Dinosaur Playsets

[horrorhunter]

Were the Timmee dinosaurs sold in bunches as rack toys?

Any Sinclair premium is beyond cool in my book! Do you have any of the Sinclair dinos still in the premium bags?

Yes, the Timmees were just cheap rack toys sold in bags with header card back in the '60s. In the '80s Timmee made a lame answer to the Marx Mountain Sets with their own little Dinosaur Mountain playset.

I do have a Sinclair premium bag with Timmee minis. Those are still very common and turn up on eBay for around $10. They must have given away a crap-ton of 'em back in the Dinoboomer '60s.

I'll try to post some of my Sinclair items soon.

[horrorhunter]

Were the Ajax original sold in bunches as rack toys? Are the painted eyes the only way you can tell a Hong Kong knockoff from an Ajax original?

Yes, they were just cheap rack toys usually sold in bag w/header and sometimes on blister-card. Really everything short of dino playsets were cheap rack toys. The highly coveted Marx and MPC carded sets were just rack toys back in the day and sold for around a buck.

The Hong Kong Ajax knockoffs in the pic are hollow as well as having painted eyes. I vaguely remember buying those through a Dinokid haze in probably around 1963/1964, and it seems like they were blister-carded. May be off base, but that's what my inner Dinokid is telling me. 

[horrorhunter]

How do you tell the ones that were Nabisco premiums from the Frito premiums from the more recent repops?

The plastic stayed consistent so the only way to tell is by color. The original 10 Lido Nabisco premiums from the '50s given away in Rice Honeys and Wheat Honeys are in different colors and are often marbled or swirled. The 8 Prehistoric Beasts given that way are silver (see 1st three in photo). The  Lido Fritos premiums from the '60s are usually in those brownish/grayish shades, but sometimes black or white (see 2 in top row of photo). They were sometimes marbled as well. The Tootsietoy repops from later years are in bright colors and brown (see bottom row of photo).

[Hepcat]

The plastic stayed consistent so the only way to tell is by color. The original 10 Lido Nabisco premiums from the '50s given away in Rice Honeys and Wheat Honeys are in different colors and are often marbled or swirled. The 8 Prehistoric Beasts given that way are silver (see 1st three in photo). The  Lido Fritos premiums from the '60s are usually in those brownish/grayish shades, but sometimes black or white (see 2 in top row of photo). They were sometimes marbled as well.

So very cool!

[japfeif]

Finally getting around to posting some of my Marx and MPC dinosaur sets (along with some knock-offs like Superior, Toy Street, SDC, etc.). Sorry about the not-too-professional pics and the crowded set-up!

[japfeif]

By the way, some months ago I posted some messages promoting my upcoming book "Dinosaur Playsets", which focuses primarily on the Marx & MPC prehistoric sets, as well as covering in depth the figures & sets by other companies that produced knock-off sets or similar sets, such as Toy Street, Winneco, SDC, Superior, and the like. I have gotten quite a few inquiries concerning the completion & availability of the book. As an update, I am happy to report that the book is now at the publishers and (fingers crossed) should be available this fall, barring any unforeseen circumstances (which unfortunately I have found to be all too common!!).  Sorry for the lack of updates or info in the past months, there have been several setbacks that, while not critically serious, proved VERY time-consuming!

Thanks all! I will give more updates as availablity time gets closer for anyone interested in the book!
Jeff

[Hepcat]

Did you incorporate the suggestions from earlier in this thread in your book?

[horrorhunter]

Thanks all! I will give more updates as availablity time gets closer for anyone interested in the book!

I hope the book gets released and it lives up to expectations. I suspect that the number of serious dino toy collectors is relatively small compared to monster and superhero toy collectors, but the few of us there are have been waiting on a good publication of this type for several years.

Also, hopefully it offers good value for the cost. Niche market books of this type are often short on content and overly expensive. I hope this one delivers.

It would be nice if it makes it to Amazon and offers up some sample pages to check out.

[japfeif]

Did you incorporate the suggestions from earlier in this thread in your book?

Actually yes I did. There was one suggestion to have a comparison of the different versions of the Marx booklets, and I added a section on just that! A side-by-side comparison of the front and back covers of each! I had included pics of the front covers of each booklet in the text of the book, in their chronological order, but it was more of an "in passing" thing and did not incorporate the back covers. I hadn't thought to do an actual front-and-back cover comparison till it was suggested here. I appreciate any suggestions many thanks!

[japfeif]

I hope the book gets released and it lives up to expectations. I suspect that the number of serious dino toy collectors is relatively small compared to monster and superhero toy collectors, but the few of us there are have been waiting on a good publication of this type for several years.

Also, hopefully it offers good value for the cost. Niche market books of this type are often short on content and overly expensive. I hope this one delivers.

It would be nice if it makes it to Amazon and offers up some sample pages to check out.

It will certainly be available on Amazon, as well as Barnes & Noble and a few others, and the AuthorHouse website. As to the final retail cost, well that is still in negotiation , but I assure everyone that keeping the cost down has been my first & foremost concern. I have found that the author of a book does not set the retail price, the publishers do, and it's of course based on printing costs & all that. The vast amount of pictures (around 195 I believe) and the fact that all are in full color makes it a fairly laborious and expensive undertaking for the publishers, and I have gone to great lengths to keep the cost affordable. I have made it clear to them that no matter how good or informative or one-of-a-kind a book is, if it's out-of-financial reach for the average person, no one will buy it, simple as that. Not to get bogged down in details, but I even paid out of my pocket to be on a publishing plan to allow me to have a say in setting the cost, to a degree. They will not allow me to go lower than the cost for them to print it & publish it obviously, but I can go down as far as that point, even if it means my royalties per book go down, which I accepted. I did not write this book to make money, but rather to get the info out there to interested collectors, and I can assure everyone that the final retail cost will be absolutely as low as possible.

[japfeif]

Here are a few sample pages of the book if anyone is interested, to give an idea of the format and stuff

[horrorhunter]

Looks good. Best of luck with your book.

I have most of this stuff, but you cover some of the rarer items that I never got the chance to buy.

If the price is near reasonable I will definitely be picking up a copy. I hope it sees the light of day finally after all of these delays.

Oh, and you could join in on this thread as a collector and post some of your stuff set up, discuss how you acquired some of the items, talk about the dino toy collectors' market, etc. I feel like a voice in the wilderness sometimes, and it would be nice to have another dino collector join in.

If you know of any other message boards/podcasts/whatever which discuss dino toys please post a link. I've done repeated Google searches over the years and haven't found anything related that stays anywhere near active. That's why I started this thread on this monster message board. Dinoboomer toys are closely related to monster toys, and at least there is some traffic on here (just not much for dinosaur toys).

[horrorhunter]

I've been working on my dino collection of late. Here are my Lido/Nabisco dinos. At the top are all 10 of the Fritos premiums from the late '60s. In the middle are all 8 of the Prehistoric Beasts given away in Rice Honeys and Wheat Honeys around 1960. The marbled green ones at the bottom are all 10 of the dino premiums given away in those cereals in the late '50s. The box at the bottom is the original mailing box for the green dinos.

[Mord]

 Helluva collection. Love those dinos. I can't believe you got the shipping box.

[horrorhunter]

My large toothy Ajax collection, all 6. These dinos are scientifically ridiculous but megacool to Dinoboomers back when dinosaurs weren't just prehistoric animals... they were MONSTERS by god! 

The T-Rex seems to have the remnants of a price printed on his side. I think it says 10 cents. A dime bought some coolness back in the day. 



At the bottom are a couple of scarce Linde dinos. They are 1950s premiums from Austria. I love the exaggerated Triceratops' horns.