Yes, No, and Maybe

While I thought his initial paint job was fabulous, last year’s Premier Club release of Vermeer, the Friesian Sporthorse, left me a little… meh. Fraley’s sculpts are definitely hit or miss with me, and while there were some elements to the mold that I really liked – his mane, those windblown feathers, the wrinkles on his neck – he didn’t strike me as a mold I’d sell off other molds to collect.

The BreyerFest Special Run Seurat might make me change my mind. That’s a real pretty color on him, reminiscent of the sooty palomino that made me fall in love with the 2015 Special Run Chanel, on the Croi Damsha/Connemara mold.

The production pieces for Chanel differed significantly from the original promo photographs – much to our delight, since those photos made her look kind of bright and orangey. 

So while I already have some favorite picked out – among the revealed, and unrevealed – this particular item is one that I’d be most curious to see in person.

The fact that he’s named after one of my favorite painters, Georges Seurat, doesn’t hurt either. I’d rather the name be used on a leopard appaloosa of some sort, but the new Celebration Horse/Former Guest Horse probably put a kibosh on that idea. 

But if we’re going with Horses and Art History, it’s Franz Marc that owns my heart. While others dream of vintage Wedgewoods and Copenhagens, when it comes to blue horses, that particular painting is the grail I seek. A Franz Marc-inspired BreyerFest Special Run would be a very distant but still acceptable second choice.

On the other Special Run announcement, however, I’m going full contrarian here and giving it a hard NO: I’m sorry, I don’t care how detailed the paint job is or how closely they’ve tied it to the theme, using the Spanish Fighting Bull for the FOURTH time – when many Nonhorse molds have had, at most, a single BreyerFest release – is something I simply can’t get past. 

In a theme devoted to artistic inspirations, it strikes me as a downright uninspired choice.

(BTW, thanks guys, now I’m spending all my spare time planning a Wyoming Road Trip itinerary. For the record, though, the “Redneck Roadtrip Redo” I mulled over last year is probably more likely. We will see.)

The Spanish Fighting Bull

(It appears that I am having some profound technical difficulties with my computer, yet again. I will spare you the details, but it took me two hours to edit a picture for this post today, which normally takes me about two minutes.)

First, two notes.

One: The Gold Elephant currently on eBay looks like a fake to me, and not a very good one either. Aside from the gold paint looking too bright and pristine, the footings of models from the 1950s through the 1980s were rarely that neat and clean.  

As for the price, some hobbyists have a far higher tolerance for risk than others. 

Two: Yes, I am aware of the Black Appaloosa Pony of the Americas on MHSP, and I am not going to put in an offer. While I am more confident of that item’s authenticity and I am not entirely uncomfortable with the starting price, I am emotionally tapped out right now.  

We’re also just entering the “silly season” of Web Specials, Holiday Promotions and Year-End Sales Events, and I have no doubt that even crazier things are upon us, if that’s even imaginable.

Moving on to the Spanish Fighting Bulls I mentioned previously, here are “The Boys”:

As you can see, one has distinctly painted light gray hooves, and the other has solid black ones. This doesn’t mean that one is significantly older and/or more valuable than the other: with the #73 Spanish Fighting Bull, whether or not he had black or gray hooves was a matter of who was assigned to paint him. 

The Spanish Fighting Bull sold moderately well – he was in production from 1970 through 1985 – and even though the mold itself was more complex than many other Breyer Bulls, he also came with a fairly simple Solid Black paint job.

But as I’ve said many times before, quality control at the Chicago factory was a variable thing, and sometimes painters took shortcuts to make production quotas. Details like subtly different hoof colors would be the first to go.

Aside from the hoof color, the other two significant variations of the Black Spanish Fighting Bull include the Presentation Collection piece, and the Chalky Era releases with Gray Plastic horns. Like most Presentation pieces, the former is quite rare, and the latter somewhat less so. 

You’ll also very rarely see examples with unpainted ears; they were separately molded pieces attached to the horns and – in the case of the original Black – often weren’t attached until after the body color was painted. That’s why many of them have horns that appear to be very cleanly masked. 

The ears would have then been painted with the same paint used to finish the horn tips, but if that step somehow got skipped or missed, sometimes so would the ears!

My original Spanish Fighting Bull is currently in storage, but I think the gray-hooved variation here might be an upgrade. It’ll be a few weeks before I get around to digging him out and I know for sure.

Hall of Fame 2020

(Waves at everyone who found me during their Google search of “Breyer History” after seeing “Breyer Horses” on the 2020 Toy Hall of Fame Finalist list.)

Yeah, so this happened today: https://www.toyhalloffame.org/finalists

And here I thought I’d have to struggle to find a suitable topic for today that didn’t require a lot of research; I’m deep in the middle of several big projects here, and I’m both mentally and physically tapped out at the moment.

I did find a couple of interesting Spanish Fighting Bull variations at the local Salvation Army Store today (after another failed Stablemates run at the Tractor Supply next door), and I thought that would be perfect: the original #73 Black release of the Spanish Fighting Bull has a number of distinct variations that are definitely worth talking about.

Next time it is, then!

Anyway, this Hall of Fame thing is a delightful surprise; I suspect that the 70th Anniversary PR campaign is what finally pushed Breyer Horses over the top and on to the Finalist list, at last.

I kind of wish the hobby had gotten more than a tangential nod in the write up on the web site, and they could have used more iconic Breyer releases like the Family Arabians or the Western Horse to illustrate them, but as they say, It’s just an honor to be nominated.

Guys and gals, you know what to do: go vote, because Breyer is up against… Bingo, Lite-Brite, Yahtzee, He-Man and My Little Pony. That’s some tough sledding. 

You can do it every day up through the 16th, so go… do your hobby duty!

https://www.toyhalloffame.org/players-choice-ballot

Le Taureau and Consistency

I did come home with one bonafide Gloss from Kentucky – the Spanish Fighting Bull Le Taureau:

It’s been two weeks, though, and I still haven’t made a “connection” to him yet. I almost always opt for the Nonhorse choice almost out of habit, because I dig those molds in general. He’s really well done, but I’m still not feeling the love yet.

Other stuff needs to be sold off sooner (bodies, ephemera, some boxed items) so he might have a few more months to settle in with the local crowd before he gets exiled to the sales list.  

One admirable thing about this Special Run is the variability of the paint job; the ones I’ve seen in person and online vary widely, from very light to very dark, lightly striped to heavily so. My guy falls more toward the darker end of the spectrum.

If there’s one legitimate claim to be had about Breyers “not being made the way they used to be” it’s in the realm of variability: there’s just not as much variation as there used to be.

Some of that is attributable to the short and sweet production runs: it’s easier to maintain consistency over a 6 month or one year run, and opposed to one stretching decades.

But a lot of it has to do with improved quality control. Some of you may be snickering in the corner thinking “yeah, right” but hear me out: one part of quality control is in maintaining consistency.

Every model nowadays is “on model”, so to speak. Every once and a while you’ll find an especially nice example of something out there – more shading, cleaner masking, a little lighter or darker – but Breyer models, in general, are almost annoyingly consistent now.

This is a good thing for the average/low information consumer, who wants a model to look like it does in its promo pictures (more or less).

But for some of us fuddy-duddies who were around in the good old days, where – in spite of the picture on the box, you really weren’t sure what you were getting when you opened it – there’s a little bit less mystery and allure.

If you were particularly enamored of one release of a model, like I was with the Dapple Gray Azteca/ Foundation Stallion, those variations gave us the opportunity to buy that same beloved creature multiple times.

If there’s one change that they can make to the Vintage Club releases, it’d be the introduction of more variability within the runs. Not just the Gloss/Matte thing, but almost anything: gray hooves vs. pink hooves; star vs. no star; “Blue” Charcoal vs. “Chocolate”  Charcoal, or different halter or eye colors.

There’s been a little bit of that more recently, with the reintroduction of splash spotting technique and the “Gambler’s Choice” on the Running Stallion. Judging from the generally favorable response, it might be time for Reeves to kick it up a notch.

For The Third Time

He’s a beautiful model, actually, though saddled with a rather unimaginative name: Le Taureau. It’s French for The Bull.

Still on the fence whether or not he’ll be on my buy list: I’m going through another one of my "I own too much stuff" phases, and I’m trying to buy less of everything, in general, outside of incidental finds at local thrift stores. (Still looking to replace that stolen scarf!)

Another reason for my ennui about him? This is the third go-round for the Spanish Fighting Bull as a "Stand in Line/Ticket" Special Run. Several of the horse molds have reached that milestone, but he is the first Nonhorse mold so far. His first appearance was in 1999, as the Red Roan Flint, and again in 2004 as the gray-brown pinto Magnifico.

The Brighty has been a BreyerFest Special three times, as well, but only once - 2005’s Oliver - as a Ticket SR. He was a Diorama Contest Prize in 2010 (the Red Dun Pinto Cameo) and a Store Special in 2013 (Tennessee Titan).

The Small Poodle has appeared twice - or five times, depending on how you count the "Surprise Poodle Raffle" of 1997, where they raffled off four pieces each of four different colors: Gray, White, Apricot and Gloss Black. The other time being the pink Cotton Candy in 2009.

The Longhorn Bull has appeared twice (2001’s Mesquite, and 2007’s Alamo), as has the Pig (1999’s Oreo, and 2013’s Short Ribs). All of the other Nonhorses have appeared only once, if at all.

Nonhorse molds that haven’t shown up as BreyerFest SRs yet include: the Brahma Bull, the Polled Hereford Bull, the Polled Walking Angus Bull, the Standing Black Angus Bull, the Elk, the Moose, the Deer Family, the Large Poodle, the Pronghorn Antelope, the Bighorn Ram, the Zebra, the Bassett Hound, the Standing Donkey…

It’s a way longer list than even I expected, even if we factor out the handful of these molds that have appeared in the auctions, like the Glow-in-the-Dark Elk, and the infamous "Fruit Stripe" Zebra.

Some of these would be a tough sell  - Glacier aside, how many things can you do with the Pronghorn Antelope? - and others would probably be cost-prohibitive, like the Elk and Moose and their delicate antlers. Benji and Tiffany pretty much tanked when they were released, so a new release of either of those seems unlikely, no matter how cleverly you could work it into a theme.

Even so, four of the Bull molds: Inconceivable! None of them as exciting as the Spanish Fighting Bull, perhaps, but still deserving of some time in the blistering hot Kentucky-in-July sun.