Spelling Test

I understand that standardized spelling is a relatively recent invention, and everyone has certain words and rules that are just beyond their grasp. (The "ie" rules are mine.) You might be an uncoordinated typist, or come to English as a non-native speaker, or suffer from a form of dyslexia. I get that.

What peeves me off is when folks consistently misspell proper names. The one that’s really been grating my cheese lately is The Nokota Horse. It’s NOKOTA, not NAKOTA.

It’d be one thing if it had been misspelled on the box, or in the catalog, or online through the official sources. But for the most part, it’s not. It’s hobbyists, being inattentive, indifferent, or just too darn lazy to look it up - all the things they accuse Breyer of being.

Breyer has committed many a serious - and sometimes amusing - spelling faux pas in the recent and not-so-recent past. For many years, they had trouble with the word Lipizzan:



They corrected it the catalog the following year, to the equally wrong "Lippizan." Not surprisingly, when they released the Classic Lipizzan in 1975, they managed to finally get it right on the box - but still spelled it wrong everywhere else!

You might have noticed that this is a twofer: notice "Palamino?" Palomino is consistently misspelled throughout this 1968 catalog, which is a bit of a mystery since Breyer didn’t have much problem spelling it before - or after. (Was there no time for proofreading, or was a rookie typesetter to blame?)

And then there’s my personal favorite, the Charcoal G2 Morgan BreyerFest "Kay Chain."

That one - and most of the more recent spelling errors - are probably translation or transcription errors. Amusing, but not offensive, except to remind us of the uncomfortable fact of overseas production.

And then there’s the term "Wedgewood Blue:"


Any pottery or antique collector worth their weight in Jasperware knows the correct spelling is "Wedgwood." (Type up both spelling variations in MS Word and see for yourself!)

The Wedgewood error is a very common and persistent one, especially among people with only a passing familiarity with collectible pottery. Some companies add the "e" intentionally when they use that word as an adjective or in a description to indicate they’re not officially affiliated with the actual pottery.

I’m not sure the higher-ups at Breyer were thinking that far in advance; I think it was just a simple spelling error. However, they did just have a run-in with Hagen-Renaker a couple of years earlier, so it’s possible that one of their lawyers may have advised them to add the extra "e" to cover their hindquarters, just in case another "nasty lawyer letter" arrived on their doorstep.

No Room for Sergeant

Ah, the end of another interesting week. One that included the mother of all bloody noses, a dead car battery, sleep deprivation, and a police stop. (Nothing bad, just annoying - burnt out turning signal.)

On the plus side, I did get overtime. Which should just cover the cost of a new battery.

In the midst of all that, I did manage to hit a couple of Tuesday Morning stores before they were completely cleaned out of horse-shaped objects. Originally I just wanted to do a little people watching; it’s a good two months before the flea market opens again, and that’s the one aspect about the experience I miss the most.

I thought I might pick up a few crafting supplies, and skim the book section for something cheap, interesting or useful. Then I saw a Fall 2009 Collector’s Choice Sergeant:


He has shading, dappling, slight iridescence: everything a girl could hope for. I walked past him a couple of times before I decided he had to come home with me, space issues or not. I was in the middle of a rough week, and as the saying goes, I deserved a pony. A plastic part-pony, but still.

I know the Brown Sunshine mold has its detractors, but I think it’s another case of the right paint job making the model. I think Reeves is aware of that, as well. All of the colors he’s come in since his original, undistinguished blonde chestnut have been quite attractive, in my mind at least: leopard appaloosa, dark mealy bay, dun, and now this shaded iridescent dappled gray.

Yes, I am aware that being a Collector’s Choice model, Reeves only had a partial say in the color selection of Sergeant. But they did choose him as a candidate out of the hundreds of submissions they received.

I haven’t submitted any ideas for the Collector’s Choice in a while. It’s not that I don’t have any ideas to submit, but that I’ve been in the hobby long enough to have seen several concepts I’ve longed for - and occasionally championed - come to fruition. The motivation isn’t as strong as it would be for other hobbyists. It’d be nice to have my name formally attached to a model, in print, but I think there are probably several reasons why that’s not likely to happen any time soon.

(I also have a sinking feeling that if it did happen, they’d spell my name wrong anyway. Which is a huge pet peeve of mine.)

What Sergeant’s arrival means is that I’ll have to make some attempts at selling stuff, again. I’m apprehensive, because it didn’t go so well the last time I listed stuff on MHSP: I got hit with the same group of tirekickers and scam artists everyone else has been plagued by recently. By the time I ran through all of those early responders, I wasn’t in any mood to sift through the rest. Then work started again, and I didn’t have any time for it.

So it looks like I’ll have to start listing on eBay. It’s been nearly a year since I’ve dealt with eBay in any meaningful way; I wasn’t boycotting it per se, I was just avoiding it for my pocketbook’s sake.

I think I’ll just wait and see how everything shakes out after the remodel. I managed to find a little extra room in the china cabinet earlier this week; maybe when the remodel is over, I can find some room for Sergeant, too.

Freckle Roans

Different day, same chaos. Had to spend most of yesterday reassembling the china cabinet. (No fatalities, but lots of stress nonetheless.)

It appears I slightly dissed the old-style "freckle" Red Roans in my previous post on the Buckshot. Didn’t mean to give that impression, as I’m very fond of the color. I think I have every regular run release of it, and most of the special runs. (Yes, including the uber-rare Running Foal and the ultra-desirable G1 Draft Horse.)

Breyer’s original Red Roans were a relatively short-lived phenomenon. The first regular run release of this peculiar color appeared in 1968, on the Running Stallion. It was followed by the Lying Down Foal in 1969, the Scratching Foal in 1970, and the Running Mare in 1971.

The Mare and two Foals were gone by the end of 1973, but the Running Stallion lasted through 1974. He’s relatively "common" for a Breyer of that era; a nice one with attractive roaning will set you back a little bit, but not as much as a Gloss Charcoal. The Lying Down Foal isn’t too difficult to find, either.

The Mare, surprisingly, is the scarcest of the bunch, with just a three-year production run. That may seem like an eternity today, but for a model of that era, it’s a little unusual. It took me a while to find one myself:


I found her - along with the Stallion, the Lying Down Foal, and a few other beauties - at my fabled local flea market several years ago. In fact, they were the very first things I saw as I walked up to the entrance!

All of us who have had some modest flea marketing experience have had a few of these rare and wonderful moments. For an instant you freeze and pretend that you didn’t just see what you’re seeing. You scope out the immediate territory to make sure no one else has zeroed in on your target. Your heart begins to pound, and then you immediately break into your brisk, practiced, pretending-not-to-be-too-interested kind of walk …

(Can you tell I miss the flea market? Darn you infernal groundhog!)

You may notice that this Mare has an unusual feature: a Blue Ribbon Sticker. It’s unusual because Blue Ribbon Stickers were discontinued by the end of 1970, and the Red Roan Mare wasn’t introduced until 1971. It appears to be original, or at least contemporary; the Stallion, the Foal, and a couple other models in that collection had stickers, too.

It’s possible that the Mare may have been released in late 1970, in time for the Holiday shopping season - as I’ve discussed before, a not-uncommon practice. Since Breyer was on the verge of discontinuing the sticker program, it would have made sense to substitute another Running Mare sticker, instead of printing up a fresh batch of correctly numbered ones. Her sticker is actually for the #121 Smoke, who had been discontinued by the end of 1970 anyway.

I have no actual evidence of an early release for the Roan Running Mare, though. The simplest explanation probably is the best one, here: Breyer (or the retailer) was just using up their old sticker stock.

Another Marney Mystery Model

Here’s another treasure from the same garage sale that produced my "unblue" Buckshot:


Neat, eh? In case you are unversed in early Breyer Action Stock Horse Foals, here’s what a standard, factory run Bay Pinto should look like:


Another example of what just a little black paint can do!

He was in a box with a small cohort of similarly painted ASHFs. I can’t remember the exact number - more than three, definitely less than ten. I rummaged through the box for the nicest example, and put him in my buy pile with the Buckshot.

Like the Buckshot, he’s another one of those unclassifiable creatures who passed through Marney’s hands. Were they culls she happened to rescue and touch up? Test colors? Or a variation that was considered for production?

I admit I rather like the notion that they were a variation considered for production. The timeline makes it a plausible idea: the mold was introduced in 1984, and I found and acquired him in 1985. There were all sorts of crazy things stashed in every nook and cranny of the old Chicago factory - often dating back several years - so it’s conceivable that they could have been tucked away in some forgotten corner for a mere year or so.

As with most Marney models though, I have no idea. They could have been mistakes, pulled from the production line before they were boxed for shipment. Maybe Marney had plans for these little ones that never came to fruition: intended as live show prizes, raffle or auction items, or gifts.

Or she could have had no input on these models at all. The Stock Horse Family may have been her "pet project" at Breyer, and she pretty much had free rein to do whatever she wanted at the factory, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she had any hand in these particular models. It’s just as likely that they were just another part of the debris she found while cleaning out the factory.

That garage sale was an overwhelming event for everyone involved, and I can’t recall if anyone else noticed the specialness of those Foals that day. (At least one other did survive, so I have my suspicions.) However, most of the items within Marney’s garage were considered bodies, so it’s possible that some of them were sacrificed on the altar of creativity.

Only time will tell.

Some Kind of Blue

I love watching shows about hoarders: there’s something fascinating about the psychology of persons insulating themselves from the world with massive amounts of stuff. I have a lot of stuff, too, but it’s all neatly organized and contained, and I don’t have any issues with purging things when I need to.

Part of the appeal of those shows for me is that I’m currently dealing with a semi-hoarding situation at home: not me, but my family members. It’s come to a head this week with a long-delayed home remodeling project that includes the space in which I work, and keep the larger part of my collection.

Everything in those two rooms has to be removed, and much stink is being made about how much "stuff" I have. The fact that the rooms now being used for storage were already packed to the ceiling with everyone else’s stuff is irrelevant: the mess is somehow all my fault.

It wouldn’t be so bad if the progress was so slow. There’s no impetus to get the job done in a timely fashion; the only person whose life is being severely impacted is mine, and apparently that’s completely okay with everyone else involved.

I’m not quite sure what to do with myself. If the next few weeks - or months - of posts have a more somber tone than usual, now you’ll know why. The one small physical domain where I had a small modicum of control is currently not in my control. And I’m not happy about it.

I may be feeling a bit blue, but this Buckshot isn’t:


The Buckshot mold debuted in 1985, the same year I found - and purchased - this intriguing horse from Marney, at her post-Congress garage sale. He’s probably a cull of the original release of Buckshot; he has all the characteristics of a #415 Buckshot, except that his distinctive blue-gray base color missing.

I presume he’s a cull, and not a test color, because of something you can’t see in the photograph, and something I can only describe to you due to my current technical difficulties: he has a blotchy, blobby blue dorsal stripe. It’s not unattractive or unrealistic, but it was enough to send him to reject bin, and from where Marney must have rescued him.

What I can’t answer is whether he was discarded "as-is," or if Marney found him in a less finished state, and completed the job. She did a lot of that; many culls could be made passable with a touch of black paint.

What’s intriguing about this "accidental" test color is that he may have been more influential than many an intentional one. Within a few years, we had a number of Breyer production pieces in this color, including the #830 Quarter Horse Stallion (on the Adios mold) and the 1989 JAH Special Quarter Horse Yearling.

Breyer usually described models with these paint jobs - both the gray/black, and the chestnut version that slightly preceded it - as roans. But depending on the size of the spots, or the scale of the horse, they were also labeled fleabitten grays, or even Appaloosas. It may not seem like a big deal now, but they represented a startling change of pace from the almost comical "big freckle" roans of the early 1970s.

The problem was that they were not really a good representation of any of those colors or coat patterns. I think most collectors realized that this new painting "style" was a transitional step towards more realistic roan, fleabitten gray, and Appaloosa paint jobs. As Breyer’s painting techniques improved, many of these models from the "light roan" era have been dumped into the fickle, saturated aftermarket.

More Loose Ends

Have you seen the train wreck that is today’s Daily Breyer entry on the Facebook page? Holy cow, that’s bad! They’ve had some doozies before, but I this one’s so wrong, it’s not even wrong. It’s wrong in a way that should win a prize for wrongness.

The Old Molds were not introduced until 1958, and the Stallion - who became the Family Arabian Stallion - didn’t arrive on the scene until (probably) 1959. Except that Saturday Night Fever pictured on Breyer’s Facebook page is actually the Proud Arabian Stallion, not a Family Arabian Stallion. And the PAS wasn’t officially released until 1971.

Seriously, how do you manage to confuse the Proud Arabian Stallion with the Family Arabian Stallion? Even my Mother can tell the difference, and her only involvement in the hobby is pretending not to dust my collection when I’m in Kentucky for ‘Fest!

I know in the grand scheme of things these details don’t matter that much, but researching the details of Breyer History is what I do in the hobby and for the hobby. It’s upsetting to see how little the company I research seems to care about getting its own history right.

There, I feel better now. Every once and a while you’ve got to get a rant out of your system, you know?

My schedule for the next couple of weeks looks a little rough, so I’ll spend the rest of my post today tying up some loose ends.

The Woodgrain Donkey pics in the surprisingly robust Donkey discussion thread are duly noted. I’ll probably categorize it as a Test, or part of a small SR of the Ranchcraft type. I still think a lot of hobbyists may be confusing sightings of the Red Mill Donkey for the Woodgrain one, though. I don’t know how rare the Red Mill Donkey is, but it’s certainly less so than a Breyer Woodgrain Donkey would be.

I also live by the motto "Trust, but verify." I’ve had way too many experiences with folks swearing that they heard, or saw, or owned something that turned out not to be what they thought it was. It’s a big problem, especially in the realm of Glossies, Chalkies and Tests; anything questionable of that nature needs an in-person inspection before I’m comfortable in declaring it authentic.

Yes, I am aware of the eBay auctions with the dumbbell stickers - and the insane prices that went with them! The nature and limited release of these stickers means that they’ll always be numerically rare, but $400 rare? I don’t know how long that price point will be sustainable. And I thought the $25 I spent on mine back in the 1990s was a bit high.

A lot of foofah was made on Blab over a report that a couple of Web Specials (Riley, and Summer Solstice) turned up at a hardware store somewhere in the Minnesota, at a slightly discounted price.

The Sales Rep in question probably had some discretion of throwing in some choice items from the warehouse to help close this particular deal; instead of older regular runs or special runs with larger piece counts, they just happened to be Web Specials. This sort of thing happens way more often than most hobbyists realize. Hobbyists don’t pay much attention when the items in question are more common; if they notice them at all, they just write them off as old store stock, and walk on by.

If they still have Summer Solstices and Rileys come June, I think the remainders will end up in the NPOD. Along with the remainder of the Dealer Special Autumns, Medalist Ponies, and whatever "gotta have it" model turns up between now and then. And who knows - maybe the leftover LSE Frankensteeds, too. (From what I’ve read, all of the LSE participants had a chance to buy one, and passed them by; seems only right that the rest of us mere mortals have a chance.)

More Treasure Hunt Madness

Well, the whole Treasure Hunt thingie went from zero to crazy in nothing flat, didn’t it?

It’s still a little too early to tell if this is just an early release of the now-standard Treasure Hunt variations, or something that will carry on throughout the year. My guess is that it’ll be a year-long thing, partly based on the fact that Breyer "primed the pump" in early December with that odd poll on their Facebook page that asked, ambiguously, "Glossy or Matte? Which will it be?"

Glossy or Matte what?

Well, now we know.

I’m not sure if I’ll be participating this year. I like the Othello mold well enough, but I need to resolve a few things around the house (time, space, money - the usual) before I start buying more Traditionals, especially ones as shelf-consuming as Othello. I’ll probably cave if I see a Gloss Summer in person. Or the Bay; he looks especially fine in that color, don’t you think?

I’m just glad they’re releasing him in colors other than Gray.

Have you noticed that certain molds seem to be afflicted by a certain lack of imagination in their color schemes? Othellos get the Gray treatment, the #58 Hanoverian always ends up some shade of Bay … and the poor #156 Haflinger mold, a dozen different variations of Chestnut or Palomino, including the newest UK Special!

On some molds it’s understandable that the color scheme is somewhat restricted. The vast majority of Lipizzans are gray, so it’s not surprising that the Classic Lipizzan always ends up that color, especially since the pose he’s in is almost breed-defining. (Though I think it's another mold that would look smashing in a simple, shaded bay.)

But the Othello or Haflinger molds? Not so neatly defined. I know a lot of hobbyists get annoyed that they have to resort to some odd crosses to make their OF showstring competitive. It doesn’t bother me so much, since the world is full of oddly colored and not-so-typey horses. Seems more realistic to me.

(People, too. According to my ethnic background, I’d be some sort of Belgian Partbred or Warmblood: Belgian + Polish + Hungarian! And from the hair color, a bay roan sabino one, at that.)

Like the rest of you, I’m curious to see what color "Winter" will be. I’m hoping for something a little more daring, like a Snowflake Appaloosa, or a Reverse Leopard Appaloosa - something that’ll look wintry, without having to resort to Gray. Again.

(I doubt many of us would object to a Gloss Charcoal. Including me.)