More randomness…including what might be my first accidental repeat of a figure! Considering how many I’ve done, I’m surprised I haven’t done it before (or at least, didn’t catch it before I had everything together!) I’ll put a different spin on it I guess…it did throw off the otherwise ‘mammals only’ theme for the post though.
Schleich Miniatures Bat
First up, another of the very small Schleich mini animal figures. This is the Bat figure, which like many of the minis is pretty animated-looking. Still, very obviously bat like, and at this size can work well to scale with larger figures. The Schleich mini figure series was originally released in 1965, but I am not certain when the Bat was released. I also know that I picked it up much later, probably around 2002 or so; the minis series was discontinued in 2005. In some ways, it’s too bad, as there were lots of animals in the series that were kind of neat; the closest we currently have is the Safari Good Luck Minis (and the two size well together).
Safari Winners Circle Gypsy Vanner Stallion
Next up we have a figure from the Safari Ltd Winners Circle series of horses. The figure was released in 2012, with item number 150305. I generally don’t have a lot of horses (or other farm animals) but this was probably more properly my daughter’s (although she is not really a horse girl) and we probably got it with a bunch of other Safari figures at some point or other. Despite my limited interest in horse and domestic figures, it does have me remember that when it comes to animal collecting, horses are far and away the predominant collected figure (even more so than dinosaurs/prehistorics). There’s a reason that every animal toy line has at least one series dedicated specifically to horses! It’s nice enough although I am probably not a great judge, and is still available for those interested.
Safari Ltd Prehistoric Life Toob Smilodon pair
Here we have a pair of Smilodon small figures from the Safari Ltd Prehistoric Life TOOB, item 681004. It was first released in about 2006, and all of the animal figures were fairly decent approximations of their larger counterparts released the previous year (except the Macrauchenia…which oddly looked a lot like the concurrent larger figure from Schleich!). The toob is still in production, but as can be seen in the photos it has undergone some pretty substantial changes. The first ones (I purchased a first-run toob) had lots of detail in the paint, which was applied more or less carefully. By the later iteration that I have (from about 2013 or so) the paint application was clearly much broader and more simple, and very orange. I still got it though, as a few figures had a kind of different paint scheme. That said, it appears that the current version has gone back to something reminiscent of the original base colour, but none of the nuance. I’m sure I’ve said this before–always get first run figures!
FameMaster 4D Mini Ice Age Megaloceros
Next up, one of my favorite tiny figures, and a really difficult one to get. This is the FameMaster Megaloceros from the mini Ice Age Puzzle set, number 20128C. For a brief period in the early- to mid-2000s FameMaster produced a few sets of mini puzzles, similar in design to their larger models but of course smaller. They also proved to be very difficult to get, and I was super excited to get my hands on to get the foursome (as with the larger sets, the minis were in sets of four). The Megaloceros was especially exciting, as there were not many figures of this animal around, and certainly none in a size similar to Kaiyodo or Play Visions. As with most FameMaster, it is very detailed and painted exceptionally well. I would highly recommend it (perhaps outdated in some ways, but still the best small model of the animal) but they could barely be found when they were produced…still worth the search though.
Schleich Tawa–Grade THEROPODA
Okay, so I actually looked at the Schleich Tawa almost exactly two years ago! That can be seen here. So I will approach it from the different perspective, and probably the main reason that I even decided to get it. Tawa, at least as I understood, is a dinosaur taxon that is relatively basal with the Theropoda dinosaurs; I like to have that phylogenetic diversity in my collection, so this was a must have just for that. It does have the usual Schleich issues like oversized feet and very skinny body, but its overall okay. It is grand to at least have a representative of this part of the theropod lineage; still at theropod, but right at the beginning of the tree! Or at least, based on one version of the dinosaur tree…that could change, but at least it’s probably still representative of a more basal dinosaur of some kind!
