January 11, 2025

A Happy New Year to everyone.

The online catalogs are out, and there are a number of new molds and animal variations for the first half year.

First up is the one set that has new shields as well as a probable color variant.

71830 Nessie with Vikings. The Nessie figure has red eyes in all the promo materials, a change from the previous yellow.

There are also two new shields, probably stickers on these.

There is one other Viking Special Plus set that has a shield but it looks like the same as a previous version. Bob is working on finding out if it is indeed different, and I will update here.

There is one other fantasy animal with new colors, a baby Pegasus in all blue in set 71802

There are two animal centered themes this season. The first is Pets. There are many sets and they include new molds, new colors,  as well as some returning rarer animals. One series of small My Life sets include a different dog in each. Set 71741 has the return of the Saint Bernard previously only seen in the Heidi theme. The other dogs in that series seem to all be more common repeats. The main sets in the Pets theme have many new colors and a couple of new molds.

In set 71742 Animal Hotel the first fluffy cat appears, a new mold that we will see again in another theme.

Also in that set are a number of new color and paint variations.

In set 71743 Puppy Care Center there is another new mold, a very small puppy.

These appear with a pug that may be a new color, as well as some other puppy variations.

The set also includes a mole in blue as a toy

Both of these pet sets already have instructions online. They are the only two of the series so far.

Set 71744 is a Cat Cafe and has a new green colored mouse as a toy, as well as at least one new kitten variant and a cat with a pink nose.

Set 71745 is a Dog Park set with the newfoundland with an opening mouth in a new color, as well as the beagle with painted eyes, and a German shepherd with a prosthetic leg.

71746 has guinea pigs that seem to be repeats.

71747 has the return of the poodle, this time with a tan base body and two different sets of fur to create two different variants from the same set.

71748 has tortoises in new colors

The next major animal themed series is an expansion of Dinosaurs. These are again in the recycled content like the last series and have nice grey and brown themed colors.

There are two new molds with the series. The first is in set 71819 Brachiosaurus

This set also has a new color dragonfly

Set 71820 has the spinosaurus in a new color, as well as a newly colored triceratops skull.

Set 71821 is a triceratops family

Set 71822 includes the other new mold for dinosaurs, Stygimoloch

The size on that seems variable in the promo photos, so I really have no idea how big it is.

The last in the series is 71823 Velociraptor, with another new color variant

There is a new group of pirate sets with one new mold - a very large shark in set 71793.

In set 71794 there is a new color variant of the small octopus

In other octopus news, there is a Peter Pan themed set in the Junior Disney series 71769.

It has a new octopus mold that seems to sit on a pin and spin

It also has a new mold of parrot

and the return of the 123 aligator in new colors. These Junior sets are in the bio-plastics.

Also appearing is Tinkerbell in set 71772 that includes a variant paint on the starfish that is showing up as both a starfish or a star depending on the set.

Finally in the Princess theme we have the return of the Wheatland terrier previously seen only in the Back to the Future series.

We also have a second appearance of the fluffy cat, in the big castle set 71845

That's it for this first catalog of the year. There are a total of 37 new variants this season. Compared to a record high total for last year of 165 this seems like a slow down back to normal levels. That could all change of course in the second half of the year. We are getting 8 new molds in animals this time, which is a good number these days.

As is often the case there are collectors complaining that there is nothing for them in this catalog, but for animal collectors this is a really good half year. I think there are at least 150 sets in the new catalog that include an animal of some sort, and many animal themed series.

Toy Fair is coming up in a few weeks and we will see if there are any more surprises on the way.

Thanks again for reading

Wishing you the happiest of new years - Tiermann