Going for Gold: The Story of the Golden Lego RCX and NXT

Summary

No, I wanted the RCX to be gilded, with real gold, and have the heft of a gold brick… So I walked down to the local watch and jewelry shop in Billund—yes, there is a jewelry shop in small-town Billund—because I knew that they could get toddlers’ shoes gilded in silver or other precious metals. Inquiring about what it would take to gild an RCX or NXT cover, the store owner told me that the process would use 12-carat gold as a minimum, which would cost about 1,000 Danish Kroner ($200 USD) per cover and that the studs on the cover would barely be recognizable because of the thickness of the metal, even though it would be a thin layer.The cost and the expected end result made that option a no-go. I had it in my mind that the ‘LEGO’ lettering on the studs on the cover should still be visable, and the studs should somehow still be functional. Furthermore, I did not have the budget (I didn’t really have ANY budget) for it so I went for the next best thing.At the time shiny LEGO parts were still made using a method called drum-lacquering or metal-plating. Base parts would be covered with a thin layer of colours looking like chrome, gold or silver. I turned to my project manager, Henrik, who as a seasoned employee knew everybody in the company. I mean everybody. He told me to go to see Bo Kristiansen. He was the person who could get things drum-lacquered.Bo was sitting close by in the DUPLO team’s area in the R&D, so I walked over to ask Bo about the prospect of getting 10 RCX covers and 30 NXT covers processed. He told me the result would be a crap-shoot. For surfaces the size of an RCX cover (8x12 modules) or an NXT (9x12 modules) the coating would possibly create flow patterns and it would not look good. Also getting all these NXT and RCX covers processed was a one-off. I would not have time or favours left to redo the whole batch if something went wrong.As there were no internal charges for getting smaller batches of parts lacquered, I made a mental note to get a cake fo...