JASMAN Dinosaurs

from the Dinosaur Collector update 1/31/07

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JASMAN Toys had distributed a range of dinosaur toys over the years and has been a staple of retailers like KB toys.

    I first became familiar with JASMAN from a series of dinosaurs that the Dinosaur Farm called Really Big Dinosaurs aimed at the sand box crowd.  JASMAN, WALMART and various toys catalogs marketed these figures.  The figures which varied in quality from bad to quit nice appear to be a collection of different manufacturing processes from multiple sources.  JASMAN graduated to producing their name brand.  The result has been their Diorama Line.  Originally released at the time of the first Jurassic Park movie the Diorama series continues to show up in toy stores packaged in a variety of ways.  The original release of the 3 inch figures made of a rubbery plastic consisted of 13 figures, along with nests, rocks and palm trees.  JASMAN has marketed them in nice diorama packaging that makes them attractive to display in their original packaging.  Packing and marketing variation is extensive.  Most commonly they were sold in sets of 4 figures with a nest trees and rocks.  There were also larger packs of 6 figures and the key chain figures. You can still find the single figure boxes at places like KB toys.

  The figures are Stegosaurus, Apatosaurus, Procompsognathus, and a Tyrannosaurus pair, Maiasaura, Carnotaurus, Pteranodon, Triceratops, Parasaurolophus, Pachycephalosaurus and a trio of JP style raptor figures.  The set included a nest with eggs with a hatchling (theropod, Triceratops or Parasaurolophus). 

Repainted Jasman and UKRD playset.		Les Monde Des Dinosaures

The figures showed up with different paint jobs and mixed with UKRD figures at Walmart.

In at least one alternate packaging Maiasaura was labeled Brachylophosaurus.   This may be because the Maiasaura lacked the solid crest over the eyes characteristic of the species.  It is a common mistake that other companies continue to make.   The upshot is that it makes a nice generic or juvenile duckbill.  The Pachycephalosaurus resembles many of the representations I have seen of the smaller Stegoceras and scales better at 1/40.  I would much rather have a Stegoceras than another Pachycephalosaurus.   The raptors could be anything from Utahraptor to Deinonychus but are intended to be Velociraptor.   The Apatosaurus could be any of the diplodocids or titainosaurs.  The Tyrannosaurus pair can stand in for any of the smaller or juvenile tryannosaurids.  The differences in the two Tyrannosaurus are small; the tails turn differently and while one appears to facing forward the other has a slight leftwards turn of the head.  It is not impossible we are dealing with an artifact of production rather than different molds.  The Procompsognathus has only 2 fingers like Compsognathus and has been noticeably absent from the sets in last few years.  This must have been intended to tie in with the JP the movie and I suspect the problem was that someone at JASMAN actually read Jurassic Park the book.  I bet you in a couple of decades these will be the rare piece that collectors are looking for when they collect JASMAN figures.  Parasaurolophus is orange and bipedal with a strongly ridged and arched back.  Someone made an effort to accurately portray the key characteristics from the lambosaurine family of hadrosaurs, the high vertebrate and arched spine.  You also see this in the Larmie and JARU figures.  The result is to make it look like the prehistoric hunchback of Notre Dame.  A better presentation would be to have the Parasaurolophus on all four feet.    The figures are not to scale but other than that they are good generic representations of the animals they seek to portray.  They are slender active poses with only the minimum tail dragging to keep the figures standing.  The paint jobs are respectable even conservative; there is a lot of lime green, less brown and some purple stripes.  The figures are modern enough to fit in with my Battat and Safari Museum sets and I have seen some fantastic custom work from readers displayed in PT.    I class these as sub Museum with Papo, Hing Fat, Fisher, UKRD, AAA and Daikin Jurassic Park, Famemaster figures.

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		Large Diorama Figures

Next JASMAN created their own hollow vinyl line mostly based on their Diorama models.  The original release included a mini booklet with the pictures and names of all the figures this was not continued with the later additions making some of the identifications of later releases problematic.  Procompsognathus disappears but several other figures are added.  There is a Brachiosaurus and Styracosaurus added.  Only the crouching raptor is retained from the original trio.  The Tyrannosaurus seems to be a new design but not an improvement over the original diorama pair.  Later, in time for Disney?s Dinosaur an Iguanodon is added.  Last a Gallimimus, Spinosaurus, another Carnotaurus, Dilophosaurus and a strange looking raptor figure showed up.   Until Safari released their Giant Dinosaurs these were the best large Vinyl figures around for the sandbox crowd.  They avoided the classic problems seen with most vinyl sets of obvious joins and over zealous application of glue. The Apatosaurus has a pinched hollow look but that can be corrected by stuffing the figure with news paper just follow the instructions in Ray Rimmels dinosaur Modeling book.

  .  Most recently 3 new Dinosaurs with fully articulated limbs have been released but are not up to the quality of the earlier JASMAN dinosaurs.  The figures are articulated and when you push down on the front leg, the eyes light up and the dinosaur growls.  There is a Spinosaurus, Raptor and Tyrannosaurus all of which have a blurred resemblance to the Hasbro figures. The Giant JASMAN RC series has the electronic giant Carnotaurus, Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus.  The Carnotaurus looks suspiciously like the Large Disney Carnotaurus from a few years ago.

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