Small Disappointments

Something short today: I have to switch back over to a daytime schedule for a couple of weeks, and I’m trying to adjust my sleep patterns back to something closer to normal this weekend. (I’m not keen on this development, but I’ve been told – and pinkie-sworn – that this is only temporary. If not, lengthy discussions will be had with HR.)

The last official BreyerFest box has arrived – the swag – and I opened it the day I got it (really!) hoping for an extra magnet, but my hopes were in vain. Everything else was present and accounted for – including the “Team Matte” and “Team Glossy” magnets I ordered – but an extra, undamaged freebie magnet was not there. 

I should be happy that I even got one at all, but still. Just another small disappointment in the series of small disappointments that was this year’s BreyerFest. 

I have also decided that if I am lucky enough to be able to participate in the Leftovers Sale, I am not going to be picky about what available, and just get whatever I can get. I can worry about the possibility of duplicates later, and as necessary. 

It’s time to move on from all of this and look forward something else. Anything else: read some books, finish some quilts, and tinker with the handful of customs I have littering my office…

For instance, I have been having some particular fun sorting out my mostly minor issues with the Standing Stock Horse Foal. I say mostly minor, because Hess was a better sculptor than most hobbyists give him credit for, especially when it comes to Stock breeds, and many of the faults were largely due to the limitations of the medium. 

But to gently shift ourselves back to history mode, here’s a photo of one of the lesser-known surprise variations from the late 1990s, back when Reeves was toying with the idea of tossing scarce and intentional variations in with the Regular Run merchandise being shipped to stores:

The Gloss Black Proud Arabian Foal and Solid Bay Huckleberry Bey are the better-known examples from this program, but the four-sock variation of the Blue Roan #735 Paso Fino, on the El Pastor mold, is a more affordable piece. I lucked into mine on eBay in 2003 for not much above the original issue price, presumably because he was neither an Arabian nor Glossy. 

They’ve since repeated this program in slightly different forms, on releases like the Glossy Solid Bay Giselle and Gilen set GG Valentine and Heartbreaker. Although the initial prices for the Glossy sets were a little crazy, once it was determined that the Glosses were a (more or less) one in six variation, the prices stabilized somewhat. 

Perhaps Reeves can use this example as a way forward with future BreyerFest Surprises, announced or otherwise.

Making Plans

The latest Test Color Online Purchase Raffle Ruffian looks more like the 2016 Early Bird Raffle Model Polomar on the Smarty Jones mold than it does the 2011 Early Bird Raffle Model Perrault to me.

I really, really wanted Polomar. So I’ll enter for this girl and hope for the best, even though they’ve upped the price to $1000 now, instead of the measly $850 they were charging before.

(Yes, it’s entirely possible for both models to have been inspired by the same thing, sure.) 

And I’d gladly keep anything that rare I have the good fortune to win. Because that doesn’t happen to me nearly as much as some of you think I do. (Outside of eBay, lately. And thank goodness for that.) 

Because of the shifted deadlines with the virtual event I’m now in full BreyerFest panic mode. Let’s just say things are not going as well as I had hoped?

At least I think I now have all the supplies I’ll absolutely need now. No more wild goose chases for… stuff.

Anyway, here’s the situation with my BreyerFest plans:

Selling: I don’t have that much to sell this year; I’ve been selling stuff online since late February, the flea markets and thrift stores haven’t been open, and I haven’t had the time to go through the collection to look for potential sales fodder, either. Anything I do have for sale I’ll upload to eBay, MH$P, and maybe even a dedicated web page by Thursday night, with all the appropriate links.

Sampler: I also hope to have this up by Thursday night. More on this later, as it’s currently on hold pending a couple other projects.

Official BreyerFest Activities: As far as I know, I am not scheduled for anything special during the three-day weekend. This could change, but I’m not counting on it, either.

Unofficial BreyerFest Activities: I had thought I could do a mini-BreyerFest at home, or even a Zoom Meet-and-Greet or Q & A, but I simply haven’t had the time to set anything up. If anyone wants to help set that up for me – I’m going to be available the entire BreyerFest weekend, so scheduling is not an issue – send me an e-mail.

If anyone wants to just come over and do a tour of my collection, shoot the breeze and eat frozen lemonades, that’s cool too. Vita loves company!

Personal BreyerFest Activities: I don’t know if I’m going to do any of the tutorials – again, not much time to spare here – but I’ll definitely be online in the “BreyerFest” space for a big portion of the day. Doing whatever there is to do, I suppose, aside from shopping and watching demonstrations. Maybe hang out in the Collector’s Club Virtual Tent?

I think that’s it for today?

Oh! I see there is some consternation in the comments about the changes that happened with the Quarter Horse Gelding. I have covered this before, but I will cover it again next time because it’s a neat thing I think every Breyer Nerd needs to know about.

Moving On

Figures: I buy a bunch of seeds in hopes of maybe getting a few direct-sowers in the ground ASAP, and of course it has to snow. Well, the beds do need a bit more cleaning up, and I have to finally finish up my taxes anyway…

The latest America the Beautiful Web Special, Bandelier has all the makings of a model that I’d want, but for some reason I keep forgetting to enter for him.

I guess I am hesitant to add another higher-end, lower production run El Pastor to the herd, no matter how pretty he might be. It’s for entirely personal reasons: I’ve had an Escondido on my sales list for a couple of years with hardly a looky-loo thrown its way, and it’s been bothering me.

The model itself is perfectly fine, but I have had a difficult time looking at him ever since the disappointment of not winning the Diorama Contest Sona in 2017 hit me harder than I thought it would.

(And it didn’t help that last year at BreyerFest it felt like literally every other 12-year-old girl picked him up in hopes of him being Sona, only to plunk him back down a hot moment later. Sigh.)

The next couple of weeks are going to be a bit on the expensive side for me (taxes, BreyerFest tickets, et al) so it’s probably for the best if I just move along and forget all about the El Pastor mold for a while.

However, I was able to find cheaper, less emotionally-fraught thrills on Friday: the Walmart Horse Crazy Singles!

I attribute finding them less to luck, skill or persistence and more to the fact that everyone else has since gotten their fill and moved on to the next latest, hottest thing, whatever that is. In this case, I’m okay with that, since it works to my advantage.

What’s interesting about the selection of molds they used here is that it shows that Reeves really does have some idea of who their Stablemates “heavy hitters” are, sans the mini Alborozo.

The only one of the four that doesn’t completely float my boat is the G3 Thoroughbred: as I’ve said before, his proportions are more cartoonish than I prefer, and I am not crazy about his long ears.

I wasn’t thrilled when they put last year’s One-Day Stablemates release of the Ruffian on this mold; as a result of my hesitation, the mold’s inexplicable (to me) popularity has made my acquisition of one a completely moot point for me. And being Glossy Dark Bay. And being a portrait of Ruffian. It was a dumb mistake on my part, I confess...

(Though seriously: the last one I saw sold on eBay for $125: that’s almost the same amount of money I sold my last spare Hermes for. And they only made 75 of him!)

I do like the paint job on the new Walmart release, though – it’s not your typical generic “overo” pinto paint job, and I think it complements the mold pretty well. (FYI: of the four, the Rivet is my favorite, only because the shading on him is amazing.)

Forgotten Things

I’ve set out a huge task for myself this week – cleaning up the office! – so the next few posts will probably be a bit on the short side, as I hack my way through mountains of models and paperwork.  

Today I’ll wrap a couple more bits of nearly forgotten BreyerFest business... 

First, here are some of the lovely little tokens given to me at ‘Fest this year. The Latin textbook (yes, I collect such things) was from Linda Walter. For my fellow old farts out there, yes, she’s THAT Linda Walter:

Second, here’s a nice little CHIN find that I was surprised to find late Saturday night:

It’s an early No-Star version of the El Pastor! He was pretty cheap, too. He’s very similar to the Ratliff Farm Special Run Paso Fino issued ca. 1987 – the color on the SR is a little more brown than red, and it is missing the USA mold mark. 

Another important difference: the Ratliff Paso Finos still command decent prices, whenever they do come up for sale. (There were only 100 of them, so it’s not often.) While the fortunes of the No-Star variation of the standard El Pastor have apparently fallen considerably. To the point where I could get one for not much more than body price – at BreyerFest!

I would have thought that – in a year with an El Pastor prize model (Diorama prize Sona) – a relatively rare El Pastor like this would have gotten noticed and snapped up before I noticed him.

Then again, it does seem to take a while for the market to catch up – it took about a year for interest in the Western Prancing Horses to begin to rise, in the wake of the Vintage Club Lucky release. 

So I’ll just chalk this up as me getting ahead of the curve, again. 

Going for the Gold

FYI: I don’t know any more about the Man o’ War Special Run than anyone else. Classic or Traditional? Plastic or Porcelain? New mold, or old? Lower piece count, or higher?

My guesses: Traditional, Plastic, piece count of at least 500 – though probably more, if the KHP is already “advertising” it. It may even be something open-ended (reorderable), if they intend on selling them through the rest of the Man o’ War Celebration.

I have about a dozen variations of the original #47, so I’d be perfectly fine with another gussied-up Reissue. Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me, just as long as I get one.

Speaking of Reissues, there’s the Diorama Prize to talk about….

I know I’m not the only one who took at look at Sona and thought “Hey, isn’t that Tesoro?”

The original, inexplicably popular (to me) #867 Tesoro was a garden variety Breyer palomino, right down to the four airbrushed stockings and gray hooves. In an era when an average release would get two years, Tesoro got four – from 1992 through 1995.

I like the El Pastor well enough that at one point I ended up with at least a half dozen variations of the original Red Bay release, and I have several others – a couple of the Blue Roans, Escondido, the Black Pinto Desperado, the rare Raitliff no-star Special Run among them.

But never the Tesoro, because he held no appeal to me – in fact, he felt like just another generic release in an era of Breyer History chocked full of them.

Clearly, I was in the minority.

Sona is not really a Reissue, literally or even technically: his markings are different, his mane and tail are pearly, and he’s dappled. And he’s likely to be even more different in person than the publicity picture shows: since his name means “gold”, I suspect that he will also be a bit more metallic in person.

I wish I could get more excited about him, but he’s a prize in the Diorama Contest.  I’ll give it my best shot and dutifully craft an entry I feel prize-worthy, but I’m not going to clear any shelf space in anticipation, either.

No Star Halla

So here’s one of the newest beauties I was alluding to – the No-Star variation of the Halla! She wasn’t a high-priority want, but she was still definitely a want! She is not perfect-perfect, but is still pretty darn nice. (The face speckles are house paint.)

And you gotta love those “black to the belly” points and the shaded ventral stripe/windpipe! Just goes to show that some of the weird painting/shading tics we complain about now (like Three-Sock Tobianos) are part of a long history of Breyer painterly weirdness.  

The No-Star Halla was the first/earliest variation of the Halla, and is even featured on the White Picture and Brown Picture boxes. I’m not sure why it was originally omitted: my best guess is that like the El Pastor, whatever references Breyer was using didn’t include detailed head shots.

The primary (perhaps only?) reference that was used to sculpt Halla was a photo featured in M. A. Stoneridge’s Great Horses of Our Time:

It is a near spot-on likeness, too! Other than the front legs – corrected in Hess’s sculpt – and the just barely visible star, which I can easily imagine getting overlooked.

Breyer caught on to the mistake quickly, no doubt corrected by a small tide of letters from nerdy horse girls who knew all about the legendary Halla:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQKu0ikGero

(FYI: The video linked to is in German.)

The No-Star version is fairly uncommon. She was a somewhat sought after piece during my live showing days (pre-BreyerFest), but it wasn’t so much her rarity as her shading and detailing that made her a must-have. The paint job on my new girl here was fairly typical of this variation: if you wanted a “nice” Halla for your showstring, this was the kind you were looking for!

The mold itself has fallen somewhat out of favor in recent years, replaced by more dynamic and/or aesthetically pleasing hunter/jumpers. With the diminishment of her fortunes, the knowledge and interest of this once sought after variation has largely faded, as well.

I was rather surprised how inexpensive my newest darling turned out to be – especially since she came with a similarly rare/weird variation I’ll get to next time.

Peeling Away

Well, the stuff I had wasn’t working so great on the rash, so I had to take a trip to Urgent Care yesterday to get something stronger - a shot in the tuches and some nasty-tasting medication. I’m already feeling better; luckily for me, I have an extremely efficient metabolism when it comes to drugs.

(Almost too efficient, actually: I used to think it was because I was very fond of grapefruit juice, but cutting them out of my diet didn’t help one way or another. Fortunately, I have a couple of days off here to deal with any additional weirdness that may come up.)

Yes, purple horse is awesome. Normally I’d already have it stripped and evaluated by now, but I really am taken by the idea of incorporating him, as-is, into a Joseph Cornell-style assemblage. Here are a couple of links to give you an idea of what I’m talking about, if the name still doesn’t ring a bell:

http://www.josephcornellbox.com/

By collecting and carefully juxtaposing found objects in small, glass-front boxes, Cornell created visual poems in which surface, form, texture, and light play together. Using things we can see, Cornell made boxes about things we cannot see: ideas, memories, fantasies, and dreams.

And also (warning: the text here is a bit overripe - a common problem in art history writing):

http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=48419

The Family Foal that needed to be stripped already is; the paint job underneath is rough enough that I’m considering stripping it to the bare plastic for research purposes. You can see so much more of the molding history of a model once the distraction of the paint job is eliminated, and as I’ve discussed before, the Family Foal has an fascinating and complex history of mold revisions.

The chance of finding a true factory original blank of this vintage is very, very slim, and the painted versions are just common enough to not bother me "destroying" one. Not in the same way I get squicked out by some hobbyists going to town on limited release models that haven’t been released as regular runs yet.

Someone wanted to see the "Neiman Marcus" Longhorn, and here he is:


Just a #384 Texan Longhorn Bull with his brand marks removed, and a Neiman Marcus logo handpainted on (in black enamel). It’s not real obvious in the picture, but it’s very obvious in person. It’s another excellent example of why you shouldn’t base you buying decisions solely on photographs. As someone who was once considered an expert-level user of Photoshop, take it from me: you should be very wary of trusting any online photographs, period.

(Note: I try to keep my digital manipulation to a minimum here - basically to compensate for my complete and somewhat ironic lack of actual photography skills. I'll lighten for detail or contrast, color correct to compensate for inadequate lighting, or add a little extra sharpening for my shaky hands.)

And which is also why I’m rolling my eyes at the kerfuffle on Blab over the photographs of the Fall Release of the Rocky Mountain Horse on El Pastor. How many times do we have to go over this? Fact: we have known for years that we can’t trust the photographs Reeves puts out ahead of their releases. If it’s not quality of the photo, it’s the quality of the editing.

I saw the actual, three-dimensional sample of the Rocky Mountain Horse at BreyerFest, and I thought he was beautiful. In fact, I think he was the only item on the table on Thursday that made me make "grabby hands" motions. Looked just like that Collector’s Choice Chocolate Ethereal, except for the absence of gloss. If they look like that, and I find a nice one at the same semi-local farm store where I found those Zenyattas, it’s coming home with me. This is coming from someone who’s not really "in the market" for current regular runs.

Time to lotion myself up and hit the sack.

Family Arabian Foal: Expatriate?

I’ve spent my spare time this week mostly working on my research note pile. Ah, I had forgotten that most of these notes were the hard, crunchy bits that required additional research and cross-referencing and all that jazz. So progress has been a little slower than anticipated: one page of notes that should take an hour or so to process turns into a three or four hour ordeal.

One interesting little bit I rediscovered in my notes was a speculation I made about the Family Arabian Foal: the FAF might have been among the handful of molds slated to travel to Mexico!

What is the evidence that I base this speculation on? The appearance - and quick disappearance - of the USA mold mark, long before a single mold was shipped to China.

Now, the Family Arabian Foal has one of the most complicated molding histories of any Breyer mold. From the number of subtle - and not so subtle - mold changes I’ve been able to document on the FAF, it seems like it was being almost perpetually tinkered with.

I attribute most of the tinkering to the fact that the mold saw a lot of use: the Family Arabians were the "work horses" of the Breyer line in the 1960s and early 1970s, with the Foal being the most popular of the trio, by far. While some of the changes to the Foal’s ears were done to fix a problem inherent in the original design, most of the other changes were incurred during periodic cleaning and maintenance.

Around 1970 most - but not all - Breyer molds then in production had the "USA" mark added, presumably to satisfy the requirements of international trade law. Among the molds that received the mark was the Family Arabian Foal.

But it didn’t have it for long. Sometime between 1970 and 1982, the FAF’s USA mark disappeared.

The laws requiring the addition of the country of origin had changed by the mid-1970s but Breyer, for the most part, didn’t do anything to remove the marks that had already been added. The molds that had the USA mold mark kept them until recently - basically when all those molds were finally shipped to China.

With two notable exceptions: the Family Arabian Foal - and the El Pastor. El Pastor had his mark removed because he was among the contingent of molds that were sent to Mexico in the late 1970s.

I guess that’s what set my mind speculating. Since the Family Foal was a fairly high-volume piece, I could see a reasonable rationalization for moving the mold to Mexico. Seems plausible, right? It fits within the timeframe. Was the mold mark was removed in anticipation of the move?

Maybe not. The USA mark could have been removed in yet another round of cleaning and maintenance. The scarcity of FAFs with USA marks suggests the mold removal was very early - within a couple years of the mold receiving the mark, and not nearly the decade later the Mexico theory would require.

Complicating the dating of the mold mark removal is the fact that for most of the disputed time period, the FAF came in only one color, and one finish: Matte Palomino. Sure, there were some Chalkies thrown in the mix, and some other colors in the early 1970s, but they’re not helpful for dating. Matte finishes were introduced prior to the USA mark, and some of the Chalkies could have been repainted warehouse overstock.

So confusing! Maybe that’s why had forgotten about the theory in the interim. Too many variables, too many unknowns.

Getting Warmer

Okay, now I’m convinced that the flea market is (a) sentient, and (b) consciously messing with my head:


At least this one has a horse on it!

It’s pretty trashed, but it was cheap, and the clock mechanism works. I won’t be discussing it any further here since, by sheer coincidence, it’s a crucial part of an article I had just happened to be working on the night before for the Sampler. (Actually, I was kinda worried how I was going to illustrate the article, since I didn’t have one of the key pieces I writing about. Problem solved!) So y’all will have to wait.

(The Sampler’s about half done. As are the two contest entries. Looks like I won’t be getting much sleep for the next two weeks.)

Man, I really feel sorry for the BreyerWest Escondido. He doesn’t look anything at all like the model he’s being compared to, the inexplicably popular palomino Tesoro. The #867 Tesoro had an almost unprecedented four year run in the Breyer line - from 1992 through 1995 - at a time when many models were lucky to stick around for two.

I found it inexplicable because I thought Tesoro’s paint job back then was underwhelming. He looks great in that color, no doubt, but there was no "there" there. There were no crazy markings, shading, or hoof details to distinguish it from any other palomino paint job. He was just a plain palomino.

He obviously struck enough of a chord to be able to stick around for a leisurely four years. I haven’t picked one up yet; I have just about every other El Pastor, some of them in multiple variations, but not Tesoro. I’d hate to pay "retail" for him, only to find one for substantially less at the flea market. It’s nothing personal; it just happens often enough that I’m leery of buying almost any regular run models straight from the store, unless the shading or detail are really exceptional.

I’m still on the fence about buying Escondido. It’s not the price that’s putting me off - the limited quantity and level of detail just about justify it - but ‘Fest is just around the corner. Maybe there’ll be a few in the NPOD, or I can work a trade for one. I’d hate to buy one now, only to discover I could have saved myself the postage.

Smoking Hot

Another rough week, over with.

Finished doing the purge today - and it wasn’t quite as drastic as I thought, or hoped for. I did not expect to be so unreasonably attached to certain molds, for one thing (the Cantering Welsh Pony? Really?)

But the process is as done as it’s going to be, except for the selling. I am most definitely not welcoming that; I’m contemplating on the wisdom of getting a table at the swap meet this year instead of dealing with all the fuss and bother of eBay or MH$P.

Of course, now I have the immediate issue of where I’m going to store all of my "new" sales items. It’s only going to get worse, now that the flea market season is almost upon us, too. While I’ve been pretty good about staying out of the stores and off of eBay, I feel like I have a moral obligation to rescue any lost little equine souls I happen to find there.

I’ll just have to postpone worrying about it until it actually becomes an issue. I have enough real problems to deal with at the moment.

So Reeves announced the QuarterFest and BreyerWest SRs: the Gloss Dapple Gray Lady Phase "Smokin Hot Chic" and the light chestnut/dark palomino El Pastor "Escondido," respectively. They both seem quite nice, given the photographs they’ve provided. I don’t think it’s likely I’ll be adding either to my herd due to the ongoing space issues, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Of the two, I’d pick the El Pastor over the Lady Phase; I have a soft spot for the Spanish Breeds, and I already have the earlier version of the Dapple Gray Lady Phase, with black points and the resist dapples. A second dapple gray would be nice, but not a necessity.

Here’s a nifty old file photo of the real El Pastor, from the October 1969 issue of Western Horseman. The similarity of the El Pastor mold to this photograph (right down to the swish of his tail!) makes me wonder if Chris Hess used this photo as one of his sculpting references.


I have to say I’ve been quite amused by the frenzied online reaction to the Lady Phase: it sort of reminded me of the good ol’ days of JAH, when they still ran classifieds. Whenever someone wrote an article about a particular mold or model, the next two or three issues would be filled with want ads begging for the featured model. (Sometimes quite literally: "If you have any free models, send them to me!" ads were just as much a nuisance then as now.)

It makes me wonder if one of the factors influencing the online frenzy is the same absence of information that drove the desires found in the JAH classifieds. You’d think that with all of the information available online, that hobbyists would be somewhat more informed about upcoming and current releases, but it’s just not the case. How many times have you seen some new SR or variation discussed to death on some online forum, only to see it brought up a few days or weeks later by a clueless someone who thinks they found something new and mysterious?

(Seriously people, would it kill you to do 30 seconds of research before you post something? Gah!)

The somewhat more muted reaction to the Escondido tells me that most of the crazy for Smokin Hot Chic is it being a combination of "Lady Phase" and "Gloss Finish." I like Lady Phase, but I’m not going to lose my mind if I don’t get one. A lack of space and money tends to reorder your priorities that way.

Gray Plastic Chalkies

My next big project will take me to the end of the year, and probably a little bit beyond: I need to inspect the one-third of my collection now currently in storage. There are approximately 40 (40!) boxes to unpack, examine and repack, and each box has anywhere from 10 to 20 models apiece, so my end-of-the-year projection is not an exaggeration.

I pack pretty well, and the storage conditions – while not ideal – are more than adequate, so damage isn't the primary issue here. I did a thorough inventory a couple of years ago and I've managed to keep that up-to-date, so that's not the reason why, either.

Nope, the primary reason for the excavation is research. I'm trying to collect physical data on the models themselves. I'm taking notes on things like color, markings, mold marks, mold changes and other unique or distinct characteristics that help distinguish one release from another. It's tedious, boring but necessary work, especially when you have some models that came in a multitude of “Bay” paint jobs, some of which are worth significantly more than another – and some of which aren't technically Bay!

A secondary benefit of this excavation is that I can unearth and photograph some of my buried treasures for future blog posts. Today's subject is was one of the things I found in my first day back on the project: my Gray Plastic El Pastor!

Gray Plastic Chalkies are just one of the many different subcategories of Chalkies. Gray Plastic Chalkies are models that were molded in a light to medium gray-colored Tenite, and not basecoated with white prior to painting. I sometimes call them Semi-Chalkies because they were nonwhite plastic models made during the Chalky Era (ca. 1973-1976): Breyer just skipped the basecoating step. The most common Gray Plastic Chalkies are Elephants and Donkeys; here's a particularly lovely near-black variation of the Donkey:

The Gray Plastic Chalky Elephant and Donkey are easy to distinguish from the earlier Donkey and Elephant (ca. Late 1950s – early 1960s) that were also molded out of gray plastic. One, the color is different: the earlier ones were a glossier and more battleship gray color, while the Chalky Era ones are more of a mop-water gray. Second, the paint jobs were completely different. The earlier versions only had their eyes painted; on the later ones, additional gray paint is used to enhance the color.

Breyer also used the gray plastic on the Spanish Fighting Bull and the Walking Polled Black Angus Bull to good effect. I actually prefer the Fighting Bull in its gray plastic version: I think the gray plastic horns are less stark-looking than the white ones he usually comes with.

Breyer attempted to go with the unpainted gray plastic on some of their horses, but with less success. With solid colors, or black-painted horses, it wasn't too much of a problem: I have a gray plastic Black Stretch Morgan who's quite handsome. (Haven't unearthed him yet, sorry.) With models like El Pastor, where having a white surface is essential to the proper execution of the design, the gray plastic just makes them look dingy and oversprayed.

Maybe Breyer thought they could get away with it for a batch or two. This was the era of the fuzzy overspray: clean, sharp markings were the exception, not the rule. (Whenever I see someone carping nowadays about a miniscule amount of overspray on an otherwise flawless horse, I'm not sure if I want to laugh at them or call them out on it. Back in the day, we bought Stablemates with untrimmed flashing on them, and we were okay with that! Well, not entirely okay with it, but certainly a lot less whiney.)

The Gray Plastic Chalky horses are less common than the nonhorses, probably because while our standards were lower than they are today, they weren't nonexistent. Did they really think we'd buy a #97 Chestnut Appaloosa Gelding with a gray hip blanket?

(Yeah, really, they made Gray Plastic Appaloosa Geldings. I don't have one – yet.)

Tonka vs. Breyer

Sorry about that: my multitasking habit got the best of me again. When am I going to learn that it's really not a good idea to work on four bed-sized quilts simultaneously? (Each is at that stage where either I'm going to finish it, or it will finish me.)

I've been in this crafting frenzy, in part, because I want a relatively “clean slate” before I start any other long-term projects. (Also, it was a New Year's Resolution thing: some of these projects have been hiding in my craft closet for years, if not decades! I want them DONE!) One of them will be that Breyer-themed quilt I've often dreamed about: I found my woodgrain-patterned fabric in my stash a couple of weeks back and it's giving me … ideas.

One of the others, of course, is my long-term Breyer research.

I never really stop doing research: I'm always taking notes, acquiring reference materials and tracking down leads whenever and wherever they've turned up. It just hasn't been my primary focus over the past year or so. I have a number of half-written, partially researched blog posts sitting on my hard drive, too, that'll just have to wait until these last four quilted beasties are finally out of my hair. Which should be soon.

Most of my recent research has been of the fortuitous kind: a good example is a book I happened to run across at a Tuesday Morning earlier this year, in the midst of a “I deserve a pony” shopping excursion. I didn't find any horses that suited my needs, but I did find a surprisingly useful book.

It's Tonka, by Dennis David and Lloyd Laumann, published in 2004 by MBI Publishing Company. It's an attractive, well-produced coffee table affair about the history of the Tonka Toy Company: a little light on text, but with lots of pretty pictures, archival materials, and intriguing historical tidbits. I've always had an interest in the history of the toy industry in general – not just Breyer – and the price was right.

On the surface, both Tonka and Breyer have a lot of similarities: they were both post-war, Midwestern American manufacturers of iconic toy brands. They were contemporaries dealing with the same industrial, regional, and economic issues. Even thought their markets were a little different – Tonka is a little more boy-oriented, and Breyer is a little more girl-oriented – I thought the book might provide some good deep background research.

And it has, to a degree. As I said, the text is a little on the light side, and most of that is based on the recollections of a former Tonka executive, which definitely colors the narrative. (Everything was wonderful! Everything was great!)

The best parts were the brief interviews with former Tonka employees, who provide the most useful bits of information. One former lower-level executive, Lowell Fritzke, in discussing Tonka's efforts to move production out of the country, states:

“We were the first company in Mexico to do plastic injection molding, and the power would go out two or three times per day, which wreaked havoc with the plastic because it would harden up inside the machine”

Their factory began construction in 1981, and full production didn't begin until 1983.

Notice something odd about those dates? They don't exactly jibe with the history that the more avid Breyer enthusiasts among us know: Breyer had already made an attempt to shift their injection-molding operations to Mexico in the late 1970s. At least three molds were going to be shipped to Mexico, but only one – the El Pastor – was put into production, and those models were abandoned in Mexico due to a labor dispute.

(The others were the Stablemates Quarter Horse Mare, who for some time afterwards sported the infamous MEXICO mold mark, and the Donkey, who apparently suffered some long-term damage from the misadventure.)

I'm guessing that Fritzke's statement was just poorly-worded: perhaps he meant that they were the first American company to build a dedicated injection-molding plant in Mexico. Or maybe he was speaking of an earlier attempt or experiment that preceded their decision to move. Or maybe he just didn't know of any other company's attempts.

His comment about the infrastructure problems may also hint at the reason behind the SM QH Mare's molding issues, and the Donkey's rumored mold damage: did they suffer this damage in Mexico as a result of these problems?

Interesting how a book about toy trucks could provide such tantalizing clues about obscure bits of Breyer history, isn't it?

Intentional, or Accident?

Something short and sweet today – I'm in the middle of an unusually heavy work week, and I'll have to be heading out the door here in a moment.

I haven't been picking up a lot at the flea market lately – there have been good models, and cheap models, but I've had to watch my pennies more closely than usual. I did get a super-nice El Pastor/Paso Fino Desperado yesterday, though. Slightly yellowed, but otherwise dead mint: not something you'd normally see in your average flea market model. He might even be better than my personal Desperado, but I haven't had time to take him off the shelf to compare.

The El Pastor mold has been overshadowed for some of the newer, flashier and manlier Spanish molds, especially the Peruvian Paso and Alborozo. He definitely deserves a little more attention than he's been getting of late: as many of you already know, he has a fascinating and complicated mold history. but that'll have to wait for another day when I'm not so crushed for time.

Instead, let's look at one really interesting El Pastor: it's a 735 Paso Fino in Blue Roan, made from 1998 through 2000.


In case you didn't immediately notice, he's rather different than your standard Blue Roan Paso Fino, who looks more like this. (Actually, there are two rather subtle but distinct variations of the standard paint job too, but I plan on including them in an extensive post about subtle variations in the near future.)


I spotted this oddity on eBay several years ago, still in his original box and everything, so I knew he was authentic. You see mistakes from time to time – socks missing, socks on the wrong legs, the wrong color hooves – but this goes beyond basic painter oopsies: it looks intentional.

It's possible that he's just one of those errors-by-omission: you see those from time to time too. An error-by-omission means that the model missed a stop in the painting process: the eyes aren't painted, the hooves aren't painted, or maybe some handpainted detail like chestnuts or eyewhites were missed.

In most of those cases, though, the mistake is quite obvious: those models look unfinished. My Blue Roan Paso Fino doesn't look unfinished, though that just might be a happy accident of the painting process. Maybe the tan shading on the hooves was undershading that would have been mostly oversprayed when they finally got around to finishing up his legs. (The legs are often – but not always – the last part of the model to be painted.)

Or he could have been intentional: there were reports of other variations of other models from that time period that were subsequently confirmed to be intentional, such as the small batch of 767 Glossy Black Proud Arabian Foals. And we still hear about variations cropping up on more recent models, too, in spite of the fact that Reeves has assumed tighter controls on the painting process. Some of them are accidents, presumably of miscommunication (both language, and distance) or of old-fashioned painter error. We know some of the more plentiful ones (in spite of mild protestations to the contrary) are most definitely of the intentional variety, especially the recent glossy variations. (They see how crazy collectors get when a little bit of gloss is involved.)

I don't know the true origins of my Blue Roan Paso Fino: was he truly a mistake, or was he an intentional one? I haven't seen any others like him, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I just happened to notice him at the right moment. That's how it is with most variations.

Seeing Stars

Sorry about that. My life suffered a temporary overdose of drama.

I had to deal with a death in the family, a divorce, major surgery, a grand opening, and a rescue puppy. (Not in that particular order, either of importance or happenstance.) The normal state of my existence is already at barely organized chaos: mix in all of the above, and it shouldn't be any surprise that the past couple of days have ended with me collapsing into the nearest available comfy chair.

And falling asleep.

This kind of simultaneously occurring weirdness happens to me from time to time, which probably explains my general avoidance of soap operas and reality shows. They all pale in comparison to what I have to deal with on a daily basis. I won't go into further details, except to say that I consider my hobby activities to be among my more “mundane” aspects of my life. And a very welcome one, at that.

I'll make up for it right quick. I have some unexpected free time this week.

I did manage to wake up in time Sunday morning to have a reasonably good day at the flea market – something I sorely needed. Neither my work schedule nor the weather had been especially cooperative in the past month, and before that, I had an unpleasant … incident with another collector that had mildly soured me on the whole experience. (No grabby hands while someone else is perusing the box of horses! Bad flea market etiquette, ladies, bad! Grr.)

While cleaning up some of the newest acquisitions for BreyerFest, I ran across another one of those “how could I have not seen that before” observations. Take a look at these two handsome boys: a nice, if run-of-the-mill Appaloosa Gelding, and a darker than average El Pastor. Notice something peculiar?


Yep, same star, used on completely different molds. For comparison, here's the star on the Chalky El Pastor I also happened to pick up Sunday morning (yes, ladies, he'll also be on the saleslist):


Almost all Breyer models show some variation in their masking, and several Breyers from the 1970s and 1980s are notable for their facial marking variations: the original releases of both the Yearling and the Saddlebred Weanling are actually quite notorious for it. (At least four known for the Yearling, and about …. a kajillion for the Weanling.) But I hadn't thought they actually reused painting masks on completely different molds. I always thought they were uniquely designed for each mold.

On Traditionals, anyway. Now, I had known for quite some time that Breyer had reused some of the star and blaze masks on the Classic molds, particularly the Racehorses, but I chalked that up to (a) mold confusion among the painters at the factory, and (b) the fact that the molds share enough similarities in size, shape and style that any minor inconsistencies in the fit could be compensated for. It never occurred to me that Breyer considered the facial masks on the Traditionals interchangeable as well.

But I just happened to have these guys standing next to each other in the bath assembly line, and there was the evidence, staring me right in the face.

It makes sense, though: those small masks could be easily lost or damaged, and it's cheaper to reuse what you have on hand than create another one. Faces are also relatively “flat:” issues of fit and overspray would be relatively minor. (Though minimizing overspray back then wasn't high on Breyer's list of priorities, either.)

This is one of those backburner research projects I'll have to get back to at another time (cf. “chaos,” above). I'll still have to work out attributions and chronologies: in layman's English, which masks originally belonged to which mold, and when they were used.

Programming Note: Since I am dreadfully behind on my BreyerFest preparations, a lot upcoming posts may be BreyerFest related, in whole or in part.

And re: the puppy. He's not here yet. If and when he finally shows up on our doorstep, y'all will be the first to know.