Iguanodon (Margarinefiguren by Wagner)

Sometimes in our clamour for the most spectacular, expensive, hot new dinosaur figures, we can forget there’s still plenty of joy to be found in plain, cheap, cool old dinosaur figures. And you can’t get cheaper than free! The German Margarinefiguren, or Margarine Figures, by Wagner, came free with packets of ‘butter’ (and maybe other products, I don’t know) in the 1950s. This Iguanodon was a surprise gift to me from Libraraptor, who has previously featured some of these German Margerinefiguren on the Dino Toy Blog. He has previously explained that the same moulds, or some of them at least, were later released outside of Germany by Nabisco as promotional give-aways with Shreddies breakfast cereal (identical except for different markings on the underside). But this is the original version.

It’s obviously Iguanodon, the thumb spikes give it away, but the name on the underside is just “Dinosaurier-Kreidez”, or Dinosaur-Cretaceous. It’s also marked “Belgien”, so we may say it’s meant to be I. bernissartensis from Belgium. The Wagner logo is also on the base, along with “X 11”, the number of the figure in the series. The figure has a pleasing upright ‘retro’ tail-dragging design, with the arms giving the ‘thumbs up’ in approval. It’s actually quite delicately and neatly sculpted, with a narrow neck and legs, and some other details of wrinkles and bumps. There’s no paint, just a monochrome base plastic in a cream colour, possibly discoloured over the years.

These margarine figures are compressed from side to side, so they all look like they need a good meal. However, this design was probably a clever design choice to fit them into food packets to save space and minimise breakage. You can see the base of my figure has buckled slightly. Indeed, the plastic is quite delicate and easy to snap, and while I presume this was also the case in the 1950s, surely the figures have become more brittle with age. As do we all.

The figure is miniature, only 4.5 cm long and 4 cm tall, so it is difficult to photograph in focus without a special lens. The width, as I’m sure you’re interested, is 6 mm (with the base slightly wider at 9 mm). The base makes it easy to put on display without it falling over.

Even though these figurines were free at the time, these days of course they come at a small cost, but you can see how these small ancient figures could become addictive for collectors. Thanks again to Libraraptor for the gift!