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World of Warcraft Mega Bloks. Hypothetically, any retailer that has a large enough toy section that Legos hasn't completely pushed out any "Lego-compatible" building brick sets. On-line too, I guess, but the few I have I actually picked up out of clearance bins at places like Target.

From http://www.megabloks.com/en/corpo/pdf/20040802.pdf :

The block was originally created by Harry Fisher Page of the UK company Kiddicraft Ltd. in the late 1930â(TM)s, and later reproduced and marketed by Lego, Mega Bloks and other traders in the toy business.

From: http://www.marquedor.com/telemarque/archives/02-06-01b_en.htm :

In 1947 or 1948, Ole Kirk Christiansen and his son Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, respectively grandfather and father of Kirk Kristiansen, obtained samples of KIDDICRAFT self-locking toys and these samples led them to make the first LEGO toys. KIDDICRAFT brick construction sets with cylindrical knobs were designed, manufactured and sold by Mr. Harry Fisher Page, a British citizen, and protected by patents in the United Kingdom, Canada and France . These patents were obtained between 1940 and 1952.

From: http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2005/2005scc65/2005scc65.pdf :

From The LEGO toy business was founded in 1932. In 1949, Kirkbi produced its first toy building blocks. Those blocks were derived from a British product, the Kiddicraft blocks, which used a system of interlocking blocks. Kirkbi bought the patents covering the Kiddicraft system a few years later.

Mega Bloks.

Fully compatible with Lego(tm) (i.e. exact duplicate of most blocks). Lego tried to sue them unsuccessfully.

* The LEGO brand name should always be written in capital letters.
* LEGO must never be used as a generic term or in the plural or as a possessive pronoun, e.g. "LEGO's".
* When the LEGO brand name is used as part of a noun, it must never appear on its own. It should always be accompanied by a noun. For example, LEGO set, LEGO products, LEGO Group, LEGO play materials, LEGO bricks, LEGO universe, etc.

For me, I don't care what you call them, but I'd appreciate it if LEGO tried to out-do Mega Bloks' space shuttle .

Yeah megabloks would never sell out like that.

Yeah megabloks would never sell out like that.

Yeah megabloks would never sell out like that.

Yeah megabloks would never sell out like that.

Yeah megabloks would never sell out like that.

This is a great thing, as Legos (whoops! I meant "Models built of Lego bricks") have, as of late, descended into lame branding excercises in order to shift product. Other than the wonderful Technic kits, Legos (whoops!) have become crappy toys that happen to snap together.

Hopefully, now that Lego has been forced to allow interoperation, other more innovative building brick companies can fill the void.

Or maybe not.

This is a great thing, as Legos (whoops! I meant "Models built of Lego bricks") have, as of late, descended into lame branding excercises in order to shift product. Other than the wonderful Technic kits, Legos (whoops!) have become crappy toys that happen to snap together.

Hopefully, now that Lego has been forced to allow interoperation, other more innovative building brick companies can fill the void.

Or maybe not.

This is a great thing, as Legos (whoops! I meant "Models built of Lego bricks") have, as of late, descended into lame branding excercises in order to shift product. Other than the wonderful Technic kits, Legos (whoops!) have become crappy toys that happen to snap together.

Hopefully, now that Lego has been forced to allow interoperation, other more innovative building brick companies can fill the void.

Or maybe not.

As for 'independent' - I doubt it. The website publishing the magazine is the only site granted permission by The LEGO Group to use 'LEGO' in it's domain name, and it has a TLG employee on its board.

The clones do make some good kits though -- war stuff that Lego would never touch, more serious models, and this awesome space shuttle , which, at 2000+ plus bricks is not only MASSIVE, but also pretty fun to build -- It's got way more stuff (satellites, space labs) than, and is vastly superior to the merely 827 piece current shuttle offering from Lego.

Megabloks are the new lego, now that lego is focused on specialized piece models.

Check out the awesome dragon series.

Which is one reason that Mega Bloks rock these days. They're cheaper and are made with far fewer specialized parts. I picked up a 1700+ piece aircraft carrier for $30 at a discount store and I think the only specialized pieces were the F-14's that came with it.

Ritvik makes mega bloks. However, their site is very very useless. You can get them at Toys R Us, but I would suggest that you go to a local toy store (try one of the independant stores) and see if you can get them to order them in bulk?

I have no idea how these blocks are sold, so YMMV.

Lego also makes (or used to make) very large foam lego bricks. They show up on ebay and bricklink.com sometimes.

And after typing this entire post, i reread yours and saw that you were looking for 2 INCH by 4 INCH blocks... in that case what you probably want is Duplo, made by lego. look at lego's catalog.

Forgive me if this post is incoherent, I really should go to bed right now.

But please!! Keep making the old stuff. I can't even walk to walmart or target or shopko anymore and buy a tub of decent pieces when I run short of 2 x 4's. They don't sell them anymore. I'm stuck with online sales only now.

How about Mega Bloks? I bought a big huge Battleship box full of 780 pieces for like $30 CDN. That works out to around 2.5 cents USD per piece, and this ship is almost entirely "standard" type blocks. Unbelievable value as compared to the "premium overpriced" Lego brand bricks.

Boy I sure am tempted by that Lego brand Star Destroyer though ;)

Mega-Bloks ... almost, but not totally unlike Lego bricks ...

If you had the dimensions of the blocks, and knew approximately what plastic formula to use, you could flood the market with cheap blocks and undercut Lego themselves.

There already is: MEGA BLOKS. They've got some nifty sets (the USS Kittyhawk set looks cool), but they're not Lego.

In my (and other enthusasts' as well) mind, they just don't stack up against real Legos.

If you had the dimensions of the blocks, and knew approximately what plastic formula to use, you could flood the market with cheap blocks and undercut Lego themselves.

There already is: MEGA BLOKS. They've got some nifty sets (the USS Kittyhawk set looks cool), but they're not Lego.

In my (and other enthusasts' as well) mind, they just don't stack up against real Legos.