Remembering the Carnegie Collection, 10 years on

An awful lot of dinosaur toys and models have been created and collected since the dawn of the mass-produced plastic tat era (let’s call it the ‘Tatozoic’), but few have had as much impact as the Carnegie Collection (manufactured by Safari Ltd). The models made by Invicta Plastics for the London Natural History Museum are certainly up there (as we’ve discussed on the podcast), as are the Battat and Tyco ranges of the ’80s and ’90s, but the Carnegie Collection was special – for boasting gloriously colourful dinosaurs and a museum certification, having a large range of species, and for its longevity. Officially beginning in 1989 and ending in 2015, the Carnegie Collection reflected advances in dinosaur science as much as any palaeoart medium, not just in terms of updating sculpts, but in representing species that were new to science. Here, then, is a look back at a seminal range of Tatozoic collectibles, 10 years on.

Like so many others, I first encountered the Carnegie Collection in the form of the early ’90s range, epitomised in an Early Learning Centre leaflet that I’ve somehow retained from that time. You may remember these as the ‘originals’, but that’s certainly not the case – there were earlier releases in different colours apparently dating as far back as 1988. The really superb Dinosaur Mountain website by TerribleDactyl has a very comprehensive history of the range that’s well worth a read (although I should warn you that subsequently spending far too much time browsing through all the different model variations is a real possibility). Certainly, the ’90s-era Carnegies retained a chunky aesthetic highly reminiscent of certain 1980s palaeoart – not the more avant-garde hot-blooded Renaissance stuff, but more like ’80s John Sibbick. They were all tree-trunk legs and deeply grooved, wrinkled hides, and the very earliest models had notably retro flourishes, like the paws on the rather ‘generic sauropod’ Apatosaurus and the curiously upright T. rex.

For all of that, though, and in spite of lacking detail when compared with later models, these earlier releases were still a cut above the vast majority of other dinosaur toys at the time. The only ones that I regarded as ‘superior’ in 1993 were the Jurassic Park toys, which were certainly bigger, more detailed and much better for playing with, but weren’t supposed to be scientifically accurate and didn’t claim authenticity – they were movie action figures, duh. From a child’s perspective, the Carnegies definitely had an edge over the Invictas in that they were (quite carefully) painted and therefore looked more ‘alive’. The Invicta sculpts were certainly more refined, but some were already quite dated, and they seemed rather staid by comparison. I definitely value the Invicta range much more as an adult than I ever did as a child.

While I now naturally have a lot of nostalgia for earlier Carnegies, I don’t go out of my way to collect them. In particular, the Apatosaurus and earlier Diplodocus don’t really appeal as they are rather retro and unrefined in appearance, although there’s no denying the charisma of that huge Brachiosaurus – I’m sure it was much-coveted among many children whose parents couldn’t quite stretch to it. The block-headed ’80s Allosaurus and Tyrannosaurus, with their painted-on teeth, also aged poorly, but by contrast the Iguanodon (introduced in 1992) weathered the years remarkably well. Still, it’s not the earlier models that make me so fond of the Carnegie Collection, important and beloved as they were, but rather the later ones.

As the years progressed, the number of annual new releases shrank, and the sculpts lost the impressively consistent 1:40 scale of the earlier years. (Not something that’s ever bothered me all that much, but I do understand why some people care.) However, the sculpts became increasingly refined to the point where it was difficult to believe that they’d always been sculpted by the same person. But that they were – Forest Rogers sculpted all of these from start to finish. Compromises had to be made, as the Carnegie Collection evolved to straddle an awkward line between child’s toy and more grown-up collectible; contemporary reviewers would bemoan the stereotypical ‘Carnegie pose’ of the theropods, with legs spread apart, head turned to one side, mouth open, and tail tip touching the ground for stability. If only they could have had bases, or stands!

In spite of this, though, and for all that they were let down by the occasional sloppy paint job in the factory, the later Carnegie sculpts were seriously impressive. There was a certain organic fluidity, an elegance to them, that no comparable model range could match at the time (and possibly even now). Around the time of All Yesterdays they were a little unfortunate in having a sleek, unfussy aesthetic at a time when that was falling out of favour, but time since has been rather kind to them. Sure, the science has moved on (and those tails are way too skinny), but the attention to fine detail still compares favourably with more recent efforts and manages to shine through the paint.

It’s perhaps telling that many of these later Carnegies now command some quite silly prices on the second hand market, including the Brachiosaurus remake, as seen in the above photo that I took back in the day. (Don’t worry, I do still have it.) In its case, while I was never much of a fan of the neck posture, it remains one of the few models that is definitely based on Brachiosaurus altithorax and not the animal now known as Giraffatitan brancai. What’s more, sauropod expert Mike Taylor was a co-consultant on this piece, and it really shows in the details – from the lengthier torso, to the skull, to the accurately columnar, concave ‘hands’. The Cryolophosaurus and Miragaia show similarly fine sculpting details, while the remade Spinosaurus (as seen above), while outdated now, stands out even among more modern models in being quite as graceful and aesthetically pleasing as it is. It’s a far cry from the ‘Allosaurus with a sail’ 1990s take that was destined for the kiddies’ sand pit. I’d further argue that the second Carnegie Carnotaurus remains one of the finest sculpts ever made of the animal, for a figure sold at this price point in any case. Just have a look at Forest Rogers’ prototypes of both.

The Carnegie Collection was canned in 2015, with Safari making the announcement 10 years ago this month. The last model was a feathered Velociraptor, which while a very welcome replacement for the extremely outdated scaly old version, and quite an elegant figure in itself (what with those lovely tail streamers and all), was still weirdly underfeathered. Its lack of primaries is made all the stranger when one considers the Microraptor and Caudipteryx that were released years prior, which did have much more in the way of ‘wings’. It’s unfortunate that the line went out with a bit of a whimper, as it deserved so much more. Rogers’ work had evolved dramatically from those early chunk-o-saurus days, resulting in a series of sleek, sophisticated sculpts that would have been all the better if only they could have squarely been aimed at a more adult collector demographic – but such a thing didn’t really exist back then, at least not as as much of a safe target market. We were years away from the current world of PNSO and Haolonggood blowing everyone away with amazing models that are still relatively affordable (at least when compared with resins), and it’s a shame that the Carnegie Collection didn’t have the chance to grow into that space.

So it goes. At least we have the models, the memories, at least 4 different versions of T. rex, and possibly the only Concavenator model with a ‘fin’ that transitions smoothly down its back and tail. That’s got to be worth something…although maybe not as much as that 2012 Brachiosaurus.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Eric Hewitt over on our Facebook page, which also sums up my thoughts quite well:

“The Carnegie collection set the standard for dinosaur toys when I was a kid; there were normal dino toys, and there was Carnegie. I remember seeing entire walls of museum shops dedicated to displaying the line. They represented something premium or curated in nature, a sense of quality and dedication to presenting paleontology. Acquiring a new Carnegie model was one of the most exciting things my child self could ask for.

Nowadays we have the main Wild Safari series, plus PNSO, Collecta, Haolonggood, etc. all filling the void left by Carnegie (and Battat) with far greater accessibility to boot. It’s a grand time to be a collector, but sometimes I fear I’m taking it all for granted now. There was something special about the Carnegie days which is probably gone forever.”