Tag Archives: Tente

Tente Set

Went to the San Jose Super ToyShow today. I went partly to entertain my daughter and partly to browse for toys. The last few shows have been short on interesting finds so I didn’t have a lot of hope for this one.

Just as we were leaving, though, I looked in a $1 bin and saw this Tente mini-set. I couldn’t believe I found such a cool toy AND that it was a buck.

I have come across a number of Tente sets over the years, but have never seen a mini-set like this. Can’t decide whether to open and build it or keep it sealed.

Tente not Lego

Someone left a post the other day asking me about Tente. If you don’t know what it is, you’re missing out. Tente was a Lego-like building system that was mainly available outside the US. I got mine while living in Colombia, SA. 

Anyway, the system had very similar blocks to Legos and the kits were thematic, like space or transportation. And like Legos, you could build them into whatever you wanted. I didn’t have a lot of them, but they were ahead of Lego in many ways. While Lego still had pretty generic pieces in the 70s and early 80s, Tente had a lot of specialized wheels and parts in their kits. But they made a lot fewer sets…

Tente Building System
Tente Building System