Dr. is for Steve Hunter

Continuing the themes da jour - Dino-shelfies; we've seen these before, and it's more from TK Maxx from the other day, still from Geoworld, and still dinosaurs, may even have shelfied the same animals last time (quickly checks the dongle - no, it was some unpronounceable raptor-like thing!), but a reminder never hurt!

Putting my critics hat on I'd say the decoration is lazy on these otherwise quite nice sculpts, the bright colours on both being almost last-minute stab (or spray)-and-hope additions, particularly on the Dilong - stupid name = stupid colours!

These two are much better and the kerthunkersaur 'Polacanthus' is a rather fine variant of the family . . . in fact they are both all less common species than you normally get which is in their favour and helps forgive the red-blobs on the first pair!

That's it, Geoworld, Dr. Steve Hunter dino-shelfies, TK Maxx now!

D is for Dino'shelfies!

Although there are a couple-of-three other animal sets, it was a title waiting to happen! A quick look at a few sets out there at Christmas time in case you need to buy yourself a present.

These are branded to NBC Apparel, not the first time in TKMaxx (for that is where they were) at this time of year. Mini animals and mini Chinasaurs in bog-standard toobs, but at five or six quid I only shelfied them to ID them as they come in loose - indeed I think that Hippo may already be here somewhere, and the Dino's with blue bellies look familiar!

A bit big and a bit toy-like, but I know the serious Dinosaur collectors will want one, especially as it seems to be a specific, yet less commonly modelled species, namely; an Eustreptospondylus! Let me get my teeth back in and I'll have another go . . . Yoos-trepto-spondye-luss (or 'dee-luss'), not that bad actually! Geoworld for this one.

The Daddy! "Inspires Learning"? Yeah; learn you don’t go anywhere near carnivorous dinosaurs as tall as your house! Playtek LLC, another we've seen before in TKM. They've both been manufactured with that two-halves hollow PVC or ethylene, but it's the standard way these days; larger mammals or other toy animals come the same way now, even big ducks!

Three tubs from Ravensden PLC; sea life, Chinasaurs and wild animals, again the metallic blue 'ceratops looks familiar, although to be honest I thing the sea-life is the better value-for-money, the other two having a number of duplicates. All three sets also have some relatively new or unique flat tress or other plants/shrubs/seaweeds.

Half a mile from TKMaxx these were made for B&M Retail (B&M Stores) by . . . err . . . whoever made then for 99p Stores (twice?), TKMaxx, Poundland, Poundworld Plus and the other lot . . . Blue-something or something-Blue? I've even done a post on all the brands we've seen these under, and after singles and triples you can now get the lot in one hit!

I'm beginning to regret the three or four quid I've spent on my three or four animals, as they are going to be common in Charity shops for the next twenty years (although with some scientists only giving us fifteen years now (their climate models underestimated), that might itself be a clever trick!), still, I can pick up the ones I haven't got, remember there are two paint variants (so far!) for some of these - or all six.

However, note the price; rounding off, the unit price of one set's individual animals is £2.20p, or for the B2F20, £1.60p (if my math's are right), both way over the 99p or £1 we've previously seen them at, even the tripple set at TKM a couple of years ago was only about £4.99p (giving roughly £1.50p each), and that's how capitalism works - these will more than pay for previous discounting, and there's less packaging per-animal here, so the true differential is even greater!

D is Dinosaur Round-up

Not something you'd contemplate from the back of a horse, or even an open-jeep! Being; all the Dinosaur-related stuff hanging around on the desk-top or in Picasa. Have we had that attempt at humour before?

Brian B sent these back in the autumn, if not further ago, and they were sitting patiently waiting their turn (which is now), and while I know some of you will be groaning inwardly with a sighed "Not more novelty crap on SCW!", the fact is, if you have a skeleton army outside of the restrictive-practice legislation of someone like Games Workshop, these are fantastic, who wouldn't want a dirt-cheap, dead-bear 'Champion' or a skeletal War Elephant!

And bollocks to scale - you're proposing to field an army of skeletons who have not only come back to life, but can operate under combat conditions without muscles or sinews holding their bones together! And Geoworld give you a 'free' iceberg for your Revell Titanic model-kit or Timpo Esquimaux - double bargain!

I bought the upper group the other day for a quid, and photographed them with the aim of trying to separate them into the two (or even three) origin-samples I thought might be in the bag - along with the three 'minis' we saw in the Paul Lamond-post a couple of days ago.

But then - looking for something else in the archive - I found the lower shot, taken from the US importer D&D Distibution's catalogue, and it would appear that while I'm missing one or two (all right - three!), they are all from the same source!

Quite old-school in execution, they are a softish PVC, although there is variation enough in density between them for me to have set-about trying to sort them into separate lots! I seem to be missing the large upright sauropod-looking green one, the spinosaur next to him and the flying dinosaur to the left (in white), although I think I may have the 'bog-standard' palm-tree somewhere!

Picked this up because it's a Dimetrodon! Don't know anything else about it (it might have been carried by HGL - that's something else about it actually!), but look at my Dimetrodon! It's a Dimetrodon and it's mine!

Picture Credit - Meme via Doghousediaries 2012

If you squeeze his head together his teeth line-up nicely and slot together! It's purely coincidental - I think - but it's cool!

This is also from Brian B and is only posed (I hope, the thought of dinosaurs free to wander up the tracks is worrying!), but it's a rather neat use of different sized/scaled sauropods to make a family group, here paying a little too much attention to the bus-station under the arches!

Thanks to Brian for both contributions and more dino's to-come today.

D is for Dinosaurs - Modern

Most of these have been sitting in Picasa for a year, or two, or more! So they may not all still be available, however the article will give you an idea of the sort of stuff out there these days if you have a hankering to start collecting - mostly small - dinosaurs! Or to identify some if they come in with mixed lots of something else....as is often the case!

The fad for hiding things in plaster must be more than ten years old now and most toy or gift shops have something like this in them most of the time (we looked at Pirates a while ago). and while there is some sense in putting plastic 'fossils' or plastic 'skeletons' in plaster; a whole - glow-in-the-dark - dinosaur? Anyway, these Geoworld digging sets were 99p in The Works a while ago and I bought one for the hell of it. I haven't got it out as they are all illustrated on the box and he/she is easier to store still in the box with a pile of other boxed things!

Paperchase had these for a couple of quid a year or so ago, although I think they are still available. While being rather rounded-off for their primary design-use of pencil-erasers,they are never-the-less reasonable renditions and most dinosaur fleshing-out is conjecture anyway! Indeed, in recent years they've re-invented the way they believe a lot of them moved and stood upright so it's a very movable feast!

Signature Publishing's Dinomite is one of those ephemeral 'comics' that come and go with print runs of - sometimes - only a year or so, I don't even know if it's still going, but there are several 'dinosaur'-titled kids periodicals on the self at any given moment and they all buy-in mass-produced Chinese manufactured bits and bobs as cover premiums, as this had two I bought it.

The contents (from Co-Prom) are common 'toob' toys which have been around for a while now, but this stuff gets marketed in dozens of ways, and they are quite nice sculpts.

Back to The Works for more clearance! Nicely finished with a matt coat, these are let down by being a bit wobbly, they're made of one of these new slightly 'crumbly' hybrid plastics like some of the HäT stuff which seems to be PVC with a bit of styrene in it?

The rest of the Dinowaurs (geddit?!) bumpf from One2play, the inevitable 'collectors/trading' card and a set of rules for a sort of three-dimensional 'Trumps'. These were down to 49p, so I grabbed a handful over a week or two, while they were available!

All the above are small figures, a few inches long at most (the Paperchase are the biggest), but then collecting dinosaurs in true scale at 1:7something or even 54mm would require a warehouse as a living space...