1/32 scale animals

I have seen on Facebook 1:32 american buffalos in a Airfix set of Buffalo BIll

widukind wrote:

I have seen on Facebook 1:32 american buffalos in a Airfix set of Buffalo BIll

Atlantic reissued this set. Poses are good and there is an American Bison calf too.

Not sure if this figure has been featured yet in this thread (it may have already been by Leyster, I cannot remember). Using skull as a metric (n=5.5 cm), scale comes to approximately 1:27-1:32. Using femur as a metric (n=6.0 cm), scale comes to approximately 1:23-1:24. These scales above are calculated based on estimates for the holotype specimen (MUCPv-Ch1). I find the skull easier to estimate a length for than the femur. Because the figure is essentially stretched out, using the estimated body length for the holotype (n=12-13 meters), the scale comes to approximately 1:32-1:35. Overall, the figure could probably be safely estimated at a scale of 1:32.

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Thank you all for your comments, I really appreciate your interest.

sunny wrote:

I think I'm okay with smaller figures if they can be turned into subadult, babies etc. It's a bit harder with the male lions with full manes though.

There is quite a bit of variability in size in many species, so they don't always need to be subadults. The Toymany lion can only be an Ethiopian zoo lion though .

Thanks for pointing out the Airfix/Atlantic bison. They are unpainted, is that right?

And also thanks for showing the Safari Giganotosaurus. I think colourwise the Safari dinosaurs tend to look the way I imagine that dinosaurs would look.

I will have to research the Ethiopian lion now

Chris Sweetman wrote:

widukind wrote:

I have seen on Facebook 1:32 american buffalos in a Airfix set of Buffalo BIll

Atlantic reissued this set. Poses are good and there is an American Bison calf too.

About the 1:32 Buffalo BIll set, it is good to knwo that the hunters are theonly one to be 1/32, the bison are far too small to be at that scale.

sunny wrote:

I will have to research the Ethiopian lion now

Here is the article by Hailemariam and colleagues.

Kikimalou wrote:

About the 1:32 Buffalo BIll set, it is good to knwo that the hunters are theonly one to be 1/32, the bison are far too small to be at that scale.

Thanks, good to know. Companies are notoriously bad at making animal figures to scale.

interresting article, It remains to be seen whether this is also the case in the wild.

I wonder whether their smaller size is due to inbreeding. They are all descendants of seven lions that were captured 64 years ago (at the time of the article publication). However, there is evidence that the Ethiopian zoo lions are genetically different from other populations, so it isn't impossible that they are indeed smaller.

The Toymany is definitely an Ethiopian zoo lion . Besides having the right size, it also has the characteristic dark mane:
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Thank you Roger, very interesting, I read about them!
And I found this article and the work that the Lion Aid is doing for them -
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thank goodness that there are organisations out there working together which are doing their best to help them and the land they live on. Lion Aid and Born Free.

Indeed, good to see that they are planning to do more research and try to protect them.

I hope they will succeed.

Kikimalou wrote:

Chris Sweetman wrote:

widukind wrote:

I have seen on Facebook 1:32 american buffalos in a Airfix set of Buffalo BIll

Atlantic reissued this set. Poses are good and there is an American Bison calf too.

About the 1:32 Buffalo BIll set, it is good to knwo that the hunters are theonly one to be 1/32, the bison are far too small to be at that scale.

Agree Buffalo Bill and his friends are 1:32rd scale and the adult bison are a dwarf variety but the calf is about the right size for this scale.

Roger - yes the Atlantic and Airfix sets are unpainted.

Thanks, Chris. Sometimes young animals can be used even though their parents are not to scale.

Today, we are going to have a look at a few AAA models. AAA doesn’t have much to offer to a 1/32 scale collector, but like other major brands, their elephants are the right size. I recently bought three, partly because they are so common in the UK and partly out of historical interest:
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They are some of the very first 1/32 scale elephants in a more rubbery, less fragile plastic. I was surprised how old they are. In their early years, they were sold by Bullyland and these two dark elephants are listed in their 1992 catalogue:
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It is possible that they were introduced even earlier. I haven’t been able to find such early evidence for the lighter coloured elephant; it may be a later model.
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These three African elephants all have a similar shoulder height. From left to right in the first photo, they are 9.0/288, 9.1/291 and 9.2/294 cm.

Let’s compare them with their contemporaries. If you were a child in the mid-1990s, you could choose between a good old Britains (1981), a new AAA or a modern Schleich elephant (1989). Which one would you choose?
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Or you could choose between this Britains (1965), AAA or Schleich (1992):
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What is your favourite? I am sure you know mine. However, the AAA elephants do very well in comparison with the Schleichs. They look considerably more realistic.

A comparison with another 1990s elephant, the Safari from 1997:
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Again, the AAA elephants don’t need to be embarrassed.

This post is a good opportunity to bring out my favourite modern elephants again. In my opinion, elephant models have improved a lot in recent years.

The Papo from 2004, excellent for its time:
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The Eikoh from 2019:
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The Mojo from 2021:
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The CollectA from 2022:
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I agree with you, the AAAs are much more credible than the Schleichs from the same period. I particularly like the one that looks more recent.
Could you take a photo of the whole herd?

Not sure if this has been featured yet. The 2022 Safari Zuul measures approx. 19.0 cm for a scale of 1:32 based on a 6-meter-long individual.

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[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] do you think that Recur's latest Encyclopedia might feature something useful for your reserve?
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Thanks for the zuul. Strange name for a dinosaur .

Leyster wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] do you think that Recur's latest Encyclopedia might feature something useful for your reserve?

Thanks, I wasn’t aware of this encyclopaedia. If the measurements are correct, only the elephant calf is 1/32 scale.

Kikimalou wrote:

I agree with you, the AAAs are much more credible than the Schleichs from the same period. I particularly like the one that looks more recent.
Could you take a photo of the whole herd?

Perhaps not so clear in the photos, but the more recent, lighter coloured elephant is quite fat. I prefer the darker one with trunk up.

Sorry, I don’t have my complete herd together here for photos. Not sure whether it is of use, but I took photos of the complete first generation of Schleich African elephants:
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I got the two elephant calves recently. The smaller one with trunk up was made between 1992 and 2003 and the larger one with trunk down was sold between 2001 and 2004. The latter was harder to find because it was made for only a short time. It is meant to be a young elephant (rather than a newborn) because it is slightly larger and has tusks.
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Here are the calves with the second (2nd from left) and third (rightmost) generation calves. I got the second generation from Rogério and the third generation from Christophe.
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And while we are talking about elephant calves, I shouldn’t forget my three AAA calves:
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Lovely selection of African Elephants!My favs are the Britains walking bull elephant and the 2 darker AAA models.

There are loads of elephant figures at this size. Even if you don'g get them all, you will end with plenty of them.
Today, from those available during 1990's, I would surely choose the Britains. Though, I'm not sure a kid at that time would prefer it. 1990 was a time where toys were intentionally very chubby and cute and Schleich explored it as no other brand. AAA seems to be a bridge between both worlds and probably the transition to the new modern era of toys. Agreeing with you, finally newer elephant figures are getting far more realistic and the "old" AAA models are regaining interest.

Britains were more intended for older children than AAA and Schleich. They were more fragile. Their animal models weren't even too bad for that, other products such as their farm vehicles were even more fragile. Just have a look at Taylor's [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]; this is not a toy for a 5-year old child.

My impression is that AAA, together with Schleich, was very influential for the development of the new wave of animal toys from the 1990s onwards. At least in the UK, a lot of AAA were sold (via the Early Learning Centre). Ultimately, Schleich was more successful and it is interesting to think why this was. AAA and Schleich were very different companies in terms of their distribution network, their marketing and in the development of their product range.

Right Roger. These two brands were absolutely influential but in two completely different ways.
AAA as a global manufacturer and Schleich as a brand that has grown significantly and become the most popular of its time in animal figure brands.
Both emerge after the market saturation with small figures made in Hong Kong that were only much cheaper versions of figures from other old brands.
AAA and Schleich brought to the market larger figures, less focused on the concept of scale and more durable and adapted to outdoors play.
While Britains' animals still inherited that diorama concept from the old soldier figures, these modern brands have effectively oriented the design of their figures towards much younger audiences, hence the more childlike design.
It was not just ELC, first large figure series of Wild Republic, Safari Ltd or Bullyland were built with AAA models. Schleich also sold some AAA Sealife.

Thanks for the photos Roger. I have to admit that I have no affection for Schleich elephants, I've always found them so disproportionate and after more than twenty years this unpleasant feeling still hasn't gone away.
I'm not convinced that the brands of the 90s chose to appeal to a younger audience, I think it was safety standards that changed. This must have contributed to the mass extinction of the old brands.

Not sure if this has been highlighted here or not, but the 2015 Safari tiger shark measures 14.0 cm for an average scale range of 1:21.4-33.6 or a possible maximum scale of 1:53.6 based on the largest specimens documented.

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No, I don't think the Safari tiger shark has appeared here yet. Thanks for showing it!

I should introduce one more AAA, a Bactrian camel that I got from Taylor:
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It’s a cheat  because the camel claims to be an adult even though AAA sold it as a young camel. However, the camel says that he isn’t cheating and AAA is lying. He says he can prove it: He claims to be a descendant of a Britains adult camel that looks very similar to him and is about the same size:
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They indeed look remarkably similar, even their poses and hairdo. There is clearly a family relationship. What do the rules of the 1/32 reserve say about this? Should he be admitted? No one is quite sure.

To make his point stronger, the AAA camel says that he can trace his ancestry even further back to an older Britains:
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With this pedigree, surely we can’t refuse him entry!