The actual situation in dinosaur figure collecting

[Concavenator]

Hello,
What I want with this thread is sharing my views on the actual panorama,as well as I would like to ask one simple thing: Out of the recent years (from 2013 up until now) which year did you find particularly exciting when it comes to new releases?

First of all I will talk about the two greatest companies now :CollectA and Safari,which compete every year.

I personally find that 2015 was the year of CollectA,they unleashed themselves with that Tyrannosaurus and that fantastic Spnosaurus which appeared from the blue,and the Guidraco...a lot of gorgeous figures.
2015 was a great year for Safari too,that was the year of the last Carnegie,the Velociraptor.The Yutyrannus,Nasutoceratops,Sauropelta were great.
2015 was a year better than expected,in fact,it exceeded my expectations.

2016 was a very poor year for me in general.That year I got figures from other years which I hadn't got and wanted myself.

2017 (this year) was very good also ,Safari became better than ever with the "revamped line" (which I think was due to the extinction of the Carnegie line),but,same as Safari became more interesting,CollectA did right the opposite for me.Yes,there was a  very good new Styracosaurus and that Dimorphodon,but nothing really outstanding or exciting like previous years.Do any of you think similarly?
In my opinion,CollectA and Safari are both the best,CollectA puts out the most unusual,speculative and daring dinosaurs,but Safari releases the most accurate ones am with a great sculptural quality.

I think that CollectA has become a little more conservative in general;that's not their style.I think if they started putting out the most interesting,obscure and unusual models they would become more interesting.

Also,I almost forgot Bullyland.I kind of miss them.Their "Museum Line" was good.I don't know why they stopped,I firmly think they are better than Schleich.

[Ravonium]

Let me analyse your points one by one:

I personally find that 2015 was the year of CollectA,they unleashed themselves with that Tyrannosaurus and that fantastic Spnosaurus which appeared from the blue,and the Guidraco...a lot of gorgeous figures.
2015 was a great year for Safari too,that was the year of the last Carnegie,the Velociraptor.The Yutyrannus,Nasutoceratops,Sauropelta were great.
2015 was a year better than expected,in fact,it exceeded my expectations.

I agree with this point for the most part. 2015 was the year when this current era of dinosaur collecting started, marked by the retirement of Carnegie and the complete transformation of CollectA into legitimate competition.

2016 was a very poor year for me in general.That year I got figures from other years which I hadn't got and wanted myself.

I see where you're coming from, but I beg to differ a little bit. 2016 certainly wasn't revolutionary, but I can say that, in my opinion, it was probably CollectA's second year in a row. CollectA released much more species and did, to a small degree, put a few good models on the table (e.g. 1:40 Torvosaurus, 1:20 Andrewsarchus etc.). This being said, why the 2016 Iguanodon from Safari Ltd, which isn't a bad model, but isn't particularly interesting either, was the figure that won Prehistoric Times' 'Best Dinosaur Figure of the Year' award, still confuses me a little bit.

2017 (this year) was very good also ,Safari became better than ever with the "revamped line" (which I think was due to the extinction of the Carnegie line),but,same as Safari became more interesting,CollectA did right the opposite for me.Yes,there was a  very good new Styracosaurus and that Dimorphodon,but nothing really outstanding or exciting like previous years.Do any of you think similarly?
In my opinion,CollectA and Safari are both the best,CollectA puts out the most unusual,speculative and daring dinosaurs,but Safari releases the most accurate ones am with a great sculptural quality.

I completely agree with this paragraph. It was pretty obvious that 2017 was a year where CollectA was basically leaching off Safari Ltd's revamp by making at least 2 competing models: The Einiosaurus and the Kronosaurus. In my opinion, these figures aren't awful, but, especially in the case of the Einiosaurus, aren't better than the Safari Ltd versions. I also agree with your comparison of the 2 companies.

I think that CollectA has become a little more conservative in general;that's not their style.I think if they started putting out the most interesting,obscure and unusual models they would become more interesting.

If you meant "They aren't trying any new groups of dinosaurs.", then I agree completely. Let's just hope the 2018 reveals disprove that. If you mean "They aren't making obscure species anymore.", then I think you're making a bit of an overstatement. The problem isn't that CollectA is not making obscure species anymore (if anything, one criticism that seemed to start a bit of a discussion in the Collecta New for 2018 thread was that they made a Mantellisaurus instead of the more famous Iguanodon.). The problem is that the groups that they are making obscure figures of are mostly limited to large theropods and ceratopsians.

Also,I almost forgot Bullyland.I kind of miss them.Their "Museum Line" was good.I don't know why they stopped,I firmly think they are better than Schleich.

So do I. Bullyland is now sadly a company of Disney figures and inaccurate dinosaurs.


Anyways, now for my views on all currently operational major companies:


Schleich: I've really stopped caring about what they're releasing for the most part. Their Oviraptor for next year is probably, however, their most promising figure yet and if they keep figures like this up, then I'll pay attention to their company again.


Papo: I've always largely treated most of this company's figures as a series of highly detailed, statue-like toys for the Jurassic Park/World movies. While I don't think they'll stop these figures anytime soon, I do think they are making less of this type of figure every coming year. Doesn't necessarily mean they are becoming more accurate though.


Safari Ltd: This company is probably the most accurate on average as of posting this and also tied with Collecta for the fastest improving. However I'm not necessarily going to cover this company in a positive light fully because I do have one thing to say. In my opinion (and Safari Ltd fans, please don't hold your pitchforks at me for this), some of their pre-2017 figures looked a bit cartoonish in some areas. Some otherwise very good figures that, in my opinion are ruined by a cartoonish area of their body, usually around the eyes or the teeth, are the Ceratosaurus, the Masiakasaurus and the Carcharodontosaurus. I've treated Safari Ltd as a not necessarily hyperrealistic line like Papo is, but a mostly accurate one like its main competitor, Collecta.


CollectA: Out of all companies, this one is the one with the most drastic improvement (I do not use the terms "fastest improving" and "drastic improvement" interchangeably here.). My main problem with this company is the fact they, as discussed previously and in much more detail in the CollectA New for 2018 thread, have not been trying out new obscure groups of dinosaurs since their 2015 line was revealed. In my honest opinion, I would like to see them release at least two feathered dinosaurs from groups that Safari Ltd has released genera of this year and next year. I would also like to see them release a new clubbed ankylosaur and at least one representative from a group that has never been made in PVC form.


Bullyland: See my last sentence in the analysis of Concavenator's post for my opinion on them.


I'm not going to get into any other companies in this post.

[Lanthanotus]

I just started collecting dinosaurs seriously in during 2015, so there's not a lot of history there....

I'd wish Bullyland would do prehistoric creatures as they did in the not so far away past - they had so many very good figures and the new releases are mediocore at best, haven't added any of them, the most recent is the Giganotosaurus which I customized.

Am quite excited about Schleich this year and already added the Tyrannosaurus.

For Papo... well, I like the lifelike appearance of their figures, but I only added the Polacanthus this year (but will eventually customize it). I'd like to see them approach an Iguanodon, but I do not count on them releasing it.

CollectA and Safari are my favorites and I added a quite lot of their figures. I'd especially name the CollectA Dimorphodon which is the overall best figure of 2017 for me and Safari's Psittacosaurus.

Quite difficult to come by by now, but thanks to acro-man I added PNSO's Mamenchisaurus and am keenly awaiting more of PNSO.

So yeah.... 2017 was a damn good year in new releases.

[Halichoeres]

The two biggest players, to my mind, are Safari and CollectA. Both had phenomenal years in 2017, and I bought more than half of their new releases (that's saying a lot, since I usually only have one figure per taxon). Both were better in 2017 than in 2016, for my purposes.

With that said, I found 2016 a more exciting year overall than 2017. That was largely thanks to Favorite, Kaiyodo, and PNSO. Favorite had the Fukui figures and the Cambrian series, with lots of interesting species, whereas this year they only released two fairly commonly done dinosaurs and the miniature dioramas, which mostly didn't interest me. Kaiyodo had the Expo set and the Dinosaurs of Japan set in 2016, but they haven't done anything in all of 2017. Their last really strong year was 2015 (CapsuleQ Paleozoic, Great Leaps, marine reptiles). PNSO had a huge debut in the West last year, but this year they have struggled somewhat--although the figures they have managed to release have been excellent in my opinion.

Schleich put out pretty much pure crap this year, but next year looks great.

Bullyland hasn't done anything interesting since the Lambeosaurus and Europasaurus in 2014, but maybe someday they'll bounce back.

Papo put out a lot of dinosaurs in 2017, hopefully that will continue. I find them pretty hit or miss because I gradually find myself more impressed by careful research than by extraneous detail and lots of paint apps, but if they start running out of really obvious species maybe they'll try something more adventurous.

Battat hasn't released anything at all in almost two years, and some of the Targets in my area have stopped stocking them, so maybe it's time to write them off.

Then there's the wild cards. I had high hopes for AAoD, but we haven't heard a peep since the release of Australovenator. I'm not confident the Kickstarter for the Silva ceratopsians will be as successful as the one for the raptors, but I know I'll be pledging as much as I can. I really want the line to continue. Southlands and Eofauna show early promise but who knows how far that will get them. Recur reminds me a lot of CollectA ten years ago, so maybe they're worth keeping an eye on too. If Colorata ever releases the Paleozoic box set, I'll be in love with them for a while. Rebor will continue to pump out lots of toothy beasts, and one or two per year will catch my eye.

Like Lanthanotus, I only started collecting in 2015, so I don't have quite the same perspective as the veterans around here. But 2016 was, I believe, exceptional by any standard. The only time I can imagine might have been more exciting for a collector like me might be the early 2000s when Dinotales and Yowies were new and there were so many novel species being produced. 2017 was solid, too, and 2018 might be really amazing, especially if Favorite and Kaiyodo get back on the horse, or if PNSO sorts out its legal woes, or if Vitae emerges as the new PNSO. Looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.

[bmathison1972]

Safari is really starting to step it up, not just with prehistoric animals. I thought Safari's extant animals last year, and many of what we have seen so far this year, are pretty bold moves given their history over the prior 3-5 years. While there hasn't been anything specifically for me, I applaud them on their taxon choices.

CollectA's has been phenomenal for a while, taking into account extant animals as well. I might be a little biased since CollecA is one of the few companies outside of Japan that regularly contributes to my focus group 

[Shonisaurus]

For my part I started collecting in 1989 when I finished high school and entered the University and that is when I bought the Invicta dinosaurs from the British Museum and in 1994 after finishing my university studies I bought some UKRD dinosaurs including protoceratops, dimetrodon, allosaurus (which I still have it). Also around that time I bought the velociraptor of Asian dinosaurs from Safari.

My collection increased especially since 1995 or 1996 when the dinosaurs of Schleich and Bullyland began to be commercialized.

In 1999 and 2000 I bought the dinosaurs except for the toyway liopleurodon and the ophtalmosaurus that I bought from a store in Barcelona.

But it was from the decade of the year 2000 when they started to emerge new companies such as Papo and then Collecta it seems to me that Papo's first dinosaurs were commercialized in my country on 2006 and those of Collecta more or less by that date the truth that I do not have much memory for those things.

Then I found in 2010 a store in Madrid of Carnegie and Safari dinosaurs and I completed the collections.

From 2016 I started to complete the collections of dinosaurs Bullyland, Safari and started to collect dinosaurs from other companies such as Battat, Eofauna, Recur this year, Rebor (three years ago), the National History Museum of London (the I bought for the most part in everythingdinosaur.I bought a member of the forum two prehistoric amphibians from PlayVisions among other things.

Honestly, the time when he started to like Collecta was based mainly on dinosaurs and prehistoric animals such as the megacerops, therizinosaurus, neardenthales pair and other figures.

The year that I really liked Safari was when they did the miragaia and carnotaurus by Carnegie and part of Safari the kaprosuchus, inostrancevia among other figures I did not really like the guanlong whose real figure unfortunately was very different from the prototype.

I also bought Favorite resin dinosaurs in 2005 and that's when I bought a showcase to house those figures along with hadrosaurus fossils (real that I bought in the Museum of Natural Sciences Store) and marine reptile bones and ammonites. I was about to buy a tooth of Carcharodon (which I still regretted) that at the end they sold it to the Museum of Natural Sciences and I was also in a trice to buy a tooth of carcharodontosaurus that at that time I am talking about more of ten years cost one hundred euros.


I've been "hooked" to the prehistoric world since  the seventies to more concrete about 1976 when I was five years old and the cause is to have seen with my father the Wald Disney movie "fantasia" whose only part that interested me was that of the dinosaurs and I remember that they had to take me out of the cinema because then I cried when I saw how the dinosaurs died in a metaphorical way.

In fact as a child with my classmates I came to organize with the consent of the faculty that was impressed by my interest in dinosaurs and prehistoric animals a work on prehistory by groups of students.

At that time in the seventies and early eighties there were no dinosaurs in my nation except for the envelopes of trinkets that were very rudimentary and ask in a store for dinosaurs or prehistoric animals you were taken by a person "rare" and people in General missed him. In short, I have been interested in dinosaurs and prehistoric animals all my life and I can assure you that no day has passed when you have not stopped thinking about them.


Now we live in a golden age of dinosaur companies and prehistoric animals in general terms. And I honestly can not complain in general terms about the dinosaurs that are commercialized worldwide.

[Neosodon]

Safari has been producing decent figures since 2005 and there has not really been any significant years just steady improvement. The extinction of the Carnegie line gave them a huge boost in terms of quantity and size of their figures but the quality and style has reamined fairly steady for the most part.

2010 was about the time collecta had their awakening - with herbivores atleast. 2014 was the year they finally learned to make therapods. 2016 was the year they finally dropped the mega hips.

So hear is a timeline

2011 - Collecta makes their first really good herbivores.

2014 - Collecta makes their first decent therapods on bases.

2016 - Collecta's therapods get properly proportioned and balanced.

2017 - Safari ups the size and quantity of their releases.

[Shonisaurus]

 honestly believe that every year all the companies of dinosaurs and prehistoric animals are improving with their ups and downs. Here I pass my impressions to the forum members.

Collecta from 2012 until now, except for 2013, which made only six figures and was a rather dull year, they have been improving year after year.

Carnegie had a loose time in the final stage with figures like the concavenator and that unfortunately ended up disappearing with the velociraptor in 2014.

Safari has made very good figures and has been improving ostensibly year after year with magnificent sculptors.

Papo makes hyperrealistic figures and of course not correct from the paleontological point of view but they do not stop having their charm. However, I liked the figures of the years 2016 and 2017. What does not convince me is their amargasaurus but until they reveal all its figures it is very premature to say.
'

Bullyland started well when they made museum dinosaur figures but unfortunately it is a company that lost interest in making dinosaurs and has focused on Wald Disney figures.

In relation to Mojo had its "summer" with the memorable prehistoric mammals revealed in 2012 and that were marketed in 2013 and this year made good figures of tyrannosaurus rex and allosaurus but I see a black future. '

PNSO is a company that will go down in history due to its short history and whose figures promised a lot, but unfortunately they have had internal problems that Acro-man revealed to me. A pretty sad story

Schleich has been a company focused on a child-juvenile audience and this year I have been surprised by their figures that have been revealed by 2018 and have made their best figures to date regardless of what he did in his day some figures that were not excellent were acceptable within the world of the Schleich (let's not forget the kentrosaurus and to a lesser extent the pentaceratops and the dunkleosteus).


Favorite is a company focused on dinosaurs from Japan and I sincerely like their figures and this year they have made several as children would say pretty "cool".

Recur is a company dedicated to children whose figures I have to be frank also collect and I do not dislike them sincerely the figures that I like the most are the quetzalcoatlus and majungasaurus as more outstanding.

Kaiyodo I can attest that his figures are good but like other companies of dinosaurs and Asian prehistoric animals I am not in favor of removable bases.

Rebor for his part I liked his carnotaurus very much regardless of the criticism he has received, and what I have said is exaggerated his figures with excessive joints I like static dinosaurs more.

[Renecito]

PNSO blew my mind whith those huge "Age of the dinosaurs" series (and "Wilson"). My favorite over any other company right now. Really put the excitement back to my collection. Pity they're having some internal issues!!!. 

[acro-man]

In 2016 PNSO was born.
It has been my personal favorite company til they died in this year...