How many different shapes do Lego come in?

This is not a rhetorical question. Our dining room table was taken over this weekend by a project of mammoth proportions: sorting the Lego. The Lego was sorted by shape only.


By Sunday night, about 1/3 of Muffin Man's Legos were sorted into compartmentalized boxes. Twenty-five compartmentalized boxes, with a minimum of 17 compartments each. Some items were doubled up. Oh, and the thick 2x4 bricks and their baby siblings, the thick 2x2 bricks each had their own box.

So I've got a bone to pick with the Lego Corporation. I mean, look at this picture, and that's just wheels and axles. WHEELS AND AXLES. They take up a whole box on their own.

When I was a kid, you had the 2x4 bricks, the 2x2 bricks, two kinds of window, 2 kinds of door, a brick that was about the length of a Lincoln Log, and two different slanted bricks for roofs, and a very large (comparatively) green piece that was a floor or grass, depending on how big you built your house. That was it.

I'm not complaining that there is more variety now, but over 425 different types feels like a bit of overkill. And that doesn't count Mind Storms.

On the other hand, it's worth it to see Muffin Man create a Mondrian Moon Buggy.