Chondricthyans

[sphyrna18]

The body color is accurate for S. zygaena, and the notch is present on the figure, perhaps not as well defined as it should be, but as you can see, the eyes appear to push forward on the figure as a result of a soft indentation. It may not be the slenderest of figures, but it isn't hefty, either. Doing a simple Google search, you can clearly see the influence of illustrations by Marc Dando, whose illustrations of sharks should be the starting reference for all shark figures, imo.

[JimoAi]

@sphyrna18 what do you think is the best Hammerhead shark figure available? It's such an iconic genus but no one seem to get them right. The Papo one is too big for many other marine figures, the Schleich 2020 looks goofy, the Safari and collectA ones have anatomical accuracy. The Colorata one is nice for a smaller scale imo and there may be 1 or 2 really good Japanese brands and I'm unsure ABT the MnB and old Schleich ones since theyre hard to locate

[bmathison1972]

@sphyrna18 what do you think is the best Hammerhead shark figure available? It's such an iconic genus but no one seem to get them right. The Papo one is too big for many other marine figures, the Schleich 2020 looks goofy, the Safari and collectA ones have anatomical accuracy. The Colorata one is nice for a smaller scale imo and there may be 1 or 2 really good Japanese brands and I'm unsure ABT the MnB and old Schleich ones since theyre hard to locate

That's like asking, what's the best big cat figure. As @sphyrna18 described on your blogpost, you should compare within a specific species.

[JimoAi]

ok so I've made a list of the big 3:

Scalloped hamemrhead: Papo: too big in scale with most figures

Colorata: A little small but works well as a smaller adult

Toymany: plastic quality can be better and second dorsal and anal fins are too small

4d puzzle: Seams and too grey

Smooth: Schleich and MnB: both are hard to find

Great:

Safari ltd: grooves are distracting, cephalofoil too narrow and smooth, incorrect nostril placement and too skinny

MBA Safari ltd: a tad too big, too slender from what I've seen and caudal fin could be smoother

Schleich: neck appears to be too narrow. imo the later version (post 2020) are better due to the better material it's casted in

Apologies for the confusion as I am a 1 per genus collector who prefers getting a figure is the best of the Genus.

[Alopias superciliosus]

@JimoAi I honestly think the hands down best Scalloped Hammerhead, and perhaps best hammerhead in general, is the Papo one. It's one of my favorite sharks in my collection, I think it does a splendid job of capturing the likeness of the animal, and does so far better than any model of a Great Hammerhead captures that species, in my opinion.

I have never felt personally that the model is "too big"; it's roughly the size of other sharks in my collection, like the MBA Tiger, Collecta Basking, and Collecta Goblin sharks. I suppose though I don't think much of scale with my collection; unsure what your considerations and parameters are there for your collection. I feel basically none of my sharks are truly in scale with each other so the fact that some models are larger or smaller than other has never really bothered me.

Anyway, I just thought I'd vouch for the Papo Scalloped Hammerhead as I've seen this discussion of a lack of good hammerhead figures pop up a few times recently and at least personally beg to differ. Unsure if you have owned the Papo Scalloped Hammerhead but if not, I would recommend and don't think it would look out of place next to other figures! 

[sphyrna18]

As I said in my response to the blogpost, I don't know that there is a "definitive" representative of Sphyrna, or the Hammerheads in general.  I will try to give my opinions on some of the available figures, but this is just an opinion.  I will note right off the bat that I have a tremendous bias for the Monterey Bay Aquarium Great Hammerhead figure due to it being the first hammerhead shark figure I ever got (after spending the first 10 years of my life looking for them with no success) and due to the fact that, despite it's minute anatomical inaccuracies, it is an extremely nice sculpt that nails the overall feel of the species.  The figures I have from 1992 are colored a beautiful olive-tan and have finely sculpted fins and cephalafoils.  Over the years this figure's fins have gotten softer, rounder, and thicker.  The old MBA figures are cast in an almost resin-like, hard plastic, and it lent itself to finer details than the softer plastic from the late 90s onward.  It is for this reason that I would highly recommend the MBA collection as a whole, but also for the Great Hammerhead, this is still the figure I would recommend.  The 2020 Schleich figure is actually pretty accurate for a male Great Hammerhead, at least the one I have been fortunate enough to have seen in real life, and I would also recommend that figure.  The MBA figure works for a female, scale is roughly 1:15 to 1:27 (1:20 for a 15ft specimen, which is about average).  The 2020 Schleich figure scales about 1:20 to 1:25 for a male.  The Wild Safari Sealife figure is decent, but it it's cephalafoil is too small, it is overall too skinny, and fins have those annoying grooves.  It is fine if it is the only figure available, but it really is time Safari updated it (it's been around since 1996/97).  They have updated the mold, at least, to keep the fins shark and pointed, and the coloration is spot-on, but the sculpt lacks the gravitas the species demands.  Safari also offers the Baby Great Hammerhead as part of their Incredible Creatures series, but it is exempt from comparison given it is unlike any other figure available and is overall pretty decent.  Further, there are the numerous Safari TOOB figures (all the same sculpt, but the Endangered Marine Life TOOB features an updated casting); there is a small Takara figure from one of their shark sets, and the Yowies USA figure from their Series 5 set, but both of those are easy passes for all but the obsessive Hammerhead collector like myself.

So, with the Great Hammerhead out of the way, it's time to cover the other species, as available.

The Scalloped Hammerhead (Sphynra lewinii) is by far the most commonly produced species of Hammerhead in toy form.  It is the default species for many companies.  I will try to cover as many as I can from memory.

If one is looking for "the definitive" Scalloped Hammerhead figure, I would have to go with the Kaiyodo Aquatales Vol. 2 Kuroshio Current figure, which is a bottlecap figure.  It is small, but it is an exquisite sculpt.  Kaiyodo once again knock it out of the park with their Capsule Aquarium Scalloped Hammerhead figure, another "bottlecap" style figure, but I highly recommend it.  The Colorata Ocean Kingdom Scalloped Hammerhead is a slightly larger and ever-so-slightly-better figure than their Sharks of the World figure, but both are competent reditions of the Scalloped Hammerhead species.  The Furuta Funny Animals series figure is decent if not for the very evident joints. 

As for standard size figures, the AAA figures (dark green/gray and yellow/tan, adults and juveniles) make great toys, and AAA got some very key aspects to the species correct, such as the small fins, but mostly, it is just a generic hammerhead figure.  I highly recommend it for kids, and I wish I had had it when I was a kid; I have no idea when it was released, but probably around the early 80's to 90's when most of the AAA figures became available.  Favorite Collection has (still?) a nice sculpt, but it suffers from grossly undersized pectral fins, oversized dorsal fins, and oversized upper caudal lobe.  Also, the cephalafoil is tremendously thin, looking like it could easily tear if one isn't careful, although, mine have never torn despite my not always careful treatment (almost daring it to tear).  This brings us to the Papo.  The Papo Scalloped Hammerhead is a very nicely sculpted, accurate figure for the species, except that it is the same generic gray color that all Papo sharks tend to be.  An otherwise excellent figure is somewhat hampered by a fairly toyetic paintjob.  Enter the bootleg, which is an exact copy of the Papo with a rich brown coloration that fades to a pale/white belly.  If you can get the Papo, I recommend it.  It also scales well with most other shark figures of "standard size" sharks (so roughly between 1:18 to 1:25 scale).  If you can get the bootleg off eBay or Amazon, I also recommend it, sad as it is to say, as it is the exact same figure except with a more accurate coloration.  There are other Scalloped Hammerhead figures, but I think for right now the Papo (and its bootleg) does a fantastic job for the standard sized figures, while Kaiyodo has the small scale corner pretty well sewn up.

As a side note, the AAA Baby Hammerhead Shark figures work pretty well for a Winghead Shark (Eusphyra blochii).

The Smooth Hammerhead (Sphyrna zygaena) has been produced by several companies over the years.  Bullyland produced at least two figures of this species, both are strangely blue-green color and lack any real detail, but they are decent enough.  If you are familiar with Bullyland style, then you can probably imagine what these are like.  Maia & Borges produced a widely used sculpt of Smooth Hammerhead that is... fine.  It hits most of the anatomical points it needs to to be a Smooth Hammerhead, but it is a little geometric, I guess.  I will say that the original Maia & Borges sculpt is much nicer overall than the Schliech release of the same sculpt, which seems very toyish.  In 2007, Schleich produced probably the defining Smooth Hammerhead, which closely resembles the illustrations of Marc Dando, illustrator of texts such as Leonard Compagno's "Field Guide to Sharks."  On the recently released Toymany Mini Sealife Hammerhead Shark, which many have attributed to the Scalloped Hammerhead, I have my reservations about it being a Scalloped Hammerhead. While I do not have the figure in hand at the moment, I am seeing much to recommend it as a Smooth Hammerhead, and if that is the case, it will be only the second smaller figure (after the long-discontinued Bullyland) of this species.

The Bonnethead Shark (Sphyrna tiburo) has only seen three or four figures produced, which is a shame because this is a really cool little species of shark.  There are currently no mini figures of this species available (although there should be given its small size in nature), but none of the figures produced of the species would be considered very big.  Back in the 80s or early 90s, Larami released a small, blue-gray figure that lacked almost anything that would define it as a Bonnethead except it had a slightly widened head and was labeled as such.  At some point, a generic Bonnethead figure was released, but I have been unable to track it down and obtain it, but it looks a lot more accurate than the Larami figure.  Finally, in 2016 Safari released a Bonnethead as part of the Wild Safari Sealife collection.  This is a nice sculpt representing a young male or juvenile male.  Bonnetheads are unique amongst all species of sharks in that they display sexual dimorphism, other than size and presence or absence of claspers.  The Wild Safari Bonnethead is pretty accurate for a young male, if I recall correctly.  This past year, Toymany released a very nice female Bonnethead displaying the tight turning ability these sharks are known for.  It is, for now, the definitive figure of this species, but the Wild Safari, Larami, and unknown generic all appear to be out of production.  Therefore, you should grab the Toymany if you want to add this species to your collection.  Hopefully, someone produces one in the future that straightens the figure slightly (or all the way) and can demonstrate the extremely beautiful form these sharks have.

Hopefully this little summary helps anyone who is interested in this genus.  It is a remarkable genus of fish that deserves more attention and more representation, always.  Of course, I advocate for collecting all Hammerhead figures to show the companies that there is massive interest in these amazing animals.

[Sim]

Interesting post @sphyrna18!  I noticed you didn't specifically comment on the hammerhead shark in Toymany's 6-piece shark set.  It looks like an excellent scalloped hammerhead to my non-expert eyes!

I considered getting the Schleich 2020 great hammerhead, but I ultimately decided not to because its lip line looked jagged like teeth.  Is that what the figure is actually like?  I'd reconsider it if it had a smooth lip line.

[Alopias superciliosus]

Incredible in-depth post @sphyrna18 ! Happy to know I am not off with the figures I have chosen to represent each of the species and I was not steering anyone wrong by recommending the Papo Scalloped Hammerhead!

Thank you as well for pointing out the AAA baby hammerhead! I had never seen that figure before, it would work great as a Winghead! Managed to find one on eBay just now. The Winghead has always been one of my favorite sharks, so I'm happy that I'll have a decent enough representation of it in my collection now   

[JimoAi]

Interesting post @sphyrna18!  I noticed you didn't specifically comment on the hammerhead shark in Toymany's 6-piece shark set.  It looks like an excellent scalloped hammerhead to my non-expert eyes!

I considered getting the Schleich 2020 great hammerhead, but I ultimately decided not to because its lip line looked jagged like teeth.  Is that what the figure is actually like?  I'd reconsider it if it had a smooth lip line.

You can read my review on it and iirc, it has a smooth lipline

[JimoAi]

I saw a downsized Papo hammerhead recast online  and I was tempted to get it though I thought twice considering it may be missing it's subterminal notch and may be of a crappy quality

ATM, the hammerhead in my collection is the Schleich 2020 one which shall suffice until smth better comes along

[JimoAi]

Some lesser known but well done hammerheads






a 3d puzzle and 3 from Takara Tomy, all being Scalloped except for one being a smooth

The 4d puzzle has a nice sculpt but the seams are very distracting

the first takara tomy too

The second takara Tomy has jaw and pectoral fin articulation so it's the least distracting but the fact that the fins are articulated leaves it being arranged undesirably

the last takara Tomy is a smooth and it's odd that it has a prominent lateral keel like a lamniform

The 3d puzzle

[sphyrna18]

Incredible in-depth post @sphyrna18 ! Happy to know I am not off with the figures I have chosen to represent each of the species and I was not steering anyone wrong by recommending the Papo Scalloped Hammerhead!

Thank you as well for pointing out the AAA baby hammerhead! I had never seen that figure before, it would work great as a Winghead! Managed to find one on eBay just now. The Winghead has always been one of my favorite sharks, so I'm happy that I'll have a decent enough representation of it in my collection now   

Your recommendations were pretty spot on.  And I'm glad I was able to point you in the direction of the AAA Baby Hammerhead / Winghead.  It is a really nice little figure.

[bmathison1972]

Bandai viper dogfish:

[bmathison1972]

CollectA Megalodon:

[JimoAi]

Ordered 2 quite rare shark figures. One western and one Japanese. hehe

[sbell]

Ordered 2 quite rare shark figures. One western and one Japanese. hehe

And you're not going to say what!?

[JimoAi]

Ordered 2 quite rare shark figures. One western and one Japanese. hehe

And you're not going to say what!?

keeping a secret but one of them has been reviewed by you

[sbell]

Ordered 2 quite rare shark figures. One western and one Japanese. hehe

And you're not going to say what!?

keeping a secret but one of them has been reviewed by you

I guess there's only a couple to guess from...but they'd all be good ones!

[sbell]

Hellbender Museum Giant stingray

[sbell]

K&M International Swellshark