Glossy Foiled Again

To be euphemistically coy as possible, a personal matter (completely unrelated to model horses) that started in fire ended in fire this past Friday. While it was not entirely unexpected, it did hit me a little harder than I expected, and left me largely out of sorts most of the weekend.

But this helped soften the blow: a Glossy Pacer Special Run Foiled Again for BreyerFest!

This Foiled Again Special Run was also not completely unexpected: I suspected as much back in December, when it was quietly announced on the USTA web site that the horse himself would be making an appearance at BreyerFest.

While I was hoping for changes like these, what I was expecting was that they’d only make a small change or two – some special packaging perhaps, and/or maybe a commemorative backstamp, blanket or button. Hurray for happy surprises!

It’s interesting that in the 50+ year history of the Pacer, there have only been two other Gloss releases – the earliest examples of the original #46 Dark Chestnut release, and the 2010 Web Special Pace Yourself.

The halter color appears to be the same lime green as the headstall on the Vintage Club Appaloosa Balking Mule release Lucy. Although most Pacer halters have been some shade of brown or black, there has been a fair assortment of more cheerful colors too, including the bright lemony yellow of the original Foiled Again release.

The blog post about the release is a bit vague on specifics: we don’t know where or how the model will be sold (Pop-Up Store? NPOD?) and all we’re told of the quantity is this:

BreyerFest fans will have the first opportunity to add the Special Edition Foiled Again to their collection. If models remain available after BreyerFest, they will be offered for sale to the general public on BreyerHorses.com.

So – more than the average BreyerFest Special Run, but still kind of limited? So 2000 pieces or fewer?

Whether it’s 200 pieces or 2000, all I know for sure is that this is the first release in this year’s lineup that I will absolutely, positively have to have. There is no negotiating on this.

My only (slight) disappointment is that this eliminates the possibility of the Pacer being the Surprise SR. Although there have been a few dilutes – like the infamous Riegesecker Palomino – we haven’t seen much in the way of spots, dots and speckles on the Pacer. The only Production Run pinto, I believe, has been the Exclusive Event Praline, and they only made 48 of him.

But hey, I'll happily take a Glossy Dark Bay Pacer in the meantime....

Foiled Again, Again?

Since I am still a bit grumpy because of my back troubles, aggravated by a slightly-more-traumatic-than-expected trip to the dentist today, I decided forego the research and decompress with a bit of retail therapy. Among my treasures:

A Border Fine Arts Yorkshire Terrier and a Hagen-Renaker Great Dane Hamlet!

A quick scan of my records tells me that I found them at the same Salvation Army Store where I made my first hobby-related purchases of the year, so that’s some nice symmetry.

Wow, it’s been such a good year for me with breakables: six Hagen-Renakers (four of them horses), a Boehm, four vintage Royal Doulton dogs, a smattering of assorted European clinkies, two BFAs, and two Walker-Renakers.

Oh, and I almost forgot those Maneki Neko cats!

Usually I just find a smattering of minis, a few Japans, and maybe one or two higher-end pieces. So I have nothing to complain about here, other than the fact that I am rapidly running out of room in my china cabinets.

In lieu of the now-delayed franchising/DreamWorks discussion, here’s a bit of BreyerFest 2018 news to overanalyze: Foiled Again has been announced as a guest!

http://xwebapp.ustrotting.com/absolutenm/templates/article.aspx?articleid=78140&zoneid=1

The last sentence of the press release is of particular interest:

Please join Ohio Standardbreds & Friends and New Vocations at Breyerfest 2018 and get your Foiled Again model horse signed and your photo taken with the richest Standardbred in history.

The Traditional Foiled Again release was discontinued at the end of 2016, but is still appears to be available on the Breyer web site:

http://www.breyerhorses.com/foiled-again

I don’t know if that means it became an online-only item, or that they’re selling down discontinued warehouse overstock, or something else entirely is going on. If I had more space and money to play with here, I’d buy one of those online Foiled Agains just to check the VIN number for a 2017 production date.

Since the press release hints that there will be Foiled Again models available at BreyerFest next year, this suggests to me that if he hasn’t been in production lately, he might be shortly.

They could change it up a little – by glossing it, chalking it, changing the halter color, or going with another mold entirely – but even if it’s not substantially different, these hypothetical Foiled Agains might still qualify as Reissues or Post Production Runs.

Or they could all be leftovers, and my back pain is making me spin the most elaborate theories, just because it can.

Hot, or Not?

I did not think it possible to work 40 hours in the space of two and a half days. It sort of felt like BreyerFest, but with more air conditioning and fewer horses.

(Still haven't decided if this was a good thing, or a bad thing.)

So, there’s also this guy:

The box says "#430018 Arabian - bay" but he looks like a Huckleberry Bey. Sort of.

The color and finish is a little off from most Regular Run Huck Beys that we’ve seen. Those tend to have more contrast between their lighter and darker areas, way more black on their bodies in general, and are a little more brown than red, too.

While any one of these Ninja Pit Hucks wouldn’t look out of place in a random assortment of Huckleberry Beys produced over the years, collectively the Hucks in the sales tent all sort of looked…different, but in the same way. And they weren’t called Hucks.

So I bought one just to be safe, because I sold off my Huck Bey a few years ago, and have sort of been regretting that decision of late.

There were four other models of this type in the tent, as well:

430002 Old Timer - palomino
430008 Draft Horse - bay (Bell-bottomed Shire)
430009 Clydesdale - bay (Clydesdale Mare)
430013 Belgian - bay roan (aka "Trait du Nord")

(Rough reference only: I didn’t see any examples of the Belgian/Trait du Nord personally, and only saw the Shire in passing, so the labels/descriptors are likely off on those two.)

Anyway, they all looked like recent - or not so recent, in the case of the Shire - Regular Run items in new packaging, with Special Run style numbers. So the initial assumption was that that’s what they were: repackaged Regular Run leftovers, knocking around the warehouse.

But what were they, really? A new type of Store Special? A cancelled Special for an event or store? A part of the WEG reissue program/idea that wasn’t fully implemented?

The one that’s been getting the most currency is that they were repurposed leftover (whiteware) bodies from previous recent Regular and Special Runs, and not intended to be true "Special Runs". There was some second or third-hand information being passed around on Blab that this is more or less what a Reeves employee told them.

While I am not generally inclined to believe anything a Reeves employee says at face value, especially second hand, this makes some sense. The Old Timers = leftover Gus bodies. The Shires = leftovers from last year’s Cheerio Special Run. Huck Bey = leftovers from the Color Crazy Redemption Horse and/or upcoming Collectors Club SR Enchanted.

Belgian and Clydesdale Mare = I just happen to think they have a metric ton of those bodies lying around, for some weird reason, as they’ve been showing up for sale as "whiteware" in the Sales Pit for a few years now. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!)

I’ve heard one report that a VIN number was found on at least one of these models, though I haven’t had the chance to open up mine to see if this is true. If that’s the case, it bolsters the argument that they were very recently made, and not (just) leftovers.

The quantities are unknown: there were definitely more of the Clydesdale Mare and Huck Bey, and fewer of the Belgian and Shire. Although some were seen in the first wave of Ninja Pit action, they did replenish the stock in the store from time to time, and I was able to pick up my Huck late Sunday morning.

The only one of the others I really regret missing is the Old Timer, who was without hat or blinkers. As I’ve got a small collection of blinkerless Old Timer culls going now, it feels incomplete without its Palomino "kid brother".

If Reeves’ intent was to simply pass them off as Regular Runs, they need to study the minds of us collectors a little more closely: new number + new box + new paint job (even if it’s an "old" one) = new release.

Or maybe they do know, and it’s some sort of reverse psychology/Jedi Mind Trick/11th Dimensional Chess they’re all playing on us.  If so, mission accomplished.

The Other Rare Pluto

BreyerWest is on the other side of the country, and I am kinda broke, so the fact that it slipped my mind until about yesterday isn’t shocking. I do have a few relatives out that way I could have tapped for a pickup on Fortuna, but I really have to stick to my budget, now that work has officially entered the "slow" season.

I’m currently hemming and hawing on what to do next - another seasonal job, or ramp up the Internet biz? The former would be better for the budget, but the latter is long overdue and may eventually provide a small, year-round income stream. One more thing to think about…

Here is an example of another mold we’ve rarely seen in recent years - the Traditional Lipizzaner Pluto:


This one is the Pluto made specifically for "The Wonderful World of Horses" touring show, in early 1997. The show had been selling the Pluto for several years before it was discontinued, and I assume that Reeves continued to produce them for the show for some time after.

How do I know that this piece is from early 1997? Aside from the 1997 Collector’s Manual it came with, he has factory bi-eyes - a feature that didn’t start appearing until late 1996, and was discontinued by the end of March, 1997. The original #475 Pluto was discontinued at the end of 1995.

The sticker on the upper left hand corner of the box also identifies it as an "Exclusive 28th Anniversary Edition for The WONDERFUL WORLD OF HORSES Starring the ‘World Famous’ Royal Lipizzaner Stallions" (the funky punctuation and capitalization theirs, not mine.)

However, the box label reads "#475 Pluto, The Lipizzaner" - in other words, identical to the Regular Run - so I’d probably classify it more as a "Post Production Run" than a Special Run: a Regular Run item made after its discontinuation, per a standing order from a good (i.e. paying) customer.

Regardless of his status, you don’t see these guys too often; the vast majority of whatever quantity was made were sold as souvenirs to attendees of the show, and not specifically to hobbyists. Hobbyists walking past the sales booths wouldn’t have thought of them as anything other than ho-hum Regular Run Plutos.

Outside of his box, I doubt many would recognize him as anything other than the Regular Run. You’d think that the bi-eyes would be a big "tell," but a lot of collectors seem to be a bit fuzzy on their significance. That’s part of the reason why he’s one of the handful of models I still keep in its original box. If it ever comes to me having to sell him, I want to make sure there’s no mistaking him for a standard #475.

(FYI: that’s a bit of protective foam paper behind him, to prevent box staining.)

I found mine on eBay in late 1999 - not long after they were made. He was a little on the pricey side but well worth it, I think, since I so rarely see them for sale. He’s scarcer than the Spiegel Pluto, at any rate. (That I don’t have. Sigh.)

That Seventies Catalog

Let's talk about that jobber/distributor toy catalog I mentioned last time. It's the Orgill Brothers and Company 1977 Illustrated Toy Catalog, and it's like a window into my childhood toyland: everything from Barbie, to Bicycles and Breyers, and Beyond! (Literally - Space: 1999 action figures!)

Jobber is a slightly antiquated word for a distributor or wholesaler. A middleman. They'll sell dozens of lines from dozens of manufacturers to simplify and streamline the retailer's ordering process – for a price, of course.

Every page of it is full of awesome, but the Breyer pages are going to be our focus, naturally. There's nothing out of the ordinary in terms of the selection – a couple dozen Traditionals, a few Animals, the Classic Racehorse Assortment, Stablemates Assortment, a few Gift Sets. No secret, previously unknowns special runs or oddball items that I can see. (The Donkey and Elephant are present, but that's overstock from the previous year's Election/Bicentennial promotion, and not really a huge surprise.) Just the kind of horses you'd find in your locally-owned hardware store, the market that Orgill primarily caters to.

Yeah, I did buy some of my models at hardware stores back then! Didn't you?

What's nice about a catalog like this is the ability to compare the wholesale prices with the suggested retail prices. Midnight Sun would cost the retailer 4.39, with a suggested retail of 6.59 – a 33% markup. That's about the same markup Orgill was making: per Breyer's own wholesale pricelists, the cost to the distributor for that same Midnight Sun would have been 2.97!

I have no idea what the markup is now: I'm neither a distributor nor a retailer. Even if I was, there would probably be some contractual mumbo-jumbo about the pricing structure that I would bar me from discussing it in a public forum anyway. But we're talking about 30 year old prices on merchandise that's been long discontinued.

For those of you pining for the days of the Six Dollar Traditional, don't forget that this was in 1977 money. As a genuine chronological youngster of that time period, I can assure you, Six Dollars was not a small sum. Saving that kind of money took herculean effort, especially when you're constantly tempted by one dollar Stablemates and 35 cent comic books.

The most fascinating part of this catalog, though, is the photographs: a I mentioned in my previous post, some of them are OLD, and many don't match the product that's being sold. Here's the Running Stallion:

The Alabaster Running Stallion was discontinued, oh, around 1971. The text under the photo notes that it's the Appaloosa you'd be buying. Likewise with with the Indian Pony, shown here in long-gone Buckskin version:

My favorite is the Fighting Stallion; the stock photo used to illustrate the Alabaster is actually that of the Gray Appaloosa, dating back to at least 1961!

We have our share of vintage prototype pics, too, including our old friend Yellow Mount, taunting us yet again:

Several of the newer items – like Lady Phase, the Charolais Bull, and Hobo – have more contemporaneous photos, so Orgill obvious had access to them. So, what was up with the outdated, incorrect stock photos?

The answer is simple: this catalog is pre-digital. It had to be manually pasted up. Every chunk of text and every photograph had to be physically cut and pasted into place. Lines had to be hand-drawn with a technical pen. Mistakes and cut lines had to be touched up with white paint, with a paint brush. If you look closely at the scans, you can still see a few blotches and cut lines.

It's about as much fun as it sounds. I managed to get into graphic design at the very tail end of the “manual” era, so I did get to experience that fun first hand, briefly. (My first semester in art school included a digital prepress class – in Aldus PageMaker! It was my favorite class, by far. I miss doing digital prepress, I really do...)

So the overworked table jockeys who had to put the toy catalog together probably reused old pages, or cut and pasted chunks of old stats into the new pages. Wherever there was a possible discrepancy, they'd paste in a line of text underneath to cover their behinds, just in case.

I'm sure that shortcuts like this probably led to at least a handful of post-production runs on some of the models in question, unless Breyer got lucky and just happened to run across a box or two of old stock hiding in the factory somewhere. No matter how thoroughly the search, there's always a box or two of some old somethings lurking in the warehouse. Look at the kind of stuff that still turns up in the Ninja Pit every year!

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.