Monday, January 27, 2014

Almost Like The Real Thing

My schedule is continuing to be uncooperative, as is the weather. And the body: it did its best to catch up on Saturday with all the sleep I lost during the week. Caffeine can only take you so far, apparently.

But I did make a little progress on Levi - I opened the outer box, but the inner box will have to wait until my next truly free moment, which should be…late Wednesday? I’ll be so glad when this January is over.


As far as what I can see, so far - so good! The box isn’t an exact replica of the White Boxes of old - it’s not shrink wrapped, and it’s made of higher quality materials. But in every other regard, looking at it makes me feel like I’m a 12 years old at Circus World again, trying to decide between the Belgian, the Yellow Mount, or that neat new San Domingo.

(Took me forever - until last year, actually - to find just the right Yellow Mount, but I am still without a worthy San Domingo. This year, perhaps.)

If you're curious, the iconic Breyer display font is called Neil Bold, and it’s not too hard to find a legitimate copy nowadays. I tried locating one a few years ago, but I could only find the knockoff versions in those "1001 Fonts!" collections you’d find at the dollar store. I don’t know if it was a question of rights or lack of coolness that kept the real thing from getting digitized until recently, but I’m glad it’s available now for our graphic designing pleasure.

http://www.identifont.com/similar?2EEN

Oh, the T-shirt possibilities!

In case you were wondering, yes, I did have a little bit of input into this year’s Vintage Club offerings. The Powers-That-Be asked for some opinions and suggestions, and I offered some. Well, actually, a lot. (Others were asked too, I am guessing. I am not the only Breyer History Nerd out there, just the most vocal one.)

Some of what I asked for came to pass, particularly the boxes and ephemera. I am glad that the response to those improvements has been very positive. It gives me some reassurance that I know what I am doing, at least some of the time.

That’s something everybody could use, model horses or otherwise. (Speaking of: Miss Susan - nice job on the Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt top! Not quite brave enough myself to do a hexi quilt just yet.)

It will be interesting to see what, if any, of my other suggestions get implemented.

4 comments:

Corky said...

I'm so glad they decided to go with the old-style boxes! I'm a packaging geek too, and I love the illustrations and the font and the oh-so-1970s design. I too have fond memories of seeing scads of those boxes and trying to decide on just the right horse to take home with me.

Anonymous said...

The one thing that I wish they could reproduce in the Vintage Club models is that "new model" smell that Breyers used to have! The paint they use now, just does not have the same smell of years ago!!

Anonymous said...

I got mine at the Ace Hardware, and they took all of the horses out of the boxes to display them on the shelf. This made it much nicer, because you could touch the horses, but also more problematic, because people, usually grownups with no sense of PRIORITIES, would bump them off of the shelves.

Truson said...

Hmmm...how about a VC Club Showcase edition of one of the VC Club models?