Insane Carnegie Collection Production Theory (TM)

[Dinoguy2]

Ok, anybody who doesn't care about the ins and outs of the production history of their dinosaur toys should leave now and spare yourself this madness. I'm going to page T @therizinosaurus because he might appreciate my conspiratorial rambling here and hopefully be able to support or disprove this hypothesis.

Prelude: Since I got back into collecting Carnegie figures a few years ago, I've been baffled by the shear number of mold and paint variants that appeared during the early years of the line. I have never gotten a straight answer about why this should have been the case. Presumably, when the sculpts were sent to factory for production, they'd send a color guide to paint the finished figures. But between 1988 and 1990 there were at least three completely different color schemes for each of the original dinos, more if you count really significantly different variations on the same color palette (like, the same actual paint colors, but painted totally differently).

My crazy theory comes actually based on a figure I've had since I was a child but never quite fit the "history" of the line I had in my head. My Diplodocus, purchased in the early 90s. It's made of extremely soft rubber. Now, many of you may know that most of the original Carnegies were made of a soft rubbery material, that was often white or light beige in color (like my Diplodocus is). So my first instinct was, ok, my Diplodocus mus be a "first generation" model made in the old style soft white rubber. But, it has a completely different kind of info stamp on the belly. Most confirmed 1st gen Carnegies have a very unique, centered info stamp that says "made in China" and "Miami Florida" on them. What I have always been assuming are later versions have these phrases etched out, and the text is left-aligned. So I figured my Diplodocus was a weirdo, a mid-90s product that was made in soft white rubber again for... reasons?

Fast forward to this week. Searching through eBay listings, I'm finding a bunch of other Carnegies with the same situation. Matte paint (like the 1st gen models), white rubber (like the 1st gen models), but with "new" info stamps and the "standard" color schemes. Take a look at my current chronology for say, Apatosaurus Baby: https://carnegiecollection.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-carnegie-collection-apatosaurus.html

It goes from soft rubber and matte paint, to hard plastic and glossy paint, to hard plastic/glossy paint with new green colors, to medium gray plastic with new green colors, then BACK to soft white rubber but still with new green colors, then it's completely revised for the color vinyl line refresh. his happened in about 6 years. Either every few months they changed the way they produced this figure, or there's a BIG piece of the puzzle missing.

Now, my crazy hypothesis:
Could the dull color, rubbery figures and the bright color rubbery figures have all been made at the same time, just at different factories?

Maybe it was like this:

Factory A: in China. Used soft white rubber. Made centered belly stamps saying "Made in China". No CE marks. Painted figures in dull "gold wash" style colors. Around 1989, they switched to hard black PVC plastic.

Factory B: in Europe (Germany? The Schleich factory maybe?). Also used soft white rubber. Made left-aligned belly stamps. These initially said "Made in China", because maybe they were intending to use them as extra molds there, but they weren't so the line was removed from these molds and a CE mark was added because they were made in Europe. This factory used the classic bright colors from the start. Around 1989, they switched to gray medium flexibility plastic. At some point around 1990, Safari or the Carnegie decided they liked the bright Germany colors better and made the China factory switch, still using the hard black plastic underneath.

In around 1995, Safari standardized the whole thing. The German factory stopped making Carnegies (this is around the time Schleich stopped distributing them and started their own line). All Carnegies now made in China using colorful vinyl so the figures didn't need to be fully painted.

I don't know how much of this version of history might be correct, but I'm throwing it out here to see what you guys think...

[Leyster]

To me it looks quite reasonable, although I must admit that I don't know much about toys production or even the Carnegie line history (despite being a long time fan) apart for what I've read on your blog 

[Dinoguy2]

I heard rumours the German variants were made at Bullyland's factory due to similar material but Schleich was the company that had the distribution license for the Carnegie Collection, along with other Safari Ltd. figures in Germany while as far as I remember Bullyland was distributing AAA so it seems unlikely to me that Bullyland was the one to produce these Safari models in Germany due to the rivalry with Schleich but then again it all seems confusing.

I also read on I think Randy Knoll's site? That Bullyland may have at least produced some of the initial tooling. It seems weird that Bullyland would have done this but then they were distributed by Schleich. However, if my theory is right, that "initial tooling" might have actually been to make copies of the original molds. It's well known (even Forest Rogers has pointed this out) that some of the molds look altered/worse compared to the original sculpts. Here's a comparison of a dull color, China-style mold vs. a bright color, "Germany?" style mold. Note the mold lines are different and the green one is a lot blockier and has less subtle detailing, indicating it was copied (probably using a pantograph machine) from the original sculpt, sort of an "official bootleg".


I was operating under the assumption that these were replacement molds made in the early '90s. But if my new theory is right, they were actually just sub-par copies of the original molds produced for a different factory to use.

The main kink in my theory is that some of these "alternate", blockier and less detailed molds DO have made in China stamped on them. But I only have 1 figure like this. All the rest from this mold group have a raised area where that phrase used to be, as if it had been drilled out of the mold. That's why I'm thinking these molds WERE produced by the Chinese factory from samples of the originals, then sent to Germany, and the German factory removed the "made in China". But this is a little convoluted.

Another stumbling block here is: If China and Europe used different materials for later models (hard black PVC on the "made in China" molds with centered text, regular gray vinyl for the left-aligned stamps with "made in China" removed), why would both have used similar soft white rubber for their initial batches? Also, not all of the dull-color Carnegies use soft white rubber. I have dull-color T. rex and Triceratops with standard-feeling plastic, and a Parasaurolophus that is made of white plastic but it's actually very hard, like the black PVC of the later Made in China models.

So, my theory is far from air tight. It's possible that my original assumption was right and that a single factory was just experimenting with lots of different colors and materials, and revised the molds multiple times.

[SidB]

At some point you  might want to see if you can arrange a sitdown with an appropriate Safari rep and see if you can get to the bottom of this mystery.

[Dinoguy2]

Well, I think I managed to disprove my theory. I took an xacto knife to my pre-color vinyl 3rd gen Pteranodon, since there were no areas of missing paint that went all the way through the base coat. Aaaaand... White vinyl! As the 3rd mold this figure definitely dates to the mid-90s, proving that white vinyl was in use during this time. The white vinyl is flexible but not super rubbery like the Pteranodon I bought new in 1989. The photos I mentioned in my OP likely have the harder white vinyl, and my rubbery Diplodocus vinyl consistency is closer to the newer Pteranodon, it just "seems" more rubbery due to larger, thinner parts (neck, tail).

So I figure my old Pteranodon is just actually a "dull wash" type variant similar to other first gen super rubbery dinos. Not sure why there's a Pteranodon like that and not any of the other 1989 releases, but maybe it just got lumped in to that first wave of production despite it's higher product number. The stiffer white vinyl variants must date to around 1995 or so.

I still suspect there must have been a Schleich or Bullyland factory in play, but my new hunch is they were making the "catalog versions" while or possibly even before the Chinese factory was making the rubbery dull wash versions. If the tooling was initially done by a German company, it makes sense that they'd also have produced a run of product for distribution in Europe before handing over the molds to Safari's own factory. That would explain why catalog versions seem much more readily available on the secondary market in Germany but hardly ever seen in the US or UK. I used to refer to the catalog versions as "prototypes" and that may still turn out to be partially true, just prototype models in Forest Rogers initial ideas for coloration that saw a limited production before being modified into the classic 90s versions.

More on this hunch here: https://carnegiecollection.blogspot.com/2020/06/terminology.html

[JPuggy]

The Dinosaur Land gift shop sells carnegie figures and restocks them! I don't know how, but they do

[Dinoguy2]

The Dinosaur Land gift shop sells carnegie figures and restocks them! I don't know how, but they do

Could be they just have a lot of unsold stock? Are they newer figures or including older Carnegies?

[JPuggy]

The oldest I've seen is from I think 2001, but might be newer