The Box

Still no Tahoe, which should come as no surprise. Elsa has arrived, and guess what, I am totally dorked out about the box she came in:

The Big Poodle is on it!

I know it probably means… nothing. The Big Poodle – as opposed to the Small Poodle, which has had a few releases since its rediscovery in the 1990s – has been out of production for nearly fifty years now, longer than any other animal mold other than the German Shepherd (who is damaged, and not functional), the Modernistic Buck and Doe (who are just plain weird). 

I suppose the In-Between Mare still counts as the Queen of All This: she was out of commission for nearly 60 years before she came back. 

The Big Poodle was in production, in one color or another, for about 15 years. It was officially released in 1958, but it was also for sale in Christmas catalogs and magazine advertisements by late 1957. Which would have made some sense back then: Poodles – both as pets, and as decorative accents – were very much a thing in the 1950s. If the mold was ready for production in time for the upcoming holiday shopping season, why delay the release and miss all those potential sales?

Especially since their first attempt – the mold now known as the “Small Poodle” – failed to find a market a couple years earlier.

By the 1970s, Poodles were no longer as popular as they once were, and with the looming oil crisis making Cellulose Acetate hard to come by, the Poodle mold was one of many things that ended up getting the axe in 1973. Anyone who has owned a Breyer Poodle or two knows that they are pretty hefty – usually scaling up at around a pound. 

For comparison, the Proud Arabian Stallion – one of the hottest new molds of the early 1970s – comes in at a rather svelte 11 ounces. In other words, you could make about three Proud Arabian Stallions for every two Poodles!

But anyway, I was momentarily excited by the possibility that the Big Poodle might return – if you’ve been to my house, you know I have a lot of these big boys – but the economics of it are probably just as unfeasible now as they were in the early 1970s.

Stranger things have happened: I don’t think most of us (even me!) expected the IBM to return. 

(The question is… when next? LOL’ing if she turns out to be this year’s XMAS surprise…)

(Honest, though, I’m just as much in the dark as you all.)

Circa...

I took a pass on the Gambler’s Choice Classic Nayati on the Mustang/American Dream mold today. While I actually loved all three colors (but especially the Dunalino!), I’ve been buying a lot of stuff lately and I really need to draw the line somewhere.

Some of it completely justified, like this:

Yes, a White French Poodle Perfume Kit – to match the Black one I had purchased several years ago, also on eBay. The Black one didn’t cost much – less than the average cost of a vintage Gloss Black or White Breyer Poodle on the secondary market, which is fairly low to begin with.

This one cost more, but I figured this could count as my official “birthday splurge”.

(Like I need another, but whatever.)

The Perfume Kits appeared in the Spiegel 1957 Holiday catalog, and the Sewing Kit version appeared in the Sears 1957 Wishbook.

However, the Big Poodle mold (as distinguished from the Small Poodle mold, which technically didn’t get an official release until the 1990s) wasn’t “announced” as a Breyer product until the 1958 Toy Fair.

It’s pretty obvious that the model had been for sale for some time prior to its Toy Fair debut, since not only did the mold have to be ready to photograph for inclusion in the holiday catalogs by Spring of 1957, they also can be spotted in a Western Saddle Company sales ad in the June 1957 of Western Horseman.

My guess is that it was originally scheduled for a 1957 release, but there might have been some technical issues and the mold itself wasn't ready for production (or even test shots) until after Toy Fair. Instead of making an interim announcement, they just put it in production and and waited until the next Toy Fair to say Hey Look, New Product!

This sort of nonsense is why a lot of Breyer release dates from the 1950s through the early 1970s have a little “circa/ca.” tag in front of them.

Matte White Poodle

The spirit is willing, but the body is weak: my more comprehensive overview of BreyerFest will have to wait a couple more days, until my body stops generating spontaneous naps.

(I knew four straight days in 90+ heat and humidity sapped a lot out of me, but seriously, sleeping in my car at a Kroger parking lot for an hour was not on my agenda for today.)

I do want to cover this guy in some detail, though – one of my handful of hotel finds I persuaded myself I couldn’t live without:

Behold – a Matte variation of the #68 White Poodle! (No, really, he is. I just don’t have the time or energy right now to pull one of my multiple shiny ones from upstairs for comparison.)

Matte White Poodles are one of those things that I simply assumed existed because the Matte Black ones do, but until this previous weekend, I had never actually seen one in person!

Since I couldn’t find a BreyerFest Beethoven at the right price and condition, and the Benasque Blue variation of Bucky was the remotest of long shots, this guy showed up at the right time and at the right price. 

Ironically, both the Matte Black and Black with Blue Collar Poodle were high on my scouting list this year – with the Bucky in this year’s lineup, it seemed like a good time to focus on filling some holes in my Breyer Dog collection – but alas, neither one was to be found.

Which was not a huge surprise – both of those variations are pretty rare – but not as rare as the Matte White Poodle! Funny how that works.

The Matte Black and (now confirmed!) White Poodles are another rare but notable example of Breyer Matte variations being less common than their Glossy counterparts.

And their “rarity” makes sense, too, since the Black and White Poodles were discontinued ca. 1968, right around the time Breyer was transitioning to more realistic (Matte) colors and finishes.

Since everyone is so focused on Glossy = Good, Matte rarities tend to slip by relatively unnoticed. Well, usually: there are always exceptions, of course. (Matte Dark Dapple Gray Running Mare and Foal, anyone?) And me spilling the beans on them here means that eventually it will no longer be the case….

You know, I still don’t have a Woodgrain Poodle, either. I probably should work on that – while he’s one of the slightly scarcer Woodgrains (ca. 1960 through 1964), a lot of hobbyists aren’t into the Nonhorses, so that tends to moderate his prices a bit. In other words, that tends to push him into the affordable (to me) range.

Maybe once all the various stray bits of money promised to me finally make their way here, I’ll consider the splurge.

Bucky

LOL – of course it’s a Saint Bernard!

You know, if you had told me that the Saint Bernard would get a second BreyerFest Special Run release before the Boxer, the Collie or even the Kitten, I wouldn’t have believed you. (You, in turn, will have to believe that I honestly did not know that Bucky was the Saint Bernard.)

And yet, here we are. (The first dog mold was the “Small Poodle” – the “Surprise” raffle pieces in 1997, and Cotton Candy in 2009.)

I guess my only significant concern about Bucky is that he looks a lot like the previous BreyerFest SR, Beethoven. I would have preferred slightly more atypical markings –  something described by breeders as a “splash coat” or “full mantle extended”.

I’ll still get him regardless – providing he isn’t too expensive, or too scarce – since I collect the Dog molds anyway, and I have a near-complete collection of Saint Bernards including variations, samples and so on.

What I would have really preferred is a Holiday/Christmas Special Run – Decorator, Glossy, whatever – but this way I have a reasonable shot of getting one, instead of having to resort to the secondary market.

There’s been some consternation that the German Shepherd/Rin Tin Tin mold was not used, but as I’ve explained before – in multiple venues – the mold is not usable.

The rumors you often hear about certain molds being unusable, destroyed or beyond repair? Most of them aren’t true – but in the case of the Rin Tin Tin, it probably is.

And even if it were economically feasible to repair it, I simply don’t think it’s likely that they would have used it for this BreyerFest. For an event – and a hobby – that has had issues with inclusivity, honoring one of the breeds most often used as a police dog could be seen as problematic.

All dogs, and all breeds of dogs, have issues. Some breeds honored as Breyer Companion animals – like Rottweilers and Dalmatians – also have serious health and temperament issues. (Though I love Rottweilers, personally. They’re just a bit too big for me to handle.)

Wire Fox Terriers are the winningest breed at Westminster (this year, too!) And it’s easy to see why: they are adorable, personable, outgoing, energetic, and legendarily empathetic. But would I recommend them to anybody who hasn’t had previous experience with terriers?

Good heavens, no! Vita is exhausting, territorial, bossy, single-minded and a thief: when things get quiet around here, we get worried. Her nickname is “Monster”, and she’s earned it.

As much as I want it, I doubt Breyer will ever officially have a Fox Terrier model, beyond the cartoony one available in the Pocket Box Dog assortment. (I don’t think Collecta has ever had one, either.) I’m okay with that.

More About Iridescence

I had a perfectly lovely day today – had a last minute work reschedule that actually gave me the day off, so I spent it doing (mostly) fun stuff, including a bit of horse shopping.

(Yes, I know I am extremely lucky that I can go horse shopping at multiple stores. I’m telling you folks, if the possibility of coming to the Metro Detroit area comes up for you, let that be an enticement.)

Here’s the thing I’ve been meaning to show you all for a while: a Poodle with an iridescent collar!

It’s a little hard to capture in a photograph, but basically it’s a red color with a translucent layer of gold iridescence on top. It’s 100 percent Original Finish, and came out of that Chicago collection with all those other odd and mysterious models that were probably factory Oddballs, Tests, Samples and Whatnots.

Since the only early, pre-Reeves models that I know about that have any factory-original iridescence on them are the Kittens – released in 1966 – and all of the models in that collection date to 1966 or before, the logical assumption is that they are somehow related.

A test of the paint before production for the Kittens? A test after production of the Kittens for possible use on the Poodle? Or someone just getting silly with the new paint at the factory one day?

The seller never provided any more context, so it’ll probably remain a mystery.

The funny thing was that when I purchased him (paired with a White one) he didn’t appear to be anything out of the ordinary: the effect is hard to capture in photographs, and the seller obviously didn’t know there was anything different about them in the first place.

Needless to say, I was extremely pleased when I pulled him out of the shipping box back in March.  

On the flip side, he was supposed to be an upgrade of my other green-eyed Poodle, so now I had to make room for another. I think I have enough Black Poodles now to form a sled team...

Green-Eyed Monster

I was just taking a few pics here and there for various posts and projects, and this one made me laugh out loud….

Long story I cannot go into here, but this sort of sums up what I feel like right now.

Incidentally, green-eyed Poodles are a later variation, not an earlier one, running contrary to the rule that releases tend to lose extra details as time goes on. Actually, the earliest Black Breyer Poodles did not have much extra detailing at all; in fact, they were cast out of Black-tinted Tenite and barely even painted!

White Poodles, on the other hand, were special in their own way: they frequently (but not always) come with painted black eyebrows that sometimes reached Spock-level goofiness.

But anyway, there you go: a bit of levity for your late Friday nights. More later in the weekend, I hope, as circumstances allow.

Happy National Puppy Day!

Since it is National Puppy Day, here are a couple of happy puppies to celebrate! Specifically, a pair of  eternally joyful White Breyer Poodles:

Even though the mold has come in only four colors, officially – Black, White, Silver and Woodgrain – I think I have about a dozen total and alas, no Woodgrain! (Yet.)

The Black and White ones were made for about a decade, ca. 1957 through 1967/68 (both the beginning and ends dates are a bit fuzzy, so an exact measurement there is difficult) so there are a lot of variations to keep collectors occupied, if they so choose.

And I am apparently one of them. I am considering trimming off a pup or two, for the sake of space and my sanity. (Do I really need five different White Poodles? Wait, don’t answer that!)

Anyway, the reason I’m spotlighting these two is to note the variation on the collars: some are painted on by brush, and others are clearly masked. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the variation: there are early and late pieces of both the masked and brush painted varieties, in both the scarce early Blue Collar and the later and more common Red.

The two Poodles here are both later pieces with USA mold marks, with the Masked piece on the right dating to ca. 1965. (Yes, there is a story there, soon to be told.)

There’s even a sub-variation of the collars without the white painted buckle and keeper details, and that was also inconsistently applied, too. Just to keep us on our toes I guess, like a dog will do.

Thank goodness that the Black and Whites are, by and large, plentiful and cheap. Now if they only weren’t as heavy as an average doorstop…

Pink

I am not really understanding the antagonism over the latest Stablemates Club release Ricochet, the Pink Pearl Florentine Decorator G3 Andalusian:

I dislike the gender stereotyping of Pink as a “girly” color as much as the next person, and I don’t wear it personally because I look terrible in it, but I don’t hate it. There are some colors I like less than others – Magenta, ahem – but I don’t shy away from any of them as an artist.

Whatever works, works. (I’ve found it to be a very versatile color in my quilting projects: it works especially well with browns, yellows, and neutrals.)

Ricochet is not the first official, non-accidental production run model in some shade of Pink: come to think of it, we’ve had a lot.

Off the top of my head… we’ve had Color Crazy Stablemates, the 2011 BreyerFest Fairytails Flora, the 2014 BreyerFest Stablemate Birthday Cake, the Breast Cancer Awareness Horses, pieces in both the Blossoms and Zodiac series, and of course the notorious Pink Poodle Cotton Candy, on the Small Poodle mold:

Most recently – this year, in fact – we’ve also had the Mini Whinnies Blind Bag Surprise Landing Jumper Strawberry.

While most Pink Breyers are of recent origin, one Pink piece is among the oldest, and rarest: the Pink Elephant, made very briefly in 1958. It was probably made from a batch of pink-colored Tenite purchased for the then-unlaunched Small Poodle mold.

I think. It’s what makes sense from the evidence, since Test pieces of the original Small Poodle mold seem to indicate that they were intended to release it in Pink and Light Blue. (The former being the inspiration for Cotton Candy!)

It would also explain why they’d release an Elephant, otherwise inexplicably, in Blue instead of a more logical color like White.

(Yeah, I saw that Test Color White Elephant on eBay a while back. Sigh. Odds are pretty good for an Elephant Special Run for next year’s Indian-themed ‘Fest, so here’s hoping…)

More Creepy Meows?

While I was brainstorming ideas for BreyerFest the other day, the most delightful and obvious idea drifted into my head: what if, instead of the Poodle, the Nonhorse mold could be a Cat? More specifically, the famous Chartreux cat? The kitty model on top of the CFA’s Chartreux information page bears some striking similarities to our favorite "Creepy Meow":

http://www.cfa.org/Breeds/BreedsCJ/Chartreux.aspx

The last official Special Run of the Kitten mold was the "Angel" (above) from the infamous 2012 Vault Sale. The next previous was the 2003 Christmas release Tom Foolery, featuring a Black and White Tuxedo Kitten tangled in a string of holiday lights. He’s the only Kitten I haven’t gotten around to acquiring yet, more out of laziness and distraction than a lack of availability.

The last time we saw a Kitten Special Run at BreyerFest was 2000, with the Calico Patches. That release helped popularize his nickname of "The Creepy Meow", because his leftovers haunted the NPOD for years, startling newer and/or less savvy hobbyists…

While the original "Big Poodle" mold is the most obvious choice for a French-themed year, that mold hasn’t been in production for over 40 years. In addition to the retooling costs inherent in updating a mold out of production for that long, there may be additional issues. The original Big Poodle mold was prone to molding problems - mold flow cracks, in particular - and requires a lot of raw plastic to manufacture.

(The "Small Poodle" mold is sweet, but it doesn’t have the same presence that the Big Poodle does. The last release of that scarce mold - the 2009 Cotton Candy - also strikes me as a bit too recent for a BreyerFest Nonhorse re-release.)

The Kitten, on the other hand, was more recently manufactured, and as far as I know, doesn’t have any significant molding or cost issues. And we haven’t seen the mold at BreyerFest since Patches.

Another nice feature of a BreyerFest Kitten SR is that it may lead to more Kitten releases in the near future, including a much-hoped-for (in the stranger parts of Breyer fandom) Silver Filigree Kitten.

The decision of what Nonhorse mold to go with was made months ago, and I genuinely have no idea which one they decided to go with. For all I know they could have gone with the Basset Hound, which is also a French breed, and a mold we haven’t seen much lately. Since the #324 Chaser in 1995-1996, to be exact.

I wouldn’t object to him, especially since I’m on a bit of a dog kick right now, but I’d rather have a silvery-blue Kitten first.

Poodle Cuts

Let me tell you, yesterday was a day. It started out great - yes, there is a Banff on the way to my house! But it ended with me having a partially shaved head for the duration. What I thought was going to be a minor medical procedure involving a short-term comb over will now be less minor, and may involve at least a month of creative headcoverings.

(Long story. Really, it’s nothing serious, just unsightly and inconvenient.)

Anyway, Banff has made me think about other potential animal Special Runs in the not-too-distant future. Although the Special Runs for next year’s BreyerFest are likely already set, outside of a few details, I’m hoping that the Big Poodle (aka the "French Poodle", as it was identified in its earliest ephemera appearances) is among them. Either as the designated nonhorse Special Run, or something in the souvenir-heavy store off to the side:

With a dog coat, because a commemorative BreyerFest dog coat would be adorable, and a nice nod to Vintage collectors who avidly seek out the scarce felt-coated Poodles of Christmas Catalogs Past. They gave us a collar for the 2003 BreyerFest Boxer Duke, so why not? It wouldn’t take much effort to adapt a horse blanket pattern to fit.

The Big Poodle mold has been out of commission since 1973. The biggest factor in the mold’s retirement was the mold itself: because of the complexity of the head and legs and its heavily curled coat, it takes a lot of plastic to mold one. The irregular, deeply cut surface of the mold also leads to other molding issues, including mold flow lines and short shots.

A lot of plastic, and a lot of potential waste: for the number of pieces that were selling in a given year, he was getting a little too expensive to manufacture. That was also at the beginning of the Chalky Era, so that had to have been a factor as well. Shooting Cellulose Acetate of variable color, quality and origin into a mold with some manufacturing challenges? Yeah, time to let him go.

In the early days, Breyer mitigated some of those cost problems by cutting the cost the only other way possible: the paint job. The earliest Poodles were barely painted at all, outside of a little detailing on the face and the collar. Even the Black ones: the earliest Black Poodles were molded out of solid black plastic that necessitated, at most, a bit of gloss.

Like my example, above. Who is also without a mold mark; the mold was in production for three years before the circular mold mark debuted, so it’s not uncommon to find him without one. (Its absence also makes price negotiations at nonretail establishments a little easier.)

The Matte "Silver" Gray Poodle that replaced the Black and the White in the late 1960s wasn’t much more sophisticated; he had shading, but the curls in the coat did most of the work there. The Woodgrain was somewhat more complicated, but the market for Woodgrains was a bit different: they could, and did, charge more for them.

It’s been over 40 years. We’ve seen the revival of molds like the Racehorse and the Fury Prancer, the return of Decorators, the introduction of Translucents, and the release of items as exotic as a Glossy White Moose with blue eyes and a Silver Filigree Buffalo.

A Poodle for a French-themed BreyerFest? Not the least bit exotic. Nay, it seems like a perfectly logical choice, to me.

Good Dog, Bad Dog

This is what a Good Dog looks like:


Breyer French Poodle with Dog Coat, ca. 1957. The snap on the front of the coat is the same kind of snap used on the early snap saddles. Neat!

You can’t see it, but he has a handpainted red collar - you can actually see the brushstrokes. That’s a little strange, since most of the blue collared Poodles I’ve had have had stenciled collars, and evidence points to the blue collars predating the red collars. The paint’s definitely original, not retouched.

There are all sorts of possible theories as to why they resorted to handpainting the collars. The most likely is that there was a production bottleneck: they might have had a rush order, or outstanding orders, and only so many painting masks to go around. Some of the painters at the factory had to make do with brushes. Hey, they had to handpaint the tongues anyway, right?

(Oddly enough, the eyes and nose are masked - that was a different painting station, I guess!)

I had wanted a "Dog Coat" Poodle for years - basically, ever since I first discovered they existed at all. They’re not expensive when they do come up for sale, partly because a lot of collectors don’t know about them in the first place, but mostly because it’s one of those esoteric things only the really nerdy Breyer kids go for.

This is what a Bad Dog looks like:


The little princess broke my little toe today; she had stolen yet another one of my shoes, and in the process of cornering the thief, she got a little …rough. (And even if it isn’t technically broken, it’s still a lovely shade of purple and hurts like the dickens.)

I have to work a triple shift over the next day and a half, too. Hot, tired, sleep-deprived and in pain: awesome way to start the weekend!

She's lucky she's so darn cute, or I'd be strangling her Homer Simpson-style right now.

Drama Overload

I didn’t think the drama surrounding the Weather Girls could have gotten worse, but it has. No to Glossies, yes to Glossies, no to Glossies again, and now maybe Glossies but rare - is it any wonder I stick to more ancient Breyer history? So much less of a hassle …

How sad is it that when I heard the news about "Steppin’ Out," my first reaction was "Well, Ohio isn’t that far away…" Then I plugged in the numbers: 480 miles round trip, with gas at $3.50 a gallon? Not gonna happen, unless I can get a caravan of locals to split the costs.

http://www.breyerhorses.com/news/detail.php?eventid=880

As I’ve said before in the comments, the whole situation with another super-limited Esprit - this time, an almost generous 200-piece run - is ridiculous. Is there some sort of arcane plan to make this mold totally uncollectible to almost everyone on the secondary market, except the rich and/or crazy (and their wannabes)?

There’s only been one "large scale" release of the Esprit mold so far, and contrary to what a lot of hobbyists seem to think, it wasn’t all that large. Just because some Tuesday Mornings got one in their latest Breyer shipment does not mean that Reeves had a gigantic surplus of them. There have been low-piece count BreyerFest SRs that have ended up in Tuesday Morning stores, for heaven’s sake.

The market for pricey Breyer SRs is not that big, either - just take a look at all of the high-priced beauties gone wanting on MH$P recently. Most of them, it seems, being sold by previous attendees of super-exclusive events in order to fund their attendance at the next super-exclusive event.

Sorry, no can do, not even if I could. I just can’t wrap my head around the idea of being that fickle with my horses. If I go through the trouble and expense of getting something that rare or desirable, I mean to keep it long term. More than a year or two, anyway.

Yeah, I do something similar with the stuff I find at the flea market, but on a much smaller scale financially - with lower expectations, and less grandiose ambitions. And most of it stays in the more affordable ranges: it’s been a couple of years since I had a sales item in the three-digit range, and those were models I never intended to sell, except out of financial necessity. (As in, I needed money to pay my bills, not finance another extravagance.)

Eh, enough with the griping - let’s cover a little history for a change. As promised, here’s the scan of the Poodle’s big announcement in the January, 1958 issue of Toys & Novelties:


Even though the photo is in black and white, it seems pretty obvious to me that the color of the collars is probably blue, not red. Reds tend to turn darker in black and white photography, and blues look lighter. (The collar on the white one looks much lighter in the original copy - my scanner’s being all naughty and contrasty.) There’s no real news here, only confirmation: it jibes with what we were already able to ascertain from the physical evidence.

In case you were curious, the books in the background appear to be about home decorating. That’s interesting. Was Breyer already thinking about a "Decorator" line at that point, or was it just a subtle suggestion to potential buyers about their product's potential as decorative accents?

Dating Discrepancies

Weather Girls are going to come in gloss, too? Oy. The online discussion of it all has gotten almost as insufferable as it has for the Sunshine Celebration. Nothing - and I mean, absolutely, literally nothing - can live up to that kind of hype. I'm just afraid that any kind of flaw, however minor, will be greeted by a similarly stupid overreaction.

It's not going to be pretty. (On the plus side, that means we won't have to deal with conseqences of them as glossed live show prizes. Good grief, that would have been awful.)

The research trip didn't quite pan out the way I hoped, either. I covered quite a bit of ground -from 1957 through 1960, more or less - and I found ... almost nothing!

I found lots of Hartland data, and some secondary information that might become useful later on, but I only one bit of Breyer information from the 1957 through 1960 time period surfaced: the announcement of the release of the Black and White Poodles. From the January, 1958 issue of Toys & Novelties.

(Sorry, no scan today - blogging from the road, no access to the scanner! Next time, I promise.)

Longtime readers will recognize the problem with that: the Poodles had already been featured in a couple of Christmas catalogs and an ad in the June, 1957 issue of Western Horseman. You could kinda-sorta explain the mail-order catalog thing: there have been a number of instances of items appearing in the Christmas catalogs in the months before their official catalog release (Stud Spider and Legionario III, most notably.)

But the Poodle was clearly not a holiday pre-release: the Western Horseman ad suggests that some retailers already had it in stock by mid-1957, at least. So, what's up with the obvious discrepancy?

There could be any number of explanations for it.

The magazine could have just happened to select the Poodle's writeup from a backstock of older press releases. Or maybe the Poodles had not quite been ready for release in time for the 1957 Toy Fair, and Breyer wanted to feature it in their 1958 display. (But why the Poodle, and not the Clydesdale or Old Mold Mare and Foal, who were also new for 1958?)

So what does it mean to my research? Nothing: I'm sticking with the 1957 release date. To heck with the "official" announcement: if it was available to consumers by June of 1957, it's a 1957 release.

It'll probably be several more months before I execute another research excursion. It's a "time and money" thing, not a "disappointment over what I found" thing. Sometimes you find stuff, and sometimes you don't. All it means is that there's just that much less ground to cover next time.

Little, Big

Just admiring my "Small Poodle" Cotton Candy today. The one box/bin they had of ‘em sold out quickly in Pit this year - not a surprise, since they had them marked down to $15, from the original $40:


I had been wanting a Small Poodle for a while, but the chances of picking up one of the earlier releases - either a preproduction/test piece, or one of the Raffle pieces from several BreyerFests back - was slim to none. I didn’t get Cotton Candy last year, because I was a little too focused on nabbing a few of the Surprise Quarter Horse Geldings. Considering how many were left over, it was a no-brainer that she’d be showing up in the Pit this year.

There’s not really much to know about the Small Poodle; nobody, including Reeves, even knew she existed until the 1990s, when a collector found a couple of pieces (one blue, one pink) in the possession of a former sales representative. Reeves had the mold all along; they just didn’t bother to notice the two Poodle molds they had were for two completely different items.

In their defense, not many people had probably bothered to look at the Poodle molds in a very, very long time. The Big Poodle - the doorstop-heavy, Rosenthal-based piece - had been out of production since the early 1970s. He was discontinued right at the beginning of the Chalky/Oil Crisis era, partly because of his weight: all those deep curls consumed a lot of plastic. Why waste good plastic on a couple of low-turnover Dogs, when you could make a half dozen (better selling) Foals from the same amount of material?

When the Small Poodle was made is unknown; we can’t be any more specific than sometime between 1953 (the Boxer) and 1957 (the Big Poodle.) I’m guessing a little earlier in that range - 1954 or 1955 - rather than later, just based on the style of the sculpting. The narrow muzzle and dainty feet are very reminiscent of the Lassie mold that we know was sculpted in early to mid-1955.

Why the Small Poodle mold didn't catch on with the buyers at Toy Fair is unknown. Breakage from the tail might have been a concern: models were packed lightly and if not loosely in their shipping boxes back then. Another possibility is that the lack of a merchandising tie-in: Lassie and Rin Tin Tin were well-known, established media properties, and the Poodle was just … a Poodle. Nice, but nothing special.

I think that was the biggest problem with the Small Poodle mold: she was nothing special. I wouldn’t call her boring, but perhaps a little too quiet and well-behaved - for a Poodle. (Oh yes, I’ve been owned by a few in my time.) The "Spaghetti Poodles" that were a hot decorative item of the time - and the market Breyer was evidently targeting with this item - were also anything but. They were encrusted with rhinestones, feathers, eyeglasses, glitter, fake fur, playing musical instruments, or dressed up in crazy little outfits.


(Not a Poodle, but you get the idea. Don't ask me why I own this thing. I just do.)

While the Large Poodle never received anything dressier than a felt dog coat (for the Poodle Sewing Kit release in the 1957 Sears Wishbook) he was bigger, louder and more energetic mold than our dainty little miss here. He stayed in production longer than Rin Tin Tin and Lassie, too, though that might just be because of lapsed licensing agreements, rather than sales figures.

The Small Poodle, on the other hand, disappeared for forty years. There has to be at least a few other early pieces floating around out there, though. You just don’t run a mold for only two pieces. There’s what, at least 6 to 12 In Between Mares out there, right? There should be at least that many vintage Small Poodles somewhere.

I think - I hope - it’s only a matter of time until another one shows up.

Working Class Poodles

I had the chance but nope, didn’t do it. Didn’t click on the Shopatron link and order a leftover Smokin Hot Chic. She’s pretty and all, but I just blew a wad on jewelry-making supplies (the latest craft obsession), and there’s no room for her anyway. More horses need to go out of the house, not come in.

Since I’ll be going full-bore crazy over the next week and a half making sure the Swap Meet goes off as planned (more on that tomorrow) my posts this week and next will be short and sweet - and hopefully, a little more frequent; I know I’ve been slacking!

My mind’s been on puppies lately. We had to replace our furnace last week, so our near-future puppy plans a little in doubt; the money just might not be there. The thought of not having a bouncing baby terrier tearing up the house apparently disturbed me so much that I found myself wandering the aisles of the local PetsMart on Friday, engaging in a little "pet" therapy.

I have most of the Traditional Breyer Dogs - not all, but most. Of all of them, I think I have the most of the Large Poodle - not sure why, I just do. It might be one of those regional things - they seem to show up in the markets here more frequently than the other more "common" Breyer canines, like the Boxer the Bassett Hound.

There’s also a multitude of subtle variations on the earliest Poodles - the Black and the White - that have fueled my previously unrecognized obsession. My favorites are the "Blue Collar" Poodles, especially my Black one:


We’re not entirely sure when the Large Poodle debuted; we know it was in production by 1957, since it’s seen in an ad for both the Black and the White in the June 1957 issue of Western Horseman, and in the 1957 Sears Wishbook (the infamous "French Poodle Sewing Kits.") I suspect that 1957 was the introduction date, but I don’t have any additional data to back it up my suspicion.

We’re pretty sure that the "Blue Collar" variations are the earliest, though. All of the reference photos of the Poodle prior to 1963 are in black and white, so all the evidence comes from the Poodles themselves. All Blue Collar Poodles I’ve seen lack the mold stamp - put on the mold ca. 1960 - and my MIB White Poodle with the Illustrated Shipper box (allegedly from the collection of an early Sales Rep) has a handpainted Blue Collar.

They are also relatively scarce, compared to the Red- and Pink-collared ones. The White Poodle is far easier to come by than the Black in the Blue Collar variation; I’ve had at least a half dozen Blue Collar Whites pass through my hands, but only one Blue Collar Black. Oh, I’ve tried: my Blue Collar Black is in much rough shape than he appears, and I’ve been trying to upgrade him for years. No luck: either I’m a little too late, or a little too short on the cash whenever a better one appears. Lucky for me he’s molded of solid black acetate, so his scuffs are not too noticeable.

So, why the disparity in the numbers? There are two possible theories. One, it could have been by design: maybe the Black Poodles were originally intended to come with Red Collars all along, and the Blues were a very brief anomaly. I prefer the second theory: I think the Black Poodle debuted slightly later than the White Poodle - maybe just by a few months, even - and by that time, they were already starting to phase out the blue paint in favor of the red, likely as a cost-cutting measure. (One less step in the painting process: just use the tongue paint as the collar paint!) Hence, the relative scarcity of the Blue Collar Blacks.

Illustrated Shippers

It was a dark and stormy Saturday, so I spent it finishing the collection repacking. It’s all over except for the dusting, and I’m in no mood for dusting.

For those inquiring, there’s nothing super-duper rare, old or weird in my sales stash. There’s definitely some nice quality models here, possible LSQ, but most of them are in the sub-$50 range. (Unless I get lucky at the flea market in the meantime!)

Since my financial condition is slightly less tenuous than it was at this time last year, I’m in no rush to sell; I don’t want to deal with MH$P or eBay right now, anyway. There’s some talk going on about a local swap meet/hobbyist-to-hobbyist sale (local = Southeast Michigan), and if/when it comes to pass, I’ll let y’all know.

It was a bit of a strange experience packing up the last few horses. I decided that a couple of my oldies had to be taken out of the rotation, and since I just so happened to have their original boxes, back into their original boxes they went. One of the boxes in question: an old illustrated Clydesdale Shipper Box:


Now there’s something you don’t see every day!

Shipper boxes were the "de facto" Breyer box prior to the introduction of the White Picture Box in the early 1970s. There were a couple of experiments prior to the White Boxes - the clear Showcase boxes, and the Touchability Boxes. (I covered Touchability Boxes in a post quite some time ago, in fact.) A few select items - like the Horse and Rider Sets, and the licensed products like Lassie and Rin Tin Tin - did come in specially designed packaging, but those were very much the exception, not the rule, prior to the 1970s.

Most Shipper Boxes were pretty plain: a brown corrugated box, with Breyer’s address printed on one side, and "From:" and "To:" spaces printed on the other side. (And yes, they were used for shipping; I’ve owned a few that made it through the postal system!) The name and model number of the item inside was usually inkstamped across the top of the box, on the paper packing tape that sealed it.

Some, but not all Shipper Boxes were illustrated. Why some early boxes - but not others - were illustrated is a mystery. Some are quite common - such as the Fighting Stallion - while others, like the Clydesdale, are rather rare. My guess is that Breyer decided early on to standardize the box sizes, and only the boxes that were designed for one specific model were allowed to retain their unique graphics. Everything else just got the standard plain shipper, with the inkstamped identification across the top.

The graphics on the early boxes are quite pleasing aesthetically; I particularly like the Poodle:


The Western Pony is nice, too:


Illustrated shippers continued to be used until quite recently, mostly for the non-equine models that couldn’t fit in any of the standard packaging schemes. Some of the graphics were nice, but others, not so much. Not quite sure what was going on with the Charolais Bull box, for example - a bad reference photo, maybe:


Illustrated Shippers were also a common feature of holiday mail-order items. The graphics on the Holiday Shippers were all over the map, too - some pleasant, some plain, and some downright weird. This Legionario Gift Set box from Sears is a fairly typical example:


Shippers are still being used today, mostly with items sold factory direct - like the Connoisseurs - or with some of the Holiday Catalog items. They’re sometimes illustrated generically with a repeating running horse (not the "Running Horse") graphic.

Shipper boxes are still a bit of an undeveloped territory as far as Breyer Box research goes - presumably because of fugitive nature: the boxes had to be literally torn open, and torn boxes didn’t make for the best storage.