Carnegie Collection by Safari Ltd

[Lynx]

Nobody has said a word here for years... ah screw it, time to break that chain. Just ordered a used Carnegie brown rex! For a used figure, the pictures show that it is not too bad! Can't wait for it to arrive. Hopefully the weather here doesn't mess things up!

Hope that you managed to get the latest 2012 variant (I believe, see D @Dinoguy2 . I t has te corrected facial and tarsal geometry as well as much sharper teeth than the previous three variants. Regardless, though, they are /were fine rexes.

I actually bought the 1998 one by accident! They look so similar it was hard to tell. Does Ebay let you return something while it's shipping?

[Dinoguy2]

Nobody has said a word here for years... ah screw it, time to break that chain. Just ordered a used Carnegie brown rex! For a used figure, the pictures show that it is not too bad! Can't wait for it to arrive. Hopefully the weather here doesn't mess things up!

Hope that you managed to get the latest 2012 variant (I believe, see D @Dinoguy2 . I t has te corrected facial and tarsal geometry as well as much sharper teeth than the previous three variants. Regardless, though, they are /were fine rexes.

Yes, the last mold is much improved. According to Forest Rogers the old one seems to have been damaged when the wax original was shipped by Safari to the factory for tooling and they did a poor repair job on it when making the mold.

[SidB]

Nobody has said a word here for years... ah screw it, time to break that chain. Just ordered a used Carnegie brown rex! For a used figure, the pictures show that it is not too bad! Can't wait for it to arrive. Hopefully the weather here doesn't mess things up!

Hope that you managed to get the latest 2012 variant (I believe, see D @Dinoguy2 . I t has te corrected facial and tarsal geometry as well as much sharper teeth than the previous three variants. Regardless, though, they are /were fine rexes.

I actually bought the 1998 one by accident! They look so similar it was hard to tell. Does Ebay let you return something while it's shipping?

Noticeable enough in hand, but yes, hard to distinguish from the Ebay image. However, the subtle difference in the paint application was the giveaway. The newest one was hard to find, for me anyways. You might want to hold onto your purchase until you find the fourth variant, then sell it, if you only want one. I kept all four - guess that tells you that I think of them!

[Lynx]

To be honest, I don't like selling off/returning figures unless they come broken. A little sculpt or paint difference won't change things for me.

[Carnegie Collector]

I really liked the Carnegie Collection.  It was the line of dinosaurs that I got started with as a kid in the late 90s and continued to collect all the way until it was finished in 2015. While some of the figures are a bit dated by now, I thought the line was one of the best on the market. Battat would be the only other company to match their quality in the 90s, and in some cases, surpass it. But companies of that time like Bullyland, Schleich, and UKRD and AAA were not even close to Carnegie in terms of quality and accuracy.  And their 1:40 scale sauropods were iconic, and even though the 2012 brachiosaurus was in a different scale, it was still a fantastic figure. Admittedly a few of their dinosaurs in the 90s and early 2000s were rough, like the Acrocanthosaurus and the 1992 Spinosaurus, but the later figures were some of the best and most detailed figures out there. I'll forgive the abandonment of the 1:40 scale and the tripod poses, because the sculpts and the level of detail were phenomenal.  Personally I think that the 2008 Diplodocus was one of the best sauropod figures ever made. As great as Wild Safari has gotten, I still miss the Carnegie Collection. 

[SidB]

Yes, @Carnegie Collector , I agree that the latter run of sculpts by Forest Rogers were remarkable. Admittedly, every line has its detractors, perhaps inevitably, but the positives of her work overwhelmingly superceeded  any deficiencies, whether real or perceived. Like you, I have a very high opinion of her late opus, but it was sad that the annual output in the final years was so very minimal. I miss the projected Apatosaurus that was reputedly in the pipeline, perhaps for 2016. It became apparent towards the end that the Carnegie was running out of steam, whereas Safari, from 2016 onwards has all but flooded us with great figures, especially though not exclusively by Doug Watson, whose style is distinct from Rogers. The line came to an end, it is missed, but its demise was not untimely.

[Gwangi]

I miss Forest Roger's unique style. Her sculpts had a certain elegance to them that's missing from a lot of modern models. The Carnegie Collection reached its peak right when I started collecting and I'm happy that I was able to get many of them from that era before they became rare. The Diplodocus, Carnotaurus, Giganotosaurus, Cryolophosaurus, Woolly mammoth, and Miragaia are among my all time favorite figures. There are some I never got, I kept putting them off and now I regret it. I really wish I could get my hands on the Spinosaurus, Tylosaurus, and Ichthyosaurs.

I threw a lot of shade at the Carnegie Collection in its last couple years. The same-same color palates and poses, sloppy paint applications, smaller scale, etc. You could tell the writing was on the wall I think. I still stand by my remarks but I'm definitely feeling nostalgic for the line.

[Carnegie Collector]

I understand why they did the pose like that though. It makes it easier for the dinosaurs to be stabilized and there's less risk of them falling over.  My Safari Ltd feathered T. rex has major balance issues and so does the 1999 Carnegie, but the 2014 one stands up really well.  All 3 are great, but the 2014 is the best for display. 

That really makes me sad that they had an apatosaurus in the works when they canceled the line. I love the new Wild Safari sculpts, but they aren't quite as detailed as the Carnegie Collection dinosaurs in many cases. 

Also it was kind of sad to see that the Carnegie Museum had switched to Papo by the end of 2017 in their gift shop.  I actually got my Papo apatosaurus at the museum. Funny enough, the Papo is probably closer to what the actual museum display looks like than the Carnegie, even in the way the neck is posed.  (Btw, I highly recommend going to the Carnegie Museum if you haven't made it there).

[SidB]

I understand why they did the pose like that though. It makes it easier for the dinosaurs to be stabilized and there's less risk of them falling over.  My Safari Ltd feathered T. rex has major balance issues and so does the 1999 Carnegie, but the 2014 one stands up really well.  All 3 are great, but the 2014 is the best for display. 

That really makes me sad that they had an apatosaurus in the works when they canceled the line. I love the new Wild Safari sculpts, but they aren't quite as detailed as the Carnegie Collection dinosaurs in many cases. 

Also it was kind of sad to see that the Carnegie Museum had switched to Papo by the end of 2017 in their gift shop.  I actually got my Papo apatosaurus at the museum. Funny enough, the Papo is probably closer to what the actual museum display looks like than the Carnegie, even in the way the neck is posed.  (Btw, I highly recommend going to the Carnegie Museum if you haven't made it there).

I went there in 2009 or so, while driving through to Harrisburg. It was a good experience, seeing some of their classic mounted specimens. I only had the late morning to peruse the Museum of Natural History, so I never made it out of the Dinosaur collections. Felt like Alice in Wonderland. But I was surprised to find only a relatively limited selection of Carnegie Safari figures in the gift shop. I don't remember buying even one, as I had all of their offerings, whereas my tour of the Field museum in Chicago netted me a decent haul. That was a few years earlier.

[SidB]

I miss Forest Roger's unique style. Her sculpts had a certain elegance to them that's missing from a lot of modern models. The Carnegie Collection reached its peak right when I started collecting and I'm happy that I was able to get many of them from that era before they became rare. The Diplodocus, Carnotaurus, Giganotosaurus, Cryolophosaurus, Woolly mammoth, and Miragaia are among my all time favorite figures. There are some I never got, I kept putting them off and now I regret it. I really wish I could get my hands on the Spinosaurus, Tylosaurus, and Ichthyosaurs.

I threw a lot of shade at the Carnegie Collection in its last couple years. The same-same color palates and poses, sloppy paint applications, smaller scale, etc. You could tell the writing was on the wall I think. I still stand by my remarks but I'm definitely feeling nostalgic for the line.

That sense of nostalgia is, I think, one of the very good things about the collecting of figures and lines in this hobby. Not only for the  items themselves, but especially for the memories of times, places and people that are attached to and cluster around them. Yeah, I still display the Spinosaurus, though several significant anatomical changes have made it rather retro - it's just a beautiful piece, so very Forest Rogers. Glad that I jumped at the opportunity to snap up the Tylosaurus and Ichthyosaurus too, back in the day.

[Carnegie Collector]

@Gwangi , there's an ichthyosaurus on eBay right now. 

[Gwangi]

@Gwangi , there's an ichthyosaurus on eBay right now.

Thanks, @Carnegie Collector, I added it to my watchlist.

[SidB]

It's a fine companion for the newest Safari one.

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

I was looking through the Replicast web site and came across a few photos I hadn't seen before of some resin masters:

https://replicasting.com/fun

[SidB]

Interesting. @Pachyrhinosaurus , what do you think was the connection between Replicast and these three fine sculpts of Forest Rogers?

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

Interesting. @Pachyrhinosaurus , what do you think was the connection between Replicast and these three fine sculpts of Forest Rogers?

Replicast would have made the masters that were sent to the factory for tooling and painting, as Forest Rogers did not mold and cast them herself.

[SidB]

Interesting. @Pachyrhinosaurus , what do you think was the connection between Replicast and these three fine sculpts of Forest Rogers?

Replicast would have made the masters that were sent to the factory for tooling and painting, as Forest Rogers did not mold and cast them herself.

I had no idea. Thanks, again for revealing this piece of history. Kind of melancholy, seeing as the Carnegie line, with us for so long, has been a thing of the past these last six years.

[Dinoguy2]

Interesting. @Pachyrhinosaurus , what do you think was the connection between Replicast and these three fine sculpts of Forest Rogers?

Replicast and similar companies take the original sculpt in clay or whatever materials the artist uses and make masters from them. These would be sent to Safari for tooling, with some going back to Forest Rogers to create paint masters. The paint master would be sent to Safari for approval then on to the factories to use as reference for painting up the production run.

[SidB]

Interesting. @Pachyrhinosaurus , what do you think was the connection between Replicast and these three fine sculpts of Forest Rogers?

Replicast and similar companies take the original sculpt in clay or whatever materials the artist uses and make masters from them. These would be sent to Safari for tooling, with some going back to Forest Rogers to create paint masters. The paint master would be sent to Safari for approval then on to the factories to use as reference for painting up the production run.

Thanks!

[Ikessauro]

Another Carnegie mystery for D @Dinoguy2 to crack. Is this a variant or a weird well made custom?

Got this weird Styracosaurus from Demarco on eBay recently. Unlike the usual Styraco out there, it is way more blue and has almost no purple/pink on it. Also, you can see the black outline in the mouth is different, as well as the horns black paint. The first picture shows it under natural sunlight in a cloudy day.


From here on the pics are under artificial light from LED lamps.


The right side of the figure seems to be less blue than the other side, but still blue. Weirdly it appears to have white or silver speckles of paint on the dorsal part and head. The blue color reminds me of powder pigments, but I tried cleaning it off with no luck. It doesn't seem to be something easy to remove. The model itself doesn't appear to have been fully painted, as the color of the plastic is showing. So I think if this was a "repaint", it was done only with powder pigment and maybe some sort of really fine glitter. Kind cool looking Styraco, would love to hear what you guys think. Variant or custom?


The belly stamp seems to be the same on both versions