The Jam Sham

I am actually pretty annoyed that Reeves decided to sell most of the “good” stuff they had set aside for Black Friday several days before the actual Black Friday. 

I realize that I have had a really, really good year model-wise and I don’t need to be spending any more money. And I get it that this week/s long Black Friday sale thing has become a thing with sellers of all stripes this season.

But it is kind of a bummer to wake up on Black Friday and not have anything to look forward to, especially when you do have the fundage. And especially when your shopping in the previous week was almost a total bust. 

(Let’s just say both Plan A and Plan B for my vacation-that-is-not-BreyerFest next year are completely out of the question. First world problems, but still ugh…)

I did have a tiny bit of success today – just an itty-bitty bit – when I did venture out of the house on Saturday to buy a few necessities. I found a couple of books at the Salvation Army Store that always has a good selection:

The Brighty is a Scholastic first printing, which is a nice plus. Both books will probably end up on my saleslist, though the Mustang book has an interesting inscription that will greatly amuse a couple of my friends… 

Since I am also still feeling a little crappy because of my back – which is making it hard as heck to get any of the crafting I had planned for the weekend done – today is another picture day. And that picture is the #410994 Jamboree Sham from 1994!

Due to the introduction of several newer Arabian and Arabian-ish Traditional molds in recent years, Sham has fallen slightly out of favor; he’s also come in a bajillion colors, which has made it difficult to find something new to dress him up in, though they did do a mighty fine job on the BreyerFest release of Lugh in 2020.

The Jamboree Sham came out only about ten years after the mold’s introduction, when there were still many options to explore, though most of them still veered into “just another shade of Bay” territory. So a Flaxen Dark Liver Chestnut was a delightful surprise!

They only made about 550 of him, which may seem like a lot for a mid-1990s Special Run release. He was still a little tough to acquire though, especially if you were living on the East Coast: after the initial hullabaloo, I was able to get one for not too much more than retail.

The 1994 BreyerFest Benefit Auction

Well, I thought I had a fabulous weekend, but Monday made me pay for it. We’re talking sitcom-level, head-in-my-hands insanity, here. 

And to top it all off, I didn’t get selected for “Pronghorn” Yellowstone: I’m trying to understand how I managed to get not one, but two BreyerFest Variant Runs and a Live Show Prize model, but I still can’t get selected for Web Specials that are now up to (checks e-mail) 750 pieces?

Madness.

Since I’m in no mood to write today, here’s one of the posts I drafted over the weekend when life was not a snarling mass of chaos, and which I also thought I would not need to deploy until next weekend. So much for best laid plans! 

So here’s a few photos from the 1994 BreyerFest Auction, for your amusement and edification; they were a gift from a friend:

I remember being particularly enamored of both the Brindle Bay Proud Arabian Stallion and the Gloss Black Sham. 

I think the Dark Bay Indian Pony turned up on eBay a couple of years ago at an insanely low Buy It Now price, presumably because the seller probably thought it was the later Saddle Club Belle release. I didn’t save the pictures from that auction so I can’t confirm it, now that I kinda have a picture of the real deal…

I stuck around for some of the auctioneering, but I left part of the way through because I didn’t have the spare money to even buy the Lady Roxana. The only other thing I specifically remember from this auction is the fuss made by someone over the fact that they were auctioning off a Strawberry Roan Pluto that was almost identical to one sold the year before.  

Well, fuss wasn’t quite the word. This person was pissed. It was removed from the auction with the promise of it being destroyed, but I’m not sure that was a sufficiently satisfactory answer. 

Real Test Colors – ones made to test out things for actual production – are rarely unique. Most of the models that appeared at these early Benefit Auctions were actual Tests that were just hanging around the office at the time, and not stuff that was tailored to bidder preferences. 

It swung in the opposite direction for a while, but there seems to be more of a balance today, with some items clearly designed to generate bids, and others that were clearly more experimental. 

Anyway, I now need to take a deep breath and see what the rest of Tuesday has in store for me.

Risk Tolerance

Now we know why there was a delay in getting the BreyerFest Contest information posted: they did… stuff to the rules. The Costume Contest is still online and the Diorama Contest requires you to “pre-enter” it online before bringing it to BreyerFest. And some people are still barred from entering because of the legalities involved in that.  

The Customs Contest seems to still be mostly the same, even though I think (personally) that it’s the one contest that needs the most revision. (The “Most Drastic” category is really just an Original Sculpture competition, and you can’t convince me otherwise.)

To be honest, I really don’t have a lot of free time I can exclusively devote to being creative for its own sake, so I feel like I’m the only person in the hobby right now who is not terribly phased by all this.  

I do have a couple of Diorama ideas I might pursue if some free time does open up – one easy and silly, one elaborate and time consuming. I am assuming that 95 percent of the entries for this contest are going to be either Oktoberfest or Christmas Market-related, as will be winners, which might also affect what entry I end up choosing. (If I even do it.)

While I do have Costume Contest ideas, most of them involve a lot of sewing, and what little sewing time I do have for myself (lunchtime, basically) has been spent working on my backlog of quilt projects. So that is likely a complete no-go.

I like that this year’s random category in the Customs Contest involves a relatively unpopular/not often customized mold. I kind of wish it had been something vintage instead of more modern, but going with something that’s currently in production makes sense, since not everyone has easy access to cheap old bodies like I do. The Geronimo mold doesn’t do much for me, though. 

(The three-legged Grazing Foal in my body box, on the other hand, has me full of ideas!)

But anyway, here’s a little of the actual model horse content you come here for: another mystery model!

When I saw the auction lot, I initially dismissed it as either a heavily yellowed Fleabitten Gray Sham, or a discolored Shrinky Bay Sham. But the price was not… terrible, and there was enough evidence there that I decided to take a modest bet on it. 

And it seems to be authentic?

Alas, the model came with no documentation, and the group of models it came with offers no clues to its origins, either. The qualities of the paint job suggest an origin in the 1990s, but it’s clearly not the same Buckskin Sham that was auctioned off in 1998. 

I’m torn between getting him restored and leaving him the way he is; I’ll probably keep him the way he is, because I’m cheap and I’m also unlikely to show him.

Incidentally, this means my tally of “oddball” Shams is now up to four. I swear I don’t have a problem. 

The Five-Gaiter’s Friend

FYI: I have not been intentionally absent.

As you might imagine, it’s still absolute chaos here; it feels like all the progress I made over my vacation has been completely obliterated, and I’m both physically and emotionally exhausted. 

I do have a couple of substantial posts “in the pipeline” but to tide you over until I manage to actually get them done, here’s a picture of another recent acquisition:

This cull of the #975 Best Choice release of the Sham mold was purchased from the same seller as my Funky Five-Gaiter. I logged on to eBay, and he was literally right on top of the search page. 

While I am neither a big collector of Culls nor of Shams, dear readers, I took that as a sign.

As you know, my luck with this year’s Web Specials – like so many of you – has been the absolute pits. (Currently glaring at the twenty – twenty! – Midases currently for sale on eBay and MH$P.) I needed to score something special, and this was the opportunity that was presented to me. So I took it.

Will I be keeping him long term? I have no idea. I have friends who would probably be over the moon to have him, and he just might end up with one of them someday. With a few rare exceptions, Culls don’t stick around here too long.

But today? Today he stays.

All About Compensation

Thank you for the kind words and encouragement, but y’all aren’t likely to see the latest diorama fail until after BreyerFest; I have projects with hard deadlines coming up, so it’ll have to wait. I may even lump it in to a “Parade of Fail” post I’ve been thinking about doing here for a while, to purge myself of this particular daemon. 

A lot of this stems from art school trauma. My instructors would single me out for praise, my work would almost always be put in the student showcases, and one of my pieces was even given the honor of being hung in the dean’s office for a year. But when it came to the student competitions where actual cash money was involved? 

Second place. Always. 

The people who write articles online telling you that “second place is the best place” and that it’s indicative of you actually being more awesome than the people who win have obviously not spent their lives in this awkward position.

In the meantime, I’ve pulled out a couple of old customizing projects to fuss over as distractions to the deadlines. If there’s one positive outcome to all this, it’s the fact that it’s shown me that my customizing skills are better than I thought they were, and that I shouldn’t be afraid to hack things to pieces and reassemble them. 

Whether I enter them in any competitions or not is secondary to the act of creation. It has to be: doing it for the money will drive me mad. 

Anyway, as compensation for my whining, here’s a picture of one of my more obscure Test Colors:

Obviously it’s a Test for the Sham in the Classic #3345 King of the Wind Set. I bought it a few years after the set itself was discontinued, and from a well-known hobbyist to boot, so I know it’s authentic. 

They obviously decided to go with a redder shade to match the Traditional Sham, and distinguish it more from the Golden Bay Lath in the set. I just thought it was a neat thing to own; while everyone else was chasing those elusive Golden Bay Traditional Shams, I had the Classic version!

(I also have a Golden Bay Sham. Kinda. It’s a story.)

Because he was a Classic, he was relatively cheap, and even today I doubt I can sell him for much more over the price I paid 25 years ago. The indifference and sometimes outright antagonism some Breyer enthusiasts have over the Classic scale horses (even the Loves!) surprises and confuses me, especially in light of the prices some comparably rare Stablemates bring. 

I think it says (a lot of) something that random topic/challenge class for the Customs Contest this year was simply Classics. I mean, I am all for encouraging people to use different and less popular molds, but ouch...

Oh well, back to work. 

The Bluest Boy

So it looks like I didn’t get the Goldfinch, and I am perfectly fine with that. 

The prices for them on eBay right now are absolutely ridiculous, but unfortunately the prices about Special Run Silvers is ridiculous, which is another reason why I try not to get too emotionally involved with that mold.

Anyway, here’s a picture of a model I bought last year that I never got around to talking about, because, you know, my life is crazy:

It’s a more blue-ish version of the #863 Rana, on the Sham mold, released from 1992 through 1993. They all have at least a slight blue cast to them, but some are more blue than others, and I wanted to find the bluest one possible.

I think I can do better, both color- and condition-wise, but this example is probably the best I am going to get until the next in-person BreyerFest. (Well, I hadn’t had any luck finding one at BreyerFest either, but the odds seem better there, somehow.)

I’m not even sure what actual horse color this is suppose to represent – Breyer called it “Blue Chocolate”, which I am assuming is just another name for Black Silver, or maybe an obscure variation of Black Silver with another modifier thrown on top just to spice things up? 

(It’s been a while since I dabbled in horse color genetics.)

I also know Ruby Chocolate is a thing, but that’s an edible thing and a rather new creation that I haven’t gotten around to sampling yet. (But trust me, It will happen.)

Whatever it is supposed to be, I think it’s kind of neat, and another reason I’ve been wanting this release for a while.

A Celtic Arabian

In case you haven’t seen it, this is Breyer’s official notice about COVID-19, which is about what I expected:

https://www.breyerhorses.com/blogs/news/a-message-from-breyer-regarding-covid-19-novel-coronavirus

In short: nothing’s cancelled, but we’re monitoring the situation and will update you if there are any changes. 

On a lighter topic, the latest BreyerFest is… a Sham?

I had assumed that at least one of the Specials this year was going to be an Arabian, but for some reason I thought it’d be the Proud Arabian Stallion and not the Sham.

The four Proud Arabian Stallions that have been Special Runs for BreyerFest are either expensive or hard to find: the 2003 Raffle Model Saturday Night Fever, the 2008 Gloss Prize Model Thee Desperado, the 2009 Volunteer Model After Party (my favorite!) and the 2015 Raffle Model Que Sera Sera.

But the Sham isn’t quite as challenging: just the 1991 Wedgewood Blue Raffle Model, the 1996 Celebration Horse Tseminole Wind, and the 2008 Decorator Pharaoh.

Hmm. I guess it was about time for another Sham.

We last saw the Gulastra Plume coloring on the 2018 Stablemates Club debut of Darley; I was hoping we’d see it again soon, and Sham’s swishy tail is ideally suited for it.

Although I love Glossy Bay, and especially a Glossy Bay with Gulastra Plume, this is another model I am undecided on. I guess I’m just starting to feel a little Special Run fatigue, right now. Or is it that I find the pony-shaped holes in this year’s lineup disorienting?

(Please don’t let one of them be a Diorama Prize model. That contest has been nothing but heartbreak for me. A Translucent Decorator Bouncer as a Pop-Up Store item will be perfectly acceptable.)

I also continue to be mildly amused by the fact that while many of these Specials aren’t all that conceptually different from previous BreyerFest Special Runs – in that their only connection to the theme is in their name – there isn’t that much uproar over that fact this year.

Some of it may be hobbyists finally getting over that particular bugaboo, and the quality of the Special Runs themselves, but I also think everyone else’s enthusiasm for the theme may be overriding that perennial complaint.

As someone whose ethnic background can be loosely described as “Eastern Barbarian”, I find myself kind of meh on the theme.

Breyer Hat Trick

Just a few notes here before we get to the meat of things today.

First: if your receive a model directly from Reeves that is wrapped in big-bubble bubble wrap, it’s a good indication that the model in question was painted (or in the case of the Koh-i-Noors, repainted) in New Jersey.

I think this fact has been covered here and in other places before, but as it does not yet seem to be common knowledge, it’s still worth noting.

Second: while it is true that the Traditional Black Stallion has not had a lot of Test Colors (he’s just not THAT popular a mold to merit a lot of experimentation) the e-mail for the latest Test Color Purchase Raffle is wrong about another thing: the mold was introduced in 1981, not 1984.

Sham came out in 1984 – and he did come in a remotely similar color as the 1994 West Coast Jamboree model – so maybe that’s where the mistake originated?

I’m not a huge fan of the Black Stallion mold, but the paint job on this Test piece is so beautifully shaded! Chestnuts can be a bit muddy if they are not executed well, but happily that is not the case with this fellow. I’d try to find some way to keep him, if the opportunity arises.  

I was pulling some research data for my BreyerFest paperwork – not going as well as I hoped, but I am still being buffeted by many distractions – and I can’t believe I missed the other significance of two of the Stablemate One-Day releases, the Ruffian and the Man o’ War:

Prior to the announcement of this year’s One-Day Stablemates, the most recent real-life horse who had the honor of completing a Breyer “hat trick” – appearing as a portrait model in all three of the major plastic scales (Traditional, Classic, and Stablemate) – was American Pharoah.

And prior to him? Seabiscuit and War Admiral.

Notice a trend?

Lots of other nonfictional horses have been released multiple times on different molds and in different scales, but having three releases of the same horse in three different scales is actually pretty rare.

That’s because Non-Traditional scale portrait models, outside of racehorses, are scarce in general.

(Fictional ones are a whole other beast.)

Off the top of my head, the only portrait Stablemates I can think of that aren’t racehorses are the Valegro, and most of the BreyerFest 20th Anniversary Stablemates Commemorative set.

Considering how popular the Stablemates scale models have been lately (Stablemates Club, the Spirit releases, Mystery releases et al), you’d think Reeves would push for more Stablemate portrait model releases, but I can also understand the perspective of the horse’s owner: bigger (Traditional) is better!

Some Early Speculation on 2018

According to a flier now circulating the Internet, next year’s BreyerFest Celebration Horse is going to be Brass Hat, on the Carrick mold: http://www.brasshat.us

That’s pretty much what I expected the Celebration Horse to be: a former racing Thoroughbred now living a very active retirement. On the Carrick mold!

While it feels a little unusual to get a picture of the prototype this early – nearly two months before tickets even go on sale – it shouldn’t. When you think about all the Special Runs they have to crank out in time for BreyerFest (lately they’ve been averaging about 30 distinct releases, not including the Gloss Prize Models), it only makes sense that they’d get the ball rolling as soon as possible.

Other than thinking about non-Thoroughbred racing breeds – Arabians, Standardbreds, Appaloosas, Quarter Horses, Orlov Trotters, Finnhorses et al – I hadn’t given much other thought to what we’ll be seeing in Kentucky next year, until now.

What would I like?

A Pacer, of course: preferably in a Roan or Tobiano Pinto. Gloss Dappled Black would be pretty sweet too, but I’d take that paint job on almost anything.

I’d also accept a new release of Sarah Rose’s popular resin Hambletonian.

I really, really want an Orlov Trotter of some sort: twelve-year-old me found them so exotic and pretty, and even now I still pine for one. I don’t know what currently existing mold would be most suitable however, and this is one release where I would definitely have to go picky on the execution of the dappling.

While we’re likely to see an Appaloosa in the Surprise SR mix, something that honors or commemorates Stud Spider in some way would be awesome: not only was the real horse a racing Appaloosa, it’s the mold’s official 40th anniversary next year. (Well, technically: the Gift Set was available in the 1977 JC Penney Christmas Catalog.)

A Reissue of the Sham would be fun too, especially if it comes with a Grimalkin on a Companion Animal cat. Sham is popular, the Companion Animals are popular, and the Dally and Spanky set was a big hit this year. And if the Sham comes in the correct shade of Golden Bay, even better.

Alternatively, they could just give us a Grimalkin release on the Kitten mold as the Nonhorse release! Or maybe a “Barn Buddies” Store Special Gift Set featuring one of the cats, one of the dogs, and the Goat.

I don’t know what they’d do for a Quarter Horse release. The first thought that entered my head was a Smarty Jones, since I believe the mold was planned as a racing Quarter Horse in the first place. Put him in a pretty Dilute or Dun, and I would totally be on board.

On the other hand, I could go on forever about potential Thoroughbred releases. Some of the releases I’ve fantasized about include a 12-piece Stablemates set featuring all the Triple Crown Winners, an Ageless Bronze Traditional Man o’ War to commemorate the statue at the KHP, or something honoring the famous Hungarian racehorse Kinscem.

Oh, and I want to see a return of the #36 Racehorse: in almost any color, I don’t care. They could use up whatever bodies they have left knocking around the warehouse, and that should cover the 12 to 15 of us who’d actually want one. (Gold Charm/Gold Chestnut would be great. Just putting that out there.)

The last larger-scale production BreyerFest Special Run on the Ruffian was 2007’s very popular Gloss Appaloosa Heartland. She would be my first choice as the Surprise Special, with either Giselle or Strapless as my second choice.

We’ll also likely see at least one SR on a recent Premier Club release, so I hope that’s True North. I’m not too fussy on the color or finish: I find him adorable and all of the existing releases are utterly unaffordable.

So that’s what I’d release, if I were in charge. Maybe add in a racetrack/companion pony into the mix, and another hunter/jumper for the OTTBs.

Whether or not we get any of this is another matter entirely. My prediction track record (no pun intended) has not been so great lately.

A Tale of Two Ranas

I’ve been wanting to add a Desatado to my herd for a while now, but none of the more widely available releases have really clicked with me. The closest I’ve come is with the Web Special Orion in that lovely pearlescent Perlino Dun – one of my favorite colors – but what they’ve been going for is a little bit beyond what my budget allows.

There was an insanely cheap one on eBay about a month ago, but as April was shaping up to be a rough month for me financially (taxes, dentist appointment, a new radio for the car) I had to walk away from it.

Then Reeves surprises us with this beauty earlier this week:

Normally I’ve been skipping the disappointment of the Saturday Raffle to participate in the disappointment of the Costume Contest: effecting a costume change and getting from the Covered Arena to the Alltech Arena in less than an hour is challenging, and my odds of winning the Costume Contest are fractionally better than the Raffle anyway.

But, oh my goodness, this is the Desatado that I’ve been waiting for. In fact, it’s been a while since I’ve wanted a BreyerFest Raffle model as much as I want Rana.

The costume is already well underway, and buying Rana in the aftermarket will not happen, so I don’t quite know what to do.

The funny thing is that another horse named Rana is currently on my want list: the original Breyer #863 Rana, on the Sham mold.

This Rana also features an unusual color on a moderately popular mold: it’s the Traditional Sham, in what’s been described as “Blue Chocolate.” More precisely, it’s Reeves’ early 1990s interpretation of an unusual form of Black Silver that used to occur in Friesians.

(This was roughly the same era that gave us Clayton and the Majestic Arabian: obscure colors on inappropriate molds were a thing then.)

I’ve been wanting one ever since I saw friend’s example that was more Blue than Black. It was very similar, in fact, to the early Stone Horses “Turquoise” color.

The problem I have in acquiring that Rana hasn’t been a matter of cost, but degree: most of the ones I’ve found are more Charcoal Gray than Blue. While they are not unattractive, they are also not the models I want.

Even though I’ve set myself a rather unusual hurdle, it’s still more likely I’ll come home with the Sham rather than the Desatado. But after what happened last year, who knows?

The Lady

One more slightly revised Sampler rerun, while on the road.

Rich Rudish’s original concept art for the Lady Roxana, shown in the 1986 Dealer Catalog, was really quite lovely. She’s all sweeping lines and swooping curves - similar in style to the Sham, naturally, but it almost as if she was meant to be an Art Nouveau-themed interpretation of a horse. Was Rudish attempting to take the “Art” part of the “Artist’s Series,” to which the Lady Roxana mold belongs, even more literally? Alas, he is no longer around for us to ask.

The reality is, of course, quite different from the concept: the actual Roxana mold is lumpy, bumpy and kind of chunky. The rumors have it that Mr. Rudish had only a couple of days to sculpt her - less time, probably, than it took for him to do the concept sketch.

The hastiness of her execution is borne out by a Test Color of the Lady Roxana that I acquired from the estate of a former Breyer employee: since the mold wasn’t available for testing, a Sham was substituted, instead. At first glance, “she” doesn’t look too different from a conventional Fleabitten Gray Sham, though the differences are quite obvious in person. (Hand-airbrushed mane and tail, no pinking, no fleabites.)

In spite of her obvious inadequacies, the actual Lady Roxana mold does have her charms. She was one of the first molds to shown doing a correct trot - and a rather lively one at that, thanks to her tail. That tail that also helps make her an extremely “stable” stander for an action-oriented mold, which no doubt adds to her play value among younger hobbyists.

It’s fairly clear that many of her releases have been tailored to the younger set. How else would you explain Cinnamon, the Limited Edition Bay Appaloosa with the “pinking shears” blanket. (She sold pretty well, from what I’ve heard.) There were the Playful Mare and Foal sets in the early 1990s, too. Her most recent release was as the lovely light gray “Sahara,” from the youth-oriented “My Favorite Horses” series.

My second test color Lady Roxana - yes, I have two! - is of the Sahara. Actually, she’s probably more accurately described as a Sample or Preproduction piece, as she’s almost indistinguishable from a regular run Sahara, except with some handwritten notations on her belly.

Because of course only someone like me would actually own two (well, two and a half) Lady Roxana Tests. That’s okay, I really don’t mind!

More Shiney Variations

The BreyerFest leftovers now, too? Gah!

Okay Reeves, you can knock it off now. You’ve finally earned my last precious bit of walking around money.

Circumstances did not line up in my favor to even make into the Silver Anniversary Shop until Sunday, and everything of interest to me was long gone by then. So I was happy to see they had some of the Silver Filigree Misties in the leftovers sale somehow. I threw in the Sherman Morgan and the Bears onto my order, too. I wanted them anyway, so if either one turns out to be Silver, that’s just a bonus.

That means, of course, that I’ll have to redouble my efforts to get something up for sale in the next few weeks. One tough decision I’ll have to make is which one of my Production Run Smart and Shineys to keep. You see, I just happened to notice a few weeks back that the two I had left had more than a mere difference in shading:

The markings on the muzzles aren’t the same! Aside from the kissy spot, the masking on the lower lip is different, and the markings in the left nostril are neither the same size nor shape.

There’s always some variation with masked markings; it’s just about impossible to have masking be perfectly consistent in an item that runs in the thousands. But the difference here is enough to make me think that there were either two separate runs (like the Gooitzens) or two different production lines running simultaneously.

Significant variations within Celebration Model runs are not that unusual. The first one that springs to mind is 1996’s Tseminole Wind; some of them were made from leftover bodies from the Sham’s 1995 QVC rerelease, and have the "95" mold mark to show for it.

The second is the 2001 Atlantis Bey V: some have masked stockings, and some don’t. I received one of each, and I had such a hard time deciding between the two I ended up keeping both.

I don’t have that luxury with the Shineys, alas. Someone’s gotta go. Right now I’m leaning towards keeping the spotless one.

Grimalkin

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


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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

No, I’m not starting a Devo cover band, either.

So yeah, I bought a bullwhip at the flea market the other day.


Why? The notion of using it as a crowd control device at BreyerFest may have played a factor, but mostly it was because it was there, it was cheap, and the thought of owning it amused me. (If nothing else, it'll make for a very ... interesting chew toy for the dog.)

I pretty much have the same philosophy when it comes to buying horses. I’m not the kind of hobbyist with a tightly defined want list: if something is cheap, and available, I’ll consider it. If it also amuses me in some way, I will buy it. End of story.

That would explain why I bought another Lady Roxana over the weekend. She was in the same collection as the Toadster, though in considerably better condition. I also bought her beau Sham, just because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time:


I’m not sure I’ll be keeping them - I don’t really need another Lady Roxana and the Sham, like every other Sham I’ve ever owned, has issues. Considerably fewer issues than most of the ones I’ve owned in the past, but enough to make me question his "keeper" status.

You know how there are some models you keep trying to upgrade, but in the end all you end up doing is trading out one set of bothersome flaws for another? That’s how it is with me and the original release of Sham. I have no idea how many Shams I’ve gone through over the years, but it’s been a lot. Like, running out of fingers and having to take off my shoes and socks to count, a lot.

What’s funny is that I’m not even looking for one of those "Perfect Commons" I talked about a few weeks back. I just want a presentable, garden-variety piece of arm candy for my original Lady Roxana, who’s mint and lovely and totally deserves it. And I just can’t find one.

There are probably a couple of things working against me here. The first is that most Shams were made in the mid- to late 1980s, an era known for its quality control issues. The second is my horse-buying philosophy: when you limit yourself to what you can find at the lowest possible price, the selection your have to choose from isn’t going to be primo.

I thought this guy might have been "the one" when I bought him, but nope: closer examination revealed a paint skip, molding flaws, box rub. He does have nice color and the wheat ear mark working in his favor, though. I’ll have to give it a little more thought.

Kansas City Shams

I was dismayed to discover that there was nothing in my body box suitable for my Celebrity Look-a-like Contest idea. Nuts! Maybe I’ll get lucky and find something at the flea market in the next few weeks, so I don’t have go to and buy something new from the store.

I have nothing against customizing - I just hate buying brand new models to customize. Part of it is my "rehab" mentality: if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. My bigger problem with it is that there’s that slight possibility that you just might be destroying something special in the process - especially if you’re working with a new release. Most mold and paint changes occur early on in a model’s run, but we don’t really become away of some of these changes, or value them, until later releases of the same mold or color come out.

The Kansas City Shams are a good object lesson. At least one was lost that way, because it was assumed that the batch available at that show were production run Shams - or were going to be. Both Mr. Rudish, and hobbyists in general, were a little miffed when the Sham debuted in 1984 in a flat Red Bay, and not the "Golden Bay" described in loving detail in the book. It was assumed that the color correction was made, and the Red Bays were going to be the variation, not the standard.

Unfortunately, that was not to be. Rumors floated around that they had given the remainder of the Golden Bays they had produced to Sears for their 1984 Wishbook orders. Imagine what a nice surprise that would have been on Christmas Day!

Alas, there was little truth in the rumor. The paint job on the Sham did vary widely throughout its run - ranging from neon orange, bright red, to darkest mahogany - so it’s possible that a few of those early Sears Wishbook Shams could have been some shade of Golden Bay. But they were not the true Golden Bays from Chris Nandell’s Heart of America show.

Another complicating factor is that Breyer evidently did struggle with getting the Sham’s color just right: there are a lot of Bay test pieces floating around, and most that I’ve seen appear authentic, or at least not obviously faked. I even have one myself; if you look at him closely, you’ll notice that his mane and tail are hand-airbrushed, not masked like the production run piece:


(I purchased him from the estate of a man who had worked for Breyer in Chicago. He was not listed as a test color, but all the clues were there.)

There are a lot of dubious Kansas City Shams floating around. He’s so desirable - and potentially lucrative - a thing that many sellers start throwing around the "Kansas City" claim the moment they set eyes on a slightly lighter than average Bay. If every model claimed to be one on eBay were authentic, he’d be more common than most of the Special Runs of the early 1980s - ones measures in the hundreds of pieces, not in the dozens.

If you’re ever offered a Kansas City Sham, make sure the seller shows you the paperwork: the provenance, chain of ownership, receipts, whatever. And if they don’t, give ‘em the old stink eye and walk away.