large wooden blocks for three year old

[peacenclarity]

I am looking for a good set of large, natural, maple blocks for my three year old. Has anyone purchased blocks from either http://www.oldfashionedblocks.com/403.html, or Educational Concepts? And if so were they worth the price? They offer alot of unique shapes in their unit sets, but they seem a bit pricey. I am looking for something solid, and long lasting, and, preferably, with unique pieces like the Gothic Arc. Thanks!

[MommaSuzi]

I've purchased ours from Barclay Wood Blocks- They are made in the US by a small shop in Indiana. I absolutely love them (the blocks). I've had fantastic customer service too. We bought the "infant A" set first, and have added the "toddler A" set, and a few individual pieces. The big sets are too expensive for me to afford, so I figure I'll periodically buy small sets and eventually end up with a proper building set of unit blocks. I bought one "premium" set and one "seconds and firsts". The only difference is in coloring- the premiums are all uniform light wood and the seconds have some darker bits with some interesting color variations. I am torn- I like the uniformity of the premiums, but some of the variations in the seconds are actually really pretty.
I love Unit Blocks- it's one of the play activities I truly enjoy doing with my daughter. And I know these blocks will still be around to play with the grandkids some day too!

http://www.barclaywoods.com/

[BCFD]

Have you tried looking on Etsy? There are a lot of "grandpa's" that do custom work.