Rushmore Zippo

Wow, there’s been a lot of Breyer activity the past few days! Let’s just focus on the one that’s most interesting to me – the latest Test Color Purchase Raffle, a Dappled Bay Roan Zippo Pine Bar:

Often it’s hard to see why a Test Color was done; in many instances, there was no specific goal in mind, other than experimentation for experimentation’s sake. But in the case of this Zippo (as with the previous Flaxen Chestnut Stud Spider) it’s clearly the antecedent to a specific production run: the BreyerFest 2007 Special Run Rushmore, on the Smarty Jones mold.

The web site’s copy about it being “one of the tests that inspired the Burbank Nakota Appaloosa model for the Velvet Rope Collector Event in 2008” was clearly written by someone with only a passing familiarity with Breyer History.

Yes, it’s technically correct, but it is more obviously and directly connected to the BreyerFest Special Run than the Burbank. Except for the absence of the snip, he’s a near-exact match, and came out the year before!

In fact, him being the clear ancestor of the Rushmore is a big reason why I want him in the first place.  All Test Colors are awesome, but I reserve a special place in my heart for Test Colors that obviously led to widely-available (1000+ piece) Production Run items.

Another plus: if I do win him (unlikely, but still a tiny possibility) it won’t be difficult to get a matching Rushmore; barring a lottery-level miracle, a Burbank will never happen for me.

And also I would like to give a big, gigantic “ARGH” to the misspelling of Nokota, which is one of my biggest pedantic hobby pet peeves, right up there with “hobbiest”, “filagree” and “defiantly” (for definitely).

But to end on a slightly more cheerful note….

One really fascinating thing about the Zippo Pine Bar mold: did you know he was designed to be an “easy” model to mold? There are no undercuts that require special gating or tooling, and no special add-ons or take-aways that could complicate the molding process.

The simpler the mold, the cheaper it is to produce. Having a mold like that around helps mitigate the cost of some of the more flamboyant or labor-intensive molds.