Fossilized-Rubber's collection (The Great Old Monocolors and their Chinasaur descendants)

[Fossilized-Rubber]

On arrival to America I went on a dino hunt. On visiting Michaels I found what I was looking for - Safari LTD: good luck minis and Toob baby dinos.

This is not something I can get in the UK. The toob baby dinos are about $40 after import and the good luck minis must be bought in bulk, and I've wanted to get them for a while since finding that the small detailed dinos I have are near copies of the toob dinos.

Thankfully, Michael's had them (after checking Costco and Target) in a big display!

After that I went to Hobby Lobby and saw they had exactly the same things but entirely knocked off. You may have realised that my collection is about bootlegs and copies, so I was thrilled. Here's a side-by-side comparison of Safari Minis and it's immediate bootleg.

Original Safari LTD good luck minis on the right, cheap copy to the left. Note that the Safari LTD has a $5 markup over the copy, and they're virtually the same.


Row by row comparison. The first and third rows are the Hobby Lobby version and the second and fourth rows are the Safari minis from Michael's.


Both have their own charm. I like the vivid colours of the yellow dimetrodon, the purple pterosaur and the red diplodocus from the Hobby Lobby set. The Safari set has an appealing spinosaur and an equally vivid dimetrodon. Both sets are marked "China" underneath so there's a high chance that these are generics rebranded for sale in the US, or the result of corporate espionage.

As with all dinosaurs of this scale (they're maybe 2.5cm high at most and about 7mm wide), some of them stand up better than others. Ironically the Safari LTD (the """official""" set) are less stable than the knockoffs!

Here's also the "toobs" with Safari on top and the off-brand one below. The difference here, if I remember correctly, was about $10 more for the Safari brand.



Safari toob:


"Dinosaurs in a tube". Note the vivid colouration and fun painting style. Note also the generic moulds here. I'm pretty sure I've got these in a countless other styles.



A rough comparison of my Chap Mei dinosaurs vs their Toob Baby Dinos inspiration:





Opinionated judgement warning: the sharp lines of the Chap Mei dinos go so much harder than the Safari LTD dinos.

[edit: these are later editions of the Safari LTD baby dinos and it seems that the earlier versions are much closer to the Chap Mei dinos]

[Fossilized-Rubber]

Glow in the dark dinos! What's not to love? Well, the fact that some of them don't stand is a bit annoying, but it is what it is. I got these from Walmart and immediately purchased them after realising that I already own a large selection of this mould.



What is increasingly interesting about the evolution of this mould is that the designs seem to be visual copies, not directly scaled. They're always solid figures and not made of parts. You can see time and again that there are slight differences in the poses, in the bone count, in the definition. You may recognise these as pieces that are frequently listed at very cheap prices on ebay, either painted or unpainted with various mixes of mould types. The one on the left here is painted with a Warhammer shadow wash by yours truly. The whole set originally arrived as plain beige skeletons.

The one in the middle is from this glow-in-the-dark batch. Note that its mouth is joined closed. It's slightly skinnier than the first one and the tail touches the ground. (It also glows in the dark, obviously).

The one on the right is from a dinosaur-themed zoo. Note that the ratios of body to neck are different, the bone count is different and the head crest is larger. The leg stance is also inverted. This one was painted when I purchased it.



Here they are all compared to their other designs:




Unfortunately these don't glow nearly as strongly as their milk-white relatives. You might get a faint glow if you expose it to bright light then cup it in your hands, but it's not enough to glow into the night on say, a windowsill.

Note that the t-rex and dilophosaur have bent legs, meaning they need to be pushed down before they're stood up, and won't stay standing for long.

All in all, a very exciting find for mould evolution.

[Fossilized-Rubber]

A new group of similar figures. These ones are ankylosaurs.

In order from top to bottom: , Topps Ankylosaur, Diener knockoff.

I find it fascinating how the design repeats and repeats. You'll recognise this as the MPC ankylosaurus, which is a copy of the Marx ankylosaurus.

It's characteristic of a rectangular scale on the back, a zaw-like edge trim, pointed horn-ears, a wry smile and sausage-like legs with a up-curving tail.