Advice on dolphins or whales

So I need a good gift for my sisters on their birthday, and decided on the CollectA octopus for one (since she likes octupi), but wanted to know what was the best figure when it came to dolphins or whales? By saying the best I mean best in terms of looks and correct anatomy. So members, what is your favorite model from any company when it comes to dolphins or whales, and please state your reason(s). Thanks!

i would choose the schleich humpback whale as it is very detailed and fun to look at.but the only disadvantage is that it is quite expensive and hard to find now

Taylcoel wrote:

i would choose the schleich humpback whale as it is very detailed and fun to look at.but the only disadvantage is that it is quite expensive and hard to find now

The MAIA & BORGES one is cheaper

The COLLECTA one is a good choice too.

For the Sperm whale, I would choose between the SAFARI ltd Monterrey bay one and the excellent and cheapest COLLECTA


But ok, the COLLECTA octopus is already a great great choice

Kikimalou wrote:

Taylcoel wrote:

i would choose the schleich humpback whale as it is very detailed and fun to look at.but the only disadvantage is that it is quite expensive and hard to find now

The MAIA & BORGES one is cheaper

The COLLECTA one is a good choice too.

For the Sperm whale, I would choose between the SAFARI ltd Monterrey bay one and the excellent and cheapest COLLECTA


But ok, the COLLECTA octopus is already a great great choice

yes, others are probably better

Taylcoel wrote:

yes, others are probably better

I don't know if the M&B is better than the SCHLEICH but M&B is the real designer of the SCHLEICH sea life

So a M&B humpback whale should be as good as a SCHLEICH one and far more expensive

I have to admit that Sea life from Kaiyodo & Colorata are very nice, but they are small :)

As for Schleich, yeah they are okay, I like their sea life models, especially their Whales & Sharks are very nice and they are affordable too :)
Maybe Carnegie is an idea? unless they only do Dino's? CollectA & Safari ltd. are also good choices

I have a few of the Schleich whales. I have had them for awhile but I noticed how easily thier paint chips off. As far as the detailing I think its wonderful. I also noticed how off in scaling they are! The humpback whale is larger than the blue whale!
Heres some pictures(sorry the quality isnt that good for some reason with my sisters camera today)
Grey Whales
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Bowhead Whale
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Humpback whales(you can see the pain chip on the calf especially)
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Sperm Whales
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The blue whale
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I think also that CollectA octopus was a very good choice. About dolphins they look very similar in quality for me and sometimes hard to find the species. I absolutly love CollectA sperm whale, I found it recently and loved. From pictures I love the pose of Safari Monterey humpback but even agreeing with Christophe. Maia & Borges whales are very good, very nicely manufactured, cheap and not huge, even smaller than CollectA Their dolphin is also good! Unfortunately Mojo's are delayed and we cannot judge.
Anyway, if I wanted to give a whale to someone my choice would be the CollectA spermwhale, it is excelent, nicely sized, relatively cheap and follows the traditional concept of a whale that we learned with Mobby Dick!

Thank you everyone for your input and pics. Question though, out of curiosity, where can I buy Mia&Borges? Still haven't decided...

Is this a Finback Whale?
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Saarlooswolfhound wrote:

Thank you everyone for your input and pics. Question though, out of curiosity, where can I buy Mia&Borges? Still haven't decided...

I think the links posted on forum were from European shops. I'm not sure you can find them in US shops!
I can find here but it takes usually a long time once I have to wait for the distributor to send it to me. They are not seeling them in Portuguese local shops what is weird being it a Portuguese brand! :)

Oh, I looked at some online, but I think I will just stick with Collecta, Etc. But thank you Roger for your help! M&B do have some very cool models though... maybe someday.

Here are a couple of pictures, mainly of dolphins. I have two schleich dolphins --- the most recent and an older one --- and a papo "playing" dolphin. I like the older schleich the best, but I think they are all good.

one of the older schleichs (it is small and its body is curved) but it is just lovely in person
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the recent schleich
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the two of them next to each other, from a different angle:
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then the papo "playing" (there is another papo available too, but I don't have it). In person, I like the papo the least of these three.
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Here is my own picture of the CollectA Sperm Whale. I really like it a lot.

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Many of the Schleich Whales are to scale. Of those, I think the Humpback is fantastic. The one that are to scale with each other are the Humpback, the Orca, the Sperm Whale, and the Grey Whale (also the newest dolphin, the Great White Shark and the Whale Shark). The mink, the blue and the Right Whale are not to scale with these other sea creatures. Regardless, all of these whales -- except I think the Orca/Killer Whale -- are retired and the prices are really high, ridiculously so in some cases.

However, as Christophe suggests above, Maia & Borges (M&B) made the original Schleich Humpback whale and it is now being sold for relatively cheap. [Based on what I had heard earlier, I thought that Maia & Borges made the original mold and sold -- or rented -- it to Schleich who produced it and painted it under their own name. Now that Schleich has stopped making it, Maia & Borges is now using that very same mold and painting it themselves. If I'm making a mistake here, someone please correct me. Roger above mentioned that the Maia & Borges whales are smaller than the Schleichs, so it sounds like they are not actually the same mold, as I had believed. So I'm not sure what the real story is, but I really want to know.]

thank you for the great pics scott! I love your dolphins. My favorite whale is a sperm and blue whale, so maybe I will pick one or two out for me too! Thanks for your input!

scot(t) wrote:

Many of the Schleich Whales are to scale. Of those, I think the Humpback is fantastic. The one that are to scale with each other are the Humpback, the Orca, the Sperm Whale, and the Grey Whale (also the newest dolphin, the Great White Shark and the Whale Shark). The mink, the blue and the Right Whale are not to scale with these other sea creatures. Regardless, all of these whales -- except I think the Orca/Killer Whale -- are retired and the prices are really high, ridiculously so in some cases.

Maybe some are in scale to each other but they are not 1:32 like SCHLEICH claims.

scot(t) wrote:

However, as Christophe suggests above, Maia & Borges (M&B) made the original Schleich Humpback whale and it is now being sold for relatively cheap. [Based on what I had heard earlier, I thought that Maia & Borges made the original mold and sold -- or rented -- it to Schleich who produced it and painted it under their own name. Now that Schleich has stopped making it, Maia & Borges is now using that very same mold and painting it themselves. If I'm making a mistake here, someone please correct me. Roger above mentioned that the Maia & Borges whales are smaller than the Schleichs, so it sounds like they are not actually the same mold, as I had believed. So I'm not sure what the real story is, but I really want to know.]

Indeed M&B were the real creators of the SCHLEICH whales, octopus, walrus... It seems they produce them now at a smaller size, maybe just as SCHLEICH did this year with his dinos.

Kikimalou wrote:

scot(t) wrote:

Many of the Schleich Whales are to scale. Of those, I think the Humpback is fantastic. The one that are to scale with each other are the Humpback, the Orca, the Sperm Whale, and the Grey Whale (also the newest dolphin, the Great White Shark and the Whale Shark).

Maybe some are in scale to each other but they are not 1:32 like SCHLEICH claims.

Thank you Christophe. I did mean that Schleich claims that figures like the Great White, the Whale Shark, the Humpback Whale, and several others are all 1:32 scale. But I didn't realize that their claim was not true (even though it always seemed to me that the Schleich sperm whale should be bigger relative to the schleich grey and humpback whale). I shouldn't be surprised, though: Schleich has never seemed fussy about this sort of thing. Are the dogs in the 1:12 series also not actually to scale with each other?

Still, the Humpback and Grey Whales (both part of the "1:32" series) seem to be roughly in the same range of relative size, whereas the Right Whale and the Blue Whale (which are not part of the "1:32" series) are definitely markedly smaller.

Kikimalou wrote:

scot(t) wrote:

Now that Schleich has stopped making it, Maia & Borges is now using that very same mold and painting it themselves. If I'm making a mistake here, someone please correct me. Roger above mentioned that the Maia & Borges whales are smaller than the Schleichs, so it sounds like they are not actually the same mold, as I had believed. So I'm not sure what the real story is, but I really want to know.

Indeed M&B were the real creators of the SCHLEICH whales, octopus, walrus... It seems they produce them now at a smaller size, maybe just as SCHLEICH did this year with his dinos.

Ah hah! That's really good to know. Until I read Roger's comment, I had no idea that the recently produced Maia & Borges Humpback Whale figure was smaller than the original Schleich model.

Does anyone have the Maia & Borges Humpback Whale and could perhaps take a picture of the model next to a commonly-known model, to get a sense for its size? I wonder how much smaller it is than the original Schleich.

Here's the Schleich Humpback. I saw a listing on eBay where it was priced well over $100 (USD). But it seems to me that with a little searching and a lot of patience, one could find it for much cheaper than that. I think it's a great model, but the CollectA looks great too (though smaller) and I'm looking forward to getting it.

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Saarlooswolfhound wrote:

thank you for the great pics scott! I love your dolphins. My favorite whale is a sperm and blue whale, so maybe I will pick one or two out for me too! Thanks for your input!

My pleasure Saarlooswolfhound! (can I call you SLWH or SLooWooH for short? )

I'd like to get a Blue Whale too. But I don't know whether to get the CollectA or the Safari. If you get one of them, be sure to post pictures!

Susanne calls me wolfy, but you can shorten it any way you want, I know it is a bit of a mouthful. I will most definitely post pics if I get one! You can count on that!