In 1932 Ole Kirk Christiansen, founder of The Lego Group, started making and selling wooden toys out of his shop in Billund, Denmark. The company continued making wooden toys until 1960, two years after the Lego brick as we know it today was born. Now The Lego Group celebrates old and new with a seven inch tall, $120 minifigure made out of wood. Well, except for the hands.
The Lego Originals Wooden Minifigure, available starting November 3 at Lego.com, is not so much a toy as it is a collectible art piece. Crafted from real oak, other than the hands, which are plastic for gripability purposes, the piece neatly sums up the whole of Lego history.
The Wooden Minifigure, five times the size of the icon plastic people introduced in 1978, comes packaged in a premium collector’s box. Inside are a collection of plastic Lego bricks, so fans can build little models for the figure to hold, as well as a booklet detailing the creation of the wooden model. The booklet also includes a collection of photos showing how Lego designers used paint and props to customize the figure, creating their own unique celebrations of Lego history. Here are a few of my favorites.
My home is absolutely littered with Lego minifigures. Maybe it’s time to sequester my tiny plastic pals away in a nice, comfy drawer and replace them with something a bit more classy. Or I’ll just keep them out and arrange them around the Lego Originals Wooden Minifigure so they can worship it as their god.
One of those.