"Tiger" Dinosaur Excavation Kit - or Conduct your own Dig!

[ceratopsian]

I have a close friend who doesn't share my dinosaur hobby but who is always generous in supporting my peculiar foibles.  She's also an avid shopper who enjoys buying things for other people!  To my great delight, she presented me last week with a little box, 8 cm across, which she had found in a branch of Tiger in London.  For those of you who (like me) haven't come across this store, it apparently sells lots of cheap items and changes its stock regularly every couple of months.

Here's the box


It's not exactly aimed at my age group (in my 50s), but who cares?  I happily played with it yesterday and conducted my own excavation.  Here's the opened box and contents:

I was charmed by the little chisel and brush!

I set to work chipping away the matrix. The boxes can contain one of nine dinosaurs but you don't know which until you dig (good sales ploy). I was hoping for the Triceratops, but it quickly became clear I had a sauropod....


On I pressed.  It was a surprisingly mucky and dusty process - glad I had cardboard and backing tray!


The Brachiosaurus was very wrinkly and I got a good cast of its skin as I pecked away at the matrix!


Nearly free from matrix:


And finally my fossil revealed in its full, wrinkly and (not exactly accurate!) glory, to be displayed in my "museum"!


I'd have loved this kit if I was a child.  Actually I loved it anyway!

Hope I've managed to post pictures correctly (and that it doesn't count as picture-heavy) - it's my first rather nail-biting attempt!

[Shuvuuia]

Not that specific brand, but "excavate a dinosaur" toys like that were a staple of my childhood. The best one I did contained several pieces of bone that snapped together to firm the full skeleton of a T.rex.

[ceratopsian]

Nothing like it ever came my way, I'm afraid, hence the pleasure in playing with it much later in life!

[terrorchicken]

cute! too bad they cant find whole dinos intact in real life like that!

[ceratopsian]

It would make life so much simpler, wouldn't it!  None of those cases with toys being reconstructed from very fragmentary remains!

[LophoLeeVT]

there are a lot of these sets aroud here!!!

[Dilopho]

I got one for christmas that came with a tiny triceratops model. Inside the block were a real coprolite, a real mosasaur tooth and a tiny piece of actual dinosaur bone, species unidentified. Nothing particularly rare or valuable, but they still made my day! Yaaaay!

[ceratopsian]

I got one for christmas that came with a tiny triceratops model. Inside the block were a real coprolite, a real mosasaur tooth and a tiny piece of actual dinosaur bone, species unidentified. Nothing particularly rare or valuable, but they still made my day! Yaaaay!

Yours was definitely a superior kit to mine!

[Dinomike]

My son got a Triceratops bone excavation set for Xmas. It's rather large so we still have a lot to go through!  A fun thing to do!

[Derek.McManus]

A friend got similar dig kits for her twin daughters the only drawback was the large amount of dust! Fun was had by all except mum cleaning up afterwards!