Tsintaosaurus is a dinosaur that has not been reconstructed as a figure very often. To be honest, I do not even know of one company that has produced it, maybe our readers know more?
However, the Tsintaosaurus of this review was not produced by a special company but is an exclusive version apparently produced for the Museum Of Natural History in Basel, Switzerland. I originally stumbled across it last summer in a cabinet at the school where my best friend teaches biology. I fell in love immediately and detected its strong resemblance to the Invicta line. After a period of research and help from members of the dinosaur toy forum, I discovered that the Museum Of Natural History in Basel had this model made more than 15 years ago on the occasion of a special exhibition “Dinosaurs from China”, after an example manufactured by their chief preparator. I still do not know if these models have been manufactured by Invicta, hence the strong resemblance, or another plastic factory.
These plain black models did not sell well in their shop – “Those black models did not sell well in our shop – too big was the competition with the colourfully, if not very correctly manufactured ones”, says Renate Müller from the museum shop. I can’t really understand this because In my opinion the Tsintaosaurus figure is really nice. It is 20cm long and 8cm tall. If not of the great quality typified by the Invicta line, it is still one of the better hadrosaur reconstructions out there. The upright posture can surely be discussed, as well as the posture of its arms. But the skin pattern is very detailed and so is the head. The duckbill, the spine and the supposed “sail” between it and the rest of the skull are of great detail, and so are the eyeballs and the nostrils.
Together with the special story that connects me to this animal, this figure will always be a very special one for me. For all the other collectors, especially the ones with an Invicta bias, it could become a strange addition to their collection. As far as I know they don´t have that many anymore in Basel, but you can try to get one at [email protected]
Interested in this figure – check out the relevant thread at the Dinosaur Toy Forum version 1 archive.
Disclaimer: links to Ebay and Amazon on the DinoToyBlog are affiliate links, so we make a small commission if you use them. Thanks for supporting us!