This website will serve as a Dinosaur toys Collectors Guide as it takes you on an ongoing and decades long trip. No one can collect real Dinosaurs (except, perhaps, in the movies) but Dinosaur toys are available to stir the imagination and arouse the little boy (or girl) in each of us.

Eventually every "Dinosaur" ever made will be findable here, from Apatosaurs to Velociraptors and Battat to X-Plus, depending on whether you are searching by Dinosaur or company name.

I discovered that I could have Dinosaurs of my very own when my aunts first took me to visit the American Museum of Natural History in 1951. I was only six years old and I was entranced by the great fossil exhibits. I could never look at a fossil without clothing it in flesh and imagining its life.

The bones of the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex, Triceratops, Brontosaurus (renamed Apatosaurus years later), the Stegosaurus and the Allosaurs all fired my imagination, came to life and incited a passion in me that burns to this day, nearly sixty years later.

The museum shop carried SRG metal figures that were the only such toys available at the time. Over the following years we would visit the museum on average twice a month and I would return home with one, two and sometimes even three SRG figures to play with on the floor of my room. These prehistoric animal toys became central to my play for years after and have accompanied me throughout my life.

My collection grew in the mid-fifties to include the wonderful MARX prehistoric figures until, today, I have a collection spanning nearly six decades and many manufacturers. I will be sharing that collection with you, here, on this site.

Today's models by Battat, Bullyland,  Carnegie, Invicta, PAPO,  Safari Ltd, Schleich and the Jurassic Park movie action figures among others are a far cry from those of my childhood. The detail and "realism" have increased geometrically from those early SRG and the MARX figures.

I have collected them all, and as many as I could, and hope that this site will help those who are interested in collecting these models and interest those who are fascinated with the mind and playfulness of a fairly typical collector.

Among the things that you will not find here are Museum Quality (and museum expensive) Dinosaur statues, Dinosaur art, crafts or folk-art. You won't find Dino-jokes (this is a serious site :+)), nor songs, poetry or other what not.

You will not find Dinosaurs that cost more than about twenty dollars ($20.00) retail when new. Many of these little gems have since greatly appreciated in value ( Battat comes to mind) but they were not particularly expensive when new and off the shelf. These are toys first and foremost.

A Prejudice...and a Disclaimer

I do not much like toys that do things for themselves. I do not like toys that stop doing things because the battery dies. I do not like remote-control toys. I do not like toys with moving parts that can break, come apart or get jammed with dirt. I like toys that just sit there, waiting to be animated by my imagination.

I like toys that are "realistic" and detailed, rather than fanciful and/or "toylike."

I like bi-pedal Dinosaur toys that stand on their own two feet, are well balanced and do not require the tail as a third point of contact in order to stand on their own. I don't like integral "stands" such as little green-army-men have.

I like toys that can be buried in mud and washed off with a hose and be ready to be played with under any conditions.

Eventually the site will provide a complete listing of toy companies including a complete list of all Dinosaur toys they made in the past sixty years. I will devote a page to each one.

What will make this undertaking unique is that all my pictures will be of Dinosaur toys that I personally own. Dinosaurs hunting, exploring and partying around my home.

I will include in some of my photos this little statuette of ME (courtesy Schleich), at 2" in height, for purposes of gauging the size of the dinosaur figures (scale would be 1/34). Luckily I am retired now and can devote myself (almost) wholly to the task. I expect to be about 142 when it is completed. As long as no new companies or figures appear in the interim.

Information and contributions from readers and visitors is welcome as I know that I neither own, nor know of, every Dinosaur toy made. All contributors will be credited.

This site is begun in the hope of helping others in this great, fun hobby and providing a complete Dinosaur toys Collectors Guide.