1/32 scale animals

Thank you Christophe to have posted the Acédo reindeers, I couldn't do it for my camera doesn't work any more! :/

rogerpgvg wrote:

Thank you, good to see the Acedo.

Bonnie wrote:

So much information and a very interesting read- you're clearly very knowledgeable on the subject!

No, I am afraid I don't know much about animals. Unlike many other collectors, I was interested in collecting animals before I became interested in the animals themselves. People on the forum need to tell me that a kiwi is a ratite, that roedeer don't really have a tail and what a sea lion looks like. The good thing about collecting animal figures to scale is that I need to search for information about the animals, so I learn a lot.

Oh, I think I told you something but I am far from being knowledgeable. I’ve just placed recently manatees out of sea. Borrowing a little your style, roe deers have tails. According to Animal Diversity Web, they have rudimentary tails 2 to 3 cm long. For a 1:32 scale figure, it represents something between 0,62 and 0,94 mm. So, less than 1 mm what is neglectable. Tails are actually very useful to identify animal figures, especially monochromatic ones.
Just like you and some others, I am learning a lot about animals, with this hobby and on forum and it is thanks to topics like these where your imput is precious.

Oh yes I'm learning so much too- one of the joys as Blaine and Roger have said, is learning more about the animals with these models, and this forum! Not only do I get to see for myself more detail regarding the anatomy of different breeds, but I now know the difference between a raccoon and a raccoon dog!

Caracal wrote:

Thank you Christophe to have posted the Acédo reindeers, I couldn't do it for my camera doesn't work any more! :/

Oh no! I hope you are able to fix or replace it soon, I do enjoy your little stories so!

pipsxlch wrote:

Caracal wrote:

Thank you Christophe to have posted the Acédo reindeers, I couldn't do it for my camera doesn't work any more! :/

Oh no! I hope you are able to fix or replace it soon, I do enjoy your little stories so!

I hope so

Roger wrote:

Oh, I think I told you something but I am far from being knowledgeable. I’ve just placed recently manatees out of sea. Borrowing a little your style, roe deers have tails. According to Animal Diversity Web, they have rudimentary tails 2 to 3 cm long. For a 1:32 scale figure, it represents something between 0,62 and 0,94 mm. So, less than 1 mm what is neglectable. Tails are actually very useful to identify animal figures, especially monochromatic ones.  

I was mad enough to measure the tail of the deer and they are too large for roedeer

Regarding the Colorata manta ray from the "non-deluxe" box: I already have it, but I didn't consider it 1:32 scale. But I just discovered this research on the M. alfredi (reef manta ray) and they found that the smallest mature male had a disc width of only 2.6 m and all males over 2.8 m were mature (p. 43): [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Is the Colorata manta ray male? In that case I have a new 1:32 scale figure!

Sorry to hear that your camera has given up, Alain; it has done a lot of good work for this forum.

The eland is not such a common animal figure, but I have two in 1:32 scale, one by Britains and one by Clairet. Neither is very heavily built, so they probably look more like the common eland than the giant eland. Both have minimal painting and no vertical stripes on their neck and shoulders, which is possible for common elands, but as far as I know giant elands always have these stripes.
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Probably the most reliable information about the size of common elands comes from an article by Pappas (2002) in Mammalian Species, who refers to a book by Estes (1991, The behavior guide to African mammals, including hoofed mammals, carnivores, primates). It says that male common elands have a shoulder height of 151-183 cm and females have a height of 125-153 cm. The Clairet is 4.2/134 cm and the Britains is 4.8/154 cm, so the Clairet would have to be a female whereas the Britains would most likely be a male. The Clairet’s horns would be a bit short (1.3/42 cm) for a female though, because their horns should be longer than those of males (51-70 cm vs. 43-67 cm). But perhaps my measuring obsession goes a bit too far …

It’s interesting that the sculpt of the Clairet is more detailed and I’d say more realistic than that of the Britains; usually Britains has the more realistic figures. But the Britains eland has the oldest sculpt because it was initially produced in metal (1930-1959) before the plastic version appeared (1965-1969). The Clairet is more “modern”, first produced in 1952 or 1953.
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They aren’t the only elands in 1:32 scale. Blancherie Frères produced two metal elands in this scale, one of which has nearly the same sculpt as the Britains eland. TAW says that the Blancherie Frères was first produced in the 1920s so if that's the case, then the Britains would be a knock-off! The Blancherie Frères look very good, but I don’t have them.

I love Elands! And how unusual that Britains and Clairet both made this more unusual species- both figures are wonderful models! And very interesting too!

Fantastic post! Elands are really wonderful animals, it is a species that should be more common in toy model. :)

Perhaps Blancherie Frères is the reason why both Britains and Clairet made elands. A lot of the Britains sculpts are almost identical to the Blancherie Frères (bear, bison, chimp, hippo, rhino, lioness, ostrich, pelican, zebra), so clearly one copied the other. And both Blancherie Frères and Clairet are French; companies often produce the same species if they sell well.

These photos speak for themselves, wonderful animals

Conhgratulation, I love these elands, both of them. I'm in love affair with the Clairet since my youth and I wishlited the Britains since my collecting adventure's dawn. Mine is a gift from Sue and Lasley (castlerigg)  

rogerpgvg wrote:

Perhaps Blancherie Frères is the reason why both Britains and Clairet made elands. A lot of the Britains sculpts are almost identical to the Blancherie Frères (bear, bison, chimp, hippo, rhino, lioness, ostrich, pelican, zebra), so clearly one copied the other. And both Blancherie Frères and Clairet are French; companies often produce the same species if they sell well.

I think BF copied Britains for some models but, unlike Knocks-off, BF were better made, better painted, like a Deluxe series. Models aren't excatly identical. In your list brown bears and zebras are even not identical at all.
BF wild animals range was also bigger than Britains.

BF ruled between the two world wars but the company had big issues during the occupation, no more material. BF owners hide a lot of models in their home walls to save them from destruction. They will be discovered later an that's why some of these oldies can be found in mint condition.
The fatal blow was struck by the birth of plastic after the war. The Blancherie brothers decided to close their company.

After the war and during the 50's the two great brands were Clairet (Plastic) and Quiralu (Aluminium). The Quiralu animals were copied by Wend-Al, under licence, but the originals are less rough than Wend-Al copies. A few Clairet models were copied by Marx company.

Thanks for the information, Christophe. If BF copied from Britains, then something isn't quite right with the timeline on TAW, as the Britains have later years.

Interesting that people hid their metal toys during the occupation. During the war, Britains also had to stop production, because the metal was needed for the war effort. As far as I know, no existing toys were used for weapons though.

When I look at the date of production on the Britains TAW page, it let me think Britains Ltd copied BF.  
I remember the second plastic Zoo series sculptor was very well known, I thought it was the same for the whole production. Maybe not ? I would be happy to know.

Me too. Let's see whether we can work it out. My impression is that the years of the Britains lead zoo models on TAW are correct, because they are exact years and the Brighton Toy museum confirms that the Britains lead zoo range was started in 1929: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I think the Britains plastic zoo sculptors were probably not the same as the lead zoo sculptors, as there is at least 30 years difference between the lead and plastic zoo models. This In Memoriam says that Dennis Britain designed most of the lead zoo models: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] That of course doesn't completely rule out that some other models were copied.
Some of the animal sculpts come from drawings in the book "The Living Animals of the World" (1901, Hutchinson):
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Either Britains or BF could have drawn inspiration from it, but it's likely that this book was more well-known in England, where it was published. Interestingly, the book has a drawing of the Britains/BF eland.

The above suggests that Britains may have been the first (as is generally assumed), but it would be good to have evidence of when BF first started with their zoo models.

By the way, the Britains eland antelope was indeed meant to be a bull: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Today's museum post, the lettuce coral from Yujin's Corals in Colour collection calculates to 1:33 for a large specimen (3.0 cm figure; the species can get up to 1.0 m in diameter):

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Thanks a lot. It's definitely one should try to get, as it is very different from all my other animals.

Another size comparison photo:
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What a wonderful photo- I love how they are all the same scale so you can see how the animals compare to each other!
And so realistic too!

Thanks, Lillias. I am happy you enjoy my display.

All major vintage companies made wild boars, making them a good species to compare the brands. Wild boar range vastly in size, mainly depending on region. Wikipedia says that in the Mediterranean, their mean shoulder height is no more than 63-65 cm, in most of Europe they are 75-80 cm, but they are larger in Eastern Europe where males can reach 95 cm while females are 85-90 cm. In Asia, they can be even larger, measuring 110-118 at the shoulder and some males in Ussuriland and Manchuria have been measured to be 125 cm. Most of my wild boars are Asian . Here they are:
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Let’s have a closer look. First, two Clairets, released in 1952 or 53, an adult and young:
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The adult has a shoulder height of 2.9/93 cm and the piglet is 1.9/61 cm. The piglet doesn’t have stripes, which I suppose is possible, because it is already quite large. Sizewise it could even be a Mediterranean adult.

Then we have the Starlux (left) and JIM:
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I think the Starlux was first produced in 1959 (but TAW shows a different boar) and the JIM was probably also produced in the 1950s. As Rogério said before, the Starlux looks a bit like a caricature. Its shoulder height is 3.0/96 cm. JIM is perhaps not such a major brand, but their wild boar looks quite nice. Its shoulder height is 3.1/99 cm. I think this figure should normally have a longer tail. It doesn’t look like it has been bitten off, more likely it is a birth defect.

The VEB Plaho boar, released around 1972, is the largest at 3.5/112 cm. VEB Plaho also made two piglets. Very nice, but I think they are probably too large to be 1:32 scale. The piglet with head up is 2.3/74 cm; it seems unlikely to me that such a large wild boar would still have stripes.
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Finally, the Hausser Elastolin (left) and the Britains. The Britains (3.1/99 cm, 1963-1979) has a good sculpt, but they could have given it a more realistic colour. The Elastolin is my favourite (early 1970s – 1983): It is very nicely sculpted and painted, and it looks very dynamic. Not sure about two tusks on both sides: Is that possible? It is 2.7/86 cm, but is somewhat hunched so it would be a bit larger if it was standing up.
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Not sure about two tusks on both sides: Is that possible?

Absolutely, one (smaller) in the upper jaw and one in the lower jaw.

Wild boars change a lot in sizes, shape and even colors. Almost all figures could represent certain subspecies. I love all of them and it is a wonderful presentation.

rogerpgvg wrote:

Then we have the Starlux (left) and JIM:
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I think the Starlux was first produced in 1959 (but TAW shows a different boar) and the JIM was probably also produced in the 1950s. As Rogério said before, the Starlux looks a bit like a caricature. Its shoulder height is 3.0/96 cm. JIM is perhaps not such a major brand, but their wild boar looks quite nice. Its shoulder height is 3.1/99 cm. I think this figure should normally have a longer tail. It doesn’t look like it has been bitten off, more likely it is a birth defect.

The Starlux you are showing is the 1971 model (ref#1794).

Jim produced this model in the 60's. This company was the French Bullyland then, their main production was Disney, comics and cartoons licensed figurines.

My favorite of the batch is the Hausser

Very interesting information- and you have such a lovely variety of many different vintage figures, and I'm sure many of them are very rare!
I never knew that so many brands made Wild Boars!