Safari Ltd - New for 2022

[RobinGoodfellow]

(..) and hollow (but detailed) seems to be the way to go, IMO.

Unfortunately big, hollow and detailed doesn't mean cheap.
I'm slowly collecting big (hollow)  vinyl StarAce/X-Plus models from Harryhausen line but they're twice the price of W-Dragon and Nanmu.
And shipping prices + taxes make the rest..
Hard times for collectors   

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

As a child I was as obsessed with having things in scale as now, more so in fact. So s a child I would not have gone for a huge Amargasaurus.
That aside, there are so many scales now that there is always something in scale with something, and the Patogotitan will still shake well with some figures, and even if it wasn't, my desire to have as many different animals represented takes priority.
Also Safari Ltd remain my favourite company, and I will do what I can to support them.

[suspsy]

If safari cant make a big patagotitan then why did they make a HUMONGUS Amargasaurus?   The Amarga should of been as big as the Carnegie.

For the same reason that Safari's 2018 lineup had 13 toys and last year's had 2 @Takama , it was a different economy. And they probably made a big Amargasaurus because a large toy of a spiky sauropod would sell well to children, as well as less scale conscious collectors. I would have loved that thing as a kid, scale be damned, I was never concerned with scale when I was playing with toy dinosaurs. I think some collectors forget about that OTHER, very significant demographic that Safari has to appeal to.

Anyway, I agree with Blade, don't be so obsessed with scale. Or if you are, buy the toys that are in the scale you like and ignore the others. It's a pretty straightforward concept.

This. Only it was three toys last year, not two. Everyone seems to forget about that poor little Spinosaurus.

[Flaffy]

Prices for large sauropod figures from various companies:

[SidB]

(..) and hollow (but detailed) seems to be the way to go, IMO.

Unfortunately big, hollow and detailed
doesn't mean cheap
I'm slowly collecting big (hollow)  vinyl StarAce/X-Plus models from Harryhausen line but they're twice the price of W-Dragon and Nanmu.
And shipping prices + taxes make the rest..
Hard times for collectors   

Unfortuntate, to say the least, but good point. I'm hoping that Safari finds a way, but maybe I shouldn't be too optimistic.

[Dinoguy2]

Does no one remember this behemoth from all the way back in... 2020? It's still possible.
http://dinotoyblog.com/2019/10/10/brachiosaurus-jurassic-world-legacy-collection-by-mattel/

Unfortunately, that's not a solid argument. Mattel is one of the biggest and most successful toy companies on the planet; their products include Barbie, American Girl, Hot Wheels, and Fisher-Price among others. The only toy company more successful than them is The LEGO Group. In other words, they have the money and the manufacturing capability to make dinosaur toys as big as the JW Apatosaurus and Brachiosaurus---which are NOT made of PVC like Safari or CollectA or Schleich figures.

Or to put it another way, Safari is a blue shark and Mattel is a blue whale. They are not remotely in the same league.

I meant only in size, which is what the post seemed to be lamenting. A solid, 10 lb. hunk of PVC? Yeah, probably not likely to happen any more. But unless you need it to clobber robbers I see no less play value in a lighter, comparable-size dino put out by Mattel.

Even if it wasn't made out of PVC, I don't think Safari Ltd. has the capital or the capacity to make a toy that big, not in this difficult day and age. Shane was pretty clear on that earlier in the thread. I think we all need to accept that sauropod figures like the CollectA Mamenchisaurus and the Eofauna Atlasaurus and Diplodocus are the very biggest we're going to get from now on. And most will probably be smaller like the Patagotitan.

This is probably true, but an additional and probably even larger factor is that it seems like the kinds of retailers Safari distributes to do not want big models. There has never been a larger Safari model than the initial 1988 Brachiosaurus, even subsequent versions of the "same" figure were significantly smaller and lighter, and the trends in animal toy figures in general has been away from making figures that compliment each other in terms of scale towards making most figures fit into a few homogenous size categories. I think it really must be retailers driving this trend.

[Shane]

Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in.

Just want to drop some info here re: the Sauropod size/cost chart.

The length for Patagotitan is an underestimation. This is no one's fault, as you're only going by the info available.

However, the full length is about 43 cm. Nose to tail, it would be closer to 50 cm if it were able to be "stretched out" due to the curvature of the neck and tail.

[Flaffy]

Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in.

Just want to drop some info here re: the Sauropod size/cost chart.

The length for Patagotitan is an underestimation. This is no one's fault, as you're only going by the info available.

However, the full length is about 43 cm. Nose to tail, it would be closer to 50 cm if it were able to be "stretched out" due to the curvature of the neck and tail.

Thank you! Will update the chart shortly. And yeah the number was from Safari's website measurments at 15".
Do you happen to have the measurements for its height as well?

[Leyster]

D @Dinoguy2 are you referring to Safari Dinosaurs, or Safari in general? Because I think in 1996 there was an even bigger 1 meter long Alligator, I saw it somewhere in the ATF

[Shane]

Thank you! Will update the chart shortly. And yeah the number was from Safari's website measurments at 15".
Do you happen to have the measurements for its height as well?

The approximate sizes on the product page are mainly to let customers know roughly how big the item will be, so they're not typically super exact.

Height wise, it's at about 9.5 - 10 cm at the top of the head.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

(..) and hollow (but detailed) seems to be the way to go, IMO.

Unfortunately big, hollow and detailed
doesn't mean cheap
I'm slowly collecting big (hollow)  vinyl StarAce/X-Plus models from Harryhausen line but they're twice the price of W-Dragon and Nanmu.
And shipping prices + taxes make the rest..
Hard times for collectors   

Unfortuntate, to say the least, but good point. I'm hoping that Safari finds a way, but maybe I shouldn't be too optimistic.

Getting a bit OT, but those are also licensed properties if sold without it they would be a 100.00 or so less I imagine. Also a bit heavy duty for vinyl.   I would be good with large and simple paint apps.  i can always repaint.

[Dinoguy2]

D @Dinoguy2 are you referring to Safari Dinosaurs, or Safari in general? Because I think in 1996 there was an even bigger 1 meter long Alligator, I saw it somewhere in the ATF

Wow, I wasn't aware they made one that big!

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

D @Dinoguy2 are you referring to Safari Dinosaurs, or Safari in general? Because I think in 1996 there was an even bigger 1 meter long Alligator, I saw it somewhere in the ATF

Wow, I wasn't aware they made one that big!

They used to have some out there HUGE stuff..the reptiles that looked cast from actual specimens, were fantastic. At one point I had all of them.

[Gwangi]

If safari cant make a big patagotitan then why did they make a HUMONGUS Amargasaurus?   The Amarga should of been as big as the Carnegie.

For the same reason that Safari's 2018 lineup had 13 toys and last year's had 2 @Takama , it was a different economy. And they probably made a big Amargasaurus because a large toy of a spiky sauropod would sell well to children, as well as less scale conscious collectors. I would have loved that thing as a kid, scale be damned, I was never concerned with scale when I was playing with toy dinosaurs. I think some collectors forget about that OTHER, very significant demographic that Safari has to appeal to.

Anyway, I agree with Blade, don't be so obsessed with scale. Or if you are, buy the toys that are in the scale you like and ignore the others. It's a pretty straightforward concept.

This. Only it was three toys last year, not two. Everyone seems to forget about that poor little Spinosaurus.

That's right! Of course. I completely forgot about the Spinosaurus. My bad.

[Psittacoraptor]

I don't understand why many of you are pressed about a couple of toes or scale, I think it is a wonderful figure for kids, and I'll be getting one myself 

The first thing you see on Safari's website is a picture of a playing toddler. The contrast between that and the discussion in this thread is quite something, haha. You'd think Safari was making high-end museum display pieces.

[Leyster]

D @Dinoguy2 if you're curious, here is it

[Dinoguy2]

I don't understand why many of you are pressed about a couple of toes or scale, I think it is a wonderful figure for kids, and I'll be getting one myself 

The first thing you see on Safari's website is a picture of a playing toddler. The contrast between that and the discussion in this thread is quite something, haha. You'd think Safari was making high-end museum display pieces.

Safari has certainly shifted their marketing strategy since the old days. I'm old enough to remember (and have scans of old catalogs to prove it) that they used to advertise their dinosaurs as "not merely toys" and say "every detail is scientifically accurate".

I mean they still have the same or better quality of figures that they did back then, it's just that nowadays they're more successful marketing as a little kid brand so they can get traction from mommy/parent accounts on Instagram

[RobinGoodfellow]

(..) and hollow (but detailed) seems to be the way to go, IMO.

Unfortunately big, hollow and detailed
doesn't mean cheap
I'm slowly collecting big (hollow)  vinyl StarAce/X-Plus models from Harryhausen line but they're twice the price of W-Dragon and Nanmu.
And shipping prices + taxes make the rest..
Hard times for collectors   

Unfortuntate, to say the least, but good point. I'm hoping that Safari finds a way, but maybe I shouldn't be too optimistic.

Getting a bit OT, but those are also licensed properties if sold without it they would be a 100.00 or so less I imagine. Also a bit heavy duty for vinyl.   I would be good with large and simple paint apps.  i can always repaint.

Yes, of course.
But nowadays a painted, big, detailed vinyl figure can't go under 100 USD (if the seller wants some profit from his work..) 

[Halichoeres]

@Sim I really don't mean to pick a fight, but if we're going to restrict 'hyperbole' to its narrowest sense, indicating that you intentionally exaggerated for rhetorical effect, then I think we need to construe 'fantasy' equally narrowly, to mean imagining something impossible or implausible. Reconstructing animals like Patagotitan rests on inference, interpolation, even extrapolation from time to time, based on the very reasonable assumption that things that are more closely related by evolution are likely to appear more similar than dissimilar. Equating that with fantasy strikes me as a bit ungenerous and, yes, an exaggeration.

Meanwhile Rebor is getting absolutely SLANDERED on the Ekrixinatosaurus review on DTB Sorry I just had to.

Hey, it's only slander if it's untrue. But in seriousness, the review is pretty biting and maybe I shouldn't be writing like that, although it's maybe my most popular entry on the blog so you can see how my incentives are aligned.

@Flaffy not exactly your point I know, but speaking as someone who teaches anatomy, the term 'anatomical position' is less about what's comfortable for an organism than about conventions for the convenience of scholars and students. It's just a pose agreed upon for reference because  it maximizes how many structures are visible at once, kind of like the poses in skeletal diagrams. You can comfortably assume anatomical position, but if you held that pose at length you would be pretty uncomfortable and also everyone would think you were a maniac!

[Sim]

@Sim I really don't mean to pick a fight, but if we're going to restrict 'hyperbole' to its narrowest sense, indicating that you intentionally exaggerated for rhetorical effect, then I think we need to construe 'fantasy' equally narrowly, to mean imagining something impossible or implausible. Reconstructing animals like Patagotitan rests on inference, interpolation, even extrapolation from time to time, based on the very reasonable assumption that things that are more closely related by evolution are likely to appear more similar than dissimilar. Equating that with fantasy strikes me as a bit ungenerous and, yes, an exaggeration.

I used fantasy to mean something imagined, and at the time enough of Patagotitan and definitely enough of Argentinosaurus was that that I felt it was appropriate to consider reconstructions of them to be fantasy.  What I think has been ungenerous is your and suspsy's responses to that.  Compare them with @Flaffy's who was respectful and manged to explain things in a way that got across her point and has made me reconsider Patagotitan being mostly fantasy.  @stargatedalek also expressed her disagreement in a respectful way.  While we're talking about what is fantasy, I noticed that this discussion revealed that the Patagotitan mounted skeleton has one more neck vertebra than a relative suggests, a guessed skull, an apparently inaccurate torso posture, digitigrade feet and a tail that's much longer than what its relatives suggest.  So that skeleton appears to be quite a lot of fantasy.

If some people are so intolerant of my views, and moderators think how they've expressed themselves is not much of a problem, then what should I do?  I feel I've been receiving presumptuous comments that are agressive and I've really had enough.  I find it astounding how some people here don't seem to think that they don't know what someone else goes through and they just leave them nasty comments.  I wish it wasn't so but I don't trust the moderation team to keep this place a safe space and I really have had enough of having my days spoilt by offensive posts.  So I wonder again, what should I do?  Maybe it's time I don't return to this forum once and for all.