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.
1970 LEGO Sets
By 1970, LEGO grew to over 1,000 employees. The LEGO Group started the process to regain the LEGO license from Samsonite in the United States market after the founder of Samsonite, Jesse Shwayder, died. By 1973 LEGO will take control of all US LEGO sales. As LEGO continues its European growth, in Italy, the Italian Parliament restricts the import of LEGO products and LEGO responds by creating their own Italian manufacturing subsidiary called LEGO Minitalia. In 1970 LEGO produced their first sets on the Minitalia theme which were essentially Basic systems. In total from 1970 until 1975 there were 21 Minitalia sets produced. During the same year, the long-running Town Plan theme was discontinued as this was part of the phasing out of multiple scaled models.