How/Why Did You Start Collecting?

[Syndicate Bias]

Dinosaurs

[indohyus]

I was a kid, a lot of the dino and animal models were cheap, then I watched the Walking with trilogy and it sort of spiralled out of control from there

[Halichoeres]

B @brontosauruschuck I'm so sorry to hear that, but we are glad to have you.

[brontosauruschuck]

Thanks dude. Happy to be here.

[Halichoeres]

When I was between 18 and 19 I had this phase where I wanted to stop buying animal figures, viewing it as something childish I have to put in the past but then later I regained an interest in them as works of art.
They are after all not simply toys but they also are sculptures with skilled artists behind their creation.
In 2018 I got back into collecting them with a few figures I saw at the gift shop of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, a mix of CollectA and Safari figures.
Then later the same year the CollectA Dimorphodon, Dunkleosteus and Iguanodon.
Last year I moved into a new apartment which had more space and here I could further grow my collection.
Over time it replaced my previous hobby as I quit paleoart.

And in all honesty there are people collecting vintage dolls or model cars so why would it be any more childish to collect animal figures.

Do you still make other kinds of art? It seems you have considerable skill.

[GojiraGuy1954]

Back in 2012, i saw a cool-looking Dimetrodon and Allosaurus in a shop and decided to buy em. (The papo ones)

[Kapitaenosavrvs]

@Halichoeres I quit drawing / painting in general, only recently I started repainting figures so I do at least something creative.

Sounds like me. I started Repainting at the End of 2019. Also restartet this whole Painting Thing. I hated it in my Childhood, to always have to paint for others. So i quit it. But today, i startet to circle around this painting topic again, becaus i remember i loved it. And i still do. But as always, i got rusty and need to learn old and new Technics again, and also build up some confidence in doing that.

[Shonisaurus]

I quit due to harassment and got sick of being called slurs so I will likely not return to it.

I don't understand your sentence very well. Did you suffer harassment? I'm so sorry for what happened to you I put myself in your place.

[Stegotyranno420]

the last figure i payed for was one year ago, a set of decent figures i used for repainting. most figures i have now was just won with luck.

i used to have way more figures, like the schliech giganotosaurus and the jp3 spinosaurus and t rex by kennr/hasbro? but i donated them because everyone thought i was too old for them .


Kinda funny and sad how this turned into How/Why did you STOP collecting

[ITdactyl]

Using my necro powers on this post from last year.

'Just heard an interesting nugget from class today. The presenter was talking about how the market evolves through the years. He mentioned something interesting:
"The kids today no longer buy toys; so the toy market is now catered to the older generation who used to buy toys as kids. Everything in the market is now geared towards nostalgia."

I know that's too bold a statement and probably incorrect, but it did get me thinking. I realized that I too am driven by nostalgia.
- I'm still looking to get the tiny yellow MPC brontosaurus because that was my first dinosaur toy. And that also drives me to look for updated diplodocid figures because I like the contrast of displaying a retrosaur next to a modern render.
- The first "dino" figure I got when I started to seriously collect toys was the Dino-Riders Quetzalcoatlus. That has shaped my prehistoric themed collection to be centered towards pterosaurs, and recently Azhdarchid figures.

How about you, especially the new members - what got you into collecting "dinosaur" toys? Are you collecting for nostalgia? If you're a younger collector, did any of the older lines/styles pique your interest?

[Maritimer]

I'm a pretty new member here, but I've been into dinosaurs for a little while - exactly how long, I cannot say.

My earliest memory is of sitting in a playpen - was it mine, or my younger brothers'? I do not know - reading (looking at the pictures?) the "How and Why Book of Dinosaurs". That was before the New York World's Fair, and the lifesized dinosaurs and prehistoric drive-through presented by Sinclair and one of the big Detroit auto companies. My first toy dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures were by Marx - because Marx was what was available at the time. Even then, I wanted to have them all - and in every color. I never did get the Struthiomimus, and it's long and long since I've even seen photos of any of them in the gleaming pearlescent colors I remember. I can remember being awed by the Invicta line when I first encountered them in museum gift shops ... AMNH has always been my go-to, and spoiled me for other museums like the Peabody, though I've come to love the Peabody too. (Speaking of the Peabody, I can also remember lying on the living room floor as a lad with LIFE magazine opened to the spread featuring the Zallinger mural for _hours_, and still have a three-volume set of books from the same publisher which features those great images.) I never did succeed in collecting all of the Invicta line, but still have most of 'em in a box upstairs. (I know the Diplodocus' tail took some damage somewhere along the way.)

As an adult, the bright colors and pretty darned accurate sculpts of the Carnegie series brought some interest, and many of them (though not all) found their way here, in dribs and drabs, over the years. Then one day, visiting the local science-gifts shop (after having read "The Dinosaur Heresies"), I spotted a dino figure that was different. Plain brown, but it positively _towered_ above other figures on the shelf, and I _had_ to investigate. A Diplodocus of remarkable heft, rearing up onto its hind legs to pluck a morsel from the very top of some ancient tree . . . and that's how I discovered Battatt. Pretty sure I've got all of the original set, and a few of the newer ones from Target. (Did anyone else ever collect the skulls series they did? I have the Triceratops and Oviraptor, and they're pretty stinkin' wonderful for what they are. Gotta say, I enjoy replica fossils every bit as much as figures, and have several smaller ones 'round here. I don't have room for a 1/1 Tyrannosaurus skull . . . )

At some point, I managed to acquire a couple of Kaiyodo vinyl figures - Albertasaurus and the Camarasaurus that made it, almost unchanged, into "Dinotopia" - but the Albertasaur started to fall apart at the seams, and I never could manage to glue it back together - pretty sure they're both in boxes somewhere.

Of course, like everyone here, I was pretty excited about a book that I'd read - a few pages at a time, while my wife was shopping in the supermarket - by a fellow named Michael Crighton, and went to see the film with the family in the theater the first week it was out - something I nearly never do. Some years later, after helping to illustrate a dinosaur book for a friend (which did fairly well in the awards arena, but is now long out of print), I spotted a dinosaur figure on a shelf in a store (something that's become a bit of a habit, I'm afraid!) that well captured the final moments of that film. I could almost see the banner drifting downward "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" ... and so Papo caught my attention - though I don't think I started buying them until that gorgeous Allosaurus made its debut. For a long time, I was able to enjoy them - inaccuracies and all - and collected quite a few, though there were a few I just never could cotton to; Parasaurolophus, Mosasaurus, Plesiosaurus. As time went on though, the posing on the Papos became more and more outrageous. I love the low-head "hunting" poses of their Dilophosaurus, Carnotaurus and Acrocanthosaurus, but Baryonyx and Giganotosaurus were beyond the pale for me. (I tolerated that pose in Cryolophosaurus for some reason - possibly because it wasn't terribly expensive.) I haven't purchased a Papo in several years.

Then a few months ago, I got an email from Happy Hen (where I usually buy animal figures for my granddaughter, who has long loved those) saying that they now carry PNSO, and foolishly went to look.

A Tyrannosaurus rex based on the one at AMNH? Yes, please.

I'm not sure whether to say "and the rest is history" or "and I'm history - done for . . . " Still, as with Papo, there are a few figures by PNSO which I just can't bring myself to love. Perhaps if I saw them in person.

~Bruce

[Halichoeres]

Welcome to the forum @Maritimer and thanks for sharing your story!

[Gwangi]

Thanks for sharing your story @Maritimer, you've seen the entire history of dinosaur toys unfold first hand! I've actually been reviewing the Marx toys for the Dinosaur Toy Blog and in my upcoming review for the Marx Brontosaurus I speculate on what it must have been like to be kid when the first ever dinosaur toys were released. And particular things come to mind when I associate dinosaur pop culture with that time period. Marx, the Zallinger Life magazine, Fantasia, Sinclair etc. so reading your story and seeing you mention those those things is reaffirming. Welcome to the forum!

[Creature]

So I've been away for a bit for no real reason other than not having enough time in the day for 3 separate collecting hobbies. But like most folks here, I was obsessed with dinosaurs as a kid. That took a backseat to the horse obsession, but I've been collecting model horses off and on for all of my life, and I have a decent-sized action figure collection, so it was only a matter of time before that extended to dinosaurs since they bridge the gap so well.

The dinosaur toys I remember most fondly as a kid were a blue/purple dollar-store type of sauropod, and the Definitely Dinosaurs stegosaurus (gray with cream plates, not green). I started with the JP Super-Colossal T. Rex and a Beasts of the Mesozoic raptor. I found this forum while watching reviews for those two, then got myself a whole flock of raptors. Once I found out that dinosaur sculptors make resins like model horse sculptors do, I knew I was a goner.

I've spent the last year and a half learning how to paint model horses, which are cast in one piece, so there's no assembly process like with lot of dinosaur kits. But I've found a few good deals on broken/incomplete dinosaurs so I've decided it's time to start branching out.

[Fembrogon]

Count me among the kids who grew up in the 90s/00s and was enthralled with dinosaurs since before I can remember. I had lots of dinosaur toys (still have plenty of them in storage currently), and would often do my own play documentaries, making up my own scientific names and factoids for the imaginary periods my dinosaurs lived together in. My "collection" back then came mostly from  birthday gifts or play sets by various brands - mostly generic(?), but also Imperial, Hasbro/JP, Chap Mei, and a handful of Safaris. Of course, back then I really wasn't aware of "brands"; but at some point I started recognizing that certain figures, like the Safaris/Carnegies, were distinctly nicer than the rest. I started trying to identify more of the species I had represented, and would long for "definitive" figures of my favorites. Around 2007-2008, I started subscribing to The Prehistoric Times, and also discovered online shops such as Dejankins and The Dinosaur Farm. Suddenly I started learning how much BIGGER the dinosaur toy market was! It was probably shortly after that when I discovered The Dinosaur Toy Blog, and this website & forum have been guiding me ever since.
I used to have a broader variety of toys - Legos, Star Wars, magnet sets - but dinosaurs and co. were always my first passion, with Godzilla/daikaiju as a close second. Whenever I found space or budget becoming a concern, it didn't take long for those other toys to get moved out. These days, if time and budget become an issue, there isn't anyone left to sacrifice! 

Also one of my fondest memories was when one of our local toy stores who usually just had Schleich and some Bullyland suddenly had Safari Ltd models...I was so damn happy, especially cause some of them were fairly rarely produced species back in the day (and I still like the Carcharodontosaurus a lot, despite the flaws and all...it's just really unique and I remember it fondly). A shame they stopped selling them here.

I wanted to highlight this story because sounds very similar to one of mine. When I was first becoming aware of Safari ltd (and the Carnegie Coolection) as a company, basically the only places I could physically see them were museum shops; however, there was a little "Toy Box/Toy Town" store, attached to a larger educational shop, that my mom would visit now and then (it was a little out of the way for us, so we didn't go much). I was very excited to discover one corner of the store had a dedicated couple of shelves for dinosaur models, which included Papo, Schleich (my first encounters for both brands), and some wild Safari box sets, such as one which included their Carcharodontosaurus, Ceratosaurus, and Utahraptor (with baby). Somehow I just knew what the carcharo had to be, even though I didn't actually know; and at the time I had been searching for a definitive figure of Ceratosaurus, so that set became one of my most desired items for a while.
Honestly, a lot of my older Wild Safari figures are still incredibly nostalgic for me; they haven't aged as well as some figures, like the Battats, but they're pretty nice for their time and were pivotal to my growing love of dinosaurs and toy collecting.

[Halichoeres]

I love these stories.

[GojiraGuy1954]

Using my necro powers on this post from last year.

'Just heard an interesting nugget from class today. The presenter was talking about how the market evolves through the years. He mentioned something interesting:
"The kids today no longer buy toys; so the toy market is now catered to the older generation who used to buy toys as kids. Everything in the market is now geared towards nostalgia."

I know that's too bold a statement and probably incorrect, but it did get me thinking. I realized that I too am driven by nostalgia.
- I'm still looking to get the tiny yellow MPC brontosaurus because that was my first dinosaur toy. And that also drives me to look for updated diplodocid figures because I like the contrast of displaying a retrosaur next to a modern render.
- The first "dino" figure I got when I started to seriously collect toys was the Dino-Riders Quetzalcoatlus. That has shaped my prehistoric themed collection to be centered towards pterosaurs, and recently Azhdarchid figures.

How about you, especially the new members - what got you into collecting "dinosaur" toys? Are you collecting for nostalgia? If you're a younger collector, did any of the older lines/styles pique your interest?

Back when Hasbro was making Jurassic World toys I was really interested in getting some of the old Kenner Jurassic Park toys. But since we have Mattel now which Is much cheaper I get stuff from them instead