Hello, newbie here, please be gentle...

I was recently considering the way that certain languages, such as the Chinese languages, have numeral classifiers for objects; for example, you wouldn't say that you have "3 apples," you would say that you have "3 {numeral classifier word} of apples." These numeral classifier words, as I understand it, vary depending on the type of object, its shape & size, etc.

I have listened numerous times to Dr. John McWhorter's lectures for the Teaching Company, which is where I first heard about these numeral classifiers. In his lecture "The Story of Human Language" he mentions that English has a little bit of this in that we don't say "3 cattle," we say "3 head of cattle." In a later lecture, "Myths, Lies, & Half-Truths About English Usage," he discusses the difference between so-called "mass nouns" & "count nouns," to whit:
"How much grain?" (mass noun) vs. "How many beans? (count noun).

Now, consider the following examples:

Person 1: "There's a sale at the department store today, & I'm going to buy a lot of jewelry."
Person 2: "How much jewelry are you going to buy?"  OR
Person 2: "How many pieces of jewelry are you going to buy?"

Person 1: "We need to buy enough furniture to fill this new apartment complex."
Person 2: "How much furniture is that going to be?"   OR
Person 2: "How many pieces of furniture is that going to be?"

In the examples I've just given, does the word "pieces" function as a numeral classifier?

Thank you very much for your time.

2. They are not always possible: "Two books" vs. ?? ("Two items/volumes of book"??)

Interestingly, the term "things" is seeing increasing usage as a classifier in the varieties of English I hear. Admittedly it's pretty abstract and not well-defined yet, but I wonder if it will become standard in the future.

I.e. "two things of books", "six things of bread", "fifteen things of eggs" all sound somewhat grammatical to me, albeit pretty non-specific.

Huh, this makes me think of the language used in recipes. It's pretty common to hear someone say "ok, we need three cups flour, half cup sugar" and so on. But this is a pretty specialized case of English usage, where talking about amounts of mass nouns is much more important than usual.