How about a little more from the world of palaeontological philatelelely? Last time, we took a look at stamps from various countries including the UK, Poland, Cuba, and China, with the promise of more to come, because “we haven’t even talked about Tanzania yet.” Best get right to that, then. Although they date from 1988 and 1991, the artwork on these stamps borrows from(/outright copies) much earlier palaeoart, most obviously Burian. Most stamps simply name the animal, but the lovely…
Our guest this episode is Emiliano Troco, a modern ‘old master’ whose traditional paintings evoke the imagery of the flowering of early 20th century palaeontology. Our Vintage Dinosaur Art title is Dorling Kindersley’s The Ultimate Dinosaur Book, another of those formative publications released in the same year as Jurassic Park, and one which can quite justly claim to have then lived up to its name. Can Niels resist making a Slam Dunk joke? Can Marc resist referencing Jurassic Park and…
Given that the sorts of people who are enthusiastic about dinosaurs and prehistory also tend to possess carefully curated collections of curious objects, it’s only natural that there’s a strong overlap with philately, that is to say, stamp collecting. (After all, isn’t all science other than physics merely stamp collecting?) I’ve never much been into it myself – I have just a couple of dinosaur-related sets, purely because of the dinosaurs – but it’s easy to see the appeal. Happily,…
Our first episode of 2023 celebrates classics of two different kinds: the masterly palaeoart of the Queen of #DrawDinovember, Rebecca Dart, which surely merits the stamp of ‘modern classic’; and, in what Niels has determined is a one-off for us and not the beginning of a foray into collectibles, the enduring charm of the Invicta dinosaur toys commissioned by London’s Natural History Museum, beginning in 1974. How does Rebecca work her timeless magic on her snapshots of deep time, and…
Published by The Trumpet Club (great name) in 1990, New Questions and Answers about Dinosaurs is exactly the right age to be the sort of book that I might have encountered in my very first years learning about dinosaurs. Except, I didn’t – perhaps it was more widely available in the US than over here, for that is where this copy came from, sent over once again by Herman Diaz. (Thank you Herman!) In terms of the artwork, it’s a…
Some years back – well, in 2019, but 2019 feels like a very long time ago now – I reviewed the Eyewitness Dinosaur video, released on VHS in 1994. While I happened to own that one back in the day, Dave Hone (for it was he) recently drew my attention to another early ’90s dinosaur-related video that had, somehow, escaped my childhood gaze. (My parents probably didn’t let me hang around for long enough in the Natural History Museum gift…
I always enjoy receiving books from overseas that date to my childhood, but were never released in the UK (or if they were, were really well hidden) – there’s a special fascination in seeing what contemporary, for example, American kids were reading while I was devouring The Ultimate Dinosaur Book and Dinosaurs! magazine (er, the UK version). Graveyards of the Dinosaurs was (very kindly) sent to me from the US by Herman Diaz – thanks once again, Herman. It features a…
Carrying on from last time! The woes of 2021 drove me to the occasional book shopping spree, and as a result I’ve got at least another year’s worth of VDA books on my shelf. If I recall, this book was a fortunate find on Dutch web shopping giant Bol punt com. I was unfamiliar to it but it turns out that a lot of you grew up with this one, so I hope you enjoy part two of this trip…
I love a good alphabet book. The fact that the author has to find one animal for each letter inevitably means they have to make a lot of choices. Some letters have lots of candidates – Do we put Tyrannosaurus or Triceratops under ‘T”? – which means painful cuts need to be made. Other letters, like Q and Z, only have some deeply obscure taxa that you wouldn’t otherwise see in a mainstream dinosaur book. At the same time, the…
We’re back again today with the ecelctic Reuzen Uit De Oertijd, or Discoveries’ Dinosaurs, the Australian not-quite-Eyewitness-level nineties nostalgiavaganza featuring a plethora of works by different artists. Many of you told us you remember this one from your childhoods, so I hope I’m not going to ruin your opinion of it too much. Since last we spoke, I have returned this book to its actual owner, so all I’ve got left is the scans. I’m sure there’s enough in here…
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Chasmosaurus belli silhouette in custom bulleted list by Scott D. Sampson, Mark A. Loewen, Andrew A. Farke, Eric M. Roberts, Catherine A. Forster, Joshua A. Smith, and Alan L. Titus, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sourced from PhyloPic.