Sure Fires

Here are two of the horses I found in my supply closet last week – a pair of Sea Star “Sure Fire” Foals from 1997-1998:

The other horses in there I might have forgotten about, but I knew about these two; they were one of the reasons why I decided to undertake the task in the first place.

Why they were in there, I’ll get to another time; that’s another ongoing project I am trying to resolve this year. As to why I had two rather than just one, the second photo will clarify:

Their belly spots are different! I saw them side-by-side at a local Toys R Us, and I had such a hard time trying to choose between them that I decided to not decide at all, and kept them together as a set.

I loved the deep chocolately black color, the minimal crop-out pinto pattern, and I already had a bit of affection for the homely little Sea Star mold anyway.  

It’s difficult to see in the first photo, but one Foal also has brush-painted pinking on her nose, as opposed to the standard airbrushing. At first glance it looks like something somebody did after the fact, but an up-close and personal inspection shows it to be factory paint.

Hand-painted factory touch-ups and corrections are unusual, but not necessarily rare; most of the time they are in less noticeable places.

Sea Star is the least seen, and least loved member of Breyer’s Misty “trio”. The original Sea Star had solid, 8-year run in the Regular Run line (from 1980 through 1987), but unlike Misty and Stormy she hasn’t been given any Reissues since then.

There have been a fair number of other releases of the mold since then, but the most recent was the Palomino in the Pony Picnic Gift Set in 2010-2011.

Aside from these Sure Fires, the only other Sea Stars I currently have in the collection are multiple variations of the original Sea Star.

Because I’m weird that way.

The Marks of Larks

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They Can’t All Be Beautiful

You know, sometimes I think hobbyists take the word model in the term "model horse" a little bit too seriously. I’m not talking about anatomical functionality (a topic of which I think a few artists and customizers are a wee bit militant about) but sheer physical attractiveness. Not every horse in the world is beautiful and realistically, not every model horse should be, either.

Which brings to mind poor, homely little Sea Star. He was modeled (admittedly, not well) after one of the Wesley Dennis illustrations done for the interior of the book. You may recognize it, because it eventually replaced the original dust jacket art:


And here’s the original dust jacket, if you haven’t seen it before. (From my collection - it’s a first edition, too!) I like the original cover better, but the "lonely little thing on the beach" probably pulled at the heartstrings more:


His inherent pathetic quality may explain why I’ve had so many of the original release #16 over the years. I’m down to just three right now, but that’s because I weeded out a few variations that I really needed to upgrade anyway.

Variations, you say? Of the more than ordinary Sea Star? Yes, of both mold and markings.

The markings are the easiest to spot: there are multiple versions of his star. The earliest versions have a roughly rectangular shape to them, while later versions have stars with more distinctly defined points - usually four, but sometimes more. Some are large, some are small; the one on the right is a larger one:


I haven’t tracked the relative scarcity of each star variation, so I couldn’t tell you which ones are rarer than others. It’s kind of a moot point anyhow, seeing as there’s never been a huge secondary market for Sea Stars.

On the other hand, I can say that one of the mold variations is actually quite rare: the "Pre-B" version.

Sea Star came out in 1980, right around the time Breyer was experimenting with that funky form of Tenite. Since that Tenite couldn’t be mixed with the original form of Tenite they were using, the molds had the "B" mark added to them to distinguish the new plastic pieces from the old, and prevent regrind accidents.

I had assumed that since he came out shortly after the switchover to the different plastic began, that all the earliest Sea Stars would have come with the B mark. Being a new mold you’d think the B mark would have been integral to the mold from the beginning, correct?

One day, while comparing my multitude of Sea Stars, I noticed that some of them didn’t have the B mark. That’s not really noteworthy in itself, since he was available through 1987, and the B mark was removed from the mold by 1983 or so. What was noteworthy was that there were two different versions without B marks: some had a smooth spot - and one didn’t. The ones with the smooth spot I assumed were the "Post-B" version: the mark was removed, and that spot was just evidence of the repair.

The one without that spot, without the B, but with its original sculptured roughness? It has to be a "Pre-B" version!

Just how scarce are these "Pre-B" Sea Stars? It’s hard to say; It’s another one of those topics I haven’t followed up on. The only alleged "Pre-B" I have is the one that I got for Christmas in 1980, and I have no idea how long he had been sitting on the store shelf or in the warehouse prior.

It’s possible that they could have molded the first batch of Sea Stars with the last bit of regular Tenite before they completely switched over to the other stuff. A little bit of plastic can go a long way when you’re molding something as small as Sea Star.

But I’m not so sure that’s what happened.

What’s complicating the matter is that I think the Sea Star mold, for whatever reason, was either temporarily shelved or delayed. Why do I say that? Even though the Sea Star was officially released in 1980, his original box is copyrighted 1978. I could understand a year earlier, perhaps to capitalize on the gift-giving seasons, but two?


What happened? Copyright problem? Mold issues? Cash flow? Or was it just a really elaborate typo?

If the Sea Star was originally planned for 1978, it raises the possibility that these "Pre-B" versions had been molded as early as 1978, and sat in the Breyer warehouse prior to its official release in 1980. Those first batches would have hit the shelves first, followed shortly after by newly molded, "B" marked pieces.

Now there’s a strange, sad image in my head: barrels and barrels of abandoned, unpainted Sea Stars, sitting in some disused corner of the Breyer warehouse. Ah, almost too much to bear! If only I had a time machine to know for sure.