1993 Redstone Dinosaurs: The Mesozoic Era

Greetings all,

Recently I bought a few of these packs for my dinosaur-loving 5-year-old nephew. Wanted to share the contents of a pack here.

 

 

First, I can't help but share the contest offer on the back:

WIN A TRIP TO DISNEY WORLD !! (two exclamation points)

Here’s the fine print:

To enter, hand draw or paint on an 8 ½ x 11” sheet a picture showing “If dinosaurs were alive today, how would they share our world with us?”

That's a tough ask, but for a chance to go to Disney World and earn $5,000 (in 1993 money) for your school—or possibly a $1,500 computer (wow!) for yourself? It’s worth the effort.

But wait, there’s more:

Write a story in 100 words or less about your picture. On a separate sheet, legibly hand print your name, address, telephone number, social security number, and age, and mail with your picture and story.

Wow. A story too? Would kids these days do all that work? On actual paper? Using actual paint or crayons or markers? Probably not, those lazy bums.

And yeesh, sending your SSN through the mail to a random educational trading card company? Times have changed.

Anyhow, here are the eight cards from the pack:

39 - Ornithomimus

38 - Coelophysis

37 - Compsognathus

36 - Kentrosaurus

The artwork in this set is very well done overall. I like the various settings and backgrounds, which seem accurate for each dinosaur.

35 -Maiasaura

34 - Baryonyx

Here’s an example of the card back. Lots of good educational content. The phonetic pronunciation is included, which is helpful. I also like the three “stats” at the bottom left: Geological Age, Fossil Sites, Diet. The world map graphic in the background is a nice touch.

33 - Stegoceras

  3 - Glossary Card

Along with the 46 dinosaur cards in the set, there are four glossary cards, bringing the complete set to 50.

I found it interesting that this pack contained card numbers 39 through 33 consecutively, plus the glossary card. It turns out that each pack contains consecutively numbered cards from a random section of the set. That type of collation would make set-building a bit of a headache. Just imagine if you opened one pack and got cards 1 through 8, and then opened the next pack and got cards 2 through 9. Oof.

However, with only 50 cards in the entire set, maybe it wouldn't be that difficult to find someone out there who's offering the cards you need.

So, that's all. I didn’t pull any of the “star” cards from this pack, like Tyrannosaurus, Stegosaurus, or Triceratops, but it was still a fun pack to open. Thanks for reading!