Help me remember this Lego knock-off brand circa 1980

• http://www.metafilter.com/124730/En-arche-en-ho-Legos-The-Price-of-a-Lego-Brick has just dug up a memory for me and I'm going crazy trying to remember the brand name of the Lego knock-offs I had around 1980. I'll quote the gist of it from the thread:When I was a kid I had a birthday party some time around the fifth or sixth grade. I told all my friends I wanted Lego (because fifth graders don't have anything resembling tact) and all but one brought me a Lego set. The one kid who didn't got me these Lego knock-offs that were sort of, but not quite, entirely unlike Lego. They had the guzintas and the pegs but they were upside-down. It was crazy. And no, I wasn't just using them the wrong way, the instructions and pictures all had the pegs on the bottom. This was some time around 1980.So yes, they were like Lego only the pegs were on the bottom and the holes were on top. The holes were just that, holes for the pegs to go into surrounded by smooth brick. They were't like Lego where the whole thing was hollow. Some things I remember:I was not using them upside-down. The pictures and instructions showed the pegs on the bottom.The basic brick was maybe 1/2 the height of a Lego brick. Almost like a 1/3 size Lego plate. I could be wrong about this. Other than that, they were roughly the size of Lego bricks in terms of peg size. The pegs might have been a bit taller.They were not Lego compatible.They were made of ABS or some other plastic similar to Lego but, like most clones, of a lesser quality. The corners were not sharp like Lego.It was not a brand listed on the Wikipedia page of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_clone. I'm sure of this.This was some time around 1979-1981. Give or take a couple years.I have no idea what country they were from. They were most likely purchased around the suburban Boston area. I don't think my friend's family were world travelers who would have brought them back from Japan or somewhere.I suspect they were bought because they cost much less than Lego.I always had the name Tente in my head but looking them up just now I realize I got the name confused with another Lego clone around that time. Seriously, it wasn't Tente and if you suggest it was Tente I will know you didn't read this and I will curse you to a life of stepping on a Lego brick every morning when you get out of bed. I'm kidding, of course, but it seriously was not Tente.I don't think they were MiniBrix, as suggested in the other thread. That's a good guess but the diagrams posted don't match my memory.I'm pretty sure the product and brand name were different. Like, they were THING by COMPANY. It was not a brand that made anything else I was familiar with.They were small sets. The box was maybe large enough to hold half a human foot. Like the size of a box of Animal Crackers or your basic $15.00 Lego car set. I have no idea if this brand made larger sets.I have never seen them anywhere, before or since. As far as I can tell I had the only two sets ever made.I am not imaging this. I had them. They were real. I bet if I spent a few hours I could dig up an odd brick in my son's collection of Lego. This would be like finding a needle in a haystack and I'm not even sure I'd find one. I don't think they had the brand name on the bricks anyway so even if I found one it wouldn't help me.They totally sucked in every possible way, and not just because they weren't Lego.This is seriously bugging me. I have Googled various things such as "1970s lego clone pegs on bottom" and other variations but I have turned up nothing.

• Answer:

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