Dapple Grays, Real and Imaginary

First up, I’d be remiss to not mention that Frosty, brother of Flurry is now available - the Classics Shire in his Head Down mold variation, aka Shire Mold B. In other words, pretty much exactly what I was asking for last year when they released Flurry!

Alas, he’ll have to wait until I sell a few more horses and pay off a few more bills. With the sheer number of Special Offers and Special Runs we’ve been dealt over the past month, I suspect a lot of my fellow hobbyists are in the same boat.

There’s another set of recent Special Runs that, to my surprise, haven’t turned up yet in any great quantity online are the 2014 WEG Specials. Seen here:

http://www.normandy2014.com/news/630/the-breyer-company-becomes-an-official-licensee

There are 500 pieces each of the four Classics:

• Alabaster Ruffian
• Red Chestnut Johar
• Black Warmblood Mare
• Bay QH/Frolic Stallion

And (allegedly) 750 pieces each of the four Stablemates:

• Flaxen Chestnut G2 Morgan
• Black G3 Warmblood
• Bay G4 Driving Horse
• Alabaster G2 Warmblood

And an unspecified number of Commemorative Blankets.

Aside from the Special Run overload, the overseas location (France), the selection of molds (Classics and Stablemates) and the palette of colors (conservative, non-spotted colors) may be tempering enthusiasm in the U.S. as well.

Supposedly they are only going to be available at WEG 2014, but the WEG 2010 leftovers were eventually made available to nonattendees primarily via Grab Bags. I'm not counting on a repeat of that scenario, though: there are still several days to go before the event ends, and Grab Bags have evolved into something else entirely since then.

If leftovers do become available to us at some point, I’d like to get one Classics piece and one Stablemates, primarily for the (very attractive!) packaging. I have no particular preferences on the molds, though if I had a choice I’d definitely pick the Classics Ruffian - the closest I’ll probably ever get to the near-mythical Dapple Gray Ruffian.

I say near-mythical because there was at least one sold via Marney in the early 1980s, on that legendary sales list that also featured the Appaloosa Proud Arabian Stallion:

The other 199 that supposedly exist probably don’t; there may be a handful more, only because Tests then (and now) were rarely unique. What I suspect was going on there was a miscommunication between Marney and Peter Stone, or Marney and someone else at the factory she might have talked to about it.

If 200 pieces had been created, some would have shown up by now. There were a lot of 200-piece or fewer Specials released back then: it was almost the standard piece run for SRs in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While many of them are difficult to come by now, they are not impossible as long as you have either the time or money to spare.

I've been looking for that Dapple Gray Ruffian for a very, very long time.

I think it’d be awesome, by the way, if Reeves offered a Dapple Gray Traditional Ruffian at some point in the Vintage Club program, a la Mr. Chips. It would be a nice nod to the Dapple Gray Ruffian rumors, plus I think the Traditional Ruffian mold would look fabulous in it. Either Gloss or Matte would be fine, I don’t care, as long as it's in the same style as the Dapple Grays of the late 1970s and early 1980s: wild and crazy!

Just not for the next few months, though. Everyone's bank accounts would appreciate it!