The Dinosaur Toy Blog

Now here’s a figure I know some of you will recognise from your childhood – the Carnegie Deinonychus trio. Remember your childhood? Those halcyon, carefree days that were spent frolicking through flowery fields and dawbing awful dinosaurs using wax crayons? Well, those days are gone – GONE – and you can’t have them back. Ever. However, if you’re lucky you can still get this long-retired figure from your youth back into your collection, and it’s a nice little piece for its age.

Of course, these days it’s horribly out of date (no feathers, inaccurate hands etc. etc.). However, it’s still a lovely little 20-year-old figure. Three ferocious Deinonychus are stuck into the rocky base, all of them lunging forward at some unseen prey. The poses are very dynamic and convincing – two of the animals have their left legs springing them forward with the right leg raised high, while the other, with its right foot touching the ground, looks like it’s about to fall over in the frenzy. They are very reminiscent of Bob Bakker’s famous depiction of a running Deinonychus – they even appear to have wattles.

As is typical of the early Carnegie figures, fine detail can be a little lacking – particularly when it comes to the heads, which look a little crude and blobby, as do the painted-on eyes and teeth. In addition, the animals’ feet that connect with the base are – at least in the case of the rear pair – notably larger than those raised in the air. Not a single claw is painted either (although they do have the correct number of toes). However, in some places the detailing is rather good – the animals all have nostrils, ears and a covering of scales (incorrectly nowadays, but it was 1990) and I like the subdued sandy-with-tiger-stripes colour scheme. There are also suitable skin folds to give the creatures a sense of fluidity and motion.

It’s a curious little figure this one – one of the minority of early Carnegie figures to have a base and the only one to feature 3 animals at once. These days smaller dinosaurs are released at a different scale to the behemoths like Tyrannosaurus, Diplodocus etc. which makes these early efforts at keeping all the Carnegie dinosaurs at 1:40 very interesting (see also Protoceratops and Dimetrodon which, admittedly, is not a dinosaur). Each Deinonychus here is about 7cm long, which at 1:40 scale gives them a length of 2.8m. That’s close enough, as is the stated length of ’10 feet’ on the base, which for some reason they have translated to a stupendous 8 metres! Steady on, Utahraptor hasn’t been discovered yet.

The Carnegie Deinonychus trio is a fantastic vintage dinosaur collectible – few other figures have matched the dynamic presentation of these animals. It’s a must have for any Carnegie collector of course. Unfortunately it doesn’t appear on eBay as often as some of the other old Carnegies, but if you see it I would highly recommend picking it up.

The title of this review does not really sound promising, does it? But in the next few lines I´ll do my best to entertain you and of course introduce to you my recent acquisition:

My perception of what is a toy includes extraordinary fellows like this one. The theropod – it is probably a Tyrannosaurus but for a reason I´ll explain later I can´t really tell – is 38 cm long and 17,5 cm tall. Its body is divided into lamellae who make it somewhat flexible. It is fun to play with it, even my little daughter would confirm this. The theropod is – hey, it´s wooden – brown. What makes it interesting is the patterns that run frum its neck to the tip of its tail: Tan snakes, green and brown ellipses and black stripes are accompanied by diamond grids at the arms, the feet and all over the body.
Its head looks a little like Kermit the Frog´s – I even think the theropod is smiling.
So it is a friendly little carnivore without any teeth, without any claws and – unfourtunately – also without any hands.

They seem to have broken off somewhere in its history. And who knows how and where this dude spent the last years? There is a ragged rest of a sticker on its belly, but I don´t know if it is a price label or could have told me about the company.
The fact that our friend lost both hands make it impossible to find its species. Most probably it is a Tyrannosaurus.

I found it at a flea market and since I am a collector I took it with me. I could and still cannot tell if this one is African handcraft, cheap bulk commodity or a real work of art. Maybe some of you can help? No matter what will be revealed about this fellow in the future – it will always be “my” find and one of the most uncommon parts of my collection.

Afrovenator - that’s one most people haven’t (and won’t) heard of. It almost makes me surprised that CollectA did one (but I guess if any of the mainstream dinosaur companies were to do one, it would be them).

Afrovenator itself was a megalosaur (or allosaur or spinosaur, does anybody even know?) from mid-jurassic Africa, who was about thirty feet long, and was presumably a pretty nasty fellow. This figure’s sculpt seems to be a passable restoration of him. The skull should be a little taller, and the teeth should be MUCH longer (the fangs on this guy were huge!). The nostrils should be a little higher up on the skull, and the postorbital fenestrae should be a little larger. Oh, and the way they hands are positioned is wrong (but really, you should know that). The sculpt does have some good points though; the scales are nicely sculpted and there’s nice ridges of spines on his back.

The coloration of this guy has to be my favorite part about him. It’s very subtle but very nice. Just a light tan on the belly with a darker olive green on top, with some darker blue green tiger stripes. I think this might be a male, due to the facial coloration, which is very bright orange. The eyes are a reddish brown, with slit pupils (this guy was nocturnal!). The claws are black, but the hallux toes’ claws aren’t painted at all.

Now, the pose. It looks ridiculously kinky, unless you have a puddle of water or a dinosaur carcass in front of it. If you have the rest of the CollectA 2010 set, be sure to not place your Tsintaosaurus behind him

All in all, if you can get past the common CollectA shortcomings which are present here, this is one to get. It’s only about $5, and at about 6 inches long this dinosaur is not too small nor too large. Reviewer recommended!

Review by Dan Liebman, Photos by Mat Hockett

No dinosaur figure collection is complete without Parasaurolophus. While some may outclass her in a popularity contest, she is certainly the most well-known of all hadrosaurs. Her signature crest provides instant recognition, and this reconstruction for the Battat line includes a rarely-depicted stretch of skin running from the crest to the neck.

In recent years, paleontologists like Scott Sampson have contended that many of the exotic features so often found in dinosaurs were actually display structures. Indeed, many appear too fragile to be used in rigorous combat, so it is possible they were used to identify their species and attract mates.

The Battat dinosaurs are known for their flashy color schemes, but it’s plain to see that some extra attention was spent on the crest of this animal. It’s likely the artists also interpreted this as a showy structure, and collectors will no doubt nod feverishly at the suggestion that these figures were “ahead of their time.”

The golden body is lined with cyan along the back, a color which echoes across the entire length of the body and culminates at the head. A series of dark marks underscore the pattern from the ribcage, and continuing on to the anterior of the animal. Many companies seem to skimp on hadrosaurs, perhaps assuming their efforts should be focused on species that will sell better, but no effort seems to have been spared with this piece. Even the eyes are unusually intense for a hadrosaur replica.

Fortunately, the Parasaurolophus is only a moderately rare figure by Battat standards, so they tend to show up on eBay with some regularity. Prices can fluctuate of course, but this one rarely exceeds the $60 range. For any fan of the species, this is easily a must-have, and certainly one of the finest renditions of Parasaurolophus walkeri ever to be produced.