Britains Indian Rhinoceros

Some had posted that they had a plastic rhino that was taller than the others. I checked my three and they are all the same height. I did check it against the lead adult version and it appears to be the same height but is shorter than the lead version.

Strange they shortened the figure. It is not so evident when checking them individually but your photo shows it clearly. Do you remember where did you find the post about taller models? Wasn't it about a less dense material or so? Oh, it could be interesting to find an early plastic version as long as the lead one. There are always some surprises to be found.

It was one here but I can't seem to find it! Surely I didn't imagine it.

thebritfarmer wrote:

It was one here but I can't seem to find it! Surely I didn't imagine it.

We have here a fantastic topic about the Britains rhino. It does not mention the variation, I guess but it is interesting to read about the moulding technics. It is a pity pictures are missing.

I found it!!!! Third picture down.

https://sts-forum.forumieren.de/t4827-2-lots-of-britains-came-in-for-the-last-days-of-februari-2012

Yes, that one is larger and also has a different shape. How did that happen?

thebritfarmer wrote:

I found it!!!! Third picture down.

https://sts-forum.forumieren.de/t4827-2-lots-of-britains-came-in-for-the-last-days-of-februari-2012

Good job! It is quite interesting and considering how flat are Willy's pictures, there's no doubts the left one is larger. Also, Roger is right, they look different, I think my model is the smaller one. It is a pity Willy is not collecting anymore, he was a remarkable collector and he is a nice guy.

Hopefully he can shed some light on this if he comes back on the forum. The hunt is on now for a larger Britains Rhino!!!

Sporadically Willy visits us but unlikely he will find this topic specifically.
Here is my Britains Indian rhino. It is just 71 g of weight and it floats what means it is made of a low density plastic. It is marked Britains LTD and ENGLAND:

rogerpgvg wrote:

Yes, that one is larger and also has a different shape. How did that happen?

Totally different moulds, different type of plastic, inaccuracy when the piece was ejected from the mould, operator error etc....

Bound to be differences over time due to being made from 1961 to 1998.

I wonder which of these explanations. Could the rhino "grow" so much if it didn't come out of the mould in the right way or if the operator made an error? I wonder how it could happen. It seems most likely to me that a different mould was used. But how could such a big change happen when moulds were copied? And if it's a different mould, then there should be more of these large rhinos around. As far as I know, the big rhino is uncommon, so Britains didn't use it for a long time. Perhaps they realised their mistake.

rogerpgvg wrote:

I wonder which of these explanations. Could the rhino "grow" so much if it didn't come out of the mould in the right way or if the operator made an error? I wonder how it could happen. It seems most likely to me that a different mould was used. But how could such a big change happen when moulds were copied? And if it's a different mould, then there should be more of these large rhinos around. As far as I know, the big rhino is uncommon, so Britains didn't use it for a long time. Perhaps they realised their mistake.

When you copy a mould, you need to sculpt a new clay model. The idea is always to sculpt it as similar as possible to the original. Though, it is not possible and there is a little problem regarding size. The clay model, used to produce the mould needs to be slightly larger than the final figure. It happens because there's always some shrinkage during the production. Shrinkage is a science on its own and it depends from several factors like cooling, amount of plasticizers, etc.
So, the sculptor who will sculpt the clay model, is not exactly making a perfect copy, I don't know the shrinkage ratio of Britains figures but among major brands it is around 5%.
It is impossible to avoid little differences in sizes between moulds. However, the same exact mould can also generate slightly different sized figures. Britains seems to use little amount of plasticizers, at least judging for my sample, so this model is prone to a certain level of shrinkage and there are other multiple factors as I mentioned above. However, this last example, could never justify such a difference in size as we see in those figures here presented. I tend to believe they result from different mould pieces but your consideration about their rarity is valid but, are you sure they're so rare? I already owned three of them and I really have no idea if they were all the same size. I never worried about it and now they have new owners so I can't compare anymore.
I suggest someone to build a conga of rhinos.

After reading this I decided to check out the two Britains Black Rhinoceros in my collection.

Result they are different, one is slightly taller and the ears are not the same. There are also various moulding differences.

Hopefully, I will take some snaps and post them on this site.

Chris Sweetman wrote:

After reading this I decided to check out the two Britains Black Rhinoceros in my collection.

Result they are different, one is slightly taller and the ears are not the same. There are also various moulding differences.

Hopefully, I will take some snaps and post them on this site.

Wonderful! Mine are all the same but now I don't know which version they are HAHA

edit to add I just realized you said Black Rhinos, is that a typo or another new find?!?!

thebritfarmer wrote:

Chris Sweetman wrote:

After reading this I decided to check out the two Britains Black Rhinoceros in my collection.

Result they are different, one is slightly taller and the ears are not the same. There are also various moulding differences.

Hopefully, I will take some snaps and post them on this site.

Wonderful! Mine are all the same but now I don't know which version they are HAHA

edit to add I just realized you said Black Rhinos, is that a typo or another new find?!?!

OK, then at least one of mine is the rarer version.

Unless your models are different from the two I have!

thebritfarmer wrote:

Chris Sweetman wrote:

After reading this I decided to check out the two Britains Black Rhinoceros in my collection.

Result they are different, one is slightly taller and the ears are not the same. There are also various moulding differences.

Hopefully, I will take some snaps and post them on this site.

Wonderful! Mine are all the same but now I don't know which version they are HAHA

edit to add I just realized you said Black Rhinos, is that a typo or another new find?!?!

The black rhino is this one but I suspect Chris is refering to the Indian rhino.

Roger wrote:

thebritfarmer wrote:

Chris Sweetman wrote:

After reading this I decided to check out the two Britains Black Rhinoceros in my collection.

Result they are different, one is slightly taller and the ears are not the same. There are also various moulding differences.

Hopefully, I will take some snaps and post them on this site.

Wonderful! Mine are all the same but now I don't know which version they are HAHA

edit to add I just realized you said Black Rhinos, is that a typo or another new find?!?!

The black rhino is this one but I suspect Chris is refering to the Indian rhino.

Yes I thought too, hopefully Chris will clarify.

Roger wrote:

thebritfarmer wrote:

Chris Sweetman wrote:

After reading this I decided to check out the two Britains Black Rhinoceros in my collection.

Result they are different, one is slightly taller and the ears are not the same. There are also various moulding differences.

Hopefully, I will take some snaps and post them on this site.

Wonderful! Mine are all the same but now I don't know which version they are HAHA

edit to add I just realized you said Black Rhinos, is that a typo or another new find?!?!

The black rhino is this one but I suspect Chris is refering to the Indian rhino.

Hi Rogério

I am indeed referring to the Black Rhino. Unfortunately, I only have one Indian Rhino.

The two Black Rhinos I have are from different moulds as it just isn't size but variation in the ears and body structure.

thebritfarmer wrote:

Chris Sweetman wrote:

After reading this I decided to check out the two Britains Black Rhinoceros in my collection.

Result they are different, one is slightly taller and the ears are not the same. There are also various moulding differences.

Hopefully, I will take some snaps and post them on this site.

Wonderful! Mine are all the same but now I don't know which version they are HAHA

edit to add I just realized you said Black Rhinos, is that a typo or another new find?!?!

Another new find. I recently purchased a second Black Rhino just a few weeks ago and last night decided to do a quick comparison between them and found that the two are not identical.

Chris Sweetman wrote:

Roger wrote:

thebritfarmer wrote:

Chris Sweetman wrote:

After reading this I decided to check out the two Britains Black Rhinoceros in my collection.

Result they are different, one is slightly taller and the ears are not the same. There are also various moulding differences.

Hopefully, I will take some snaps and post them on this site.

Wonderful! Mine are all the same but now I don't know which version they are HAHA

edit to add I just realized you said Black Rhinos, is that a typo or another new find?!?!

The black rhino is this one but I suspect Chris is refering to the Indian rhino.

Hi Rogério

I am indeed referring to the Black Rhino. Unfortunately, I only have one Indian Rhino.

The two Black Rhinos I have are from different moulds as it just isn't size but variation in the ears and body structure.

OK Chris, we were not sure because we were discussing before about the Indian rhino. It looks it worth to check sculpt variations on Britains figures. Some moulds lasted for a long time and it resulted in some slightly different moulds. I think the black rhino is even more interesting because it was not as long lived as the Indian rhino. I may be wrong but I think it was also only available in pvc material.

Roger wrote:

When you copy a mould, you need to sculpt a new clay model. The idea is always to sculpt it as similar as possible to the original. Though, it is not possible and there is a little problem regarding size. The clay model, used to produce the mould needs to be slightly larger than the final figure. It happens because there's always some shrinkage during the production. Shrinkage is a science on its own and it depends from several factors like cooling, amount of plasticizers, etc.
So, the sculptor who will sculpt the clay model, is not exactly making a perfect copy, I don't know the shrinkage ratio of Britains figures but among major brands it is around 5%.
It is impossible to avoid little differences in sizes between moulds. However, the same exact mould can also generate slightly different sized figures. Britains seems to use little amount of plasticizers, at least judging for my sample, so this model is prone to a certain level of shrinkage and there are other multiple factors as I mentioned above. However, this last example, could never justify such a difference in size as we see in those figures here presented. I tend to believe they result from different mould pieces but your consideration about their rarity is valid but, are you sure they're so rare? I already owned three of them and I really have no idea if they were all the same size. I never worried about it and now they have new owners so I can't compare anymore.
I suggest someone to build a conga of rhinos.

Thanks for the explanation, very interesting. I've got quite a conga, but they are all in different boxes in storage. I'll check them when I have some time.

Roger wrote:

Chris Sweetman wrote:

Roger wrote:

thebritfarmer wrote:

Chris Sweetman wrote:

After reading this I decided to check out the two Britains Black Rhinoceros in my collection.

Result they are different, one is slightly taller and the ears are not the same. There are also various moulding differences.

Hopefully, I will take some snaps and post them on this site.

Wonderful! Mine are all the same but now I don't know which version they are HAHA

edit to add I just realized you said Black Rhinos, is that a typo or another new find?!?!

The black rhino is this one but I suspect Chris is refering to the Indian rhino.

Hi Rogério

I am indeed referring to the Black Rhino. Unfortunately, I only have one Indian Rhino.

The two Black Rhinos I have are from different moulds as it just isn't size but variation in the ears and body structure.

OK Chris, we were not sure because we were discussing before about the Indian rhino. It looks it worth to check sculpt variations on Britains figures. Some moulds lasted for a long time and it resulted in some slightly different moulds. I think the black rhino is even more interesting because it was not as long lived as the Indian rhino. I may be wrong but I think it was also only available in pvc material.

The Black Rhino was Issued in 1979 and withdrawn in 1998 so only available in PVC but in 1993 Britains started to use a different type of PVC. So, it could be that one Black Rhino was released between 1979 and 1993 using the first type PVC and the other from 1993 to 1998 using the newer version of PVC.

Britains indeed used two very different types of plastic for the black rhino: one type is noticeably lighter than the other: https://sts-forum.forumieren.de/t23813-rogerpgvg-s-britains-collection

That's all very interesting but I suspect Britains still has a few misteries reserved to all of us. The black rhino was introduced much after the move from polythene to pvc as Chris pointed. Meanwhile, we can see on Roger's link, that the earlier black rhino weighs 45g while the newer weighs 75g and the lighter model floats. This weight and behaviour is hardly compatible with a pvc figure. It is expectable for a polythene figure. Even the called soft pvc is denser than water. The polythene used is HDPE, slightly less dense than water and it is easy to identify because it floats with almost the entire figure submerged. Roger also mentions the painting sticking poorly to the older model and it is also more common with polythene.
I suspect most of the knowledge about Britains figures derives directly from soldiers and similar series where human figures have all a similar weight and this knowledge is transported to the animal series which presentes a much bigger variety in sizes. Is it possible that Britains used polythene for massive animal figures like this rhino even if the use of pvc was being already adopted in most of the range?

The lighter black rhino doesn't look and feel like polythene. It's probably also PVC but with a different density or perhaps other plastics were mixed with the PVC. In the topic that I referred to I said that the light black rhino came before the heavier one because I assumed that Britains would improve it. But if this is indeed the change in plastic in 1993, then it may be more likely that the lighter plastic is newer because more black rhinos would have been made before 1993 (1979-1993) than after (1993-1998).

Not all polythene Britains float, some are slightly heavier. Probably again related to the density of the plastic or having fewer air bubbles.