The Original 1974 Lego Figure Family set 200

LEGO are now well-known for their minifigures, but it's taken a while to get to this point and they've tried out several different shapes, sizes and designs of figure during the last 40 years. Back in 1974 LEGO released their first ever LEGO Family, and at 3 years old I had one. I remember it arriving, and opening that box of treasure.

LEGO set no.200 had 49 pieces (although if you count each individual element it's actually 78), to create a family of 5 maxi sized figures. They had poseable arms and heads that turned. The hair was a really clever design in that both the male and female hair could be removed and turned around to change it from a child's hairstyle to an adults - and you could slide it forwards and backwards for long fringes!

The legs were made from standard bricks, so sitting, and growing up, was achieved by moving the bricks. 

This isn't my original set (I think some of the bits we find occasionally are though). The stickers on the chests of my figures were for a collector card to receive free LEGO, but someone decided they were better as t-shirts. It's nice to know children don't change.

The LEGO Family could come entirely to pieces, and I used to make super long arms, tall people, and  I could also play with 4 children - Grandma made an excellent schoolteacher.
One of my favourite features as a child was the fact that they could hold hands - something that no LEGO figures have been able to do since.

Exactly the same height as the Technic man, the LEGO Family Dad is more like him than any of the other figures LEGO have made. The advances in poseability with the new arms and tilting head are great, but tiny compared to the new bending knees, hips and ankles. I'm not convinced the hands were an improvement though. More snappable and fragile than the LEGO Family hands, but in a stronger wrist, they aren't better at holding items and they can't hold hands!

The instruction leaflet shows that really the main style hasn't altered in 40 years, and the ideas are now what we would consider to be extremely basic, but as a child I followed them very carefully and was delighted with my recognisable car at the end of it......The big change now I think would be that the man would not always be the driver...

And just look at this fabulous 70's furniture!

The LEGO Family went on sale in 1974 and it cost the grand sum of £1.25.

All LEGO shown is my own. No LEGO was harmed during the making of this post.
All 'parts' were already in with our general LEGO.