Balaenoptera's collection: the Weird, Interesting and Mysterious, Part 1

I have been seriously collecting figures for about 8 years now. In that time I have gotten my hands on some pretty interesting, rare, strange and/or mysterious figures and similar items. In this thread I will be showing you some of the things (mostly but not exclusively cetaceans) that I think fall into this category!

So here is part 1.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
I would like to start off with one of my most prized possessions, maybe the rarest and certainly the oldest figure I own! This blue whale is made by a company called RAM Studios. I got it off eBay, and according to the seller they originally bought it in a Natural history museum shop in the US back in the 1960's. Internet research on the company yielded no results, but I did find that the figure is an exact miniature copy of a life-sized model that used to be on display at the Smithsonian Museum since 1963. Thus, this figure was probably sold at the museum's gift shop, and perhaps other places, to promote the museum's new life-sized model. This little figure has amazing detail and anatomy for what we knew of whales at the time. Even the mammary slits are sculpted! The material is a hard plastic, similar to Invicta plastic but slightly softer.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Next up is a model almost as rare and mysterious, a Southern right whale dolphin made by Luen Fat Plastic Fty. An unusual figure of an unusual species. According to the internet Luen Fat Plastic Factory was founded in 1981 and seems to have manufactered various kinds of toys but I could not find any other animal figures. Their website is now defunct so I am not sure if they're still in operation. The figure itself is quite small and made of a rubbery plastic.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Not as rare (though still rare) or mysterious but an interesting figure is this Common dolphin that squirts water, made by Sun Wai for Club Earth . It's a large very rubbery figure but I like it a lot, it's always nice to see a dolphin figure that's not a bottlenose.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
The last one for part 1 is this little blue whale figure that I found in a store by the beach in Italy. It's soft hollow plastic with a little hole in the belly, the plastic feels too high quality for a brandless Chinese figure but it's not stamped with anything, so I don't know. Maybe someone here from Italy knows more? Either way I like this little blue whale.



Stay tuned for Part 2 coming later this month, which will be dedicated to our favourite mysterious and interesting company, K&M  

Wonderful new rareties. My favourite is the southern right whale dolphin. Any time ago i searched for that figures to and it was not impossible to find out anything. A real treasure. But now i am happy to have the species by Safari. So it is not so much important now.

Very interesting to read about these rare models. You have probably already seen it, there is information about the blue whale in the Smithsonian Museum here. Where did you get the base for your models?