1989 Flashback: How Lego Bricks Are Made

Out of all the interesting articles on Bit Rebels about Lego bricks, I don’t think we’ve ever covered the most obvious one, which is how Lego bricks are made. Have you ever thought about that before? I’ve noticed that Lego products are more expensive and higher quality than other building block brands. After watching this video from 1989, I understand why.

I found it fascinating that there are over 1,300 different Lego brick shapes and each one is cut to 5,000th of a millimeter, making their size ultra precise. Only eighteen out of every million Lego bricks are defective. Quality control, which the company is adamant about, was impressive even back in 1989. Here are some other interesting Lego facts: Lego has been awarded “Toy of the Century” twice by Fortune Magazine. There are 28,500 Lego bricks made each minute, and they say that if you have six of the eight-studded bricks, you can put them all together in 915,103,765 different ways. Now those are some geektastick facts!

According to YouTube, this is “an internal video from the Consumer Affairs division of Lego Systems, Inc. I don’t think this video has been seen outside of the Lego Company. Somehow, I acquired the tape when I was little and now I’ve converted it for your viewing pleasure. The tape was extremely old which explains the terrible quality, but it’s watch-able. I’m more interested in how classic the sets are, accompanied with the old-school animation. Hope you enjoy! It took me forever to figure out how to convert this.”

[via Unique Daily, New Launches]