When I impulsively took out the cardboard box containing the 1/12 Allosaurus skeletal kit by ANTS from the back of my closet for the first time in several years, and peered inside, the excitement I felt when I first bought it came rushing back. (By the way, this is what the inside of my closet looks like. Photo 1).
About 10 years ago, I was a member of an American organization called the Dinosaur Society, and I found this Allosaurus in the mail-order section of their newsletter. I bought it for about 300 dollars, but when I opened the plain cardboard box it arrived in, I was surprised. It was packed with a total of 150 parts (Photo 2).

For example, the skull consists of four parts. In a normal kit, the occipital bone, including the parietal bone, supraoccipital bone, exoccipital bones, and occipital condyle, which are usually integrated with the frontal bone, are separate parts (Photo 3). —I'm writing this while looking at the osteology of the Allosaurus in Dinosaur Paleontology Frontier 7, and I'm learning a lot.—
Subsequently, the first and second cervical vertebrae (which are properly fused) and cervical ribs, and the third cervical vertebra and cervical ribs (Photo 4), and so on, each vertebra and rib are separated and placed in individual plastic bags, up to the forty-first caudal vertebra (the Frontier has up to fifty-one... is this a different theory? Or just an omission?). The forelimbs also have separate scapula and coracoid, humerus, radius, ulna, and even the hand has separate phalanges, though the three fingers are articulated. The hindlimbs are similar, with the astragalus being a separate part (Photo 5). Furthermore, some of the chevrons close to the pelvis are also separate parts... and so on.

When I first bought it, I thought that on a long autumn evening, reading reference materials and muttering the names of each bone in Japanese and English, while listening to the sounds of insects, I could spend a luxurious time slowly assembling it. Since then, every autumn, I occasionally open the box and pick up the parts, but as I admire the well-made vertebrae in order, I feel it would be a shame to assemble them, and I even think about saving it for my old age. And so the box goes back to the back of the closet... It seems like this year will be no different.

ANTS used to release many fun dinosaur bone-related items, such as the 1/10 skull series (the smallest Heterodontosaurus was about 1cm!), but unfortunately, they no longer sell dinosaur products. Photo 6 shows a finished bronze product of the Allosaurus skull part.