Moschops (White Post)

3.5 (6 votes)

White Post is no company, but the location of “Dinosaur Land”, a theme park dedicated to prehistoric animals in Virginia, USA. This park has been run as a family business for over 50 years now. Early in the history of the park the operators had the idea of having some of their lifesize figures made into small plastic figures for their souvenir shop. In respect thereof these figures are an equivalent of the Kleinwelkas from the German Democratic Republic. (Here, for instance, is their Diplodocus.)
According to the Dinosaur Collector Site A, these figures are very collectible, impossible to find and go for high prices. This is probably due to both a small edition and the fact that it´s quite hard to tell the value of such a beast in a toy box or on a flea market. It even says “Hong Kong” at the belly! I hate the thought that uninformed parents threw many of these away after their childrens´ dinosaur development phase (which we enthusiasts never really grew out of, right?)

Here you can see other figures of this line. Some remind me at the Invictas in terms of their monochromacity and their overall look, yet these beasts have been modeled far more roughly and look much, well, cheaper.
Here is the homepage of the theme park.
And here is a link to a great collection of photographs showing the life-sized models the figures are based on.
Moschops (Greek for “calf face”) is an extinct genus of therapsid that lived in the Guadalupian epoch, around 265–260 million years ago. Therapsids are synapsids, which once were the dominant land animals. Its remains were found in the Karoo region of South Africa.
Besides the Moschops, there are many other interesting species, for example a Saltoposuchus, a Diatryma or a Tylosaurus. And they are all said to be ugly. Well, yes, they are ugly to a certain extent.
But to put it bluntly: There´s no accounting for taste, and this Moschops is a figure that suits me down to the ground!

It is 9 cm long and 3,5 cm tall. Its colour is a monochrome purple/tan. It looks as if someone had smeared green colour at its flanks.
Honestly, one would not recognize this figure as a Moschops if it had not been called a Moschops. The front legs should stand taller than the hind legs, the head is a catastrophe and the eyes look like they belong to an insectoid alien. And the figure even seems to have two muzzles. Very odd! There are some rough bumps at the flanks and a ridge extends to its back, but don´t expect anything looking like a continuous skin pattern. Both the forefeet and the hindfeet have been sculpted sloppily, and so has the whole figure. It looks like it is walking on brittle ice, permanently afraid of breaking. Anatomy didn´t play a role in sculpting this model, which is incomprehensible, since the original looks quite decent. It seems like the contractors modeled this figure after a badly shot picture from an unlucky perspective.
But it does have charme for it evokes both pity and the thrill of the chase. This is an interesting in-between affect. I was lucky to get mine in a pleasant trade, but I don´t have the slightest clue for a reference source. I guess it´s most probable to find one of these by scanning endless amounts of ebay lots. Good luck!


To sum it up: White Post Moschops is definitely no beauty, but true beauty is a matter of what your heart tells you, and so this figure for me, despite all its inaccuracy, gets 5 out of 5 stars. To me it stands in a line with the Marx or Tootsie Toys Moschops.


Is this a museum quality figure, sculpted correctly? The point is moot. This is the kind of figure that make a collector´s life worthwhile!

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Comments 2

  • The skull of Moschops also make scientists think that rival males battled like battering rams and as a kind of social communication among herds.

  • This is definitely not the best Moschops figure I have seen. I am not fan of the dark green color applied on both sides of this model. The tail is way too long. But as details and sculpting are concerned, I love the bulbous scales on the body and the range of spine/backbone along its back. Moschops was a reptile-like mammal, lived in the Late Permian of Karoo Bassin in South Africa and belonged to the group of ”Dinocephalians.”
    It has some kind of Retro and Nostalgic appeal to me, though its inaccuracies and ugliness.
    We must cherish those kind of dinosaur figurines because they marked the history of the appearance of dinosaurs in life and their discovery.[When Richard Owen in the 19th Century first discovered remains of dinosaurs for the first time and people thought of them as giant lizards.] They also entertained us during our childhood as enthusiasts of prehistoric life.

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