C is for Contribution Week - VII - Battat's 'Terra' from Brian

T is for Terra

Just a quick one, I know I said we'd have a News, Views yesterday, but because I've been a couple of weeks ahead since the 20th December, and wanted to get the 12-Days thing out of the way before the other unpleasantness (a whole harbour and industrial estate, from thin air, bwaahahahahahah!), we will continue with odds and sods from Picasa and a box-ticker or two for a while I think? [Written 5th Jan and totally out of context now! Except the harbour complex,; that's still dead funny]

These came courtesy of Brian Berke, back at the end of the summer, and were going to be a Rack-toy Month thing, then a December thing but I ran out of room and time, so they're here; now! No - Now!

Bears! Brown and white, nice sculpts, certainly as good as anything done by Britains or Schleich in the last 60 years! But - priced to the point where a whole family can be obtained for the price of a single lump of German vinyl-rubber.

Brian reported them being in Target when he first eMailed them to me (and these are marked on the rear 'Only at Target'), and by the autumn I'd found them in TK Max which means they may have been in TJ Max - over the pond by Christmas? (That's a question mark covering my arse against future accusations, not that I haven't used them in the past, but some people...). They have since appeared in Wilkinson's (Wilco) and Poundland as well.

The Poundland one is a huge fantasy warrior'ess/Amazon type - about 6", but not for a pound; having bought out 99p Stores, a year ago, they were themselves bought out in the autumn and are now starting to carry items for far more than a pound, re-locating themselves in the market somewhere below Poundstreatcher or that place I found in Basingrad (Home Bargains) before Christmas; who were also in the news the other day with good sales-figures for the holiday period. When you've created lots of [relatively] poor people - discount stores become 'where it's at'!

The tubs were not to be found in Wilco's, probably because they have the similar set of not-so-blind bag dinosaurs (coming to the Blog soon) along with the cats (which we looked at over Christmas) and some dogs but they were in the larger TK Max down at Farnborough Gate, although they weren't in the smaller Basingrad one, so it's a bit hit-and-miss clearly!

As well as the mini-animals tubs ($7.99 is about a £-fiver* - I didn't note the UK prices!), the dinosaurs and the wild animal range, I also saw large-scale farm/domestic types in TK over Christmas.

*Given what's happening in both countries at the moment: by the time you read this it could be 1,000 dollars to the pound or £1,000 for $1!

While the whole range are Terra by Battat, these larger dinosaurs are further credited to the Dan LoRusso Collection; whether he designed them or sculpted them I don't know, but they are very good.

As mentioned above - a fantasy range also exists.

When I was a kid, Hydras (in books) were always fat, female-looking, opera-singer type giants with lots of snakes for hair, but at some point in the early 1980's that seems to have been changed to multi-headed dino-dragons, I guess we have Ray Harryhaussen to blame for this situation, but Mr. Gygax may have had a hand in it!

I guess it's easier to sculpt 2, 3, 4 or even (as here) 5 heads that a few dozen! But again; beautifully executed and clearly the meaner cousin of T-Rex? As always - thanks to Brian for the contribution.

More on Battat at rhe STS Toy Animal Wiki; Here