The Imperial Stormtrooper has been in every official Star Wars toy line since 1978, even when it wasn't in the films. Could it be the most reproduced toy in history?

I’ve been collecting Stormtrooper figures for about ten years and I’m now at 730 pieces. At some point along the way I started wondering if the Stormtrooper might be the most reproduced toy in history — not just from Kenner and Hasbro, but counting every manufacturer across every country over nearly 50 years. Official, bootleg, custom, vinyl, resin, die-cast, Japanese Pepsi bottle caps, Thai resin art toys, a figure that spent 24 years inside a tree. One thing that stands out is that the...