Bandit and Kohana

Funny how the flea market season ends, and things only seem to get busier around here!

I found two more of the lightly dappled Hwins at another store in the same chain I bought my original Hwin in; I left them there because, alas, I’ve been cruising eBay quite a bit over the past couple of weeks to do “research”, and the fun money fund is a little depleted.

I might take a trip to the third easily accessible one tomorrow to confirm my hunch that this chain struck gold again, getting a higher-than-normal average of the lightly dappled variations in their shipments.

On Thursday I’ll swing by another store I know has some leftover Markuses, just because I’ll be in the neighborhood and I want to look.

And sometime this week I might be picking up a few pieces off Craigslist.

Since I’m feeling a bit under the weather today, here’s another picture of another BreyerFest find this year – the Bandit and Kohana set from 2002:

They were in a box that was literally dumped in front of me in the Ninja Pit Saturday afternoon – though not intentionally or for me specifically. I think.

(Reeves has more recent pictures of me than my friends or family do, so I have a not-completely-paranoid suspicion that everyone there already knows who I am and what I look like.)

It may come as a bit of a surprise, considering how popular those two molds are today (especially the Wolf!) but the Bandit and Kohana set didn’t sell all that well when it was released as a BreyerFest Special Run back in 2002.

The Special Run lineup was pretty star-studded that year – including two Porcelain Stablemates, a Glossy Buffalo, and a Silver – so they sort of got lost in the shuffle.

It did not help that the Companion Animal line had only been introduced in 1999. While we were certainly thrilled to have a line of true Traditional-scaled animals back then, it was probably a bit too soon to throw a BreyerFest Special Run set at us in 2002.

This year, one of the briskest selling items at BreyerFest was the Store Special Dally and Spanky Set, featuring a Companion Animal Jack Russell Terrier. It had the same number of pieces (750) but sold out by shortly before they tossed the long leftover Bandit and Kohanas on the table – in the empty spot where the Dally and Spanky Sets used to be, in fact!

I thought that was pretty funny. How the times change...

Bay Shetland Ponies

I have to say that I’ve been impressed with Reeves doing the daily (during the workweek) posts on their BreyerFest blog. Way to step up the game, guys!

My only concern is that at the pace they are going through material, I might find myself either the subject or illustration to a post. The latter is much more likely than the former, since I’ve actually found pictures of myself on their web site multiple times. (They have more pictures of me than my family does, I think!)

But anyway, back to the Dally and Spanky set:

Cute! And again, not entirely unexpected, since they were mentioned on the web site as guests.

I have mixed feelings about it: I’m glad the Merrylegs mold is not being used for this – that mold’s tippy ways vex me so! – but I’m not sure I am up for another Matte Bay Shetland Pony, either. It is significantly different than the original #23 Bay release, though. From the 1973 Collector’s Manual:

And it does have a Jack Russell in a kerchief. Darn it Reeves, stop making it so hard to decide!

The Matte Bay Shetland Pony is one of the most common and ubiquitous of Breyer releases, having been in production from 1973 through 1988. Everyone has one, or has had one at some point.

I’ve had several, though none of them have “stuck”: like the Palomino Western Prancing Horse, I just haven’t found the right one yet.

Even though she’s probably the most common Shetland Pony release ever, the Matte Bay was a relative latecomer: the mold itself debuted ca. 1959/1960, in Gloss Alabaster, Gloss Black Pinto, Gloss Brown/Palomino Pinto, and possibly Gray Appaloosa (either as an obscure Special Run, or an extremely short or cancelled Production Run like the Buckskin Running Mare and Foal).

Gloss Bay was a vital part of the Breyer color repertoire in the early 1960s, so it is a bit of a mystery why we never saw a Gloss Bay Shetland Pony. It might have been proposed, but for whatever reason they decided against it producing it.

Not flashy enough? Lukewarm response from the sales reps? Dunno.

The #23 Bay was in production long enough to generate a number of unique variations: Chalky is the best-known, but it also came in a Solid/No Bald Face variation, a four stocking variation, and in every color in the Bay rainbow from light reddish to dark bay-brown.

There was a really pretty bright Red Bay variation on eBay that had been tempting me for a few weeks, until someone else (whew!) bought her.

Grimalkin

The weather is not cooperating, again. Wet, wet, wet - the ground is positively gooey at this point. No flooding yet, but I wouldn’t rule it out if it keeps going the way it’s going. Sigh. At least I had the foresight to get a little indoor rummaging in before the weekend:


The Westies will probably go on the saleslist (the Sherratt & Simpson one is really tempting), but I’m keeping the little Moomin plate. I couldn’t believe I found it at the Salvation Army for 49 cents! A heavily-trafficked one in a hoity-toity neighborhood, no less! The fools!

(Oh yes, I know what Moomins are. You should know by now not to be surprised that I do.)

Since I’m not a big fan of being rained on, I took a break from gardening and finally started working on the BreyerFest stuff. The sales items have been priced and tagged, the paperwork templates have been prepped, and the jotting down of random ideas for the Sampler has begun.

I’ve also determined that nothing in my body box will be suitable for my contest entry. (Of course.) I took a spin over to one of the local stores earlier this week, to price items I may have to buy for it (at retail - the horror!) I was already in the neighborhood for work, figured I might as well take a look-see.

I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I did spend a lot of time admiring that adorable ASPCA set - the one with the Liver Chestnut Ranch Horse, Lab mix and Lynxpoint Kitty. I managed to resist the temptation, but it did get me to thinking about the Sham.

I am going to assume that most of you know that when the Sham was first sculpted, plans were made to also include his feline companion, Grimalkin, to scale. It didn’t work out - it just wasn’t feasible or cost-effective to produce a cat mold that small back then - but one of the prototype kitties did make it into some of the promo materials, including here in the 1984 Dealer Catalog:


Grimalkin was one of the first things that sprung to mind when the Companion Animals were released in 1999. I’ve been waiting for a rerelease of the original Sham, with Grimalkin, ever since.

Yeah, they came out with a "new" Sham in 2005, on the Huckleberry Bey mold. He’s nice and all, but I’d still like to see a release of the set as he was meant to be - on the original mold, in a true golden bay, with his little kitty compadre.

I don’t know why Breyer decided to go with such a funky red hue on Sham back then, when author Marguerite Henry had gone in such detail about the "golden" qualities of Sham’s coat. A couple dozen Golden Bay Shams were eventually made, mostly to appease Sham’s sculptor, Rich Rudish. And several test color examples, including this one I picked up on eBay some time ago:


There seem to be quite a few of these "test" Golden Bays out there, but as I’ve discussed before, a lot of them are the product of wishful thinking than fact.