Return to the Crackington Formation

[BlueKrono]

@Crackington An incredible achievement. Well done sir! Thank you for investing so much of your time in this community.

[Halichoeres]

This is a fantastic set. I'm very glad to see Wild Past taking a chance on non-dinosaurs!

[ceratopsian]

Wild Past boxes are a little joy. (And the contents too of course!)I do hope Stefan's Kickstarter goes well.  I'd like that rauisuchian to add to their non-dinosaur output.

[Concavenator]

It's great to see Wild Past releasing a new figure again after all this time (+ 2 years after the Tethyshadros). They've come a long way after their initial Protoceratops too. Here's to hoping the Majungasaurus will be released soon, and their Kickstarter campaign will succeed as well. Speaking of which, are you interested in any of the models for the campaign?

[Crackington]

Thanks for all the kind comments everyone. Those Wild Past figures really are little beauts!

@Concavenator - yes, I'm very interested in Stefan's kickstarter campaign. Thanks for the prompt on this, I'll head over to the thread and leave some feedback.

The Plateosaurus and the Scelidosaurus are hitting the spot at the moment, but I wouldn't mind trying to collect the whole series in time. I have the Protoceratops and Tethyshadros too.

[Gwangi]

This is my 1000th post, so I just wanted to say thanks to Dr Admin and all the members for making the Forum such a great place to visit. In the ten years plus I've been posting (and on Forum Mark 1 too), I've often found it to be a refuge where you can forget about life's worries for a bit and talk to fellow enthusiasts who share a love and wonder for prehistoric life.

Well stated, I feel exactly the same way.

[Crackington]

I understand that the temporary Titanosaur exhibition at the (London) Natural History Museum has now closed. It will move elsewhere apparently and is well worth a visit if it comes near you.

Thanks to @ceratopsian tip-off I was alerted to the NHM offering a discount (half price) on the Titanosaur special model for the exhibition so duly bought one. I'd passed on my visit as it was rather an expensive day out.

The figure's label states that it is Patagotitan Mayorum and here are some snaps of it in its new home at the top of Site A:

[ceratopsian]

Glad to have been of service!

[ceratopsian]

And it fits very well stylistically in that display.

[Halichoeres]

Glad to see it's got some Pothos to eat!

[Crackington]

Thanks Halichoeres and Ceratopsian - yes hungry sauropods need a lot of greens!

Quick correction to my post - the Titanosaur exhibition is still open for another week until 14th January:

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/exhibitions/titanosaur.html

[Blackdanter]

I understand that the temporary Titanosaur exhibition at the (London) Natural History Museum has now closed. It will move elsewhere apparently and is well worth a visit if it comes near you.

Thanks to @ceratopsian tip-off I was alerted to the NHM offering a discount (half price) on the Titanosaur special model for the exhibition so duly bought one. I'd passed on my visit as it was rather an expensive day out.

The figure's label states that it is Patagotitan Mayorum and here are some snaps of it in its new home at the top of Site A:

Lovely display Crackington. They look great on that wooden plinth. I always think that sauropods look awesome displayed en masse.

[Crackington]

Time for two recent additions to the Formation from Down Under, the extant and the extinct:



Regular Forum-ites will recognise Banjo the Australovenator from a few years back, a great figure produced for the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum in Winton, Queensland.

I purchased it from their website (still available by the way: https://australianageofdinosaursmuseumshop.com/products/australovenator-1).

My wonderful sister who resides in that fair state was able to bring him over to me when she visited at Christmas.

Coincidentally my brother visited Oz last year too and came back with this rather nice Cassowary figure, from a shop in the Kuranda rainforest near Cairns. Nice to show old and new Aussie theropods together.

Here's another shot of Banjo, to show him off in all his glory:

[Libraraptor]

Banjo is a cool guy not just for me as a museum exclusives enthusiast, but also vor every collector who wants something special

[Crackington]

Thanks @Libraraptor - a bit more Banjo.

I went to a bit of trouble to take the solo photo of him above and made some use of my model foliage, but decided to trim this out of the image. These were quite nice snaps though, background radiator and wall aside, so thought I'd share one anyway!



Serendipitously, the recent issue of Prehistoric Times magazine (no.148) also has an article on Banjo by Australian writer Phil Hore. Phil writes regular articles for PT with a sci-fi twist, but also some good information on the featured dinosaur. He outlines the theories on Banjo's demise, found with large sauropod bones and speculates that he was unluckily squashed during a semi successful group attack on the said beast.

With that in mind, I therefore present the sad death of Banjo:



By the way, PT readers please check out Collectors Corner this issue - you may spot some things from this thread there 

[ceratopsian]

Poor chap!!

[Crackington]

@Halichoeres (massive thanks!) recently started a thread on some great news for vintage kit collectors: Atlantis models reissue of two old Aurora Prehistoric Scenes kits, the Cave Bear and the Sabre-tooth Tiger. These kits were long thought of as extinct with the tooling and molds etc lost. For many years it appeared that Wooly Mammoth aside, only the Aurora prehistoric reptiles/dinos had survived, occasionally re-issued by Revell. You can see the thread here for more details: https://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=11341.0

The good news is that Atlantis have acquired much of Revell's back catalogue and that more of the Aurora kits may still exist after all. They are testing the water with the two models so hopefully they'll prove a hit and we may see more lost Auroras get released.

I was thus able to get a brand new Cave Bear kit which I had as a youngster and I thought I might show him off with some actual vintage Aurora pals. There'll be more snaps to follow soon, but here's a classic three way dust up, "The Good, the Bad and the Grizzly":

[Blackdanter]

@Halichoeres (massive thanks!) recently started a thread on some great news for vintage kit collectors: Atlantis models reissue of two old Aurora Prehistoric Scenes kits, the Cave Bear and the Sabre-tooth Tiger. These kits were long thought of as extinct with the tooling and molds etc lost. For many years it appeared that Wooly Mammoth aside, only the Aurora prehistoric reptiles/dinos had survived, occasionally re-issued by Revell. You can see the thread here for more details: https://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=11341.0

The good news is that Atlantis have acquired much of Revell's back catalogue and that more of the Aurora kits may still exist after all. They are testing the water with the two models so hopefully they'll prove a hit and we may see more lost Auroras get released.

I was thus able to get a brand new Cave Bear kit which I had as a youngster and I thought I might show him off with some actual vintage Aurora pals. There'll be more snaps to follow soon, but here's a classic three way dust up, "The Good, the Bad and the Grizzly":

I had all of those back in the day. I used to get a couple for Christmas or birthdays every year back in the 70's. I can still remember a big display of them at my local toy store. I always wanted the shop display Tyrannosaurus model which the company/distributor had supplied to the local stockist ................ alas!

[Blackdanter]

Me and my sisters in our back garden with our favourite toys. 1972 I think!

[Crackington]

Thanks for sharing @Blackdanter - lovely photo of you and your sisters and good to see you had the Allosaurus too. I never had the Rex either, but my best mate did, it seemed huge back then!

Here's some more snaps of the kits - I think from this angle the Cro-Magnon is beginning to see a way to survive the tussle after all:



The Aurora bases were famous for being able to interlink and form a bigger "landmass". The Cave Bear's base can connect to the Cave in a few ways, but this vulture's eye view helps illustrate this:


 

More soon!