Black Man o’ Wars

Well, I spent a couple of hours looking through those art archives post on the Breyer web site, and now I have diorama ideas. The only good thing about most of them is that I already have suitable bodies in my body box in the event that I, at the last minute inevitably, decide that I need to participate. 

The seed issue has also been resolved. Or at least the seed company has said it will be. So that’s another worry off my mind.

But now there is this situation: 

It’s not ****** likely I’ll be able to afford the one now on eBay. So when I am not busy doing other things this week (ones that will mercifully occupy both my waking and slumbering hours) I’ll be alternately weeping or cursing to myself in my underground office bunker.

Most of the stuff I’ve been interested in recently falls into that category. Part of the reason is because I have largely run out of cheaper and/or easier-to-get things, but a lot of it is because prices took an extremely sharp upturn over the past several months and have put things well beyond my (not quite as modest as it used to be) reach. 

This is fine most of the time, because I own too much stuff anyway and money is better spent on more mundane and practical things, like car payments and garden mulch. But this one is actually a Pretty Big Deal for me, so watching it fly out of my reach a couple hours into the auction itself is kinda depressing.

The thing is – contrary to what the auction claims – is that there are several Traditional Black Man o’ Wars known to be in circulation, and that one is unlikely to be a BreyerFest Auction Test Piece, regardless. It’s more likely to be a Test Color from the early 1980s, of which a small undefined number were made, most of which appear to have gray hooves, a masked star, and black halters with metallic gold trim.

The Solid Black one shown above comes from Marney’s Big Book of Test Colors, and is probably just a random piece that Marney either found in the Chicago factory or finished herself, sometime in the early 1980s. He has no gray hooves, no star, and no additional detailing. 

Decent Body found in a scrap or cull bin + quick solid black paint job = hello, Test Color! 

(Side note: this is how most of the fabled Solid Black Adioses came to be. Among other things.)

One of the reasons I selected a Test Color Black Man o’ War as one of my Test Color grails is because there are a lot of them out there. Solid Black ones, ones made from Black Plastic, fancy ones with gray hooves and stars, and probably a few other variations none of us have dreamed of yet. 

(Well, okay, I have dreamed of a Glossy Dappled Black Traditional Man o’ War just recently. In light of Lafayette, I was just thinking that Glossy Dappled Black is the new Glossy Dark Bay, and daydreaming ensued.)

Anyway, it was my hope that one of these many Black Man o’ Wars would show up at the right time and right place and the price wouldn’t be so high that I’d find myself desperately digging in couch cushions for spare change or pulling aluminum cans out of the trash bins at the local park for deposits.

Today is not that day, obviously. I can only hope that the next one doesn’t generate as much irrationally exuberant bidding.