Review and photos by Rebecca O’Neill, edited by Dinotoyblog.
This group of ten novelty, cartoonish dinosaurs were purchased on Ebay in 2018, and don’t seem to be available anymore. Very much in the style of The Land Before Time or Dinosaurs the television show from the 1990s, they are a variety of well known dinosaurs rendered in a caricature form.
Back in 2012 a representative from the toy vendor VictoryBuy joined the Dinosaur Toy forum looking for member feedback with regards to reissuing the Tim Mee set of toy dinosaurs, originally produced in the 1970’s. Flashforward to 2014 and VictoryBuy once again stopped by the forum, this time to announce the actual release of the set.
These six little dinos, sculpted by the Carnegie Collection’s own Forest Rogers, may look pretty dated today; but they manage to blend old and new aspects of science to produce a charming set as a whole.
Safari ltd. stands as one of the giants of educational, scientifically accurate dinosaur & animal toys today; but it’s easy to forget the company didn’t start out this way.
Larami’s Museum set is looking pretty dated now, but it’s a charming playset all the same and one of the more memorable imitators out there.
It’s said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery; by that metric the dinosaur toy industry has been incredibly generous towards the leading toy brands.
“Season’s Greetings, fellow dinosaur lovers! Yes, it is I, Dr. Bella Bricking and my invaluable assistant and companion Beth Buildit, back once again to celebrate the holidays with you!”
“Hiya, folks. Sure hope 2021 was kinder to all of you than 2020 was. Suffering studs, did that year ever bite.
Review and photos by Charles Peckham, edited by Suspsy
Trying to find information about either the creator of these toys, a Chinese company named Yantai, or their American distributor, Learnplay Inc., isn’t easy. According to one of the few sources I was able to find, Yantai has been around since 2011 and their Halftoy line is just one of hundreds of designs they have made.
Cheap dinosaur sets are fairly common on the market, offering a variety of creatures for a reasonable price (though usually picked from a very select group of species), something to keep kids entertained for a few hours. Wenno are a prime example of this, having released a few sets for ancient and modern species.
Well, I’ve shown you the worst of this line, let’s waste no time and get straight on to the best of them!
Starting off the top half is everyone’s favourite three horned herbivore Triceratops. This features one of the best poses of the lot (something I haven’t talked at length about as most the figures are in a generic standing pose), an aggressive fight pose, all the better when you have two to joust with.
Kosmoceratops is a genus of Chasmosaurine that lived about 75 million years ago in what is now the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Park in Utah. This is where the Kaiparowits formation is located, a rock formation that during the Cretaceous was a jungle bordering the Western Interior Seaway.
