With the announcement of the Hammond Collection Concavenator late last year it became apparent that Mattel had no intention of limiting their premium collector’s line to creatures with significant screen time in the Jurassic franchise. This revelation left many collectors feeling frustrated, hoping that the Hammond Collection line would at least tackle more important prehistoric animals first.
Classification: Theropod
Review: Yutyrannus (Beasts of the Mesozoic by Creative Beast Studio)
4.7 (92 votes)
Review and photos by Faelrin, edited by Suspsy
Yutyrannus is both one of my favorite theropods and favorite dinosaurs in general these days. I still remember coming across an online news article about it back in early 2012 and being excited to see that they finally found a large feathered dinosaur.
Review: Tarbosaurus (Schleich)
2.7 (113 votes)
During the Late Cretaceous, the region currently known as the harsh Gobi Desert of Mongolia was a rich expanse of floodplains, mudflats, and shallow lakes. Here one would find abundant titanosaurs, hadrosaurs, ankylosaurs, and pachycephalosaurs, although no known ceratopsids to date.
Review: Monolophosaurus (Schleich)(2023)
2.8 (54 votes)
To start, I want to extend my thanks to Happy Hen Toys for generously offering this review sample for the Blog. Happy Hen Toys has rapidly been establishing themselves as one of the most reliable shops for prehistoric animal collectibles in the United States, and I encourage readers to check out their website for purchasing this and other related items.
Review: Tyrannosaurus rex (1/35 Scale Kickstarter Exclusive)(Beasts of the Mesozoic by Creative Beast Studio)
4.7 (106 votes)
Review and photos by Faelrin, edited by Suspsy
The year was 2000 and I was 9 years old. I remember sitting wide-eyed watching the BBC Walking with Dinosaurs documentary series on the Discovery Channel on the big television in my family’s living room, with my parents.
Review: Fukuiraptor (Favorite Co. Ltd.)
3.4 (44 votes)
Fukuiraptor isn’t a dinosaur name one hears too often – at least outside of Japan. First discovered in the 1990s, the “thief of Fukui Prefecture” is only known from fragmentary remains between a few specimens, consisting mostly of arm and leg bones.
Review: Dryptosaurus (Jurassic World Dino Trackers, Wild Roar by Mattel)
2.4 (108 votes)
The late Cretaceous tyrannosauroid, Dryptosaurus, is a historically significant genus that due to the fragmentary nature of its preserved material has been largely forgotten and ignored. Dryptosaurus aquilunguis was one of the first theropods ever discovered and the first theropod discovered in the Americas.
Review: 3D Dinosaur Pictorial Book (The Access)
3.3 (55 votes)
Japan has a prolific industry for collectibles and merchandise, although it is a fairly insular market that western collectors might find tricky to break into. There are always new surprises to uncover from riches of new releases each year. One such item which caught my attention in 2022 was a set of minifigures produced by The Access, a company dedicated to planning, manufacturing, and wholesaling a variety of in-house products for multiple age ranges.
Review: Tyrannosaurus rex (1/18 Scale Kickstarter Exclusive)(Beasts of the Mesozoic by Creative Beast Studio)
4.8 (240 votes)
Marbhtach’s crimson eyes are fixed on Banrigh’s as he carefully lays the freshly caught pachycephalosaur still oozing life on the ground before her. Whereupon he slowly backs away, nodding his head and cooing softly with each step while Banrigh sniffs and scrutinizes his offering.
Review: Talon (Primal Rage by Playmates)
3.4 (52 votes)
Review and photographs by Funk, edited by Suspsy
Ever since I first saw preview pictures of the stop motion figures used to animate the dinosaurs in the 1994 Atari fighting game Primal Rage in a Nintendo magazine, I thought, “wow, they would make great toys.” Fast forward to a few years ago where I learned such toys were actually produced by Playmates of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fame, and I got a few of them used.
Review: Velociraptor (Beasts of the Mesozoic 1:18 by Creative Beasts Studio)
4.8 (96 votes)
For all the dozens and dozens of Velociraptor toys & models which swarm the market, there are criminally few which attempt to depict the famous “swift plunderer” as something even remotely resembling what we know of the real-life animal. When sculptor and toy designer David Silva announced his articulated Beasts of the Mesozoic line in 2015, beginning with a series of 1:6 scale, scientifically accurate dromaeosaurs, collectors were understandably very excited at the prospect.
Review: Albertosaurus (Wild Safari by Safari Ltd.)
4.7 (135 votes)
Seventy-one million years ago what is now Alberta, Canada, would have been located next to the Western Interior Seaway with various coastal habitats including swamps, marshes, tidal flats, lagoons, and estuaries. Familiar faces would have swum the aquatic ecosystems, including gar, bowfin, and sturgeon that are all present in North America’s freshwater habitats today.