M is for Manageri of Mini Mammals

I mentioned the other day (Henbrandt insect post) the plethora of small-scale animals around and about at the moment and their similarity to each other, I'm going to look at three lots now, one of which we've seen before, but there are several more sets out there.

I think these were a charity-shop bag a while ago, but I can't remember, they are clearly the same 'batch' being all made of a slightly matt or flowery rubberised material, in an orange colour, to which another colour is added by way of detailing!

I quite like the yak thing on the bottom row, and the bear would make a good polar bear with a white paint-job, but most of the rest are poor sculpts, what they all have in common (except the giraffe) is a maximum dimension of 40-to-50mm. The goat is err . . . ahem . . . very male!

 

I then got another big lot of small animals in another charity shop a few months ago, it was a larger lot with some in pairs and some single animals and a few question marks, one of which is the two Hippopotamus sculpts.

They have the same 'China' mark and look to be by the same sculptor, but the mark means nothing as we'll see in a minute, and it would be odd to have two versions in a set which originally seems to have had pairs, especially when there is already a pair of the other hippo sculpt?

The same lot also gave-up these, and there is a mix of scales because the 40 (hyena) to 50mm (wolverine? And otter or mongoose?) rule seems to be being followed! The fox, wolf and panther are quite good sculpting, but the other big cat is a dodgy effort at what I think is meant to be a cheetah?!

Another nice yak-like bovid, a slightly comical camel, two reasonable deer/antelope and another pair - horses; along with a quite good zebra - for its size.

The giraffe is another question-mark being less accurate than some of the others and closer to 60mm, but a bigger question mark hangs over the middle ape (an orang-utan?) as he's a much larger scale, a different style of sculpting and seems to belong to a better range altogether, but he has the same mark as the rest? The furry anteaters are another pairing, but poor decoration.

We then come to a double question-mark; The pair of polar bears are clearly from the 'paired' core-sample, and all three have the same mark, but the creamy-white bear seems to be a baby polar bear from a superior line, while the panda is almost too big for the core-sample set, but probably is from it?

Three different hippo's, you can see the poor, orange polymer one is at the smaller (40mm) end of the spectrum of these mini-mammals, while the other two at at the other end, around 60mm to the 23mm Airfix pilot.

As I say there are other sets out there, I was watching one set for a while, but there were about 4 or 5-each of dozens of animals in large tubs for seven-quid-something and I wasn't willing to pay that sort of money for something I don't need in the collection, no matter how much I may think I want it, also they were in a situation where they couldn't be shelfied, but it will give as an excuse to return to these when I've gathered more information on them!

This is as per the previously seen Henbrandt set/part-set (saves a link-back), I re-shot it after I'd shot the other sides in other images, so it's a re-run! They too are 40-50mm with the exception of the giraffe!

The two sets; Henbrandt and 'Orange' along with one each of the larger sample, it was only when setting this shot up that the slightly smaller size of the orange ones [overall] became noticeable, however their elephant, lion and giraffe are 'up-there' with the others and overall the 40-to-50mm is pretty true.

If you were to get the micrometer out and count all horns and tails it would be 35mm-60mm, but then I'd probably have to kill you for being a pedant and a dick.** I suspect there are animals from maybe four sets above, the Henbrandt, the orange-plastic and two others, with one or two stand-alone's which just happen to have the same mark?

Are these cheesey-dreamies? They don't smell like cheesey-dreamies! Thief! I've been robbed!

Can you help ID any of the above (except the Henbrandt, but even they will have other branding elsewhere!), or tie-down the ape and bear question-marks?

** Given the way the Internet and anti-social media are going I feel I should point out that's an attempt at humour, not a direct threat, although they burned Galileo at the stake for being a tad too accurate and he probably didn't even have a micrometer, so . . .