1/32 scale animals

Wonderful zebra and tapir at this scale!

Great additions, I'm especially happy the tapir reached your collection Roger

Thanks, I am also happy with it .

Let’s show a few donkeys. They are easy to get in 1:32 scale, because they have a wide size range and virtually all vintage companies made them. For example, Animal Diversity Web says: “Miniatures, the smallest breed of donkeys, stand less than 92 cm at the shoulder. Standard donkeys, the average-sized breed, range from 92 cm to 123 cm. Mammoth stock, the largest breed of donkeys, stand at an average height of 143 cm.” My focus is on collecting wildlife animals, so I only have a fairly small collection of all 1:32 scale donkeys. If anyone else has others, it would be great to see them.

Let’s start with the Britains donkeys, the early one on the right and the later one on the left. The early donkey is 3/96 cm at the shoulder and the later donkey is 3.1/99 cm. I don’t know what breed they are, perhaps just generic donkeys.
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I also managed to find all Hausser Elastolin donkeys. They made two larger donkeys, the left one being 4.1/131 cm and the right one 3.8/122 cm. They are quite thin and look a bit like an Abyssinian donkey, but this breed is only 86-102 cm (info from Woburn Safari Park), so in 1:32 they are too large for that. Their overall shape also reminds me of an African wild ass, which at 125-145 cm (San Diego Zoo) would be the right size. The Elastolins don’t have the typical striped legs and Hausser Elastolin sold them as farm animals, but I am happy to use them as African wild asses.
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They also made two smaller donkeys, both 3.5/115 cm, presumably a different breed.
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And two very nice donkey foals. I was very happy to get the left one in the first photo from WILLYBACOMAN, making my Hausser Elastolin donkey collection complete.
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Marolin also made a donkey foal, and of course an adult too. The adult is 3.9/125 cm.
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Here is a line-up of the vintage bunch:
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Two more modern donkeys. The donkey to the right is by Eikoh, and I think it’s the most donkey-like donkey that I have. It’s 3.3/106 cm. The one on the right is a random one I got. I don’t know the brand, it’s marked 96&IMRES or 968IMRES and is 3.2/102 cm at the shoulder.
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I took these photos a while ago, but some of you may know that I recently also found a Breyer donkey. The Breyer is 3.4/109 cm.
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A comparison with the Eikoh and Britains donkeys:
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One of the smaller Elastolin donkeys is thanks to you, Andreas, as you sent it to me.

So many wonderful donkeys, they work very well at this scale and I love how you have so many vintage figures!
I love the Eikoh model- and all animals by this brand- they have definitely captured this animal beautifully at this scale! Oh, and the Breyer model is gorgeous too, I have this one and I love how much detail it has for something smaller than most donkeys- Breyer have made some lovely models at his scale, including a few tiny Border Collies!

They made a stablemate-size border collie and also a few other dogs. Do you have any of them? I'd be curious to know whether they are really 1:32 scale.

I love those vintage donkey foals, what good character they each have. Those ears! And the larger, thinner adults are really elegant (not a word often attributed to the humble donkey). The Eikoh is also really nice! What a great group of donkeys.

Hello,
here my donkeys.
The donkey on the left side is a"BRITAINS" donkey.
Benno.
.
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Donkey's party! Oh, Benno has a lot of them.
Roger, most donkey figures are made randomly but we always suspect a few breeds may be influencial.
I tend to think those thin and tall donkeys are inspired by the Catalan breed while Provence donkeys contributed to the most traditional looking ones. Great Britain and Germany never gave special atention tho these animals, France and Spain on the other hand have a lot of breeds and I'd say donkeys were popular and useful in all European Southern countries.
I think that if you get the 1:32 scale from French companies, they will give you some light about the subject.
I am really surprised with the Eikoh model and intrigued about the strangely marked figure.

I was expecting Benno to have lots of donkeys, and I wasn't wrong. Great to see so many. Do you know what brand the lying donkey is?

Roger wrote:

Donkey's party! I tend to think those thin and tall donkeys are inspired by the Catalan breed while Provence donkeys contributed to the most traditional looking ones. Great Britain and Germany never gave special atention tho these animals, France and Spain on the other hand have a lot of breeds and I'd say donkeys were popular and useful in all European Southern countries.
I think that if you get the 1:32 scale from French companies, they will give you some light about the subject.

The tall thin donkeys may indeed be based on Catalans, except that I think Catalan donkeys are much darker. I noticed that ânes du Cotentin often look quite similar and sizewise they would work too, as "Donkey breeds in Europe" [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] says that sires are 1.20-1.35m and mares 1.15-1.30 m.
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The âne du Provence is also a fairly large donkey (sires 1.20-1.33m, mares 1.17-1.30m, so they may well have inspired donkey figures, but most 1:32 scale models are too small.

I should probably get a Starlux donkey, but they aren't my favourites and I need to limit my collection.

Hello,
polar bear Roger,
the laying donkey is my only model of a laying donkey and this model is not marked.
I think I buyed this model with the italian model of a shepherd dog and this both models were parts of a "Weihnachtskrippe".
Sorry, I do not know more.
Benno.

rogerpgvg wrote:

They made a stablemate-size border collie and also a few other dogs. Do you have any of them? I'd be curious to know whether they are really 1:32 scale.

I have one of the 1:32 Border Collies, here's a photo in comparison to one by Britains :
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I think it's slightly bigger than 1:32 scale if the average height of a male BC in the UK is 53cm- but it's still such a beautiful model!

Ah, yes, I hadn't thought of that, but there must be many donkeys made for nativity sets.

Thanks for showing the Breyer collie, Lillias. It looks great and is similar in size to the Britains collie.

rogerpgvg wrote:

I was expecting Benno to have lots of donkeys, and I wasn't wrong. Great to see so many. Do you know what brand the lying donkey is?

Roger wrote:

Donkey's party! I tend to think those thin and tall donkeys are inspired by the Catalan breed while Provence donkeys contributed to the most traditional looking ones. Great Britain and Germany never gave special atention tho these animals, France and Spain on the other hand have a lot of breeds and I'd say donkeys were popular and useful in all European Southern countries.
I think that if you get the 1:32 scale from French companies, they will give you some light about the subject.

The tall thin donkeys may indeed be based on Catalans, except that I think Catalan donkeys are much darker. I noticed that ânes du Cotentin often look quite similar and sizewise they would work too, as "Donkey breeds in Europe" [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] says that sires are 1.20-1.35m and mares 1.15-1.30 m.
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The âne du Provence is also a fairly large donkey (sires 1.20-1.33m, mares 1.17-1.30m, so they may well have inspired donkey figures, but most 1:32 scale models are too small.

I should probably get a Starlux donkey, but they aren't my favourites and I need to limit my collection.

I must find my post where I try to identify the breed of some donkeys represented by French figures. Now I am not sure I suggested Catalan or Andalusian. You're right, these Catalan donkeys are really dark while the Andalusian are light colored and absurdly tall animals. At least it will give you the chance of recalculating the scale of a few donkey figures and put them into 1:32 scale once these donkeys stand 150 to 160 cm at their shoulders.
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Hello,
please excuse the following pictures. Because I do not know if this donkeys are in scale 1:32 and I do not know if they are all donkeys.
Benno.
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No reason to apologise, great to see them. They are all are 1:32 scale and look like donkeys. Perhaps the colour isn't always fully accurate . Do you know what the brands are or are they unmarked? The first and third one look particularly good.

The larger Elastolin donkeys may well be inspired by Andalusian donkeys. Scalewise, Andalusians would be too large, but Elastolin didn't care so much about scale.

rogerpgvg wrote:

No reason to apologise, great to see them. They are all are 1:32 scale and look like donkeys. Perhaps the colour isn't always fully accurate . Do you know what the brands are or are they unmarked? The first and third one look particularly good.

The larger Elastolin donkeys may well be inspired by Andalusian donkeys. Scalewise, Andalusians would be too large, but Elastolin didn't care so much about scale.

Hello,
polar bear roger,
the coloured donkeys are made of weak plastic nearly rubber. The first (black) donkey are marked with capital letters "CHINA". The letters are not on a line, they jump up and down (Marking handmade?).
The third (nearly pink?) donkey also weak plastic and not marked.
The other donkeys sometimes maked with "CHINA" or "CHINA 2" and one donkey (the orange one in the beginning) is marked with "S.H. CHINA".
The white donkeys are made of hard? plastic and not marked.
The grey donkeys are also made of hard? plastic and sometimes marked with "Hong Kong".
Benno.

Wow, that was a lot of donkeys They look rely nice, thank you for showing them

Thanks, Benno. It's amazing how many unknown treasures you have.

It's been a while but my daily museum post today, the Colorata arapaima, is in the 1:32 scale (total range 1:12.5-1:39)

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...Also, I reviewed the Play Visions shark set on the Blog: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The tiger, hammerhead, thresher, and goblin sharks all fall within 1:32

Thanks a lot! A lot of Play Visions to find, I'll have to be lucky with those.

The good thing is that I have the Colorata box with arapaima on order from Brett. The bad thing is that it's probably not 1:32 scale, as Wikipedia says that the longest recorded length was 3.07 m and that sizes over that are only anecdotal.

rogerpgvg wrote:

Thanks a lot! A lot of Play Visions to find, I'll have to be lucky with those.

The good thing is that I have the Colorata box with arapaima on order from Brett. The bad thing is that it's probably not 1:32 scale, as Wikipedia says that the longest recorded length was 3.07 m and that sizes over that are only anecdotal.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - for fish measurements, I use FishBase. They list a maximum length of 450 cm, which comes to 1:39: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]