Tsintaosaurus (No company, exclusive to the Museum Of Natural History in Basel, Switzerland)

Review and photos by Stefan Schröder (alias Libraraptor)

Tsintaosaurus is a dinosaur that has not been reconstructed as a figure very often. To be honest, I do not even know of one company that has produced it, maybe our readers know more?

However, the Tsintaosaurus of this review was not produced by a special company but is an exclusive version apparently produced for the Museum Of Natural History in Basel, Switzerland. I originally stumbled across it last summer in a cabinet at the school where my best friend teaches biology. I fell in love immediately and detected its strong resemblance to the Invicta line. After a period of research and help from members of the dinosaur toy forum, I discovered that the Museum Of Natural History in Basel had this model made more than 15 years ago on the occasion of a special exhibition “Dinosaurs from China”, after an example manufactured by their chief preparator. I still do not know if these models have been manufactured by Invicta, hence the strong resemblance, or another plastic factory.

These plain black models did not sell well in their shop – “Those black models did not sell well in our shop – too big was the competition with the colourfully, if not very correctly manufactured ones”, says Renate Müller from the museum shop. I can’t really understand this because In my opinion the Tsintaosaurus figure is really nice. It is 20cm long and 8cm tall. If not of the great quality typified by the Invicta line, it is still one of the better hadrosaur reconstructions out there. The upright posture can surely be discussed, as well as the posture of its arms. But the skin pattern is very detailed and so is the head. The duckbill, the spine and the supposed “sail” between it and the rest of the skull are of great detail, and so are the eyeballs and the nostrils.

Together with the special story that connects me to this animal, this figure will always be a very special one for me. For all the other collectors, especially the ones with an Invicta bias, it could become a strange addition to their collection. As far as I know they don´t have that many anymore in Basel, but you can try to get one at nmb@bs.ch

Interested in this figure – check out the relevant thread at the Dinosaur Toy Forum.

Micromachines dinosaurs (National Geographic Collection/ Micromachines)

Micromachines, a brand noted for their wide range of miniature automobiles, stepped outside the box when they produced a series of dinosaurs in association with National Geographic. Obviously they are all tiny, a bit smaller than the figures in Kaiyodo’s dinotales range, but they are quite nice and very collectible. Also like Kaiyodo, they are not to scale to each other.

Detail from the back of the card of a showing the six different sets available.

Six sets were produced, one including a set of skeletons (and tiny palaeontologists) (set 1), two sets of Jurassic dinosaurs (sets 2 and 3), and three sets of Cretaceous dinosaurs (sets 4-6) . Each set contained three dinosaur figures, nicely packaged on a card. Set 4 (pictured loose below) contained Brachiosaurus, Euoplocephalus and Pachycephalosaurus. The figures are jointed in places, the Brachiosaurus neck, the Euoplocephalus tail, the Pachycephalosaurus legs and arms, but otherwise they are static. The figures are nicely detailed but quite dull, and all quite similar in colour. The quadropedal figures in the line are freestanding but the bipedal ones are attached to a simple grey supporting base.

Set 1 (pictured below, mint in box), contains Protoceratops, Ceratosaurus and a pterosaur. The skeletons are white with speckled dark bits. The pterosaur is interesting because transparent plastic indicates the outlines of the wing membranes. The details are general very fine and pretty accurate in the series, although there are some notable figures which are out of date (Spinosaurus and Deinonychus for example).

Although they are out of production, they are often available for very little money, if you search for Micromachines dinosaurs on Ebay.

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Stenonychosaurus / Troodon (Invicta)

Review by Stefan Schröder (alias Libraraptor)

This Invicta Stenonychosaurus/ Troodon is already 21 years old and still one of the best coelurosaur reconstructions that have ever been made.

I really like this very credible sculpture for it has many details which are not obvious at first sight. Since the scale is larger than the typical Invicta scale they could afford giving it real eyeballs. The shape of the snout has been carved out accurately and has distinct nostrils. The tail hits the eye immediately – the figure is very balanced and portrays the presumed agility of these small dinosaurs.

The posture is good but it is the only Invicta dinosaur to need a supporting base (a different colour to the rest of the figure), to which the feet attach in sockets, but it pays off. The dinosaur looks like pausing after a quick sprint, watching out either for prey or for predators, always ready to continue its sprint.

20 years ago there was no “feathered dinosaur” discussion and, to be honest, I could not imagine this kind of model wearing feathers, although the real Troodon probably had feathers. But who cares? This clearly is not an everyday dinosaur figure, it is an outstanding ambassador for the already outstanding Invicta line!

The figure can occasionally be found on Ebay

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photos by ‘Webdragon’, used with kind permission

Tyrannosaurus rex (baby) (Jurassic Park: ‘Dinosaurs 2′, Kenner)

Review by Cordylus

This little guy is one of my favorite Jurassic Park repaints, the original baby rex was released as part of the first wave of Jurassic Park: The Lost World figures (Series 1). The repaint was released later under the ‘Dinosaurs 2′ line – the figure comes with a human and some accessories, but this review will just look at the dinosaur itself.

Any inaccuracies that one can find can be easily dismissed- this is, after all, a baby, so of course proportions and things like that would be open to debate. This little baby is very cute, he is pretty chubby and has fat little arms. His feet and legs are very long and oversized, adding to the cute baby look. He has little needle teeth, and large eyes. He is scaly, no downy feathers (as some paleontologists now suppose) and he looks quite good this way. His tail sways to the right and then the left. He has five points of articulation – Legs, arms, and jaw. He is hard plastic, not rubbery like some other jurassic park dinosaurs and he stands perfectly fine on two feet.

His color scheme is very nice too- the original figure was purple and brown but the repaint is a nice dark blue-gray on the back, which fades into a periwinkle color. He has nice light blue stripes running down is body, some of which are outlined in black. He has a white “JP” symbol on his leg, maybe he was captive-bred? His eyes are red with black slit pupils- this contradicts the movie, as the animals in Jurassic Park had circular pupils. Maybe this is a different subspecies, or a genetic mutation! His teeth are very curiously painted, the bottoms of the teeth are painted white, while the sides are painted black – Maybe he has tooth rot?

This little guy is great for any collection- and he is quite common and cheap. If you are lucky, he can still be found at some KB toy stores, and it is quite common if you search for Jurassic Park toys on Ebay.

 

Images from JPToys, used with kind permission – a great site for Jurassic Park toy information!

Edaphosaurus (Bullyland)

Review by Stefan Schröder (‘Libraraptor’)

This figure is not a dinosaur but a very felicitous reconstruction of a plant-eating pelycosaur from the Lower Permian period. Once again Bullyland proved they are able to create realistic and authentic figures of extinct animals. I said felicitous because the Bullyland Edaphosaurus is very authentic in many aspects. The skin pattern is very detailed and its colouring is credible, yet perhaps a little bit boring. The shape of the head is realistic; the brim of the sail on the back is red with two red dots in the middle, maybe for intimidation of competitors, maybe for courtship, maybe for physiological reasons. There is another aspect I appreciate: the reconstruction does not look like it is made of rubber but because of the colouring and skin pattern like a resin version of a higher quality. Altogether I recommend this figure to every collector who is not only fixed on dinosaurs but wants to extend his collecting passion on other extinct animals. A great contribution to every collection!

The figure can occasionally be found on Ebay

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Picture by ‘Sbell’, used with permission