Hello from Hungary!

[Medzo]

Hey everyone, I am Medzo.

My dinosaur enthusiasm started in the standard-ish children way.

Every time I've learnt something new or won some minor competition in kindergarten my mother would have bought me a new piece as a well deserved compensation for my glorious achievements. This is how I got the complete second UKRD line:



I just moved to a new apartment and started to open my old boxes consisting of my childhood stuff. Man I was shocked to find one box being full of these. Still almost in mint state which is quite amazing considering they were hunted, eaten, shot, extinction-event-obliterated quite a lot back in the good old days. They are quite elastic but also sturdy, I think these were the best in quality - at least from the available ones in Hungary - at the time.



They still got their specific rubbery smell, after opening I instantly took a snip and the nostalgia just kicked in. Watching WWD, replaying the scenarios, everything came back 

A couple of days later I've found myself googling my way deep into dino things on reddit, youtube and amazon to find the most current and best rubber dinos.
The first match I've found which showed some real quality level was this company called Papo. 
I was really blown away for some of their figures. So I quickly made some purchases on e-bay and got this baby:



I just love how much detailed this Rex is.



Especially the head is very well sculpted, the eyes are so vivid and the material is again very elastic but strong. A proper. rubber. dino.



I tracked down their other figures in local toy stores and sadly, I got disappointed. Many of their releases seem to have a lowered quality, maybe they are re-releases which looks totally different to their promotional images. Almost like bootlegged versions. Some of their smaller products are quite sophisticated like the purple Polacanthus, that is amazingly detailed. But others are just bad for the price. And even with Polacanthus I have noticed that every second product is painted carelessly. And finally many molds are not THAT detailed like the Rex. Stego and Parasaurolophus for example are quite toyish and boring.

So after checking all Papo figures out I've decided this brand is not what I'm actually looking for.

The next ones were Rebor and Nanmu, they are all over the place if someone seaches for higher end models. I actually don't like Rebor because of the separate tail elements. I think that somehow breaks the purpose as my expectations are about to get out the best detail and quality from a single (naturally glued together) piece of PVC.

Nanmu seemed perfect so I almost ended up collecting those. Only they looked a bit too big and expensive. I did not want to carry things too far by buying a lot of huge and expensive figures just because some nostalgic vibes. Also I noticed that many brands just copy Jurassic Park designs and they felt quite tedious after some time. Made some reading about the recent state of paleontology and now I can't even look at JP style figures anymore. Even my favorite Papo Rainbow Boi seems a bit dull.

This is when I've found PNSO. I mean I also demand the figures to come with high quality packaging, not just some cheap plastic bag and stands like Papo has. Rebor and Nanmu had these. But not scientific accuracy. So I made some initial purchases on Amazon and got these two:



Sadly Amazon did not wrap Sede ankylo into an outer cardboard box so it got a bit damaged. I'm quite angry about it, because the box holds sentimental value to me as well. I'm kinda annoyed how careless and cheap Amazon's packaging is.

Actually I am not 100% satisfied with PNSO as well, I don't like that promotional images tend to look a bit better than production results. Although recent releases are just all extraordinary so I hope they'll do even more improvements later on. Sizing is also perfect, although there seems to be some minor scaling issues going on between species. I also favor Papo's way in creating an open mouth for herbivores too, not just theropods which PNSO does not implement too often.

Anyway I'm blown away by PNSO and ended up reading news about it here in the forum every day. So I figured I could just register as well.

Cheers

[Lanthanotus]

Welcome to the forum, Medzo.

You got a nice selection there already. About the Papo quality, I cannot personally confirm that from my experiences, but I know knockoffs are sold all over the world. Saw them here (Germany) in dollar shops (well, € obviously ) and in every walmart/kmart/other big retailer chain down in Australia. But sure, none had Papo imprinted on them.

[BlueKrono]

Greetings @Medzo! I have great fondness for the UKRD dinos from my childhood as well.

[indohyus]

Welcome aboard!! Can't go wrong with WWD, definitely fit in well here!

[Shonisaurus]

@Medzo Welcome to your house. I also like UKRD dinosaurs from my young days. You have very good taste in your selection of figures.

[Halichoeres]

Hello, and welcome! Amazon is notoriously careless about packaging, so if you want your boxes in mint condition, I'd recommend trying Everything Dinosaur or another retailer, and leaving a note with your order asking that they be protected.

[Libraraptor]

Hello @Medzo,  welcome to the forum!