Animal figures you consider your ''White Whale?''

[callmejoe3]

My question is referring more to the colloquial meaning rather than literal. Are there any figures that you aspire to attain but cannot due to the figure being retired and hard to find in the secondhand market or being very expensive?


Here are mine:

The Monterey Bay Aquarium thresher shark and Pacific-White-sided dolphin <- two retired MBA figures that I neither own nor can find on the secondhand market in the U.S. I found the thresher shark on European sellers who don't offer international shipping, but the dolphin is out of luck. I found ZERO information about it outside of one seller who's selling the entire set on eBay for $250 and the posts on here and TOI.

My other one which I want DEARLY is the Kaiyodo Aqualand 63cm 1/35 Sperm whale. The scarcity of this thing actually makes me grateful that the Mega Sofubi Advanced Blue whale is actually very easy to find, just expensive. The model is hard to find, and the only place I could find it were two $800 listings of the unassembled kits on Rakuten that don't ship outside of Japan. If only the PNSO figure wasn't so garbage, in that case, I would not have needed the Aqualand figure.

[bmathison1972]

I've chipped away at most things, but there are a few arthropods from older collections I am missing:

Play Visions: Fleas, Ticks, and Lice, I am missing the crab louse

Play Visions: Bees, Wasps, and Hornets, I am missing the sandhills hornet and tarantula hawk.

Club Earth Caterpillars to GO: still missing cloudless sulfur

Safari Ltd: still missing monarch from Smithsonian collection.

Plus there are odd arthropods from Wing Mau and K&M sets.

[callmejoe3]

I've chipped away at most things, but there are a few arthropods from older collections I am missing:

Play Visions: Fleas, Ticks, and Lice, I am missing the crab louse

Play Visions: Bees, Wasps, and Hornets, I am missing the sandhills hornet and tarantula hawk.

Club Earth Caterpillars to GO: still missing cloudless sulfur

Safari Ltd: still missing monarch from Smithsonian collection.

Plus there are odd arthropods from Wing Mau and K&M sets.

Retroactively trying to collect older sets can be the real pits sometimes.

[Isidro]

Going to the impossible extreme, my Moby Dick is the Kaiyodo Aquatales polyresin Mississippi Paddlefish, a figure that never was released (together with many others of the same series) but the prototype exist and maybe the brand keep few copies, who knows.
Also, the Spanish Ibex sculpted by Jose Miguel Aparicio and once seen in Signatustudio/Likaonmodels, I never bough nothing here due to the price, but this ibex is not anymore in production and all copies have been sold out.
I also want the impossible-to-find Treehouse Kids elk, and the equally mythical Happy Kin angelshark. And of course my holy grail (that maybe I will get after all!), the retired Safari LTD malayan tapir.

[BlueKrono]

My “white whale” has always been the Safari Horned Frog. I’ve wanted that figure since I was a child, but I’ve never seen one for sale in 30 years. That figure inspired me to learn Spanish and Portuguese and go do herpetology work in South America. It all started there. Maybe someday I’ll find one...

[callmejoe3]

Going to the impossible extreme, my Moby Dick is the Kaiyodo Aquatales polyresin Mississippi Paddlefish, a figure that never was released (together with many others of the same series) but the prototype exist and maybe the brand keep few copies, who knows.
Also, the Spanish Ibex sculpted by Jose Miguel Aparicio and once seen in Signatustudio/Likaonmodels, I never bough nothing here due to the price, but this ibex is not anymore in production and all copies have been sold out.
I also want the impossible-to-find Treehouse Kids elk, and the equally mythical Happy Kin angelshark. And of course my holy grail (that maybe I will get after all!), the retired Safari LTD malayan tapir.

It really does hurt when the figure in question is simply not able to be found. If they were merely expensive, but quick to find, it at least holds out hope.

[callmejoe3]

My “white whale” has always been the Safari Horned Frog. I’ve wanted that figure since I was a child, but I’ve never seen one for sale in 30 years. That figure inspired me to learn Spanish and Portuguese and go do herpetology work in South America. It all started there. Maybe someday I’ll find one...

Hope you find it one day.

[bmathison1972]

My “white whale” has always been the Safari Horned Frog. I’ve wanted that figure since I was a child, but I’ve never seen one for sale in 30 years. That figure inspired me to learn Spanish and Portuguese and go do herpetology work in South America. It all started there. Maybe someday I’ll find one...

Wish I would have known; a few months ago someone on STS (NMR_Okapi) had two of them up for trade. I told him he should sell on eBay; he could have made a fortune.

[callmejoe3]

Wish I would have known; a few months ago someone on STS (NMR_Okapi) had two of them up for trade. I told him he should sell on eBay; he could have made a fortune.

Well, I guess that's a neat utility for threads like this, just so people on here can stay updated on who wants what when people want to trade items.

[Gwangi]

I don't really collect extant animals so it's hard for me to have a holy grail. It probably exists and I'm not even aware of it yet, such is my level of ignorance of the hobby. For now it's the AAA 23" great white shark (or megalodon?). I had one as a kid and for whatever reason got rid of it at some point. I look for it on eBay on occasion but never with much luck.

[callmejoe3]

I don't really collect extant animals so it's hard for me to have a holy grail. It probably exists and I'm not even aware of it yet, such is my level of ignorance of the hobby. For now it's the AAA 23" great white shark (or megalodon?). I had one as a kid and for whatever reason got rid of it at some point. I look for it on eBay on occasion but never with much luck.

That's basically what my story was with the Toy Major Killer Whale 1749 A. It took me about half a decade to find one again. That used to be my white whale before I joined the forum.

[Gwangi]

I don't really collect extant animals so it's hard for me to have a holy grail. It probably exists and I'm not even aware of it yet, such is my level of ignorance of the hobby. For now it's the AAA 23" great white shark (or megalodon?). I had one as a kid and for whatever reason got rid of it at some point. I look for it on eBay on occasion but never with much luck.

That's basically what my story was with the Toy Major Killer Whale 1749 A. It took me about half a decade to find one again. That used to be my white whale before I joined the forum.

I had an extensive toy animal and dinosaur collection growing up, and then when I became a teenager I was urged by my mother to get rid of them, so I did. Big mistake, I wish I hadn't done that. My dinosaur collection has recovered because that's my collecting focus but there are still quite a few toy animals from my youth that I would like back. Thankfully I had the sense to at least keep my AAA monitor lizard.

[callmejoe3]

I had an extensive toy animal and dinosaur collection growing up, and then when I became a teenager I was urged by my mother to get rid of them, so I did. Big mistake, I wish I hadn't done that. My dinosaur collection has recovered because that's my collecting focus but there are still quite a few toy animals from my youth that I would like back. Thankfully I had the sense to at least keep my AAA monitor lizard.

Unfortunately, I had no one urging me to rid of any of my figures, losing the ones I did was all on me. I have yet to lose anything crucial though. I'm also really glad for those several years where I grew out of collecting, I've retained all of my really quality figures.

[bmathison1972]

I wish I had my childhood animals, not because I'd want to collect them now, but curious to see what brands I had and such. Most were bad sets bought at local stores, but i remember there was a set of three bags that were fairly realistic for the time (late 1970s/early 1980s)

[sbell]

Going to the impossible extreme, my Moby Dick is the Kaiyodo Aquatales polyresin Mississippi Paddlefish, a figure that never was released (together with many others of the same series) but the prototype exist and maybe the brand keep few copies, who knows.
Also, the Spanish Ibex sculpted by Jose Miguel Aparicio and once seen in Signatustudio/Likaonmodels, I never bough nothing here due to the price, but this ibex is not anymore in production and all copies have been sold out.
I also want the impossible-to-find Treehouse Kids elk, and the equally mythical Happy Kin angelshark. And of course my holy grail (that maybe I will get after all!), the retired Safari LTD malayan tapir.

I too would really like that paddlefish but I don't think it will ever happen. And the tigerfish that was part of the same series.

Otherwise, I'm not really sure what I'd be looking for. Maybe some of the Kaiyodo Aquatales fishes.

[callmejoe3]

I too would really like that paddlefish but I don't think it will ever happen. And the tigerfish that was part of the same series.

Otherwise, I'm not really sure what I'd be looking for. Maybe some of the Kaiyodo Aquatales fishes.

Kaiyodo seems to be a running theme in this thread.

[Halichoeres]

Henkel/Ovomaltine/Yoplait Pterichthys

[postsaurischian]

 Kaiyodo Naturetales - Geoemyda meeting snail

[JimoAi]

Colorata deluxe manta ray

[bmathison1972]

I've chipped away at most things, but there are a few arthropods from older collections I am missing:

Play Visions: Fleas, Ticks, and Lice, I am missing the crab louse

Play Visions: Bees, Wasps, and Hornets, I am missing the sandhills hornet and tarantula hawk.

Club Earth Caterpillars to GO: still missing cloudless sulfur

Safari Ltd: still missing monarch from Smithsonian collection.

Plus there are odd arthropods from Wing Mau and K&M sets.

A couple more Safari white whales:
1. crocodile shark
2. Scutosaurus