Deep-sea fish

[NSD Bashe]

Also forgot to mention how a couple of these are particularly rare fish to be made into figures; I'm not sure what species exactly the lantern fish is, but I don't think I've ever seen another of that exact kind, but Bio Beams, DCS and Toy Major are (I believe) the only lines to ever produce a flashlight fish, and they all seemingly may have done it around the same time.

[stargatedalek]

Toy Major produced a lot of AAA bootlegs, I don't remember much about the AAA deep sea fish but perhaps both were copied or partially copied from those? That might explain the timing.

[NSD Bashe]

These ones are a bit different than the AAA ones, although there are knock offs of those as well; I have a few versions of the AAA anglerfish including a squeak toy version and a miniature version, and I used to also have a dangle fish, bat fish and hatchet fish bootleg that came in a dollar store set with the bootleg angler, but I'm not sure who those were made by.  I didn't really know anything about different brands at the time.

[NSD Bashe]

Well I finally figured out what that weird looking orange fish in the Toy Major set is intended to be, due to this lot of them up for sale on Etsy of all places:  it's a Hatchetfish!
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1014532103/hatched-fish-toy-1998-lot-of-6?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_a-toys_and_games-toys-pretend_play&utm_custom1=_k_EAIaIQobChMIlIzJ88Wu9wIVmv_jBx0neABWEAsYBSABEgLmFfD_BwE_k_&utm_content=go_12573081079_119205454723_507799219860_aud-360480980139:pla-352859725846_c__1014532103_534606150&utm_custom2=12573081079&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIlIzJ88Wu9wIVmv_jBx0neABWEAsYBSABEgLmFfD_BwE

[sbell]

Well I finally figured out what that weird looking orange fish in the Toy Major set is intended to be, due to this lot of them up for sale on Etsy of all places:  it's a Hatchetfish!
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1014532103/hatched-fish-toy-1998-lot-of-6?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_a-toys_and_games-toys-pretend_play&utm_custom1=_k_EAIaIQobChMIlIzJ88Wu9wIVmv_jBx0neABWEAsYBSABEgLmFfD_BwE_k_&utm_content=go_12573081079_119205454723_507799219860_aud-360480980139:pla-352859725846_c__1014532103_534606150&utm_custom2=12573081079&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIlIzJ88Wu9wIVmv_jBx0neABWEAsYBSABEgLmFfD_BwE

It actually says HatcheD fish. I think your mystery will continue 

[NSD Bashe]

Haha I know the listing misspelled it, but they show the stomach at least and it does appear to say hatchet fish underneath.  If you don't happen to know what a hatchetfish is it's actually not a completely unreasonable misunderstanding; these particular models do kind of look like something you might find in an Easter egg. 
One time I found a Safari hatchetfish listed on eBay as a "toy bass" so I've gotten accustomed to using a variety of search terms if looking for a thing in particular

[NSD Bashe]

Well I've been meaning to start posting images from my collection, so I might as well start off with this giant: a 1 foot-long anglerfish by Nihon Auto Toy.  I'm not sure what species exactly it is meant to be, though it was listed on eBay as a Himantolophus (aka football fish).





Under it's stomach it has this place to keep a remote; I think it's originally supposed to be able to turn its light on and off so it functions as a reading lamp.





And inside the cubby hole it has the brand name.

[NSD Bashe]

Flashlight Fish:

Not many flashlight fish models have been made, but they do exist.  These are the ones I have now:



The larger plush is by Wildlife Artists, Inc. and the small plastic figure is by Discovery Channel Store (DCS).  They appear to be two different species of "flashlight fish," the small DCS model appearing to represent Anomalops katoptron, or the "splitfin flashlightfish," and the plush more resembling Photoblepharon palpebratum or P. steinitzi (?)


This figure by Toy Major seems to be one of the Photoblepharon variety also:
(this is a promotional image and not my photo, as I don't have this figure currently)
(I've since obtained this model and updated the post with my own photo)




And there is also a flashlight fish figure produced by Bio Beams, of which I believe someone else posted an image on the second page of this thread, again seemingly the Photoblepharon genus...

Anyway that was a brief look at the existing figures of "flashlight fish" that I know about.

[bmathison1972]

Ooo I like the small DCS figure; I bet they don't show up too frequently huh?

[NSD Bashe]

No, I've only seen them on eBay twice, the second time I went for it

[NSD Bashe]

Here's a close up of the tiny fish next to the Kaiyodo/Takara dragonfish.  I believe it's a lanternfish, and maybe the only existing model of this particular kind of lanternfish (understanding the term lantern fish has been used to describe a few other varieties of deep sea fish as well)

[NSD Bashe]

So this is a bit of a niche topic but I actually find different variations of certain figures to be somewhat fascinating.  The AAA Bottom Dwellers series have a number of variations, and one that's been listed here before is the "mini versions" which I don't know if anyone can confirm to this day whether those are actual official variants of the AAA set or "knock-offs".  Normally the large version of the anglerfish is dark bluish purple with a yellow lure and grayish underside, and the small one is a distinct pattern of brown and white with a bright green lure.  However, there is a kind of "missing link" if you will, a much less common version of the larger model which is painted very similarly to the small version. 




There are slight differences, a different shade of brown on top and light lilac purple instead of a white underside, clear-white lure.  I am not entirely sure if this demonstrates that the small versions are indeed more likely to be official versions, although it almost feels like it adds another piece to the puzzle.  I have in fact seen one image of this version of the toy before, from the website of a seemingly defunct online store called Tapir and Friends.  They didn't seem to list the brand so I was never sure if it had the mark or not, and at first I thought it was just a slightly different paint job of the mini one, but on very close examination it seemed to be the large model.  But not having it in hand I was never positive.  Although one other clue is that the same site had images of two other "alternate" versions of AAA fish (the viperfish and "lanternfish") and I know those are indeed alternate paint jobs of the "official" models.  So overall I believed there was in fact another version of the "official" AAA angler which at least inspired the paint job of the mini. but all the evidence that remained of it was that one photo.



Thus, even if no one else probably cares as much or finds it all that interesting, I am nevertheless proud to finally officially provide more awareness of this specific almost-unknown version of a figure.  It does in fact have the AAA branding.  While both large versions have AAA and the CE approval marking, the small one does at least have the CE marking.  If I had to guess, at this point I would imagine the small version is an official variant with it's color inspired by that of my latest acquisition

[MudpupWaterdog]

I have that brown/purple variant, I got it as a kid at the Niagara Aquarium giftshop. For the longest time I just thought it was the standard model. Glad you were able to find one!

[NSD Bashe]

thanks        Out of curiosity, do you remember if the other fish in that set had "alternate" paint jobs?  The only ones I have with the duplicate colors are this angler, the viperfish and the barreleye "lanternfish," and on top of that they are the only ones I've ever seen any sort of images of in those colors.  A part of me thinks it would make sense for the whole set to have been painted this way, but since I've never seen any others, and all the ones I've come across on eBay are the exact same three I've seen rare images of, specifically on a defunct online store, it makes me wonder if those were somehow the only ones to actually get produced in that form...

On another note, I wonder if these less common colors are actually the original versions and the ones more often seen now are later releases.

[MudpupWaterdog]

I don't know how many others have these variants, I do remember when I bought mine it was in a big bin full of other anglerfish with this variant color scheme. I think the bin was only anglerfish.

I got the AAA batfish at the same gift shop and it was the standard paint job. On a different occasion I picked up a mini knockoff of the lantern fish. It looks like the same one in Varanus' post earlier in this thread, somewhat shiny silver with reddish/copper fins and blue eyes.

[NSD Bashe]

Interesting..  you know to be honest your description of a gift shop barrel full of those vintage anglerfish made me quite nostalgic for a moment, I can almost picture that very thing.

...Now I finally dug out some of my figures and got images.  I'll start here with my AAA ones.  Here is my complete assortment of AAA deep sea fish (not including duplicates)




Here are the three types I have minis of - the "lanternfish," anglerfish and batfish (two of the three also have the alternate paint version)




Here are the three types I have the alternate painted versions of - the "lanternfish," anglerfish and viperfish (and two of those three also have the mini)




And here you can see how the three "alternate" versions have a similar silver lining to their design:




Now something I realized, upon examining the two for which I have both the mini and alternate paint color, both minis somewhat resemble the respective "alternate" versions.  This leads me to believe that there probably was this "silver lining" style paint job for the whole set, and my guess is that they somewhat resemble the paint schemes of the other minis as seen from the aforementioned post.  Interestingly, although the "regular" and mini batfish aren't much different in color-scheme, the mini does have silver lining around its gill holes...

[NSD Bashe]

Here is my full set of DCS (Discovery Channel Store) deep water creatures.  There are 8 of them -  a gulper eel, brittlestar, viperfish, anglerfish, vampire squid, firefly squid, flashlightfish and hatchetfish.  Most have bendable wires running through them and glow in the dark painted photophores.  As far as I know this is the full set of small DCS branded figures (not counting the larger unmarked Bio Beams line), but there could be more as well.




Close up on the brittlestar and hatchetfish, which I don't think have been displayed here before:



 


-----------------

Now we move to the Toy Major line:






This was a set of six, including an anglerfish, viperfish, hatchetfish, gulper eel, flashlightfish and pineconefish.  At least some of them have alternate paintjobs, as you can see in the two versions of the viperfish:




There was also a pale/off-white version of the anglerfish I had long ago, which was basically the same color as fully glow-in-the-dark figures, although I seem to recall the entire thing wasn't actually glow in the dark or didn't glow well aside from the lure. 

I'll discuss the anglerfish and the especially unusual "hatchetfish" at another time, but without going too much longer in this one post I wanted to point out something interesting about these two sets - specifically the viperfish and gulper eel...

Now first off, the DCS figures are all marked with the date 1997, and the Toy Major figures are marked with 1998; now if you take a look at these models in particular:






The Toy Major models look just a bit like larger versions of the DCS ones.  Just enough for me to find it curious anyway...

[Saarlooswolfhound]

Wow oh wow... what a treasure trove of deep sea "monsters"! What is the small fish at the bottom center of the DCS group? I love the AAAs... I didn't realize they were such popular models to make numerous sets of. AAA is full of mysteries, and while they had a lot of weird stuff, they had a lot of rather nice models and series too.

[NSD Bashe]

Oh I believe you are referring to the DCS flashlightfish; it is one of the very few flashlightfish made, and seems to be the only one depicting the species Anomalops katoptron, or "splitfin flashlightfish," at least judging by its appearance.

Glad you enjoy       I'll try to post more at some point

[MudpupWaterdog]

I used to have that DCS brittle star too...even as a kid I knew it was something special. That's one of the figures I've lost over the years that I regret losing the most. Time to set an eBay alert!