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Author Topic: Does anyone collect Schleich, Safari, CollectA, or similar vinyl figures?  (Read 7113 times)

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Offline Nemesis

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I fell in love with Schleich’s fantasy figures some years ago, when they first introduced the Bayala line. It’s changed a lot over the years and lost most of its darker tones (literally and figuratively), but they still make some gorgeous sets like this mermaid and merhorse. The new Elidor line also has some figures that have tempted me, like the fire lion in this set.

I discovered Safari’s dragon line a few year later, and was really taken with the creativity of the different “species”, which included, amongst the more typical things you’d expect, a mechanical, steampunk dragon, a scorpion-like desert dragon, and a ghost dragon.

Outside of the fantasy lines, I also buy the occasional cat figurine, haha. XD Surprisingly few companies actually offer realistic or detailed figures of domestic cats... weird, right? o_0;

So does anyone else collect Scleich, Safari, CollectA, Papo, or similar figures? Feel free to share photos of your collections! :) I’ll try to get some of mine up if I have a chance tomorrow.
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Offline Ponybookworm

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I love Schleich for Pony pets!!! I believe that cat playset may be on my Watch list!!! I do also have a Schleich Tiger Shark (so anatomically correct I call him Mr Claspers) & a Schleich pegasus figure, because pegasus right???
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Offline BlackCurtains

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Oh, me, me! I have a collection of Friesian horses from all the lines that have them (still missing some earlier years though) and other horses and animals. I have a few of the very early fantasy Schleich figures. Everything is still packed away though.
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Offline NanoRuby

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Oh my god, I have so many thoughts about these toys! Growing up I had a ton a Schleich animal figures and even though I sold most of them, I still have a few that hold particular sentimental value.
Spoiler
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They were all very well played with so they look a little worn, but oh well.

And I'm so glad you brought up Safari's dragons because they are all fantastic! A lot of companies will just go "oh this is a fire dragon, make it red. This is a water dragon, make it blue and add a couple fins." But the Safari dragons are all so creative and well-made, they really do feel like dragons that have adapted to live in their environments!
I don't have too many of the cooler Safari dragons, their shipping seems to be expensive and I can never find them in stores, but I have some, as well as a pegasus and griffin from when I was younger.
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From left to right there's a cave dragon, a forest dragon, a glow-in-the-dark dragon, a griffin, a golden dragon, a pegasus and a baby luck dragon.

I only have one Schleich fantasy creature, a dragon, but I'll admit to almost buying a Bayala unicorn I found in a store the other day. I find that Schleich toys generally seem to be a bit lower quality, but maybe I'm just biased towards Safari.
Spoiler
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I named her Thea!
I didn't know that Safari made stuff like that lion, that looks so cool! Maybe I'll have to keep an eye out for more Safari stuff in the future.

And okay okay okay I love dinosaurs SO much and have so much to say about them so I'll just put everything under a spoiler because I have a feeling it'll get long.
Spoiler
Alright so, I'll start off by saying that Safari has by far the best dinosaurs in terms of paleontological accuracy, which is what I personally look for in a dinosaur toy. I don't have a lot, but I do own what I like to call the Triceratops Tower(™). Also a slightly unrelated fun fact, but did you know that some ceratopsian skulls could reach as much as 9 feet in length from the tip of the beak to the end of the frill? How cool is that!
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The difference is quality and accuracy between the bottom two still astounds me. I get that one is much older, but the one on the bottom wasn't even that expensive and is just fantastic! While the top three were childhood toys and so are very nostalgic for me, the larger one is now my favourite. Some of the Safari dinosaurs are a bit outdated, but overall if you're looking for good dinos, look to them first.
Also I own a Safari velociraptor and a pteranodon, which isn't a dinosaur but shhh...
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The next best company in terms of accurate dinosaur toys is actually Papo. I don't own any, as a kid I always had this weird and pointless hatred for Papo. Not sure why. But I still forget to look for their stuff even now that I know it's pretty good.

Schleich falls behind in the dino department. I only own two, which are a large and small Saichania, and they're not the most accurate or well-made. The material the larger one is made out of feels very weird, almost slimy? Maybe some of the newer Schleichs are better, but after checking their website, they still aren't that great in terms of accuracy. Oh well, they could be much worse.
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That being said, I did see a very very good Schleich Spinosaurus the other day, which I almost bought but it was just a bit too expensive. It wasn't completely up-to-date, it was missing the newt-like tail that we now know Spinosaurus had, but I can't fault them for that since that research was only published earlier this year. I can't wait to see if they do an updated Spino in the future, and in the meantime I'll probably buy their current Spino once I save up a bit.

CollectA is the worst in terms of dinosaur toy accuracy, and I've never seen one in person or for sale in a store so I can't say what they're like quality-wise. But what's weird is that despite almost all of their dinosaurs being pretty bad compared to the other companies, they have by far the best Styracosaurus toy I've seen. I'm so confused as to how they are consistently bad but then have this one really good figure??

Anyway, if you find the paleontological accuracy of dinosaur toys interesting like I do, there's this great series on Youtube called Your Dinosaurs are Wrong. This guy looks at different dinosaur toys and talks about all the ways is which they're wrong. It's fun to see the difference between the people who were clearly trying to make the best toy they could based on the information we knew at the time and the people who just went "ah, it's a dinosaur, if we just make a crocodile and throw some spikes on that should work, right?" (wrong.) But it's both fun and informative and he puts a lot of research into each episode, so definitely check that out.

Sorry that got a bit long, I just really like these figures.  :redface:
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Offline Zapper

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Well, I do, but you (Nemesis) know that already ;)

In my collection I have: Papo, CollectA, Eofauna, PNSO, Hibon, Kaiyodo, Breyer and very few Schleich. I concentrate on horses and prehistoric animals but got some others in there as well. I only collect realistic animal figs, have no fantasy ones.

Offline Nemesis

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Thanks for the great replies, everyone! ^_^

Ponybookworm: My G1 Tabby sits on a shelf beside her bestie, a Schleich orange tabby cat. :D

BlackCurtains: Friesians are such gorgeous horses! There’s a farm close to where I live that specializes in breeding Friesians, and I always admire them as I go by the pasture... ^^

I contemplated getting into collecting Schleich’s and CollectA’s horses, but ended up sticking to fantasy creatures only to conserve display space. XD My Breyers already eat up a lot of shelves, lol.

NanoRuby: No worries about the post length, I love hearing about people’s collections! :D

I agree that the Safari dragons are spectacular! Very unique from what any other brand is doing. The alien dragon tempts me, haha.

I’m a dino geek as well, but also a nostalgic Jurassic Park nerd, so I’m desensitized to... “creative”... dinosaurs. XD That said, I love seeing the realistic models too! I probably couldn’t pass up a realistic baby T-Rex model if I found one. X3 In terms of non-dino prehistoric life, I’d also love to have a detailed elasmosaurus or dunkleosteus.

Zapper: Haha, I thought I might see you here. :D

Did Schleich ever get their realistic horses back on track, or are they still going through those awkward sculpts you were telling me about? The fantasy horses weren’t affected, so I’m curious.
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Offline BlackCurtains

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BlackCurtains: Friesians are such gorgeous horses! There’s a farm close to where I live that specializes in breeding Friesians, and I always admire them as I go by the pasture... ^^

omg I'm so jealous. I've never seen one in person. I fell in love with them after I read an article about a stallion named Nanning 374 and how absolutely magnificent he looked. Some pictures of him don't even look real. I think a lot of the toys are modelled after him, actually.
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Offline Leave a Whisper

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Yes, but I no longer collect Schleich and Safari Ltd. I've got a few CollectA and would like to collecta-few-more.
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Offline Zapper

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Did Schleich ever get their realistic horses back on track, or are they still going through those awkward sculpts you were telling me about? The fantasy horses weren’t affected, so I’m curious.

Leaks for 2021 paint a slightly better picture but there are some real duds in there as well. The leaks are all over youtube, so you can judge for yourself. I am quite happy to only get Breyer and CollectA horses ;)

Offline Nemesis

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I LOVE the CollectA horse molds, I just wish they came in fantasy repaints, haha. Those Vanner molds would make gorgeous unicorns... The only uni-Vanner Breyer has made was a Christmas ornament. :cry:
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Offline Zapper

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Re: Does anyone collect Schleich, Safari, CollectA, or similar vinyl figures?
« Reply #10 on: October 28, 2020, 03:35:05 PM »
I LOVE the CollectA horse molds, I just wish they came in fantasy repaints, haha. Those Vanner molds would make gorgeous unicorns... The only uni-Vanner Breyer has made was a Christmas ornament. :cry:

They only have these unicorns for now:
https://www.collecta.biz/en/collections/horse-country/magical-horses/item

Depending on how well they sell, maybe they'll add more to this subline. They did add that rearing foal a while later, so there is hope.

Offline Nemesis

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Re: Does anyone collect Schleich, Safari, CollectA, or similar vinyl figures?
« Reply #11 on: October 28, 2020, 05:22:44 PM »
I LOVE the CollectA horse molds, I just wish they came in fantasy repaints, haha. Those Vanner molds would make gorgeous unicorns... The only uni-Vanner Breyer has made was a Christmas ornament. :cry:

They only have these unicorns for now:
https://www.collecta.biz/en/collections/horse-country/magical-horses/item

Depending on how well they sell, maybe they'll add more to this subline. They did add that rearing foal a while later, so there is hope.

What’s really odd is that no one ever makes unicorns in realistic horse colors/patterns (aside from black, white, and gray). I’d love to see unicorns with realistic appaloosa colorations. <3
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Offline Zapper

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Re: Does anyone collect Schleich, Safari, CollectA, or similar vinyl figures?
« Reply #12 on: October 31, 2020, 04:52:20 AM »
I LOVE the CollectA horse molds, I just wish they came in fantasy repaints, haha. Those Vanner molds would make gorgeous unicorns... The only uni-Vanner Breyer has made was a Christmas ornament. :cry:

They only have these unicorns for now:
https://www.collecta.biz/en/collections/horse-country/magical-horses/item

Depending on how well they sell, maybe they'll add more to this subline. They did add that rearing foal a while later, so there is hope.

What’s really odd is that no one ever makes unicorns in realistic horse colors/patterns (aside from black, white, and gray). I’d love to see unicorns with realistic appaloosa colorations. <3

My guess is because unicorns are supposed to be otherworldly so regular horse coats kinda defeat that fantasy element. But I would like to see more "natural" fantasy horses as well. Even making them black for once would do.

Breyer had this exclusive set last year, I think? No appy markings and they got a bronze shine to them but I liked seeing brownish unicorns:
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« Last Edit: October 31, 2020, 04:54:18 AM by Zapper »

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Re: Does anyone collect Schleich, Safari, CollectA, or similar vinyl figures?
« Reply #13 on: November 01, 2020, 08:48:19 PM »
I remember reading a novel once about a bronze unicorn.  I really like those Brewers.
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Offline Nemesis

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Re: Does anyone collect Schleich, Safari, CollectA, or similar vinyl figures?
« Reply #14 on: November 01, 2020, 10:27:31 PM »
I have the bronze Mira and Antares set, and they’re really gorgeous in person—the photos don’t do them credit. They have a pattern of hexagons sort of buried under the layers of paint, but still visible up close. It’s a very pretty effect.

I’m loving Breyer’s new unicorn, Nova. Not exactly realistic, but getting closer in terms of palette.
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