Another Swing ... and a Miss

While the rational argument would be to wait until they get to the wait list, I also know I’m not the kind of person who gets picked from wait lists, so I’m just going to get on with my life and declare myself Dugan-less.

It hurts a little more than I thought it would, but some of that may also be work-related.

In other news, the Silver Saddlebred went for what I would consider an irrationally high amount – north of $3000, which is more than what I typically spend on models in the course of a year (or two, sometimes three or four…)

Oddly, I’m more optimistic that I’ll someday find one of those Saddlebreds in the wild, as opposed to a Dugan. The Saddlebreds were distributed in such a way that they may genuinely show up in a garage sale, estate sale, or flea market someday. It may not be in the best condition if and when it gets found, but the possibility is there. And I’m not all that picky about condition.

Items that are distributed internally – within the hobby – tend to stay in the hobby. They may come up for sale more often, and are in better condition, but unless someone is desperate or just wants them gone, NOW, the markup tends to be significant enough to essentially render it unavailable to someone like me.

Sure, weird stuff happens – I certainly wasn’t expecting to find a Shannon and Excalibur at a local sale less than a half hour from my house, for instance – but I think I used up a couple year’s worth of model horse mojo on that find alone.

On an unrelated note, we’ve finally gotten another BreyerFest SR hint, which appears to be a Black or Dark Bay Forever Saige. The Blog blurb makes it obvious that she’s supposed to be a Namib Desert Horse, and not a Vlaamperd:

Our next Special Run pays tribute to Africa where herds of majestic feral horses run free through the desert.

Not what I thought they’d go with – Egypt is in Africa, and therefore (I thought) a fair justification to include a Weather Girl in the lineup – but it’s an interesting and creative choice.

I kinda like the Forever Saige’s slightly bratty attitude anyway, and I don’t share the currently fashionable disdain for black paint jobs, so she might be getting put on my buy list. Especially if her markings/detailing are interesting, and I can’t locate an at- or near-cost Premier Club Forever Saige.

Well, off to do something creative with my frustration for the next couple of days.

Dugan

Why yes, I am super-duper excited about the new Special Run Basset Hound Dugan, thanks for asking!

I have no idea how long this particular item has been in the works, but with all the mumbling I made here about not getting a Basset Hound SR as part of last year’s BreyerFest lineup, I’ve been walking around the house like a proud auntie, anyway.

I am not as excited about it (a) being a 40-piece Micro Run, and (b) being up for purchase-raffle. Items so oddly specific as a Gloss Black and Tan Basset Hound should just be straight-up for sale on a first-come, first-serve basis.

And I say that as someone who had to work late on Thursday, and most likely would have missed out if it had been. I’ve had good luck with Micro Runs in the past, so missing one wouldn’t have killed me (probably.)

But anyway, I’m not thrilled by the method of distribution because purchase-raffles on weird rarities like Dugan tend to encourage our more mercenary tendencies. It’s one thing to purchase and resell items from the open market, but doing so with direct sale items is an ethical gray area for me.

Though I am glad to see some hobbyists are marshaling their goodwill and trying to enter for the benefit of hobbyists other than themselves. I’ll play by the rules of the game and see how it turns out.

Dugan is the first “official” Special Run on the Basset Hound mold, and only the fourth official release of the mold ever, which includes the #325 Bloodhound, the #326 Basset Hound, and the #324 Chaser. There are a few Tests and Culls floating around – in fact, I think I saw a cull on eBay just a few weeks back – but they are not common.

However, those four releases would not constitute a complete collection: by my reckoning, you’d need at least three more dogs to do that.

Who are the other three?

The first is the American Interinsurance Exchange Basset Hound: the one with the little sign hanging around its neck by a chain. Although it was an aftermarket creation, they are common and plentiful enough that most avid Breyer Dog collectors consider it a semi-official SR anyway.

The second is a common but distinctive variation of the #326 Basset I like the call the “Sober” one: those are the standard Bassets that don’t have the droopy red eyeliner. As I am not able to pin it to any particular time or outlet, I consider them an incidental/accidental variation and not an intentional one. But like the Interinsurance Dog, it’s common enough – and distinctive enough – to merit inclusion on a want list.

The third is a little more difficult: it’s the Post-Production Special Run of the Bloodhound, made ca. 1970; I believe I wrote a post about his discovery back in May of 2009. These are basically Bloodhounds that were made, likely as a special order, a couple of years after the original Bloodhound was discontinued. It is primarily distinguished by having a USA mold mark, something the Regular Run Bloodhounds will not have; it wasn’t added to the mold until ca. 1970.

The color on those pieces may also be lighter and more Chestnut than Dark Brown, but I only have the one piece to go by, so it might not be a representative sample.

If you want to get real crazy, you could start adding even more variations – the #326 Basset ran from ca. 1969 through 1985, and being a largely hand-airbrushed paint job, subtle and not-so-subtle variations are numerous. Both the Bloodhound and the Basset come with Blue Ribbon Stickers, too, if you look hard enough.

I have quite a few – they were sort of a thing with me for a while, and for some strange reason I don’t think I ever got rid of a single one of them – but I hope I can make room for just one more.

The Marks of Larks

After pontificating about my disinterest in minor color or finish variations, I will now show you the kind of minor variations I do see fit to have in my collection:

 

No, it’s not the color that piqued my interest in these Rugged Larks - though the difference is a nice little bonus. What I find significant between the two: one has a mold mark, and the other does not. (BTW, yes, I did discuss the unmarked one before, here briefly.)

The mold mark is so small and slight that most hobbyists would consider it just as inconsequential - if not moreso - than the color. It’s a small, flat area with a copyright symbol and the words "BREYER REEVES" next to it. If you weren’t looking for it, you wouldn’t see it. (I’m not even going to try and photograph it!)

The model without the mold mark is, naturally, the earlier one; there’s even a third #450 Rugged Lark with yet another mold mark - the number 97, added to the mold when Lark was reissued in 1997. (That one I do not have. Yet.)

I consider minor mold variations to be far more significant - and interesting - than minor paint variations, because unlike paint jobs, the changes are intrinsic to the mold itself.

All models painted on a given day may look different, but all models molded on that same day are going to be structurally the same - unless there was a repair or tweak made to the mold that very day, mid-production. If you’re familiar with the injection molding process, you know that this is very unlikely.

Because they are not so easily or quickly modified, mold changes are traceable through time in a way that paint jobs are not. Even if the changes only involve the subsequent removal of an added mold mark, it can still leave evidence behind. Such as in the case of the early Sea Stars, which I’ve discussed in greater detail in an earlier post, here.

By tracking minor mold variations, we are able to more precisely date models of questionable origins, and discover "hidden" Special Runs and Reissues otherwise indistinguishable from Regular Runs, like my Bloodhound with the USA mold mark.

(The #325 Bloodhound was discontinued in 1968 - well before the addition of the USA mold mark ca. 1970!)

The fact that Reeves apparently has - or had - several skids worth of older bodies with earlier mold marks does complicate things, though I hope that our current standards of documentation will render the issue moot.

What’s scary here is not my obsession over mold marks, but the fact that I have four different Rugged Larks in my collection, even after the culling. I only culled a fifth because the BreyerFest SR The Lark Ascending has become something of a minor grail, and I wanted to make room, just in case.

Post Production Runs

I’ve covered this topic before in my Sampler, but I think it’s something worth covering here because - well, I think it’s interesting.

I’ve created the term "Post Production Runs" to cover cases of regular run models being put back into production after they were officially discontinued from the catalog. These models were more common in the 1960s, when Breyer was more accommodating to its customers and not as attentive about sending out updated price lists.

I came across this phenomenon when I purchased an unusual Breyer Bloodhound. There’s some controversy over the actual discontinuation date of this guy, but the records do seem to agree that he was gone before 1970, when most Breyer molds (but not all) received the USA mark. Theoretically, no Breyer Bloodhound should have the USA mark.


This one does.

I also have in my possession a mail order catalog from 1970 that features the Bloodhound. It’s not listed as a special or exclusive item - it’s just another one of many Breyer items listed for sale. I could have just chalked this up as a case of overstock being sold - except for the existence of my odd little fellow.

A Post-Production Run model would be, in most cases, indistinguishable from a regular run item; the only ways we could tell would be if there was (a) some documentation or (b) a change in the mold actually happened. Like this Bloodhound (possibly.)

As I hinted above, these probably happened more often in the 1960s, when Breyer wasn’t necessarily communicating with its customers on a timely basis. If a customer happened to order an item that just happened to be discontinued, I’m sure they just painted up the required batch per the order, provided they had the bodies available or the mold wasn’t already mothballed.

Most of the Ranchcraft lamp Woodgrains may fall into this category - although most of the Woodgrains used were regular run items, a lot of them appear to have been produced in the late 1960s, after the original discontinuation date. The most telling clue in the Ranchcraft case is the existence of Woodgrain Running Mare and Foal lamps with USA marks: in their original release, the Woodgrain Mare and Foal were discontinued at the end of 1965 - five years before the molds received the USA mark!

(Some of the Ranchcraft Woodgrains, though, are true special runs. And there’s some question as to whether all the lamps are classifiable as true special runs. I’ll get to that another time, though.)

There may have been a Wal-Mart post production run of the Matte Gray Appaloosa Family Arabians, too. It was a persistent rumor I heard in the 1980s, though I was never able to prove or disprove it. I did think it was interesting that the Matte Gray Appaloosa Family Arabians with USA marks seemed a little more common than they should have been. It leads me to think that some of the ones that were distributed through Bentley Sales might have been the cast offs of an aborted special run. (Don’t take it as gospel truth, though!)

In the 1970s, Breyer did bring back some discontinued items after a year or so, but I tend to classify them as regular runs, since they appear in the official catalogs. (The scuttlebutt I heard was that they had excess stock of these items in the warehouse, and putting them back in the catalog was a way of generating enough orders to move them out. I’m not sure if I believe the explanation, but that’s what I heard.)

I’ve called these items "Post production specials" before - a slightly different distinction that upon further reflection I’m not entirely comfortable with. Calling them "special runs" is not completely incorrect - they meet two of the three criteria I’ve set - but most of these items are intentionally indistinguishable from their regular run cohorts. I wouldn’t doubt that most serious collectors have at least one or two hidden in their collection, right now.

You’ll never know, of course, unless you can find that little difference that makes all the difference. Like in the case of my Bloodhound.