Walkaround: K&M Gila Monster

I'm very lucky, for my favourite natural history museum is just 10 minutes away from my parental home. I remember when I was a kid, I visited the museum about once a week. I was befriended with the former directress and wanted to follow in her footsteps (my interest for palaeontology shifted to archaeology since then, but luckily my city has an archaeological museum as well!). The museum is now mostly closed for renovation/rearranging their collection, but a small part is still open for visiting. And of course they still have their giftshop (although the incredible book section is gone). I still visit the giftshop from time to time, because they sometimes sell interesting animal figurines. Just as a few weeks back, when I visited the giftshop again, and I was luckily surprised to find a yet unknown figurine; the K&M International (large rubber) gila monster! I do not own lots of reptiles in my collection, but I was determined to get this beauty. Here is a small walkaround of this wonderful figurine, that seems to be relaunced in the Wild Republic collection!

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I would never imagine I'd find a lizard as cute as this one. But besides of being it cute, I find it very interesting as animal figurine. Just a few things that stood out to me.

1. I thought that K&M International was part of Wild Republic, but the booklet says Wild Republic is part of K&M International! What?
2. Woah, official item number!!! How cool is that? But is the item number the same as back in 1993?
3. Shenzhen, what is Shenzhen? Is it some sort of distributor? Because the figurine is clearly K&M Int/Wild Republic, but yet the extra item number/code seems from Shenzhen. It says 'SZ16L2'. 'SZ' could mean Shenzhen, whilst '16' could mean '2016' (look at the sticker, it says '2016'). And 'L2' seems to be the lot number (see the Shenzhen sticker again).

"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice. Well, I love it nevertheless

Interesting figurine!!!

widukind wrote:

Interesting figurine!!!

Thanks, Andreas!

A truely great find

I love that model too, - but I can assure you that gila monsters are NOT cute, - or only at a good distance, at least

Hmmm...yes, it rises lots of questions.
I also thought that K&N was part of Wild Republic and not the other way rond. So now we became much wiser

Thankyou for sharing this great and interesting model with us all

Let's go for another extensive comment.
Clearing things up about K&M and Wild Republic.
K&M International is a company.
Wild Republic is a brand of animal themed toys.
It was the company, K&M Int. who created the brand Wild Republic. It is normal than a company registers some brand names to different groups of products.
Everything branded Wild Republic, belongs to K&M Int.

Shenzen is a huge city, in Guangdong, China. The first China's special economic zone. Somewhat like Hong Kong. Lots of our toys and other kind of products, are manufactured there. There is a lot of direct foreign investment in Shenzen. So, it is surely where these figures are manufactured.

Simplifying:
- K&M International is the US toy company
- Wild Republic is a K&M Int brand dedicated to animal themed products
- Shenzen is where most of these products are manufactured.

I think you did a great "archaeological" work while deciphering the code SZ16L2. the product number is likely the catalogue number of the figure on Wild Republic range. I couldn't find it on 2004 catalogue.
There is a good chance that this mould was not exclusively used to a gila monster, maybe other species used the same mould with different painting. Thus, the lizard name.

I enjoy the research work you do around these figures, we learn a lot!

Here Philipp shows his [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - isn't it the same mould? Why a different year?

SUSANNE wrote:

Thankyou for sharing this great and interesting model with us all  

You're most welcome Susanne! Thanks for your reply!

Roger wrote:

Let's go for another extensive comment.
Clearing things up about K&M and Wild Republic.
K&M International is a company.
Wild Republic is a brand of animal themed toys.
It was the company, K&M Int. who created the brand Wild Republic. It is normal than a company registers some brand names to different groups of products.
Everything branded Wild Republic, belongs to K&M Int.

Shenzen is a huge city, in Guangdong, China. The first China's special economic zone. Somewhat like Hong Kong. Lots of our toys and other kind of products, are manufactured there. There is a lot of direct foreign investment in Shenzen. So, it is surely where these figures are manufactured.

Simplifying:
- K&M International is the US toy company
- Wild Republic is a K&M Int brand dedicated to animal themed products
- Shenzen is where most of these products are manufactured.

I think you did a great "archaeological"  work while deciphering the code SZ16L2. the product number is likely the catalogue number of the figure on Wild Republic range. I couldn't find it on 2004 catalogue.
There is a good chance that this mould was not exclusively used to a gila monster, maybe other species used the same mould with different painting. Thus, the lizard name.

I enjoy the research work you do around these figures, we learn a lot!

Here Philipp shows his [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - isn't it the same mould? Why a different year?

Thanks for your comment, Roger, most helpful!

I should have known Shenzhen is a city, but I was a bit confused because of the markings on the figurine and the text on the sticker inside the Wild Republic booklet. It made me think Shenzhen was another brand/producer/distributor.

Nice to see Philipp's gila monster, it looks a bit different! The eyes and tongues are painted as well. Interesting!! It's also very interesting that they are marked with different years. It seems there's much more to be discovered!

Magnificient figure.