I'm a day late with my second off-week post, and I'm taking a break from other things to cover another chapter on my big vacation. I previously covered a selection of Mold-A-Rama dinos I got during my trip to the Chicago Field Museum (see also the space capsule and broken plane). As a follow-up, I put in an order from the museum's online giftshop for stuff I either didn't find in-person or wasn't confident I could stuff into the only suitcase I could afford to carry. As it turned out, I only got 2 out of 3 items I ordered, but those two were enough to fill out a post and also a video. Here's a few pics of the main attraction, a Tarbosaurus bataar from CollectA, with a 1/72 Dino Riders Diplodocus for reference.
As noted, this is supposed to be a representation of T. bataar, T. rex's closest relative and probably the second-largest carnosaur of the very late Cretaceous (see my T. rex Vs post and video). While it lived somewhat earlier than the last known Rexes, it's clear that it was a parallel lineage rather than an ancestor, with some features more "advanced" than T. rex including even smaller arms. It coexisted with animals including Therizinosaurus, Saurolophus and Deinocheirus, which got it a place in my misbegotten first novel (see also the Lego dino post). It was, at least through the 1990s-2000s, probably the best known tyrannosaurid, represented by a range of good-quality adult and juvenile specimens. Per conventional wisdom, the largest T. bataar individuals were about half the size of Rex, but the fans are not yet convinced.
Now for this guy, he comes from a manufacturer I've found to be rather notorious among paleo collectors, previously sighted as the manufacturer of my very anatomically correct Uintatherium. Before finalizing my order, I found a review of the same one from 2010, which confirmed that this was going to be old on arrival. Indeed, an inspection confirmed a copyright date of 2009 (printed in a way that flattens out the chest). The old sculpt is further indicated by the incorrect orientation of the arms, though that still turns up in far more recent dinos. I also noted several whitish spots where the paint had worn off, presumably either in shipping or just from clonkings during very long storage. Here's a pic of the underside.
What interested me was that the height was listed as 1.5 inches, which would have been so unusually small as to offer potentially greater collector value than a big one. I unpacked it with several toys already prepared for reference. It was immediately clear that this was much taller than that, though still smaller than usual outside of the bagged sets. Here's a pic of the thing with a Galaxy Laser Team commander, previously confirmed to be 2" exactly, and the original/ mini Processed Plastic version, which is about 1.5". All in all, the GLT astronaut comes out at about the right size.
I think the amall size contributed to And here's some more reference pics, with the 1" Dino Rider people. I also threw in a toy soldier from a much larger group that I got mostly from a bulk bag and partly from capsule toys about 10 years ago, many of which look like WW1 infantry. Ironically, a 1.5" dino would have been a good fit for these. Not that I was planning a gruesome battle scene...
And here his with Sidekick Carl and the Construx driver, aka Agent John Carter. It might not be clear here, but the Construx guy is exactly the same height as the dino, which comes out as 3" pretty much straight up.
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