The Rare Relics and the Diorama of Time

[The Templar of the Past]

Greetings brothers and sisters,

I am a new member of the Dino Toy Forum and I have been in the hobby of collecting the figures of animals long gone for nearly two decades, starting around 2008, with a 58 (though actually 61) pieces collection of CollectA prehistoric creatures.

More than three years ago I had a vision, inspired by both the necessity to replace my broken figures and cherished memory of family traditions regarding Nativity scenes and since the year of our Lord 2022 I had prepared a list of species to acquire to bring this dream to life: making a diorama as a tribute of the marvels of Nature, History and Myth.

However, I have recently realized this would prove more difficult than expected as around 41% of the missing models in my list come from either not very accessible companies (meaning they do not come from Schleich, Papo, CollectA, Safari, Mojo, PNSO, Haolonggood, Rebor, Creative Beasts Studio or Mattel) or have been long retired.

While it's not a problem for me to reliably get available figures from the aforementioned companies it's not nearly as comfortable for those that do not satisty these requisites: when these figures are found they are always on Ebay, a site which severely inflates the price, to the point a 5$ small figure of Ceratogaulus entirely painted in red would end up costing 32 euros.

That's why I turned to you, hoping that by seeking the assistance of fellow enthusiasts I will be to make easier deals and that out of kindness they could help me with another problem: as I've said before economically this collection isn't that hard to mantain but each purchase has to be spaced out and while I can do that easily for what is still in production, I can't do so with retired figures, which risk running out of stock again and permanently (as was the case with Kaiyodo Metriorhynchus); by turning to your help I will be able to properly organize my purchase so that I can sustain them.

As far as payment goes, every month I get from 90 to up to 115 euros to spend on my collection, how much is paid for what would then be a matter of discussion in a more private location, but that's my limit. The next time I can purchase something for my collection would be in August, with a total of 90 euros available.

Now that everything is explained I will publish here an excel document which contains my list of species, which innerworkings are the following:

- Species names are written in italics and listed chronologically, except fictional species which are written in bold.

- A set of info is contained in every row, in order: species, age, company and a various set of criteria that a figure can cover.

- Green cells are used to represent ownership of a model and that model satisfying the specific criterion of the column the cell is under.

- Yellow cells are used to to signal that a species does not satisfy specific criteria outside of simple accuracy (for example a species that hasn't appeared in the british series Primeval will have a yellow cell under that column).

- Red cells are used to signal that a figure is missing from the collection or that a criterion isn't satisfied by the figures of that species that I currently own.

- Dark grey cells are used to represent that a species was never made in figure form and because of this three question marks are put under the company column.

- Light grey cells are used to denote species which had figures of them released from 2023 onwards.

- When a company name is written in red it means that the figure to which is associated is from a not very accessible company or was retired, these are the figures I need your help for.


Creatures List.xlsx
And that's all for this post, I hope that I will be able to get your help.

Blessings...

[Halichoeres]

I'm curious what criteria you used for this list. A large number of these animals have never been made into a figure as far as I know.

[The Templar of the Past]

I'm curious what criteria you used for this list. A large number of these animals have never been made into a figure as far as I know.

Most of these came from old books that I piled up since I was a lad and I used them as inspiration, hence the large amount of dark grey cells. I don't let those cells bother me too much and besides there's always the chance every year some turn from dark to light. 

Other species I picked from games or series (Such as Primeval).

[brettnj]

(I'm color-blind and) can't use your list but if you need anything from Japan, if interested, feel free to let me know (We are discussing the TT snakes over at the ATF...).

Thanks.
Brett

[The Templar of the Past]

(I'm color-blind and) can't use your list but if you need anything from Japan, if interested, feel free to let me know (We are discussing the TT snakes over at the ATF...).

Thanks.
Brett

Oh man I'm sorry. I mean, I still miss most models from Kaiyodo so unless you can't read red on white you could still figure out which figures I'm missing in that respect.
Alternatively I can list them for you later.