Review and photos be Patrick Król Padilha (a.k.a. Ikessauro), edited by Plesiosauria.
Hi folks, how you doing? If you don’t remember me, I’m Patrick a.k.a. Ikessauro, a collector from Brazil. I enjoy collecting most kinds of prehistoric critters from companies from all around the world. Those who know me from The Dinosaur Toy Forum are aware that I’m a huge fan of the Salvat dinosaur figures and occasionally I review them here as a guest. If you don’t know the Salvat collection, check out my topic on DTF, there you’ll find a comprehensive database about this weird set of figures.
As I always say, I don’t love the Salvat collection because they are well made or original sculpts but because of nostalgia. When I started my dinosaur collection the only set of figures around with a wide variety of species was the Salvat line. In this review I’ll be focusing on the Amargasaurus model and comparing it to the original Battat Amargasaurus figure, from which Salvat copied the sculpt.
Well, let me start talking about size. The Salvat Amargasaurus is 19 cm long, not very different from the original Battat, but it’s 6.5 cm high, at the top of its neck, making it taller than the figure from the Boston Museum by a few of millimeters. This is mostly due to the positioning of the neck, altered perhaps to avoid copyright problems. As we know, Salvat just picked up the most common models at the time and produced bad copies of them for their collection.
The other main difference is that the figures seem to be mirroring each other; also the Salvat dinosaur has a shorter tail that doesn’t have the long curve as in the Battat model. The details of skin pattern are similar to the original model, also limited to skin folds, that is, no visible scales.
The Battat line is famous for the level of accuracy achieved in their models and that part unfortunately wasn’t stolen by Salvat. While the Battat Amargasaurus has correct feet and a well-sculpted head, the Salvat toy is all wrong. They just sculpted round feet with five toes (and fingers?) each including painted on claws.
The mouth is open showing off huge carnosaur-like teeth and a pinkish tongue; this gives a funny smiley look to it. The neck is not much longer than the Battat version, but looks more robust and is positioned very straight, in an unnatural way in my opinion. I’m not saying Amargasaurus couldn’t hold the neck like that, I just think it looks very artificial for an animal.
The last aspect I have to talk about is color. The Battat figure has a nice paint job, a very natural choice of hues with some brightly colored spots on the neck, a paint job that Salvat tried to slightly copy, using brown and greenish colors over a yellow prime coat. The spines that form the sail were painted in a reddish brown (or whatever you call that color in English), but they didn’t copy the spots on the neck or the yellow markings on the spines.
I have to say that the figure was a giveaway in a magazine collection, so a very limited amount of this toy was produced and released only in Spain, Brazil and Portugal. As far as I know the country of origin of this collection is Spain, correct me if I’m wrong. I only recommend this model for completists or people who like obscure rare toys. If you already have the Battat model, there’s no need to get this copy, but if you don’t this may work as a replacement until you can get the Battat figure. Sometimes it shows up on eBay auctions, the price varies, but it’s getting rarer and more expensive every day.
Disclaimer: links to Ebay and Amazon on the DinoToyBlog are affiliate links, so we make a small commission if you use them. Thanks for supporting us!
Varias marcas han lanzado versiones de Amargasaurus,con mayor o menor acierto.Yo poseo la versión de Safari/Carnegie,que considero superior a estas dos versiones,aunque es muy parecida a la de Battat.