Early on in the T3 project I photoshopped a “Lite Brite” wallpaper. But that’s not the really the same as actually doing it in real life. So I started looking for a Lite Brite to use… Turns out it’s more complicated than that (if you’re OCD that is).
The Lite Brite was introduced in 1967 (same year my wife was born). The original Lite Brite had two plates with a hexagonal grid of holes (1735 holes to be exact). To play, one put a piece of black paper with white letters outlining the pattern between the plates and then pushed translucent plastic pegs into the correct holes to make a picture. The paper kept the light from coming through the unused holes.
Because of the two plates, the vintage pegs were long (1.125″). At some point the toy was changed to only use a single grid and the pegs were shortened. Modern Lite Brites use even shorter pegs that are not completely translucent.
So, several versions of the toy, at least 3 major variations of pegs…what’s a boy to do? I decided to get an original 1967 Lite Brite and first generation vintage pegs. It took some work, but over 10,000 pegs purchased on eBay later, I had the 596 Orange and 288 Clear vintage pegs I needed. The result is very cool and especially so if you were a kid in the late 60’s or early 70’s.