CORYTHOSAURUSFind one
Corythosaurus with its rounded helmet crest and colorful Sinclair dinosaur toys
CORY’S
DINOSAUR

Part natural-history story, part toy-box time machine, and entirely devoted to the dinosaur that shares my name.

76–74million years ago
10 Mroughly 33 feet
HADROSAURduck-billed herbivore
Start at the beginning
Corythosaurus standing beside a Late Cretaceous lake
THE HELMET LIZARD · LATE CRETACEOUS
Herbivore · hadrosaur familyThe unmistakable hollow crest
01 / MEET CORYTHOSAURUS

A dinosaur
with built-in
brass.

Before the museum, the World’s Fair, or the toys, there was a remarkable animal roaming Late Cretaceous North America.

01

Late Cretaceous original

Corythosaurus lived about 76–74 million years ago, when western North America was split by a vast inland sea.

SWIPE LEFT OR RIGHT
02 / THE FOSSIL + THE NAME

Found in Alberta.
Destined for New York.

In 1912, Barnum Brown’s team excavated a nearly complete Corythosaurus in the Belly River beds near Steveville, Alberta. Its rare skin impressions and meshwork of calcified tendons make it one of the American Museum of Natural History’s most remarkable dinosaur specimens.

THE NAME STORY · 1914

A fossil with
my name in it.

Brown named the dinosaur for its Corinthian-helmet-shaped crest. The scientific name means “helmet lizard.” But to me, the first four letters were the revelation: Cory, spelled exactly like my name. It felt like this particular dinosaur had been waiting for me.

CORYTHOκόρυς

“Helmet” in ancient Greek, inspired by the crest’s Corinthian shape.

+
SAURUSσαῦρος

“Lizard.” Put them together: the unforgettable helmet lizard.

=
CORY’SDINOSAUR
Mounted Corythosaurus skeleton at the American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History specimen 5338 · Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs · Floor 4Visit the museum page ↗
ON VIEW AT THEAMERICAN MUSEUMOF NATURAL HISTORY · NEW YORK CITY
1912Excavated near Steveville, Alberta
SPECIMEN 5338American Museum of Natural History
SKINRare impressions survive
1914Named by Barnum Brown
03 / THE MOMENT

Then I saw it
in New York.

“The first time I saw the Corythosaurus skeleton at the American Museum of Natural History, I thought it was the coolest thing ever.”

My dad had already sparked my dinosaur obsession, but seeing the real skeleton towering over me made everything feel enormous, tangible, and alive. The fossil I had read about was suddenly right there in front of me. That museum visit turned a favorite dinosaur into something permanent.

— Cory
04 / DAD FINDS THE LINK

EBAY + ONE VERY SPECIFIC DINOSAUR

Then Dad found
Sinclair.

My dad has always had an obsession with weird shit—and an eye for the value hiding inside it.

Commemorative glasses. Board games. Books. Antique calculators. McDonald’s cardboard signs. Rock and Roll memorabilia. Store gift cards. If something was odd, specific, or slightly forgotten, he could see a reason to keep it.

It ran in the family. My grandfather sold books at a flea market in Brooklyn every weekend. Loving junk was practically a birthright: the instinct to notice the story in things other people passed by.

Then Dad found a little Sinclair Corythosaurus on eBay. Same name, same spelling. He knew immediately that I needed it—and that one weird plastic dinosaur opened a shared obsession with Dinoland, the World’s Fair, and finding every color.

Cory and his father, with young Cory holding a blue Corythosaurus toy among family flea-market treasures
DAD + CORYTHE FIRST FIND · THE WHOLE STORY
05 / THE WORLD’S FAIR + SINCLAIR DINOLAND

QUEENS, NEW YORK · 1964–65

Sinclair’s dinosaurs
go life-size.

FIRST, THE FAIR

A city-sized
promise of tomorrow.

The 1964–65 New York World’s Fair opened with 139 pavilions devoted to technology, industry, culture, and optimistic visions of the future. Under the theme “Peace Through Understanding,” millions of people came to Flushing Meadows Corona Park to see what the modern world might become.

1964–65THE WORLD’S FAIR

A vast international spectacle in Queens, built around the Unisphere and a distinctly Space Age idea of progress.

Sinclair Oil’s red-and-green dinosaur shield logo
SINCLAIR OILTHE CORPORATE HOST

Sinclair already had America’s best-known dinosaur mascot. Dinoland turned that identity into one of the fair’s most popular attractions.

9 GIANTSDINOLAND

Louis Paul Jonas and his studio built nine life-size fiberglass models, ranging from a six-foot Ornitholestes to Sinclair’s 70-foot Brontosaurus. An estimated 10 million people visited.

History checked against the U.S. National Park Service ↗, American Museum of Natural History ↗, and Queens Museum ↗

THE FAIR AS PEOPLE SAW IT

Dinoland
in photos.

The nine dinosaurs arrived by barge, passed beneath a bold Sinclair entrance, and filled a rocky landscape inside the Transportation Area. Brontosaurus carried the company’s identity, T. rex supplied the drama, and Corythosaurus—smaller and quieter than both—became my personal favorite.

PHOTO 01 / 08Prehistory arrives by water

THE HERD IN TRANSIT · 1960S

Prehistory arrives by water

Before and after the fair, the fiberglass herd had to travel. A barge full of dinosaur silhouettes made the logistics look nearly as fantastic as the exhibition itself.
1 / 8SWIPE PHOTO OR USE ← →
A child and an adult watching a Sinclair Mold-A-Rama dinosaur machine50¢
WATCHING A DINOSAUR TAKE SHAPE

THEN, THE SOUVENIR

The Mold-A-Rama
made it personal.

After meeting the giant dinosaurs, visitors could watch a much smaller one take shape behind glass. The Mold-A-Rama closed two mold halves, filled them with warm plastic, and delivered a newly made dinosaur while it was still warm.

The machine in this photograph advertises its warm plastic DINO for 50 cents. The Sinclair Corythosaurus was one of those molded souvenirs—and more than sixty years later, these little dinosaurs are the heart of my collection.

See my prize collection ↓
06 / MY PRIZE TOY DINOSAUR COLLECTION

I’m a grown man with a prize toy dinosaur collection.

I’m proud of it. I have a Corythosaurus in every color, carefully preserved and genuinely treasured. Each is an original World’s Fair-era Sinclair figure—and somehow, more than 60 years later, these strange little plastic dinosaurs still feel completely special to me.

01 / 06Pool blue molded Corythosaurus collectibleSWIPE LEFT OR RIGHT

Selected color

Pool blue

A bright swimming-pool blue with the softly worn sheen of a well-loved fair souvenir.

1 OF 6
ORIGINAL MOLDED POSE★ SIX COLORS ★60+ YEARS OF WEIRD LITTLE MAGIC
07 / WHY IT STICKS

SCIENCE + DESIGN + FAMILY

Still the coolest
thing ever.

It is a real Late Cretaceous animal with a wonderfully strange crest. It is a remarkable fossil in the museum that first made dinosaurs feel enormous and real to me. It is a piece of World’s Fair spectacle, a gloriously weird little toy, and something that always reminds me of my dad—his eye for oddities, his delight in weirdness, and the eBay find that started this whole collection. Somehow, Corythosaurus gets to be all of those things at once.

08 / THE HUNT CONTINUES

Find a Cory
of your own.

Listings come and go. This button opens a live eBay search for vintage Sinclair Corythosaurus figures from the World’s Fair era.

Search live eBay listings Collector’s note: check markings, scale, condition, and seller history. Later recasts exist.
A retro-styled portrait of Cory Bolotsky and his wife Paulina beneath the Unisphere in Queens
CORY + PAULINATHE UNISPHERE · QUEENS, NEW YORK
09 / ABOUT CORY

Hi, I’m
Cory Bolotsky.

I made this little corner of the internet to collect the science, family history, World’s Fair weirdness, and tiny plastic dinosaurs behind the animal that shares my name.

I’m somewhere between a lifelong museum kid and a grown man with a remarkably specific toy collection. This is me with my wife, Paulina, beneath the Unisphere in Queens—back at the fairgrounds where this story’s strangest chapter happened.