Megatherium is one of the most famous prehistoric mammals. The last Megatherium died somewhere at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, only 10000 years ago. Even hair and feces of this 6m long giant sloth have been found in caves in South America.
As a toy or figure, Megatherium is depicted quite often. For example Schleich has made a decent version, Starlux from France, too. Miller released both a small and a big version in the 1950s. And of course Marx, the grandfathers of all museum lines.
Our VEB Plaho / Marolin (I still can´t tell. The Plahos are older, release began in the 1960s, while Marolin rereleased them in the 1990s, but I don´t have an idea how to tell them apart, maybe one of our readers does?) The Megatherium stands upright, browsing an imaginate tree, holding a branch. In Cain´s and Frederick´s dinosaur collectibles book you can see such a tree, reminiscent of a palm.
The figure is 9 cm tall and 5.5 cm long, which is funny, because on pictures the figure always seem to be bigger due to their nostalgic, clumsy look. Yet another feature of the Megatherium contributes to the nostalgic feel of the figure: its golden patina that covers the grey basic sculpt like powder. I´m not sure if the figure was completly golden and wore off over the decades, or if the company did that on puropse. The other color the figure shows up is red for the opened mouth. The eyes are yellow with a black pupil.
VEB Plaho / Marolin prehistoric animal figures have their very own look and feel and one likes it or not. For me this isn´t difficult, for I like figures that represent the flavor of their time. My Megatherium showed up in a lot with Chinasaurs at a flea market, where I bought it for 50 cents, but this only happens to you in Germany – when you are very, very lucky. At September 18th I saw a “buy it now” – offer of the Marolin one (I could tell that because it was offered in its original packaging.) for 165€ (noone bought it there). In all other countries you must be very lucky to get one on ebay. Good luck!
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Marx wasn’t really a museum line, it had no affiliation. However the line was based on the Zallinger Age of Reptile Mural. It’s just a toy line.