K&M Mini Series

Again, a little research topic

I was actually searching for a Play Visions giraffe I own, when I found a post by Sean (sbell) on AnimalToyForum.com where I saw this photo of a 'K&M mini giraffe':


What, a K&M minis series?? Hurray!! So I started searching the internet for K&M minis when I found a site of a dinosaur toy collector with the next photo on it:


The owner writes that the little yellow-brown stegosaurus on the left is a K&M figurine. Maybe you don't recognize the little fellow, but I do. Remember some photos I shared here on STS of cute little dinosaurs of which I had no idea what they were?


Well, seems they are some sort of K&M minis

When I searched for 'K&M minis' here on STS, I found [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] topic which included the next photograph from Taylor:


I'm just in love with the tiny tapir and bongo

But now for the information about these series. I have no idea if they were originally called 'K&M minis'. I know they made at least 3 series: zoo animals, marine animals and dinosaurs. Sean told me he bought them about 15 years ago and I remember getting my first tiny dinosaurs in 2001, so that would be around the same time.

Okay, enough talking from my side. My question is if anyone knows more about these figurines/series (maybe you own some?) or if you see anything about it, would you please let me know? Thanks in advance

WOW! This is interesting

Of course I remember your tiny dinos, they are the cutest ever
Amazing that you found that old topic with the wild animals, - I don't remember those, - thay are also adoreable

That's another good chance to talk about the fabulous work Julie is making on TAI. Currently she is helping, hardly, with K&M/Wild Republic section. This brand has much more than we ever expected and I don't know if we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. I think that if we all contribute, we can provide an extensive and very complete source of information on TAI. My thanks also to Andreas, Lance and other members that are providing info about this company.
If someone has more informations, catalogues, leaflets, figures or anything else missing on TAI, just contact us or post on forum please.

I was asked by Julie to post pictures of what I have.

What I can tell people is that there were at least 2 themes--sea, wild and dinosaur. There were 3 different sets of each, each came on a blister card with the little plastic suitcase and a pullback jeep, or at least some came with those (I may even still have some tiny jeeps).

I do not have all of them, but I do have some--8 of the sea animals, 17 of the wild animals (because I lost the kangaroo around 2000 when I moved cities) and all 18 'dinos' (which range from pre-dinosaur Permian to Ice Age). And none of them came with identification; simple enough with modern animals, but the dinos can be maddeningly 'creative':

Sea Creatures:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
(I bought this one much later, maybe 2007--sometimes you luck out in smaller, less busy tourist traps!)

Wild animals:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
(I love the tamandua and ratel)

Prehistoric:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

These come from the true K&M International days, where Wild Republic was just their plush line, and their toy lines were out of this world--between them and Play Visions, I drove my local retailers crazy looking through the catalogs and getting in odd sets. I don't have them all anymore though. Safari is probably the closest in quality, range, and 'size diversity' but still don't really come close in the toob-to-mini size ranges.

But, sometimes K&M still has little gems if you know where to look:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

The sharks are from little rubber balls that they sell in bulk. I managed a dinosaur museum and we got these in (there are fossil sharks in the area, it counts!). My son and I bought one of each and pulled them apart--and they are fantastic (if tiny) shark figures. Still the only lantern shark and cat shark figures made.

Thankyou very, very much, Sbell !!! I never knew all this

Very interesting topic! The figurines that sbell share with us i never saw before. The ray is really interesting for me :)

widukind wrote:

Very interesting topic! The figurines that sbell share with us i never saw before. The ray is really interesting for me :)

That's why I bought that set! I am pretty sure that the store had all three sets, but I didn't need all of them, so I went with this one. I couldn't even tell you what was in the other ones (although a good bet would be a great white shark and a bottlenose dolphin, but I can't prove it).

I am glad Julie found these, they are absolutely adorable!

Sbell, thanks for your contribution. I am sure next time Julie will find some life sized replicas of ... microbes!

Roger wrote:

That's another good chance to talk about the fabulous work Julie is making on TAI.

Thanks, Roger

sbell wrote:

I was asked by Julie to post pictures of what I have.

Thank you very much, Sean! This is really helpful; great (or actually tiny ) figurines!! I absolutely adore some of the figurines from the wild animals series. The red fox, ratel, sow leopard, tamandua, badger, pangolin and wolf.. You're really lucky you have these gems!

NightLioness wrote:

I am glad Julie found these, they are absolutely adorable!

With lots of help from Sean

Roger wrote:

I am sure next time Julie will find some life sized replicas of ... microbes!

Roger wrote:

Sbell, thanks for your contribution. I am sure next time Julie will find some life sized replicas of ... microbes!

I have a set of oversized microbes from Bandai...just saying!

sbell wrote:

Still the only lantern shark and cat shark figures made.

Arrrgh, more for my wishlist with the ray!

widukind wrote:

sbell wrote:

Still the only lantern shark and cat shark figures made.

Arrrgh, more for my wishlist with the ray!

The balls are still widely available at least! Or at least were...I haven't had much to do with WR for a long while.

sbell wrote:

widukind wrote:

sbell wrote:

Still the only lantern shark and cat shark figures made.

Arrrgh, more for my wishlist with the ray!

The balls are still widely available at least! Or at least were...I haven't had much to do with WR for a long while.

So please let me know if you see them :)

widukind wrote:

sbell wrote:

widukind wrote:

sbell wrote:

Still the only lantern shark and cat shark figures made.

Arrrgh, more for my wishlist with the ray!

The balls are still widely available at least! Or at least were...I haven't had much to do with WR for a long while.

So please let me know if you see them :)

When I ran a gift shop we always had them, but I haven't been there for a while (nor will I be returning). I really should have gotten a couple extra of those shark species.

The good part is that the balls separate really easily--just need to make a start cut a pry it open.

sbell wrote:

widukind wrote:

sbell wrote:

widukind wrote:

sbell wrote:

Still the only lantern shark and cat shark figures made.

Arrrgh, more for my wishlist with the ray!

The balls are still widely available at least! Or at least were...I haven't had much to do with WR for a long while.

So please let me know if you see them :)

When I ran a gift shop we always had them, but I haven't been there for a while (nor will I be returning). I really should have gotten a couple extra of those shark species.

The good part is that the balls separate really easily--just need to make a start cut a pry it open.

That would be great :)

Trough Roger (fox search list XD) I found this topic again and I am again melting from cuteness!

Apologies for resurrecting a very old thread, but I happened across these on TAI (thanks to Susanne and froggie for the great work on that page!) and I'm curious about the prehistoric set. Sean suggested they aren't identified in any way--but some of the molds resemble slightly "rounded" versions of the Panini or Play Visions dinosaur sets. Is that the basis on which they were identified? Thanks for any additional information you might be able to furnish.

halichoeres wrote:

Apologies for resurrecting a very old thread, but I happened across these on TAI (thanks to Susanne and froggie for the great work on that page!) and I'm curious about the prehistoric set. Sean suggested they aren't identified in any way--but some of the molds resemble slightly "rounded" versions of the Panini or Play Visions dinosaur sets. Is that the basis on which they were identified? Thanks for any additional information you might be able to furnish.

Most of it was guessing--trying to count theropod fingers, assuming that the sauropods or ankylosaurs would be based on the most common species, things like that.

They are very not-Panini though. Each one is maybe 1 cm long--I can't recall if the detail is mostly painted or sculpted, but they are overall pretty generic as far as details go. And they don't really resemble any other series. I might have, at the time, kind of used the Panini series as a basis, just to put names to them, but that's about it.

Thanks for that! I was thinking of the Mosasaurus, the Diatryma, and the Megatherium, which are reminiscent of the Panini Tylosaurus, Diatryma, and Moropus, respectively. The Edmontonia almost has a Dino Mites vibe, though the mold itself isn't specifically familiar to me. I didn't realize they were that tiny--1 cm!

Oh, i see i found the tiny ray :) now i hunt for the sharks

Very interesting, Halich and Sean! I've just created the gallery this week end with Beatrice's pictures.
I do really think they are direct minis from those we known from Panini and I think it is clever to use them as reference.
They're not exact miniatures but they do really look inspired on them.
We can see it through the species before mentioned and even the Apatosaurus/Brontosaurus.
Wing Mau is the manufacturer of both series. We can find some of these figures in their website. They also manufactured the Play Visions versions.
The website is not identifying these K&M minis but Panini counterparts are marked with animal name.
Let me know if I got it correctly and if you agree, I will fix it on TAI, providing the Panini names to these K&M Minis. :)

Arsinotherium is Coelodonta
Diadectes is cynognatus
Edmontonia is Polacanthus
Hadrosaurus is Camptosaurus
Maiasaura is Iguanodon
Megatherium is Moropus
Mosasaurus is Tylosaurus
Pachycephalosaurus is Corythosaurus
Saichania is Palaeoscincus

These are correct:
Apatosaurus/Brontosaurus
Ankylosaurus
Brachiosaurus
Diatryma
Dimetrodon
Elasmosaurus
Ichthyosaurus
Parasaurolophus
Protoceratops
Pteranodon
Smilodon
Stegosaurus
Triceratops
Tyrannosaurus
Wooly mammoth/Mammuthus

What do you think?

It's a pretty good way to try and begin to ID them. Of course, the Parasaurolophus is distintive enough to remain. And the Hadrosaurus has a crest, so it should be the Corythosaurus.

I was never comfortable with the ID on the little blue 'Diadectes'. It didn't look like a cynodont to me at all--but then, neither do the Panini cynodonts...! It still seems far too heavy set to be one, but they are heavily stylized (and old-fashioned).

sbell wrote:

It's a pretty good way to try and begin to ID them. Of course, the Parasaurolophus is distintive enough to remain. And the Hadrosaurus has a crest, so it should be the Corythosaurus.

I was never comfortable with the ID on the little blue 'Diadectes'. It didn't look like a cynodont to me at all--but then, neither do the Panini cynodonts...! It still seems far too heavy set to be one, but they are heavily stylized (and old-fashioned).

Actually I find it quite impressive that you could identify most of them. These figures, especially the minis, are quite far from anything plausible.
If the hadrosaurus is the corithosaurus, so, the only left to the pachycephalosaurus is the camptosaurus. Do you think they match?
I believe that I messed some ornithopods, if we find a good pairing, I start sorting them according with the Panini.
It is a pity about the diadectes once it is a quite rare figure in toy shape but I think we should follow the evidences. So, Halich is finding out that thanks to his post, there's no diadectes in his collection.

Roger wrote:

sbell wrote:

It's a pretty good way to try and begin to ID them. Of course, the Parasaurolophus is distintive enough to remain. And the Hadrosaurus has a crest, so it should be the Corythosaurus.

I was never comfortable with the ID on the little blue 'Diadectes'. It didn't look like a cynodont to me at all--but then, neither do the Panini cynodonts...! It still seems far too heavy set to be one, but they are heavily stylized (and old-fashioned).

Actually I find it quite impressive that you could identify most of them. These figures, especially the minis, are quite far from anything plausible.
If the hadrosaurus is the corithosaurus, so, the only left to the pachycephalosaurus is the camptosaurus.  Do you think they match?
I believe that I messed some ornithopods, if we find a good pairing, I start sorting them according with the Panini.
It is a pity about the diadectes once it is a quite rare figure in toy shape but I think we should follow the evidences. So, Halich is finding out that thanks to his post, there's no diadectes in his collection.

Ha ha, I actually had no idea that figure even existed. It's more that I found out there is no Diadectes for me to try to hunt down :)

Thanks to both of you for the information!