Realm of J. H. Miller

small Megatherium • large Megatherium

The J.H.Miller Manufacturing Company was (and perhaps still is) in Chicago. The company manufactured a strange line of animal figures in the 1950s. Although these figures were apparently well distributed in those days, nobody now seems to know anything much about the company, or even much about the figures.

The first mystery is the material. Just what are these things made of? They are generally just called "those waxy Miller figures." A real techno-geek might call them "waxy plastic" - not much of an improvement. They're hollow and relatively fragile, and when seen today almost always have something broken off.

The large Miller Stegosaurus - obviously hollow

Miller made a considerable range of figures. Our major concern here are the two prehistoric lines. Miller also made modern animals (a "forest" and a "jungle" range), and some real oddball stuff as well (like space aliens representing the various planets - here's a shot of the Venusian in poor condition). The two prehistoric series were the "large" and "small" series. The large figures are about 5 to 7 inches tall or long, and the small ones are about 4 inches. Some figures are more or less identical (except for size) in both series, some are a bit different. And some figures appeared only in an intermediate size, and so are not obviously part of the"large" or "small" series. I don't know what they were supposed to be so I just label them "??? series" in the table below.

large series small series ??? series  
Tyrannosaurus Tyrannosaurus    
Stegosaurus Stegosaurus   leg variations
Dimetrodon Dimetrodon    
Brontosaurus Brontosaurus    
Megatherium Megatherium   essentially identical
Mastodon      
  Brontops    
  Protoceratops    
  Trachodon    
    Smilodon  
    Triceratops  
    Coelodonta  
    Pterodactyl  
    cave man  
    cave woman  
    cave kid  
    cave  


(More to come when I get around to it)

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