Safari Ltd - New for 2022

[bmathison1972]

I have mentioned this recently (but I can't remember which forum, so excuse me if I am repeating myself), but to the best of my knowledge Safari is the only major western company that uses pics of the final product in their promotional images, not doctored images nor prototypes. So, generally you know what you're going to get (and most of the time, they look better in-hand).

[SidB]

A handsome sculpt in the light of day. I can see myself using this in my Safari diorama display as a subadult among the preponderance of 1/35-1/40 figures, so that the 1/70 scale can work out okay.

Decided to put my money where my mouth is and I pre-ordered one from Dans.

[Flaffy]

A handsome sculpt in the light of day. I can see myself using this in my Safari diorama display as a subadult among the preponderance of 1/35-1/40 figures, so that the 1/70 scale can work out okay.

Decided to put my money where my mouth is and I pre-ordered one from Dans.

Does Dans know when the Patagotitan is expected to be in stock?

[Shonisaurus]

Thanks for the info. It looks magnificent, I'm going to pre-order it in Alcaiceria when the pre-order and the product are available. I honestly don't understand how such a beautiful figure has received so much criticism on the forums. It is much better than your initial promotional images. I guess it will be available in online stores in July or at the end of the year. I'll wait to buy it as long as it takes. It is a very nice, detailed and scientific model and at very affordable prices and that is appreciated by any pocket in particular mine.

[SpartanSquat]

One question guys: nobody talked about reitred figures but I notice the einiosaurus and pachyrhinosaurus are no longer in the safari website. Someone knows which figures will be retired?

[Faelrin]

I think the Einiosaurus was retired last year as well as the Nasutoceratops? Would be a shame to see the Pachyrhinosaurus retired too. All three were very nice sculpts.

[CityRaptor]

Hmm, looking at Spielzeug Günstig, none of those show up there.

[CarnotaurusKing]

The good die young. Boy am I glad I picked those up when I had the chance. And why are these the figures being retired? If they're gonna discontinue some figures, the 2006 T.rex, 1996 T.rex, 2009 Dilophosaurus and 2010 Mosasaurus are long overdue. I gotta get that Vagaceratops ASAP, I've a feeling that's next.

[Flaffy]

The good die young. Boy am I glad I picked those up when I had the chance. And why are these the figures being retired? If they're gonna discontinue some figures, the 2006 T.rex, 1996 T.rex, 2009 Dilophosaurus and 2010 Mosasaurus are long overdue. I gotta get that Vagaceratops ASAP, I've a feeling that's next.

It's really tragic how the best sculpts often get the shortest production runs. Schleich is a big offender of this. Einiosaurus and Nasutoceratops have been retired to my knowledge, dunno about the Pachyrhinosaurus but I wouldn't be surprised if met a similar fate. EverythingDinosaur has run out of Einiosaurus, so those who are still hunting for it, and the other two amazing Watson ceratopsians better hurry. Stock on the remaining sites that do still have them won't last.

I feel like the only reason why the clearly outdated sculpts of popular species (rex, trike, etc) are still in production is because retailers couldn't be bothered to update their order lists. CollectA's seen something similar with their old Procon 2009 Tyrannosaurus, where it's apparently one of their best selling models, despite having multiple updated Tyrannosaurus sculpts available. Retailers keeps ordering old stock --> consumers keeps buying old stock as it's often the only choice available --> new stock isn't ordered and translates to seemingly low sales numbers --> companies review the sales numbers and retires poor performing products. Repeat cycle.

Sometimes this loop branches off to a worse-case-scenario of: (after years of restocking old models and old models only) --> they no longer sell well as local customers already have the product --> old models warm shelves for years --> retailers notice poor sales and stops stocking products from company X entirely. I have unfortunately witnessed the above quite a few times personally.

In the ideal world, companies like Safari and CollectA would retire their old outdated models entirely, and encourage retailers to stock their new products, but alas. Honestly, in cases like this I really don't mind if Safari did repaints of these figures. It's a good way to get more mileage out of a mould, and is certainly better than pretending one lizard sculpt is another entirely separate species.


In some slightly less depressing news, someone on Safari's facebook asked when the 2022 Patagotitan will be releasing, to which Safari responded privately.

[SidB]

A handsome sculpt in the light of day. I can see myself using this in my Safari diorama display as a subadult among the preponderance of 1/35-1/40 figures, so that the 1/70 scale can work out okay.

Decided to put my money where my mouth is and I pre-ordered one from Dans.

Does Dans know when the Patagotitan is expected to be in stock?

@Flaffy , I didn't ask him and he didn't hint at any projected date either. I have three other figures on pre-order with Dan , including Safari's DinoDana's feathered T-rex, so it's all about waiting for me. In the meanwhile, there's the continuing flow of PNSO's, so my appetite is satisfied, week-to-week and month-to-month.

[Shane]

In the ideal world, companies like Safari and CollectA would retire their old outdated models entirely, and encourage retailers to stock their new products, but alas.

Without getting too deep into how the sausage is made, companies definitely do this. There are pretty recent examples of it if you look around a bit.

If an "outdated" model is still in production, it's because it is still selling well enough to justify this, despite their being a potentially more accurate alternative available.

And it doesn't make sense from a business standpoint for any company to retire a figure that is actively selling well.

You can certainly encourage a retailer to purchase an updated, newer version of a figure, but if you remove an item that is a great seller for them, that's just making your customers unhappy.

[Gwangi]

This all makes sense, and we've all seen stores like Michaels carry the same old toys for years on end. Ironically, when companies do that they also lose customers too. Knowing that they don't update their stock means I don't go into them as often as I would otherwise. And yet Tractor Supply Company sells Schleich toys and always has the most recent releases in stock, it's always rotating and I'm always checking their selection (extant animals, not so much the prehistoric stuff).

[SpartanSquat]

The good die young. Boy am I glad I picked those up when I had the chance. And why are these the figures being retired? If they're gonna discontinue some figures, the 2006 T.rex, 1996 T.rex, 2009 Dilophosaurus and 2010 Mosasaurus are long overdue. I gotta get that Vagaceratops ASAP, I've a feeling that's next.

Yeah, you probably should get vagaceratops so fast.
One Im desesperate to get is the triceratops (the newest one) both in amazon and the madrid store doesnt have it, I only found the armoured fantasy one.

[Shane]

This all makes sense, and we've all seen stores like Michaels carry the same old toys for years on end. Ironically, when companies do that they also lose customers too. Knowing that they don't update their stock means I don't go into them as often as I would otherwise. And yet Tractor Supply Company sells Schleich toys and always has the most recent releases in stock, it's always rotating and I'm always checking their selection (extant animals, not so much the prehistoric stuff).

Some larger retailers only do "resets" every few years, compared to smaller retailers that have more freedom to order whatever they want, whenever they want.

It's the nature of the beast, unfortunately.

[Faelrin]

Kind of why I only order online from Safari Ltd directly, except when I'm hunting for out of stock retired models. At least I got the Einiosaurus and Nasutoceratops last year, so I'll need to hunt for the Pachyrhinosaurus at some point too it seems. Still behind on the beautiful Gryposaurus that got retired a few years back as well, and numerous others.

[Dinoguy2]

The good die young. Boy am I glad I picked those up when I had the chance. And why are these the figures being retired? If they're gonna discontinue some figures, the 2006 T.rex, 1996 T.rex, 2009 Dilophosaurus and 2010 Mosasaurus are long overdue. I gotta get that Vagaceratops ASAP, I've a feeling that's next.

It's really tragic how the best sculpts often get the shortest production runs. Schleich is a big offender of this. Einiosaurus and Nasutoceratops have been retired to my knowledge, dunno about the Pachyrhinosaurus but I wouldn't be surprised if met a similar fate. EverythingDinosaur has run out of Einiosaurus, so those who are still hunting for it, and the other two amazing Watson ceratopsians better hurry. Stock on the remaining sites that do still have them won't last.

I feel like the only reason why the clearly outdated sculpts of popular species (rex, trike, etc) are still in production is because retailers couldn't be bothered to update their order lists. CollectA's seen something similar with their old Procon 2009 Tyrannosaurus, where it's apparently one of their best selling models, despite having multiple updated Tyrannosaurus sculpts available. Retailers keeps ordering old stock --> consumers keeps buying old stock as it's often the only choice available --> new stock isn't ordered and translates to seemingly low sales numbers --> companies review the sales numbers and retires poor performing products. Repeat cycle.

Sometimes this loop branches off to a worse-case-scenario of: (after years of restocking old models and old models only) --> they no longer sell well as local customers already have the product --> old models warm shelves for years --> retailers notice poor sales and stops stocking products from company X entirely. I have unfortunately witnessed the above quite a few times personally.

In the ideal world, companies like Safari and CollectA would retire their old outdated models entirely, and encourage retailers to stock their new products, but alas. Honestly, in cases like this I really don't mind if Safari did repaints of these figures. It's a good way to get more mileage out of a mould, and is certainly better than pretending one lizard sculpt is another entirely separate species.


In some slightly less depressing news, someone on Safari's facebook asked when the 2022 Patagotitan will be releasing, to which Safari responded privately.

It wasn't too long ago that Safari had 4 (or more?) very different versions of T. rex in production simultaneously. Three alone in the Carnegie line. As others have said, if the old version still sells well, companies are more likely to just sell multiple versions rather than retire a popular figure and upset retailers.

Note that this isn't necessarily retailer laziness in updating order lists. IIRC retailers specifically asked that old versions remain available for order alongside updates. I'm thinking specifically of the green 1993 Carnegie T. rex. Retailers were worried the 1999 update would lead to the discontinuation of the popular older model, so Safari kept it in production until 2015.

[Bokisaurus]

In the ideal world, companies like Safari and CollectA would retire their old outdated models entirely, and encourage retailers to stock their new products, but alas.

Without getting too deep into how the sausage is made, companies definitely do this. There are pretty recent examples of it if you look around a bit.

If an "outdated" model is still in production, it's because it is still selling well enough to justify this, despite their being a potentially more accurate alternative available.

And it doesn't make sense from a business standpoint for any company to retire a figure that is actively selling well.

You can certainly encourage a retailer to purchase an updated, newer version of a figure, but if you remove an item that is a great seller for them, that's just making your customers unhappy.

Very true indeed. It's one of the reasons why companies continue to release repaint of older models, they sell well and it doesn't hurt to freshen them up once in a while.
That's why I can't understand why so many were up and arms about the PNSO repainted spinosaurus and just immediately assume and come up with negative reasoning.
When I used to work retail I do remember having to try and convince the buyer to order some newer versions of some species and was repeatedly told no need to bring in something new and untested when we have one that is a top seller for years🤷🏻‍♂️

[Bokisaurus]

For those of you wanting or looking for those retired Safari ceratopsians Djankins still has them so it's a great place to get them plus he is super nice.
https://www.dejankins.com/wildsafari

[Shonisaurus]

For those of you wanting or looking for those retired Safari ceratopsians Djankins still has them so it's a great place to get them plus he is super nice.
https://www.dejankins.com/wildsafari

I prove what you say, Djankins I dealt with him commercially in the past in the purchase of dinosaurs from Favorite and he is a charming person and an excellent professional.

[Concavenator]

Thank you for your patience and taking your time in explaining how things work from the inside, S @Shane ! Much appreciated. 

Regarding the Patagotitan - I like it! Its color scheme may be similar to the Baryonyx, but I like that, as I was fond of its colors. I will keep an eye out for it, as well as for the other (?) Safari releases for this year. Looks like @Doug Watson sculpted it? If so, I would like to ask why does it have 4 toe claws? Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't it have 5 toes but with only 3 having claws?