I have several thousands of figures filling my basement. While I had dinosaurs a kid none of those survived. I was buying figures I came across in stores again once I had kids. That is when I started doing toy stores again. About the time Jurassic Park (JP) came out I ran across Prehistoric Times the collectors magazine. That connected me with some other collectors and I started seriously collecting JP and Safari figures. I bought Copies of MARX and MPC figures from other collectors. I collected Battat , Play Vision and Invicta figures. The big change came when I started buying on EBay my collection mushroomed.

Well originally I wanted to show my figures in context of the time and place they lived. Later I wanted consistency of design, so I try not to mix figures from companies with different styles. I try the use the same guidelines used making historical military miniatures or model railroaders use. I make more an effort with the flora now. No grass, flowering plants only for the terminal Cretaceous. Originally I used plastic trees from the sets as is. Now I try to paint or touch up the plants and exclude cactus and other out of period plants. I have a series of reference books and the Dinosaur Encyclopedia from Hyper-works Software. This gives pretty good pictures of the flora and fauna. Within the toy limits I try to be accurate.

I like modern toy lines best. My favorites are the Museum figures from Safari, Bullyland and Schleich. I watch for their new releases every year. My latest favorite toy line is Procon and the variety and choices of figures have me really interested. Play Mobil sets also are fun. You can only have so many T-rex’s no matter how good they are. I really like figures I have not seen before like Nigersaurus, Arizonasaurus and Shunosaurus. I enjoy checking out the Dollar stores for custom projects. Some hollow vinyl figures can look surprisingly good with paint and trimming.

Sam and Taliesin are the best boys and both help me teach for the Smithsonian Summer camp, my website and pictures for Prehistoric times articles . They humor me about my dinosaurs both like Scifi and Military figures better. Having them work with me makes it all more fun and I enjoy being a father. I will miss them when they leave for college. Their sisters have also helped Jamie the oldest is a junior in college and co teaches Dinosaurs and Dioramas with me. Rhiannon a sophomore in college has edited some web pages for me and helped with pictures. Sarah a freshman this year used to play Dinosaur Alphabet with us when she was younger. At times all helped paint dinosaurs and plants for me. All have told told me in retrospect the knowledge of science they gained from dinosaurs helped them in school and impressed their friends.

I teach for the Smithsonian association not the museum. The paleontology staff at the museum has never has never shown interest in the public education programs we do. If there is no grant money don’t bother them. We do visit the Museum of Natural History to see the dioramas, which are very well done. We also visit the Botanical Gardens to see living relatives of Mesozoic plants. But if I were asked I think I would like to see the Morrison dioramas displayed since the existing Late Jurassic diorama at the museum was done in the 50’s and is dated. All the animals are tail draggers they live in a swamp and have anatomy issues. I would keep the plants, which are very well done and detailed. Perhaps I would suggest an Early Cretaceous diorama since they currently lack one. We do display our large version diorama to the public at the Smithsonian Ripley Center the week of class and visitors are welcome to drop into our classes and see our work.