Great White Shark, 1995 (Sea Animals 1:32 by Schleich)

Shark Week is back, and this year also marks the 50^th anniversary of Jaws, so to kick off a week of toy shark reviews we’ll start by looking at Shark Week’s headlining shark species and the star of Jaws, a great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias). The white shark is also no stranger to the blog, with 15 reviews now to its name it is one of the most reviewed animal species on the blog. This is my third review of a white shark.

Today we’re looking at a vintage toy that I received in a lot. It’s not a model I would have pursued by itself but since I have it, we might as well look at it. It’s the Schleich white shark that was produced in 1995 and sold between 1996-2005. It is part of Schleich’s 1:32 scale Sea Animal collection, which was discontinued in 2013.

This figure measures 8.25” (20.96 cm) in total length so to be 1/32 in scale it would have to be scaled down from a shark measuring 19.5’ (5.94 meters) which is close to the maximum size for the species. Reports of sharks measuring more than 21’ are unverified. The figure doesn’t have claspers, which means it represents a female, which grow larger than males. The body is posed in a gentle leftward curve.

The figure is well made. The body is sleek and smooth, the five gill slits on each side are well sculpted and not simply etched into the figure, and there’s a ridge running along each side of the body where the lateral line would be. The figure is entirely gray with a gradual and pleasant shift from dark to light as you move from top to bottom. All that said, this toy doesn’t look like a white shark.

The head lacks the conical snout of an actual white shark and the snout is too short. The mouth is just a simple slit cut across the underside of the head and is shut tight, while white sharks usually have their mouth at least partially open, to allow water to flow in and over the gills to breathe. The head ends up looking more like a member of the Carcharhinidae family, such as a bull or reef shark, than a great white.

The dorsal fin, while correctly shaped, is proportionally too big. Its origin also overlaps with the pectoral fins when it should be over the pectoral inner margins. Basically, it’s too far forward. The pelvic fins are also too far forward and oddly shaped. The tail is correctly lunate shaped but too large and the keels on the caudal peduncle are absent. The body also looks a bit too lean compared to the generally robust body of an actual white shark.

While I commended the blending of tones on the paintjob it’s also inaccurate for a white shark. In actual white sharks there’s an abrupt separation between the dark and light portions, not a gradual fading from dark to light. The eyes are wrong too, brown with black pupils, when everyone knows that white sharks have “black eyes, like a doll’s eyes”. Actually, their eyes are dark blue, but they look black and I couldn’t resist the Jaws reference.

The 1995 Schleich white shark works only as a generic pool toy and is a terrible representative of its assigned species. Given its age, I should probably be more forgiving but since the Safari Monterey Bay Aquarium white shark was released three years earlier and continues to be one of the best white sharks ever made, it’s hard to make excuses for this one. Thankfully, Schleich’s two most recent white sharks are also among the best white shark figures ever made, so Schleich has achieved redemption and all is forgiven. With this figure though, I cannot recommend it to anyone but vintage toy, Schleich, or specialist shark collectors. This toy can be found on eBay for about $20.