Spacelab's Collection FINAL PART.

These are all really lovely, impressive sculpts and the paintwork adds to them rather than spoiling the detailing. I can't even pick a favourite, they're all so nice. I really think reptiles translate better to plastic and furred or feathered creatures, they look perfect - and it's fun knowing they can float in swimming positions!

Thank you George, Bonnie, Andreas & Paige! Next:

Part 18: Rhinoceros

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L to R
Black Rhinoceros (Schleich 2015)
White Rhinoceros (Collecta 2019)
Indian Rhinoceros (Schleich 2018)

I'm not totally convinced about the Sumatran from Safari, so for now my Rhinos will stay a beautiful trio and see what the future may bring...


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The Smashing Pumpkins - Rhinoceros (1991)
This comes from when the band was relatively unknown and Billy Corgan still had long curly hair... It's the first album of the Pumpkins, still looking for an identity I think, that certainly was strongly present on their next releases. Here the band tries a rather odd marriage of The Cure with Led Zeppelin, not bad. Also, it's the Pumpkins and not so easy to find a cool song with Rhinos, right?



No album cover again.  

Again, splendid group. The CollectA rhino especially is magnificent!

I love that CollectA rhino, they've really captured the strength and power of this animal!

Nice rhinoceroses

I needed to see last 3 updates at once because it seems I was distracted during these days.
I haven't gotten the Schleich hyena yet and obviously I agree we need a brown hyena and an aardwolf.
The lighter material of some Schleich sealife figures was not very well received at the time but the fact they float and in correct positions is a clever detail in my opinion. I have the blue shark from that generation. It floats but after a while, it always leans slightly to one of the sides. I always avoided that green sea turtle even if I think it displays very well, now I don't have a green sea turtle but two loggerheads instead.
I recomend the Sumatran rhino from Safari, it is a figure we won't see soon again in toy shape and it is really a great model. It only represents a species that does not fit the idea we have of what a rhino should look like. For example, the CollectA white rhino clearly wants to emphasize the rhino features what results in a fantastic figure and very appealing but I am not sure it is more accurate than the Safari Sumatran rhino.
I liked all songs this time. Turtle song was a very good surprise and the rhino song is from a band I listened exaustively during 1990's Grunge fever.

I also missed the last 3 updates. My figure choices are exactly the same as yours for these ones so I don't have much to say. I enjoyed especially the turtle song and found the hyena's "interesting".

Thank you friends!

Part 19: Bears

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photo 1 - N.AMERICA / ARCTIC
American Black Bear (Collecta 2014)
Grizzly Bear Male (Schleich 2013)
Grizzly Bear Female (Schleich 2013)
Polar Bear (Schleich 2012)
Polar Bear (Schleich 2006)

photo 2 - EURASIA
Sloth Bear (Schleich 2017)
Sun Bear (Mojo 2014)
Brown Bear (Collecta 2012)
Giant Panda (Collecta 2008)
Giant Panda (Schleich 2017)

I feel my polar bears are a bit outdated and I'm always tempted by the standing Papo, but I don't want another polar bear... My daughter has polars in all sizes and material from X-mas gifts and I'm fed up with them. I think the Collecta Brown Beast and the Schleich Sloth Bear are my favorites of this lot. When I was a little boy in my old neighborhood there was this Rom guy passing by every morning with his bear, that was quite friendly. All the kids loved her. I'm not sure if she was a dancer, we never saw her dance but she definitely seemed excited with the kids. Anyway,  music:

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Grauzone - Eisbær(1981)



This has become a classic club song for the alternative wave scene, gaining much more interest in the last decade than when it was originally released 40 years ago. The band, Grauzone, are from Switzerland and sing mostly in German. They lasted just a couple of years as part of the Neue Deutsche Welle scene back in the days.
As a result, a new collection with all their songs was released in 2010 and surprise surprise, an Eisbær is on the cover:

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Wow, a very impressive bear collection! I love the older Schleich bears, they're so realistic!

Nice bears

Very enigmatic song videoclip, it could perfectly talk about how human expansion destroys sistematically everyinthg that is beautiful and good in the world, including the Arctic, until all what we know of its past splendour is confined to a small snowball surrounded by mankind.  But after all that, the ambition of our species will collapse our own destruction of the whole world, and since then the world can recover, at least partially.

Your photo reminds me that I need a few CollectA bears... great batch and update again!

My bears selection is radically different. I see you haven't found yet an Asian black bear good enough to join your collection.
I never considered the CollectA black bear, probably, if it was available locally, I'd surely give more atention to it.
My Papo bears started dancing immediately when I clicked the play button on that youtube video.

Thank you all!

Pardofelis wrote:

Very enigmatic song videoclip, it could perfectly talk about how human expansion destroys sistematically everyinthg that is beautiful and good in the world, including the Arctic, until all what we know of its past splendour is confined to a small snowball surrounded by mankind.  But after all that, the ambition of our species will collapse our own destruction of the whole world, and since then the world can recover, at least partially.

I'm glad you were intrigued to give this interpretation, that as far as the video is concerned (that was made several years later than the song), is very interesting and matching.  
But, I think the actual song is much more simplistic lyrically. We have to think first when it was written. It's the very early 80s, when all you could hear in the news was pollution, pollution, pollution... So, the lyricist wants to be a polar bear, because polar bears live in a "clear" world, and he wouldn't have to cry seeing the western world collapsing.


Of course they knew nothing about the Greenhouse Effect back in 1981...

Great animal collection, Kostas. And a great music collection and knowledge too. I have the CollectA brown bear as a mini version, and what is interesting is that it a mirror image of the larger version.

Thank you very much Roger! I have never seen the mini version, I will try to check it out next time I'll be on the Collecta shop.

It's in a CollectA box/toob, A1105. But if you have the large one, there is probably no need for the smaller one.

Part 20: Crocodilians

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L to R
Baby Crocodile (Schleich 2013)
Nile Crocodile(Schleich 2015)
Gharial (Papo 2013)
American Alligator (Papo 2019)

I also have the old Collecta croc, but I retired him to make some space. Crocodilians take too much space on my shelves so one Nile croc is enough! If I ever get another it will be the white Papo, huge and a bit expensive, but maybe it worth the trouble as I can use it for an albino Salt Water one. Also, I'm not convinced by the Safari Caiman, so this species is pending for addition in a future release.
I have to admit that I went back and forth in choosing my American Alligator. Papo model is great, but I really wanted my Alligator dark coloured. I believe the best model available is the one from Mojo, excellent pose, good colour, perfect size, BUT....the samples I checked have a defective moveable jaw and I read it's too common. The one I was about to buy didn't move at all, not closed - not open, somewhere in the middle. This slightly-opened mouth made the gator look a bit silly, so I passed to the Papo which is much better constructed.
The Gharial is the bigger of the 3, though in my photo he looks smaller. As for the Schleich Croc, the painting details and finish are just incredible!

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Echo & the Bunnymen - Crocodiles (1980)
A track from an iconic new-wave band from Liverpool, from their first album that is also called "Crocodiles". Not their most famous song, as "The Killing Moon" is a real classic, but I love its energy, the scratchy & choppy guitars and the frenzy rhythm. A crocodilian feast at its peak.



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For an album cover I could not find something I really like in my collection, but I have this CD by a band called Elcka. It's their one and only album, released in 1997. Kind of brit-pop, not bad, not great, you know..it was OK for the time but nobody remembers them now. Justice.
Still, a girl skiing on a crocodilian? The end of her holidays I suppose..

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What a beautiful collecting subject. For a start, I never liked Schleich crocodiles, their reputation was not even good among their most dedicated collectors. From chubby, cartoonish, silly, wrong number of toes, etc. As a consequence of it, probably this crocodile never got the atention of many of us, myself included and we're probably being unfair. I don't know how much I like it but I always loved the Papo model and now my focus is completely on Mojö Fun new Nile crocodile. The alligator I have the same even if I got the CollectA before. I really feel much more excited about Papo's alligator. Mojo seems to be a little stubborn but I never had the chance of seeing it in real. Gharials we have the superb Papo model and the old Schleich that Michael teached us it is a false gharial instead. the old Schleich was an iconic model at the time but even being different species, the quality of the Papo model is clearly superior.
I really enjoyed the presented music, I think I've never heard it before but it is great and I also like the clear bass line. About the cover, I think it is a good idea when a girl has the brilliant idea of surfingg on a croc.

Thanks for showing me that the CollectA black bear is much nicer than on promo pics I have seen here and there, I am still using the old Schleich which is probably the ONLY vintage model I never replaced. Your pic may change my mind as I may consider to form a black bear family with the new Schleich as a female and this CollectA as a male.

We share the same dilema about polar bears. I never dared to buy the Papo pair because I don't want more polar bears and I'm not ready to sacrifice any of my Schleich except perhaps the newest one... which is also the one that would fit best with the Papo

The video clip made me laugh a lot when the bear is in a video game and is marking points by ripping seals into pieces

Classical crocodilian choices. The gharial may be the longest but this is 100% coherent as they are known to reach the lenght of saltwaters.

Albino specimen are most common among the Mississippi aligator species, and they are ill animals perpetuated by the selfishness of Man to please normies who visit zoos. White lions and white tigers are useless, uninteresting and take enclosures up at the expense of the conservation mission of zoos but at least they are leucistic animals not as disabled as these poor albino alligators. So I don't really see any interest in adding an albino crocodilian to your collection, and even less a Nile or saltwater crocodile but that's just my personal opinion. Yet, if you really want one, it's a shame that I didn't know that before because I found several where I was on holidays last week and with Vinted, it now costs nothing to send packages all around Europe.

RtasVadumee wrote:

Yet, if you really want one, it's a shame that I didn't know that before because I found several where I was on holidays last week and with Vinted, it now costs nothing to send packages all around Europe.

No, not really, I wrote "if I ever..", which will probably be "never". It's also available here in a couple of shops in its original price, that is expensive for a croc. I'm most interested about the Vinted thing that I know nothing about. What's that?

There are some beautiful crocodile models on the market and you have some of the best, so detailed, painted so realistically and very similar to the real animal! I love the baby croc too, even though it's smaller it still has so much detail!

Ice crocos

Part 21: Flightless Birds

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L to R
Southern Cassowary (CollectA 2014)
Kiwi(CollectA 2015)
Emu (Southlands Replicas 2018)
Ostrich Chick (CollectA 2011)
Ostrich (Schleich 2015)
Ostrich young (Schleich 2004)

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Dark Day - Flightless Birds (1980)

Great again