Welcome to the Dino Dojo

If your child is fascinated with dinosaurs and you're thinking about buying some dinosaur figures, then this is the blog for you ...

One day, at the age of 3, my son decided that he loved dinosaurs. As the weeks went by, his passion for dinosaurs continued to grow to the point where he just couldn't get enough of them.  Finally, with Christmas coming around the corner, I thought it would be a good time to ask Santa for a nice set of dinosaur toys.  I just needed to figure out which ones to put on the list.

To start off, I found a few good websites dedicated to dinosaur toys:

The Dino Toy Blog tends to have the most informative toy reviews.  It does a good job of identifying the pro's and con's of each dinosaur figure.  They do about 1 review per week ... I wish it were 1 a day!

Everything Dinosaur is a fairly active blog.  They seem to average a post a day, although most of them are not reviews.  Their reviews are informative, but not very critical.

The Dinosaur Toys Collectors Guide isn't really active anymore but they do have some good information on current dinosaur figures.  If you're looking for quality reviews, it's a good resource.

After doing a lot of research, I found out that the quality of dinosaur toys has gone up considerably since I was a kid.  Some companies weren't satisfied with producing cartoonish impressions of dinosaurs; they were creating scale models based on the latest scientific discoveries.  Imagine having all of that data and knowledge, coalesced into the form of a dinosaur toy and all within your child's hands.  With the right strategy, you could help your child to unlock that information and open up a new pathway to scientific discovery.  You could create a dinosaur collection that was both fun and educational!  My hope is that by writing this blog, I can share my experience with other parents and help them to get the most out of their kid's dinosaur collection.

One of the first things I learned about modern dinosaur toys is that there is a wide offering of scale models.  The most popular scale is 1:40.  A 1:40 scale figure means that your toy T-Rex is 1/40th the height of a real T-Rex.  When you do the math, it means that a 3 inch tall toy equals a 10 foot tall dino.

I quickly realized that by building a collection of dinosaurs that are all on the same scale, a child could easily see the size difference between two toy dinosaurs and visualize the size difference between the real dinosaurs.  For example, I never knew that a Triceratops was almost 3 times heavier than a Styracosaurs.  But when I saw my son's toy Triceratops and toy Styracosaurs side by side, the size difference was readily apparent. A small child might not understand weights and measures, but he can hold 2 dinosaurs in his hands.  He understands that if Styracosaurus were this big, then Triceratops would be this big!

With this bit of insight, I set out to create a collection of dinosaur toys that were all on the same scale.  Since 1:40 scale was the most popular, that's what I decided to use.  Looking back, I can definitely say that I made the right decision.  As this blog progresses, you'll see why.

In the meantime, I wanted to start things off by giving a quick summary of which dinosaur toys I recommend, which ones I have reservations/regrets about, and which ones I disliked.  If you are a parent in need of a "quick start" guide to building a collection, this is for you:


Recommended

Carnegie Amargasaurus
Carnegie Corythosaurus
Carnegie Diplodocus
Carnegie Iguanodon
Carnegie Maiasaura
Carnegie Plateosaurus
Carnegie Saltasaurus
Carnegie Tylosaurus

Collecta Baryonyx Deluxe
Collecta Kosmoceratops
Collecta Neovenator Deluxe
Collecta Therizinosaurus (You might want to wait for the deluxe model, coming in 2014)

Kaiyodo Dimetrodon
Kaiyodo Protoceratops

Marx Struthiomimus

Papo Allosaurus
Papo Ankylosaurus (It's really a Euoplocephalus)
Papo Carnotaurus
Papo Pachycephalosaurus
Papo Pachyrhinosaurus
Papo Spinosaurus
Papo Styracosaurus
Papo Tyrannosaurus v1
Papo Tyrannosaurus Baby (Green)
Papo Triceratops
Papo Velociraptor v2 (I tell my son it's a Utahraptor)

Safari Ceratosaurus
Safari Diabloceratops
Safari Dilophosaurus
Safari Gryposaurus
Safari Kentrosaurus

Schleich Brachiosaurus
Schleich Giganotosaurus (Papo will have one in 2014 so you might want to wait for that)
Schleich Parasaurolophus
Schleich Quetzalcoatlus


LUKE WARM

Schleich Apatosaurus (Not a lot of great options out there right now.  But Papo will be making one in 2014 and Carnegie is rumored to have a new one coming out as well.  I'd hold off until then)

Papo Stegosaurus (Would try Collecta Deluxe instead)

NOT RECOMMENDED

Bullyland Ankylosaurus (Poor quality.  Would try Carnegie instead)
Bullyland Elasmosaurus (Poor quality.  Would try Wild Safari instead)

Papo Pteranodon (Wrong scale & anatomically  inaccurate)