First, a few caveats.
Most of these things aren't really made of rubber. The preferred material at the moment is vinyl (PVC, polyvinyl chloride). Some figures are painted in flashy (and wholly imaginary) colors. Not long ago it was very difficult to paint vinyl, but progress has obviously been made as the colors painted onto modern dinos seem to be very durable. Those Chinese women chained to benches in the dinosaur sweatshops are at least making a lasting contribution.
And quite a few aren't even dinosaurs. The pterodactyls, pteranodons, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, pliosaurs, nothosaurs, mosasaurs, synapsids, etc etc aren't dinosaurs, despite their persistant appearance in illustrated books with Dinosaur in their titles. And some non-reptilian items find their way into most of the sets - Smilodon, various mammoths and mastodons, and token cavemen.
And finally, to admit the obvious, many of these little figures aren't really identifiable. They're more impressionistic depictions of vaguely prehistoric reptilian types than models of real dinosaurs. In other words, something between toys and junk.
THE HEIRARCHY
(my own ranking, those who want to quibble can set up their own sites) -
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At the top of the pile of prehistoric reproductions are fossil casts. Most large complete skeletons on display in the world's major science and natural history museums are plaster casts, either partially or in toto. And nothing wrong with that. Complete skeletal specimens of extinct vertebrates, especially, are rare. Good copies are just fine with me.
And you too can own the fine Smilodon at right - Skullduggery is a good source (I recommend the "antique" finish shown here - I don't think they got the color of the teeth quite right on the "tar pit" finish).
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Next down are museum reconstructions. This includes those moving animatronic-type things. They're plenty entertaining but almost wholly imaginary.
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- Paleoartist sculptures are next. I'm not concerned here with these.
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Resin and vinyl model kits are next down. They're the same idea as the paleoartist sculptures, but without any overt involvement by a paleoartist. I'm not concerned with these, either.
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Model kits (usually polystyrene) are of some interest, and a few appear on this site.
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RUBBER DINOS - the main subject of this site. I subdivide these into -
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"serious" figures - carefully sculpted and produced models (I won't use the words "museum quality" as the concept is diffuse)
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"semi-serious" figures - not-so-carefully sculpted or produced models
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"toys" - pretty obvious. (Although I'm sorely tempted, I just can't include the Flintstone village at this level - that belongs one down).
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We're close to the bottom now. Novelties, dino-theme items, and other junk (and "junk" is a descriptive category, not a condemnation - I shouldn't have to say that by now). I include here lunch boxes, refrigerator magnets, erasers, hand puppets, Sinclair gas station memorabilia, the Flintstone village, anything connected in any way with Jurassic Park, and anything from Disney. These things have their place, but that place isn't on this site.
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This is it, stratigraphic rock-bottom. The sole item in this category is the execrable Barney.
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SITE CONTENTS
The site is comprised mainly of pages dedicated to "serious" figures. ("Serious" is an ad-hoc concept which I will make no overt attempt to define). The serious manufacturers I examine (or will examine, after a bit more construction) are -
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J.H. Miller
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Louis Marx
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Invicta Plastics (the British Museum series)
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Starlux
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Safari (the Carnegie Collection series)
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Battat (the Boston Museum of Science series)
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Safari again (their non-Carnegie series - Wild Kingdom, Dinosaurs of China, and one or two others)
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Play Visions (the American Museum of Natural History series)
Then there are the manufacturers of "serious" figures not yet represented in my collection, so I don't have much for Show & Tell -
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Carnage
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Schleich
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Bullyland
Next are pages for "semi-serious" figures, usually from mysterious factories in China. I sort these by manufacturer or distributor (it hardly matters which, we just need a name to file them by) -
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Boley
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U.K.R.D.
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K&M
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Laramie
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Jasman
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Play Visions (the Habitat Earth series)
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et al
Then we have just plain old toy figures (the distinctions between serious, semi-serious and toy figures are perhaps easier to show than to describe).
We have some model kits, the styrene type.
And finally we have curios (perhaps problematica is a better word) - wind-up walking skeletons, dinos with bites taken out of them, and such miscellanea.
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