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I don't know if there are any particular issues with manufacturing 1 x 4 bricks in Dark Red, but I suspect not. Instead, to understand why dark red 1 x 4s are relatively rare, it is interesting to consider why other colours might be relatively popular. Popular Colours Younger children like strong primary colours + black and white. At the same time, older ...

Moulds are maintained in-house. As you say, the moulds are at the very core of the business of the LEGO company and are thus treated with all the seriousness you can imagine. Considering also that some moulds are in effect trade secrets by themselves (especially for parts which aren't publicly known yet), LEGO wouldn't want any of them to exit the company. ...

I will start by saying I do not own any of the LOTR sets. But, Bricklink has inventories of many sets including any extra pieces that were included with the set. You do not mention which specific sets you own, but here is a link to the 9474 The Battle Of Helm's Deep inventory on Bricklink. It lists a total quantity of 6 extra pieces (5 unique). You could ...

This may not really qualify as an answer, but basically I believe designers are responsible for calling for new parts. For each new part, a production cost is calculated, which takes into account a lot of factors. There were talks a few years back about how they had recently changed these rules, but they aren't public (to the best of my knowledge). What is ...

My 7190 Millennium Falcon kit has a mistake where the inventory for the page doesn't include two pieces on it. So, invariably, when I'm building it I forget to include those two pieces, and they are left over until the very end, at which point I have to follow this process: Say "Dammit" Flip backwards through the booklet to find the page that last added ...

The number of parts shown on the box of the LEGO set indicate how many parts are included without the spare parts. Spare parts tend to be added for the smallest pieces of a set that can be lost easily. Spare parts tend to be fairly consistent between identical sets regardless of where they are sold and sets with a greater amount of parts will generally have ...

There are more antistuds based on your description, you have to account for the flat bricks that have no studs and any sloped bricks that have at minimum twice the number of anti studs. While there are the inverted sloped pieces the standard wider bottom are more prevalent and there are more variations in length and width. Also many of the flat wing pieces ...

I suggest calling Lego customer service (1-800-835-4386) to ask them about a bulk order. Professional "brick artists" like Nathan Sawaya buy their brick directly from Lego. The bulk prices are decent as well. For example, through the LUGbulk program, we got 2x4 bricks for about 9.6 cents each (these sell for $0.30/ea on the Pick-a-brick website). Also, here ...

Kramii's analysis is quite interesting and it's certain that some colors are more popular than others - as you point out yourself, you find dark red to be more suitable for some buildings, and you're definitely not alone. I do disagree however on the fact that LEGO has a strategic position with regards to certain bricks or colors, or that they find that a ...

It seems like the studs have an advantage and here's two reasons why: 1) The base plates have only studs and no antistuds. So many base plates were made that this is stacking the numbers in favor of the studs. There are a lot of studs on those big grids. 2) There are many pieces with extra-studs like this type: but I don't remember pieces (other than ...

Unfortunately, I'm not aware of specific factories that are currently tooled to make compatible bricks that you could get in touch with. I have noticed an eBay user that consistently sells Canadian made compatible basic bricks, so it might be worth contacting them to see if you could work out a deal. There are also many companies who will do custom ABS ...

As you can see from other answers, it may prove easier to try to get genuine LEGO bricks and there are numerous possibilities to do so: As mentioned in OddTodd's answer, the LUGBulk program may be an option, but you'll need to find a local LUG and convince them of the parts you need. As seen in the comments, limits may be an issue. Contacting the LEGO ...

In a recent document about the Pick-A-Brick cups comparisons, there was a segment that caught my eye. (bottom of page 7). Official LEGO stores also sell a $70 box of a single piece type. This isn’t something they advertise, but you can ask what they have available and they will sell it to you. It’s also called a “K2 box.” Measuring the volume of ...

This sounds like something to ask the corporate offices. They may be able to arrange shipments that even the LEGO stores can not. For instance, Thomas Nielson is the VP of manufacturing at TLG http://dk.linkedin.com/in/thomasnielsen?trk=pub-pbmap If the stores can't get it to you, go to those who supply the stores. It certainly sounds like you generate ...

I can confirm that some bricks have hollow posts. I ran across this in attempting to answer a "how much does a brick weigh" question. What I thought was a homogenous batch of bricks turned out to have a few with hollow posts. The bricks were all purchased new in the last three years. From a "material cost productivity" standpoint, it will be in TLG's ...

The parts list page for the Ultimate Collector Edition Millenium Falcon (10179) contain 5 mystery pieces that aren't included in the set, and aren't used in the build. See What is piece 4211642 from 10179 - UCE Millenium Falcon?

Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), the material that most LGEO bricks are mate of, is also popular for using in 3D-Printers. There is an Open Source Ecology project to create a plastic shredder that makes the raw material for 3D printing. People also use 3D printers to create LEGO compatible parts, so one can recycle bricks to create bricks again!

NOTE: from 1949 to 1954 "LEGO" was printed INSIDE the brick. LEGO appeared on the studs for the first time in the late 1954, then it was re-designed a lot during the years, becoming the stud we all know. The not-italic stud of the photo was produced between 1960 and 1963. You can easily exclude 1963+ noticing that it's not the same exact plastic of the ...