoys.net)
• Pennybrix, "Around the Trade", Games and Toys, November 1964 (bayko.org.uk)
• Pennybrix (doyouremember.co.uk)