Dimetrodon (Salvat)

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Review by Ikessauro

For those who don’t know me, I’m Patrick, a member of the DTF, AKA “Ikessauro”. I live in Brazil and started collecting dinosaurs about 6 or 7 years ago. Back then the best dino figures I could find around here were the ones from Salvat collection. This collection, as I found out later, consists of knock offs of the main dino collections, including Carnegie, Battat and Bullyland. One of the models Salvat made was the Dimetrodon, which happens to be a copy of the Bullyland Dimetrodon, the second version, green and brown. So, as I did with the Salvat Acrocanthosaurus, in this review I intend to compare both versions, the Salvat’s and Bullyland’s version of this synapsid.

I’m no expert in anatomy of prehistoric reptiles, but I should say that this Dimetrodon is not bad in this aspect, although it’s not perfect either. The head on both figures doesn’t show the actual bulkiness of the animal’s head and the teeth are sloppily carved in the mouth. The paint application on the teeth isn’t very good either, but at least they are individually done. The sail on the figures looks ok. The skin texture is very scaly, more prominent in some areas and better in the Bullyland version, as the Salvat copy has only some wrinkles on the neck and a smooth head. The Salvat version also doesn’t have the skin fold or veins on the belly and the ear structure and nostrils on the Bully model are much more visible.

It doesn’t take much time to see that the Salvat version is a copy of the Bullyland Dimetrodon, because Salvat didn’t change it very much. The pose is a little different, as the Bullyland figure has the neck turned to left and the copy is turned to right. Actually, if you look on the figures side by side, from an aerial point of view, you will notice that the Salvat Dimetrodon is a mirrored image of its German counterpart. The main difference is the size, because the Salvat one is 19 cm long, while the original from Bullyland is only 15 cm long, what is due to the longer tail on the Salvat model.

Regarding the paint scheme, Salvat didn’t bother to change it, and in fact, the paint in it is shinier than the original, also the brown spots on the sail, which are yellowish tan in color, are much darker. The color in both would be some sort of olive green with brown. The eye on the Salvat version is very simple, just a yellow dot with some black around.

I have both versions because I’m really a completist collector, and also, because when I discovered the originals which inspired the Salvat Collection, I decided to collect every one, to compare. If you already have one of the figures I would recommend you to hold on to it and don’t bother about the other one, unless you are a completist that enjoy looking for rare figures. The Dimetrodon is a bit rare, because was sold only on three countries for a very short period of time (as far as I know), but sometimes pops up or eBay here for reasonable prices, usually costing about ten U.S. dollars give or take.