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Post by acroray on Feb 29, 2012 17:04:21 GMT -5
Sorry for the pun! ;D Pyro's original Brontosaurus certainly is a 'long tail' product if there ever was one, eh? I was thinking over the various editions it has gone through - from Pyro through to Lindberg - and decided to put together this timeline of sorts of the examples I know of from the first (at the top) to the most recent (at the bottom).  Apologies to anyone who's images I nabbed as I rooted around through eBay and the interwebs looking for examples. The first three are Pyro. The next two are Life-Like. The last four are Lindberg. I thought perhaps there was a Jurassic Park edition, but I couldn't find any evidence of it. Are there any editions of this tooling that I missed? I think the original Pyro trio's Triceratops would have examples from all of these series of editions as well. Tyrannosaurus wouldn't though, as he was apparently retired from Lindberg's stable and replaced with Lindberg's Jurassic Park T-Rex design. I'll also note that in my experience the kits packed into the early Life-Like painted box editions often will have Pyro legal marks on them. I don't believe any of Pyro's other dinosaurs originated in the earliest watercolor illustration boxes. Anyone please correct me if I'm wrong! |
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Post by desslock on Feb 29, 2012 17:24:26 GMT -5
Hey, thanks for pulling that together - I love box art and learning more about production history. It's kind of funny that the box art got successively worse, in my opinion. Actually feel that way about the Prehistoric Scenes kits that have been reissued too, although the 2007 versions are arguably at least as good as the other revell/monogram kits.
I think my favorite of the Bronto kit box art is the 2nd one, even though the first one deserves credit for actually looking like the model and yet still being colorful and kinda cool. I just like the old fashioned art style of the 2nd one (which, not coincidentally, is the one I own).
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Post by andymoscarts on Feb 29, 2012 19:21:13 GMT -5
3rd one for me, that's what they looked like in the U.K when i was a lad,pity the actual models fell well short of the box illustrations,although they still retain a certain amount of naive charm.
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Post by acroray on Feb 29, 2012 23:04:25 GMT -5
The first Life-Like edition was my first encounter, and I also was rather surprised the quality of the box art didn't reflect the design of the kit inside.
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Post by desslock on Feb 29, 2012 23:08:25 GMT -5
Yeah, the reality is they are terrible kits - especially this Bronto and the T-Rex. The average plastic figure you can get from one of the museum/toy manufacturers certainly looks a lot more realistic and is a lot less work -- but like the old Marx dinosaur models, many people have sentimental attachment to these for both being first and because they encountered them in childhood -- kids today are spoiled with too many amazing toy options!
Acroray - to go back to your original point, what about the Sailback Reptile, the ankylosaur and the Stegosaurus? They also go back to at least the 2nd, if not the first, edition of Pyro kits, as I have editions of with boxes that look somewhat different than either the 1st edition or 2nd that you have posted above (so maybe there was something between those)? The editions of the ankylosaur is called "Fortress lizard dinosaur" and it has a large PYRO in capitals on the top-left corner of the box, but the art looks similar in style to the 2nd editions you have posted above, but the "PYRO" logo is much larger and in plain, capital letters.
Also, from the side of the box, the kits are numbered as follows:
273-60 Plated Dinosaur (it's the Stegosaurus, so it was probably in the initial lot)
273-60 Tyrant King (i.e T-rex)
275-60 Thunder Lizard (Bronto/Aptosaurus)
276-60 Giant Horned dinosaur (i.e triceratops)
277-60 Fortress Lizard Dinosaur (i.e. ankylosaurus)
278-60 Sail Lizard Dinosaur (Dimetrodon)
I also have Life-like kits in the style of the 3rd edition you have listed above, for both the "Plated Dinosaur" (although on the cover Stegosaurus is larger) kit 09273, and Protoceratops (no other name) but kit number 09272 -- if that's consistent with the numbering above (just remove the first 2 digits), it might have been in the first Pyro lot as the first kit.
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Post by acroray on Mar 1, 2012 9:10:48 GMT -5
I'm sure there are probably minor variations within each release. Personally, I've only ever seen the Rex, Bronto & Trike in the earliest Pyro style boxes exampled here with the Bronto. But that's just what I've observed lately. You need to break out the Desslock Camera and shoot some pictures of your Pyro-related stuff & photobucket them for us!  But to your first point: Oh, yes, they are pretty terrible kits across the board. Some look like a primary-school student's work in plasticine & toothpicks, while others are just shockingly ugly. (I'll have to force myself to buy the Dimetrodon: it's HIDEOUS!) My interest is primarily - as you so perfectly put it - 'sentimental'. Plus they're usually cheap - I won't pay more than $10 for vintage ones - and the various distinctively different editions of some of them like Stegosaurus and Brontosaurus make excellent examples of the long-term history & craft of the plastic kit hobby industry in the US. Very different boxes, wildly different colors (my favorite is the early purple Brontosaurus), over several decades. You could make a reasonable hobby out of just following one of them through their history! :-) Something interesting I noticed while looking over the collection as pictured on the package of my new purchase of Lindberg's latest Stegosaurus release: The Brontosaurus buildup on Lindberg's latest release box is painted with the same blue-grey body a light grey underside as seen on the very first edition's box. All the other edition's box presentations are differently-colored. It's rather difficult to make out in my example above, but appears to me upon inspection of a larger image to clearly be inspired by reference to the kit's first edition a half a century ago. lindberg-models.com/animals_model70281.html |
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Post by acroray on Mar 1, 2012 19:55:29 GMT -5
Rather interesting, eh? Lindberg's latest Brontosaurus box photo example's paint job matches the first Pyro edition's box illustration right down to the toenails and lips... Attachments:
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Post by desslock on Apr 3, 2012 14:09:18 GMT -5
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Post by acroray on Apr 5, 2012 11:12:09 GMT -5
Yeah, I saw that and was rather unpleasantly stunned by the final price.
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Post by jrsjrsjrs on Apr 1, 2013 17:05:14 GMT -5
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