Carnegie Collection by Safari Ltd

[SidB]

I don't know, as a former huge Carnegie fan with a complete collection, I do think it's clear that we are better off without them trying to control Safari. Once I learned about that, it was clear the museum collaboration had to go. What a bad business practice they were attempting.

It's easy to view the collection through rose-colored glasses. My old top shelf photo of the whole collection in front of the Carnegie poster was a popular search engine hit for years. Carnegie got me into dinosaur collecting as a kid, but toward the end their figures were getting pretty dull. Forest Rogers was a great sculptor for them, but I can also guess that we would have continued to get exactly one figure a year, which half the time would have been a theropod in that same old-timey tripod stance where the animal is noticeably leaning way back on its tail for support.

In short, if Carnegie were still around, we might have a whole TEN figures more from them by now...and possibly none of the diverse multitude of well researched sculpts that Mr. Watson and others have brought to us at Safari since 2015. Realistically, I'm fine the Carnegie line ended.

I too had virtually the whole Carnegie Collection, including almost every subvariant ever issued. Perhaps in time I would have closed in on the near impossibility of absolute completion, every subvariant, in as far as that was possible. But space and the proper lure of the amazingly improved offerings of other manufacturers lead to my divesting myself of almost the entire collection, except for selected  exemplars of the last 8-10 years of Forest's work. I doubt that I'll ever go that completionist route again. The quality of production values has improved exponentially over the spectrum of virtually all of the significant manufacturers, especially PNSO and HlG. `Truly, in some ways, less is more.

[Pliosaurking]

I got into collecting right after the line retired. I'll say there are several beautiful figures in that line, several I own and a couple I still want to get, and hopefully I shall. The Deinosuchus is waiting for me to unbox when I gets home!

[RobinGoodfellow]

Years ago I wrote a compendium (a reference thread) about Carnegie:

https://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=6296.msg186431#msg186431

 

[SidB]

Thanks for resurrecting this thread, @RobinGoodfellow , it was only on the very edge of my memory and sure brings back the sense of the thrill of the hunt in the pursuit of these classic figures.

By the way, another good resource for the variants and subvariants is the research of D @Dinoguy2 .

[Gwangi]

I don't know, as a former huge Carnegie fan with a complete collection, I do think it's clear that we are better off without them trying to control Safari. Once I learned about that, it was clear the museum collaboration had to go. What a bad business practice they were attempting.

It's easy to view the collection through rose-colored glasses. My old top shelf photo of the whole collection in front of the Carnegie poster was a popular search engine hit for years. Carnegie got me into dinosaur collecting as a kid, but toward the end their figures were getting pretty dull. Forest Rogers was a great sculptor for them, but I can also guess that we would have continued to get exactly one figure a year, which half the time would have been a theropod in that same old-timey tripod stance where the animal is noticeably leaning way back on its tail for support.

In short, if Carnegie were still around, we might have a whole TEN figures more from them by now...and possibly none of the diverse multitude of well researched sculpts that Mr. Watson and others have brought to us at Safari since 2015. Realistically, I'm fine the Carnegie line ended.

I remember vividly the disappointment people were having towards the end of the Carnegie run. I was very disappointed in the T. rex, Concavenator, and Velociraptor and never bothered to add them to my collection. I agree, it's hard to mourn the Carnegie Collection when, in its absence, Safari has been able to thrive. That said, some Carnegie figures are still among the favorites in my collection. 

[Halichoeres]

I was working at a museum when Carnegie ended. I once had a casual conversation with someone in marketing and floated the idea of commissioning a line to represent the animals in its extensive fossil exhibits. They were super uninterested. The gift shop now has the same stale crap you see at every other museum shop.

[suspsy]

I was most crestfallen when the Carnegie line ended. It helped get me back into seriously collecting dinosaurs when they released those four feathered ones back in 2006. I gave the Microraptor to my boys, but the other three remain on my shelf.

[Gwangi]

I was most crestfallen when the Carnegie line ended. It helped get me back into seriously collecting dinosaurs when they released those four feathered ones back in 2006. I gave the Microraptor to my boys, but the other three remain on my shelf.

Same. The feathered dinosaurs definitely caught my eye when I happened across them in a craft store around the time of their release. It took a few more years for me give in and start collecting though. The Microraptor is the only one I don't display anymore. Love all the rest.

[Faelrin]

Hard to believe the Carnegie Collection Dilong is still the only one outside of the 1/6 BotM one. It's the only one of the feathered bunch I have so far, and it still holds up well to this day.

Their mammoth is also still my favorite woolly one, as far as static/non articulated figures goes.

[SidB]

Hard to believe the Carnegie Collection Dilong is still the only one outside of the 1/6 BotM one. It's the only one of the feathered bunch I have so far, and it still holds up well to this day.

Their mammoth is also still my favorite woolly one, as far as static/non articulated figures goes.

Yes, both of these are part of my Carnegie remnant. Again, the Mammoth is a wonderful, but puzzling outlier - why, oh why didn't Carnegie commission Forest Rogers to make more mammals? She obviously had a real flair with them as the Mammoth is a obvious indication.

[Halichoeres]

Yeah, the feathered Caudipteryx and Microraptor were definitely an ingredient in my entry to the hobby.

[spinynettle]

I went to the Carnegie museum today and it was sad to see that their gift shop toy selection--kept in a display still depicting the Carnegie Miragaia!--was a mix of the worst of Papo (the toothed Pteranodon, the horrorcore Baryonyx) with a few random CollectA thrown in (early 2010s sauropods and the newer Triceratops).

[BlueKrono]

I went to the Carnegie museum today and it was sad to see that their gift shop toy selection--kept in a display still depicting the Carnegie Miragaia!--was a mix of the worst of Papo (the toothed Pteranodon, the horrorcore Baryonyx) with a few random CollectA thrown in (early 2010s sauropods and the newer Triceratops).

To be fair, I don't think I've ever seen a CollectA toy for sale in any store in America, and I haven't encountered a Papo in over a decade.

[Gwangi]

I went to the Carnegie museum today and it was sad to see that their gift shop toy selection--kept in a display still depicting the Carnegie Miragaia!--was a mix of the worst of Papo (the toothed Pteranodon, the horrorcore Baryonyx) with a few random CollectA thrown in (early 2010s sauropods and the newer Triceratops).

To be fair, I don't think I've ever seen a CollectA toy for sale in any store in America, and I haven't encountered a Papo in over a decade.

There's a mom and pop toy store near where I live in Maryland that carries CollectA figures. The selection isn't great and has largely remained the same over the years but that's where I got the Edaphosaurus.

[Halichoeres]

I went to the Carnegie museum today and it was sad to see that their gift shop toy selection--kept in a display still depicting the Carnegie Miragaia!--was a mix of the worst of Papo (the toothed Pteranodon, the horrorcore Baryonyx) with a few random CollectA thrown in (early 2010s sauropods and the newer Triceratops).

I think this is still better than the state of most museum gift shops.

[Dinoguy2]

Thanks for resurrecting this thread, @RobinGoodfellow , it was only on the very edge of my memory and sure brings back the sense of the thrill of the hunt in the pursuit of these classic figures.

By the way, another good resource for the variants and subvariants is the research of D @Dinoguy2 .

@RobinGoodfellow 's thread (and another on the old DTF) was one of the first thing I found when I was trying and mostly failing to find information on old Carnegies, and basically my website would not exist without it. So glad to see this brought back up!

[Fembrogon]

I went to the Carnegie museum today and it was sad to see that their gift shop toy selection--kept in a display still depicting the Carnegie Miragaia!--was a mix of the worst of Papo (the toothed Pteranodon, the horrorcore Baryonyx) with a few random CollectA thrown in (early 2010s sauropods and the newer Triceratops).

To be fair, I don't think I've ever seen a CollectA toy for sale in any store in America, and I haven't encountered a Papo in over a decade.

There's a mom and pop toy store near where I live in Maryland that carries CollectA figures. The selection isn't great and has largely remained the same over the years but that's where I got the Edaphosaurus.

Jungle Jim's in Cincinnati used to have a nice range of CollectA figures - I picked up the Borealopelta and Deluxe Deinocheirus there in 2020 - but their selection was much sparser when I visited last year.

[SidB]

It's been over a year or so since I accessed your site, D @Dinoguy2 . Great to see that you are keeping it to up to date and continuing to refine and evolve it. It's certainly the definitive and most exhaustive compilation and study of this famous product line anywhere in the world. Very inspiring to browse it.

[Trenchcoated Rebbachisaur]

Whoa, this brings back memories; and I only ever had a single one of these growing up (the third Brachiosaurus from the Carnegie Thread, what a showstopper). There's something really charming about these, even if most of them came before my time haha. (Literally, p sure at least a few first released before I was born).

[SidB]

Yes, definitely a trip down 'memory lane'. I distinctly remember going into a Value Village thrift store in Toronto and finding in a bargain toy bin variations on their original releases of the Triceratops, Stegosaurus and Parasaurolophus. Maybe crude by today's standards, but top of the line back then. I hadn't known that such things even existed. What a find and what a beginning to it all!