Anyone has the older info tag for the Monterey Bay Aquarium Giant Squid?

Prologue:
I've been looking through PDFs of a bunch of Safari's catalogs that span back to 2007 and I noticed there's been a discrepancy in the advertised scales for certain figures from the Monterey Bay Aquarium line.

Ever since 2010 (possibly 2009, but I don't have the catalog for it) to the present, the Sawfish and Manta Ray have been advertised to be at the 1:30 scale and the killer whale and gray whale are listed at the 1:50 scale. However, I know through both their older tags and a 1994 collector's booklet that these chondrichthyans and cetaceans were initially marketed to be at the 1:20 and 1:40 scale, respectively. The currently listed scales seem to be an attempt to make these figures align with the animal's maximum sizes rather than the average sizes like the original scales did. For the orca and manta ray, it works because these new scales actually fall right at the currently accepted maximum sizes for these animals. However, the Sawfish (officially identified on the tag as P.pectinata) and the gray whale are both overestimated. The sawfish would scale its outdated reported maximum size and the gray whale comes out about 5 feet/1.4 meters longer than its maximum.

Give how these scale revisions ended up leaving 2  figures corresponding to inaccurate sizes, these changes just end up being counterintuitive for the purpose of the MBA line being a scaled collection. Instead of having the entire line being advertised at 2 scales (1:20 and 1:40) like how it originally was, it's unnecessarily divided into 4 (1:20,1:30,1:40,1:50). I'm just nitpicking from a marketing standpoint, at the end of the day it doesn't affect the figures themselves.

The main point of the thread:

Now the worse one of the bunch is the Giant Squid, which the catalogs list as a 1:40 scale figure. The figure has a mantel length of 122mm and a total length of 458mm, which would make this figure about 18 meters. This corresponds more with the outdated maximum based on unverified reports and specimens that were over-stretched rather than measured at a relaxed state. The current accepted maximum length for a giant squid is about 12 meters with an average of about 7-9 meters. Ironically, the Wild Safari figure is actually the giant squid one should get for the 1:40 scale, as it corresponds to a 9.8-meter individual.

The MBA Giant Squid appears to be at the 1:20 scale as the mantle length would be 2.44 meters (@ the largest mantle size for this species), with the total length being about 9.2 meters. I suspect this to be its original advertised scale, but the one I own had the newer tags without the taxonomic and scale info like the older tags and the figure came out in 1999, so it's not in my collector's book. Does anyone on here own the older version of this figure with the info-tag that lists the original scale of this figure?

I dont have

Srry, I got mine before I began saving the tags

Sorry, I don't have the tag, but I just wanted to say thank you for pointing out that the Wild Safari giant squid is 1:40 scale. I have put it on my to-buy list.

rogerpgvg wrote:

Sorry, I don't have the tag, but I just wanted to say thank you for pointing out that the Wild Safari giant squid is 1:40 scale. I have put it on my to-buy list.

It's a very nice figure. Almost every bit as detailed as the MBA figure, but at a more practical scale

Hello,
I do not understand what kind of information you mean.
I have some Informations of Safari from the 90's?
Here you see a scan.
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The information I specifically want is the information on the scale of the Giant Squid. The current magazine catalogs have different scales than what was advertised upon the initial release of these figures.

For the Monterey Bay Collection, there used to be data about the scale of the figure on the tags.

Here's what the original tags looked like:

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(Note: The killer whale here is marketed to be in the 1:40 scale, but modern catalogs changed it to 1:50)

This is the second version of the tags

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Here are the current tags Safari Ltd uses, which is what my own giant squid has. They don't have the old information about taxonomy and the scale of the figure like the other two.

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The Giant Squid was released in 1999, so that means it likely had a tag similar to the second one. I want to see if the listed scale on that tag is different than what the current magazine catalogs use, which is 1:40.

First, I want to say that the booklet you posted is very interesting. I have a very similar one, except that mine is a bit older and doesn't have the Thresher Shark and Sawfish.
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The one I have appears to have been printed in 1994 because the Blue Shark and Tiger shark are the newest figures on it. Since yours has the Sawfish and Thresher shark, it's most likely printed around 1995. While I find this interesting, it doesn't help me because the Giant Squid was released in 1999.

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I have an little collector catalog of safari. year?.
On page 146 "Wild Safari Sea Life is a giant Squid No.277829, the model is ReMastered?
On page 151 "Monterey Bay Aquarium a scaled Collection" is a giant squid No.212302, the model is Scale 1:40 and also ReMastered?
Could it be that "ReMastered" make the scale-difference?
Benno

Babdo wrote:

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I have an little collector catalog of safari. year?.
On page 146 "Wild Safari Sea Life is a giant Squid No.277829, the model is ReMastered?
On page 151 "Monterey Bay Aquarium a scaled Collection" is a giant squid No.212302, the model is Scale 1:40 and also ReMastered?
Could it be that "ReMastered" make the scale-difference?
Benno

No, the No.212302 Giant Squid has been advertised as 1:40 in the catalog even before it was ''Remastered''. The Squid was ''Remastered'' in 2016, but it was marketed as 1:40 in the catalogs since 2010.

Here's the 2010 catalog

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Notice also how the Manta Ray and Sawfish are marketed at 1:30 and the Gray whale and Killer whale are at 1:50. All the future catalogs kept these scales. However, on their original tags and the collector's booklet scans, the Manta Ray and Sawfish were listed as 1:20 and the Gray whale and Killer whale as 1:40 like the rest of the collection.