Play Visions American Museum of Natural History Zzanga-Sangha Rainforest collection topic

Lately I've got a set with little big cats and one of them was a big surprise - it was indeed a Playvisions Leopard I never had seen nor heard of.
It is slightly bigger than other leopard/big cats and looks a bit less detailled, a bit more childish.
It has the year 1999 on the belly. Now I was wondering it it might belong to this rare set with red forest buffalo, aardvark, pangolin and colobus. I've read somewhere that it was a set of four, but maybe there were TWO sets of four?
Does anybody knows anything about this? Well, it seems that PV still has some secrets left to unveil.

Here are the pictures (I haven't found a number yet, but I haven't found any on the colobus either):

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Very very interesting :)

When Beatrice doesn't know, who knows?
Well, actually other friends were already helpful with other questions and I believe that if someone finds it out, it will be shared here.

WOW ! Beatrice, what a wonderful, exiting find

Discovered a new PV (Play Visions) figure recently in the form of a very beautiful large scale leopard. It is not on T.A.I. and I have no idea what set it belongs to or what other animals it came with. It is dated 1999 which was around the last year most PV figures were in production. Got this beauty from the seller TheOrganizedHoarder on Mercari.

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Wonderful leopard . I have not this figure.

Great catch, never seen before

very beautiful!

could it be from one of the box sets? They had some through the AMNH and I think some through National Geographic.

Fallon, you are always surprising us! Naturally, as the pv catalogue we know is from 1998, this figure is not pictured there. Probably it is just one more figure from that series of large animals that was released after those we know.
The figure is very beautiful. I love the proportions, shoulders, legs, tail, flanks, tremendous sculpt!
I will add it on TAW.

Hi WhiteLightning Wolf! Perhaps that leopard was included in a box set by PV that included a colobus, a pangolin, a chimp and the very rare PV forest buffalo. All those figures were released back in 1999.

I don't know much about AAA so I'm afraid I can't help but this is such a beautiful leopard! Great find!

MansoBoricua wrote:

Hi WhiteLightning Wolf! Perhaps that leopard was included in a box set by PV that included a colobus, a pangolin, a chimp and the very rare PV forest buffalo. All those figures were released back in 1999.

That's an interesting observation once sets with a large figure boxed together with a few small figures are known. Though, is it a supposition or have you ever seen it somewhere? There's an aardvark and a chimp too.

Roger wrote:

MansoBoricua wrote:

Hi WhiteLightning Wolf! Perhaps that leopard was included in a box set by PV that included a colobus, a pangolin, a chimp and the very rare PV forest buffalo. All those figures were released back in 1999.

That's an interesting observation once sets with a large figure boxed together with a few small figures are known. Though, is it a supposition or have you ever seen it somewhere? There's an aardvark and a chimp too.

I just guessed it, since although I've never seen a set with these animals, they still have the same date (1999), the only leopard subspecies produced by PV is the African leopard (the most widespread carnivore in Central & West Africa), this particular leopard is not featured on any other sets, and remember that the PV pangolin, chimp, colobus and forest buffalo have roughly the same year of production. It will be a miracle when collectors find out the PV set name in any catalog.

It's more likely that this set wasn't from PV's Habitat Earth, but from the National Geographic Society instead. The National Geographic sets had a large carnivore figure, the rest being mini PVC figures. Just trying to mention my best guess.

Back in 2016, when my username was TheAnimalStudyGuy, I remember the only owners of the PV Forest buffalo were Widukind and Dinocat62. Thus, yes, it's one of the rarest PV minis.

There Chimpanzee is actually a larger figure and an additional small figure is the lowland gorilla.

It makes sense but still a few misteries to be solved. We have the 1998 catalogue so I hope we can find official information about latter releases. Yes, those are really rare, I wished I could find the tree pangolin but I only know it from Sergey and Andreas collection and the figure is the same once it migrated.

Interesting theory! It may well be the case that this is a later National Geographic set containing some of these 1999 African animals.

Rare and so beautiful... this leopard has already a place in my heart for want of being on my shelves.

NEW INFORMATION:
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I have proof that the large leopard appeared in a National Geographic Predators box set. The collector’s booklet that came with the one that I got (which does not contain the large leopard) lists a leopard. Also, the list seems to be ordered by figure type: first come the species depicted as large figures, from the grizzly bear to the leopard. These are not repeated, of course. Then come the figures from the Bears set, followed by those from the Wild Dogs series, and finally the Wild Cats. It is still speculative how the unclassified “Congo” animals were sold and whether there was a box set that included those and the large leopard. It seems reasonable that a figure sold in a later release of a “Predators”/“Wild Cats” set would also appear in a geographic set; the same large figure appearing in both a taxonomic set and a regional set has happened multiple times with these National Geographic box sets.
Side note: Some small figures also appear in both geographic and taxonomic series/sets. This may be why an eighth small figure hasn’t been discovered for the speculative “Congo” series. If it is indeed a repeat of an existing figure from one of the taxonomic series, it is certainly not the Okapi or Mandrill, as those have already appeared in the Rainforest habitat set. The Bongo from the Ungulates set seems like the most likely candidate.
Side note 2: The African Striped Hyena is miscalled “African Striped Dog” in the booklet.

Hey, everyone! Good news! I was contacting the Play Visions staff for a question about the 1999 catalog, and an employee named Nicole revealed that the Forest buffalo, tree pangolin and Guereza monkey were from an AMNH set (sold at the American Museum of Natural History), with animals from the Dzanga-Sangha Park. Here are some pictures of the 1999 catalog (special thanks to Nicole from PV).

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Fantastic discovery

Thank you

FINALLY! Many thanks, it’s a jewel!

Wow, you solved a mysterie.

Yes, this is one of the biggest misteries we've been discussing on forum. Fantastic job and thanks to Nicole too. :)