T is for Terra by Battat - 2025

So this year I didn't see any Terra at Birmingham, but did shoot these in London, on an after-market suppliers stall, again I didn't note the company's name, but they had mostly third-party, early-reader books and soft-toys, if I recall correctly.

 

Taller, thinner versions of the fat tubs, now 'toobs' and probably with fewer duplicates or a one-of-each pose count, or something like that?

 

The huge buckets again!

 

The larger tubs of smallies are still out there, but they are having their flimsy 'cartons' and lids replaced with more substantial, long-term storage 'jars' with coloured lids and carry-handles.

 

I don't think I've had much, at all, of this make, come into the collection, since Brain's original shelfies in 2017, but I will keep an eye-out for the new, thin toobs, and grab them if I see them, just for the sample. I suspect there may be some of it among the unknown sea-life or insect zones?

T is for Terra by Battat - 2023

As a first update to the previous post, there was nothing of note at the 2022 show, and while I missed the 2023 show due to other commitments, I did make it to the Spring [gift] Fair at Birmingham's NEC, where I shot these on a whole-seller's stall, whose name I didn't record.

 

Close-ups of things we've seen before, for the most part, I haven't seen that much 'out and about' but I'm guessing natural history museum's or zoological garden gift shops are a first choice for searching for them, with - maybe - a garden centre chain I haven't found yet being another likely source? We have shelfied a few in TK Maxx I think, but I haven't seen them in Smyths or B&M?

T is for Terra by Battat - 2020

Back to the 2020 Toy fair in London, and what was already a looming global health crisis, if you were paying attention to the news over Christmas, which I was, but funny, with nearly everything else cancelled that year, the Toy fair went ahead as normal and would actually get cancelled the following year, just as the world was coming out of its multiple-lockdowns!

 

And this lot didn't get posted at the time because I'd posted quite a bit in the preceding few years, since Brian Berke brought them to our attention in 2017, and this was (still is, on one level) repetitive of those previous mentions, but let's get it and two smaller updates out of Picasa and the Blog up-to-date on the subject!

 

Giant tubs, or 'buckets'!

 

Various packaging formats.

 

Larger Dinosaurs, nice models.

 

Smaller tubs of smaller figures, with duplicates - early learning target?

 

The wild and domestic animal families are really very good.

 

More Dino's including play sets

I think there were farm play sets' as well.

 

Small Dinosaur set.

 

Further displays.

I can't remember if these were shot on an agents stand, with or without a Battat representative, or on an actual Battat stand, usually I shoot them on other peoples stands, and if they had a stand that yera , it wwas the only year they've done so?

T is for Toy Fair 2018 Reports - Terra by Battat

Well, less than seven days to the next Toy Fair, I thought I'd better clear the decks of the remains of last year's! This is actually a combination of the Toys Fair shots, some catalogue-scans and the last of the shelfies Brian B sent some time before the Toy Fair, most of which have already been included in other posts.

Starting with the dinosaurs, these are quite exquisite with really nice colouring, it's funny; not only are Battat trying to break into a Schleich/Papo duopoly (the triumvirate [tripartite?] surrendered to them by Britians a while ago now), but when you look at some of the cheapie-toy dinosaurs these days - they've all raised their game, both in sculpting and the realism of the decoration, as referenced by modern/extant snakes and tropical birds - each of which is a good starting point.

However back to Battat these are all ten sculpts in the catalogue a year ago and while covering all the common or 'headline' types, there are one or two less obvious species in the line.

On the left the dinosaurs, on the right the mini-animal tubs, along with the counter display unit (CDU) for larger farm animals, apparently 2-each of the larger animals and 1-each of the smaller, there's less adherence to scale here, especially the sheep and pig.

Those mini-animal tubs; they seem to be aimed at the party-circuit/market, with not just duplicates but multiples of every sculpt? You feel that one-of-each of pairs in smaller headed-carded bags. Also they are a bit 'bright' and you wonder if they are either bought-in or simply made with less love, for a budget end-price! Note that the 'Reptiles' also contains amphibians.

Close-ups from Mr Berke of the Wild Animals (in the catalogue but not on show last year) and the REP-TILES [with amphibians], at 60 pieces it's obvious that there may be as many as 5 or 6 of each animal in the tub - a likely minimum of 5? Which will make it easy to collect these when they start appearing in Charity shops, but will also mean the duplicates will be near-impossible to off-load (if you're a dealer) other than by gifting to younger relative!

Also from Brian we have two of the 'family' group sets; lions and gorillas, the later look quite nice, but the former are not so hot, there's a slight simplicity or naivety to the sculpts, the lioness particularly looks slightly cartoonish and while manes are never easy, this one is poorer than most.

There's cats . . . and a cat tree! But again there's a bit of a mix, the rabbit set looks very good, bt I'd walk straight-past the dog firehouse, not only does in look a bit daft (do people actually have shit like that for their dogs?) but again the animals are a bit cartoony, although the lioness looks better in this sample!

Also it's nice to see separate sculpts for Brown and Polar bear families, instead of a paint change. Zebra's are poor, but so are just-about all model zebras - against the real thing, which has a subtly all model-animal companies seem to struggle-with, not the shape; they mostly get the shape, but the markings . . . oh dear!

CDU for the larger animals contains some new sculpts and some of the 'adults' from the family-group boxed-sets. The cheetah has lovely markings but the under-colouring is a bit limp, while the midge-collecting bird on the back of the water-buffalo is a nice touch.

I hope the liner has a hole in it for the giraffe, but how do you stack multiples in a warehouse?!!!

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