Places (Not) To Go

Will I be able to get everything done that I need to get done in the next two weeks? We’ll find out!

As for attending the “memorial” event at BreyerFest, I am still undecided. As I mentioned in the last post, most of my bigger emotions are now packed into little tiny boxes in the attic of my mind, and I planned on keeping them taped tightly shut until I get to Wyoming.

BreyerFest is already a pretty intense event, so it might be in my best interest to stay away from things that might provoke yet another emotional outburst. (Everyone melts down at least once: the only question is whether it happens in public or in private.)

Speaking of other events I may not attend, I am utterly uninterested in the BreyerFest Car Show. 

Part of the reason why I go to Kentucky every year is to escape the local car culture. A half dozen car shows spontaneously happen in random parking lots around here every weekend from April through October (and once a month at work!) and they’ve completely lost their allure to me. 

I grew up around old cars, and I’ve already seen examples of even the rarest of them in person – heck, there was a local museum (not even two miles from our house!) that had a Tucker, and I had no idea it was that big of a deal until the movie came out….

It’s not something completely unexpected – I mean hello, this year’s theme is “Driving Forward” – but I have plenty else to do, so I doubt my presence will be missed.   

I don’t know most of the Social Media Influencers attending the Social Media Meet, so that’s also probably a no-go. I guess I’m peripherally a minor social media type person, but unless I hear otherwise, you’re more likely to meet me in my Room in the 300s clear on the other side of the hotel. (Which is Room 312, unless something goes sideways.) 

And I guess that’s it for today? I have some horses to pull out of boxes and pictures for various projects that I have to process, and every moment is precious right now. 

Here’s a picture of the Unpainted Sherman Morgan that I bought; I thought I’d be able to see some of whatever the problems were that led to the mold getting decommissioned and then retooled, but I don’t see anything obvious. 

It’s most likely he was tossed into the cull bin because the seams were poorly matched up in places, and were beyond the ability of the finisher to buff them away. Still a pretty neat guy to have, though!

This also means that, in spite of the fact that I am not the mold’s biggest fan, I own four examples of it pre-remodeling (all except Fashionably Late), and three post (Matte and Gloss Justin Morgan, and the 2014 BreyerFest Special Run Celebration in Silver Filigree.) 

Funny how that happens. 

Opportunities

Another quick one, guys – nothing personal, just the usual deadlines and anxieties cramping my style here. I’m hoping everything will be significantly better by the end of next week, but I can’t make any promises. 

In spite of the state of my office, I haven’t been able to buy as much as I’ve wanted to in recent months. 

Some of it is my chronic lack of free time and the plethora of commitments. 

Some of it is the fact that my Web Special entries are apparently being thrown into a deep, dark Internet well, never to be seen again. 

The local flea market is also no longer an option: I’d rather not discuss it in detail, but it’s not a matter of time or money, but of personal safety. 

A lot of it is the fact that the majority of hobby sales have migrated to Facebook, and dear readers, you know that’s not a place I’ll ever be comfortable going. (I will conveniently delete my cranky rant about how Facebook will probably destroy civilization as we know it.)

And finally, a lot of hobbyists have collectively decided that the only acceptable form of payment is now… Postal Money Orders? Which I would be fine with, if not for the fact that getting to the local Post Office is also a challenge for me, most days. (Which is also why I haven’t put any effort into my online sales at all.)

Sigh.

Anyways, that’s why the sale in Dowagiac is still tempts me. But unless I manage to pull off the impossible and get the project I’m working on done (or nearly done) by Friday, it’s not going to happen. 

(Spoiler: it’s not going to happen.)

I did recently buy one nice little treasure recently: a Chicago-Era Factory Unpainted Elephant!

I probably paid a little too much for it, but as I explained above, my options are pretty limited, and he came with as solid a provenance as these things can. He’s still pretty yellow, but he’s brightening up quicker than I anticipated, so that’s a nice bonus.

I don’t have a lot of Unpainted models, but I’m always open to the opportunities as they arise. 

Naked Truth

Also in the interest of completeness: no on the wait list for Crane, and no for the Test Color Mule. But I did manage to score a couple of fun finds at the local Salvation Army earlier this week: a Pacer body and a Percheron Plushie from Greenfield Village:

There were a number of other horse-shaped objects in the store, which leads me to suspect that there had been other high-value equine goodies there that I probably missed. Alas, my new schedule sort of precludes me from doing a lot of extracurricular shopping, and I could not have gone earlier.

(I still haven’t been back to the flea market this year either, but that’s not a scheduling issue, that’s entirely a personal safety issue.)

I’ve always wanted to do a custom with a Pacer, but I still haven’t quite come up with an idea good enough to compel me to do it. That, and having a few hundred other projects also in the way. 

Speaking of customizing and bodies and such, let’s briefly discuss the famous “Unpainted” offer Breyer made to subscribers of Just About Horses in 1980, which was targeted specifically to customizers of the time: 

We called ourselves repainters or repaint/remakers back then, in case you’re wondering what that’s all about. For those of you who want some easy cut and paste text for your files, here’s the list:

1. Lady Phase
2. Adios
3. Stud Spider
4. Proud Arabian Stallion
5. Proud Arabian Mare
6. Black Beauty
7. Indian Pony
8. Cantering Welsh Pony
9. Saddlebred Weanling
10. 5-Gaiter
11. Clydesdale Mare
12. Morganglanz
13. Hanoverian
14. Trakehner
15. Foundation Stallion

Contrary to what you may read elsewhere on the Internet – and especially, on eBay – these fifteen molds are the only ones that were a part of this offer, and the only ones that you could possibly or legitimately claim as being part of that offer. 

Any other unpainted models you may find in your travels may also be genuine factory Unpainteds, but they may have come via other offers (like those “Factory Whiteware” boxes that were offered up in the NPOD a few years ago), from craft kits, factory warehouse sales before they stopped them because some people couldn’t behave themselves, employee take-homes, Marney’s garage, etc. 

While I have a few unpainted models, most of them have either some historical significance, some personal significance, or just because I happen to like the mold. 

The only Unpainteds that I’d go out of my way to buy personally would be molds that have since been altered in some way and no longer “exist” in their original state. (I’m looking at you, Saddlebred Weanling! Okay, maybe you too, Trakehner.) 

All models start out naked, so in most cases, they could still make more. 

White Shade of White

This year’s Christmas Model Yuletide Greetings is another model whose popularity I am moderately confused by. 

I get that the Shannondell model – independent of anything attached to it – is popular in and of itself. But all the Christmassy gewgaws dripping off of him aren’t doing much for me. As I’ve said before, some of these Breyer Christmas horses kind of remind me of the way Mom decorates for Christmas, and I am not so much unimpressed as I’m kind of over it. And Yuletide Greetings falls into that category. 

A giant, six-foot tall tree made out of pinecones? Completely covering a tree in pink poinsettias? Handmade grapevine wreaths decorated with flowers made out of hand-dyed cornhusks? Seen it. Done it. Yawn.

I do have a pretty nice, saddle-free White Western Pony in my body box right now that I might decorate as my interpretation of a Candy Packer for the holidays. All the supplies have been purchased (they were on sale!), but time? Time is the problem…

Speaking of all-white horses, here’s a pic of an old favorite of mine who didn’t do much at the BreyerFest Photo Show, but her photograph turned out pretty great so I’ll share it with you all:

This is an unpainted Chalky Plastic G1 Saddlebred, purchased from The Bentley Sales Company at Model Horse Congress back in 1985. For 25 cents? Or a dollar? Something ridiculously low, because Stablemates were cheap and collecting unpainted models back then wasn’t that big of a thing yet.

The swirls in the plastic are mold flow lines, caused by the leading edge of the melted plastic already beginning to harden, forming a slight skin. They are fairly common in vintage models, particularly those from the 1970s and 1980s. 

It’s not very apparent in the photograph, but she’s also somewhat yellowed: just because the plastic was opaque white doesn’t mean it doesn’t also yellow. Basecoated Chalkies are less likely to do so, though I’ve seen a few that have mellowed to a very pale ivory with age.

Unpainted Breyers in other colors also exist – most notably, the Pink Proud Arabian Foals – but a lot of the ones I see are actually just stripped Chalkies. The fact that some live shows allow them to show as Original Finish models, alas, only muddies the line between Customs and Original Finish and (to a degree) devalues those truly unpainted rarities that do occasionally resurface. 

Unfinished or Unpainted?

No luck in the local Walmart Stablemates hunt so far; it looks like that experiment/promotion may be a little more limited than we imagined.

C’est La Vie.

The past few days at work have been slow going, and a new shiny thing would have been a nice distraction. I’ll just have to distract myself with other things.

Speaking of Stablemates, here’s that Stablemates Painting Kit I found a little while back at the local Salvation Army. Complete with all the painting bits too, remarkably!

The models in these kits may be unpainted, but they are not raw or unfinished. They’ve been trimmed, cleaned, and the surface lightly prepped/primed to accept paint. Painting is just one step in the production process, albeit the finishing one.

I don’t have any true Factory Unpainted pieces out right now to show you the differences, and it might not be that helpful anyway. Like Chalkies, true Factory Unpainteds can be difficult to photograph, with nuances that are probably best demonstrated with an in-person examination or comparison.

Ironically, these early Test Color Quarter Horse Mares may be most helpful here, since I suspect they were Preproduction pieces that didn’t go through the full finishing process before they had a paint job slapped on them. The paint job caught and accentuated all the ridges and roughness of the back seam:

The unfinished nature of the seam is especially visible on the example on the left. Most of this roughness wasn’t from the mold itself, but from the acetone used to melt and soften the edges prior to assembly.

Most (but not all!) Stablemates come out of the mold solid, so they wouldn’t necessarily have this kind of problem to deal with. Most of the molding issues with Stablemates would be with sink marks (indentations caused by overheated plastic), mold flow lines (squiggly lines on the surface of the plastic), and flashing (rough extruded edges at the seams).

Sink marks can’t really be fixed or finished away, but mold flow lines and flashing can, to a degree.

So this is why I wince a little whenever I read complaints about newer releases that are either mostly or extensively white, as somehow being less finished or less complete. Perhaps, but there’s still a lot of work that goes into getting a model to that state in the first place!

Green Plastic?

There’s been a bit of talk about a couple of Green Donkeys that turned up on eBay recently. Are they real? And what’s the deal with the rather interesting prices the vendors are trying to sell them for?

On the first question, yes, Breyer did use Green Tenite for a while: it was one of the more exotic colors they purchased during the Chalky Era of the early 1970s. I’ve seen it most commonly on the Standing Donkey mold, but the Mare from the Thoroughbred Mare and Foal Gift Set was also molded in it.

There are some Classic Quarter Horse Foals that come in a very light, limey green that may or may not have been related to the more vibrant "Kelly Green" of the Donkey and Thoroughbred Mare.

Most of the other Colored Tenite of the Chalky Era came in more naturalistic colors, like gray, brown or rosy-purple-pink: the rubs on Chalkies molded in those colors are still noticeable, but they don’t stand out as much as the rubs on Green ones do.

Although they are "real", most of the Green Plastic models I’ve seen floating around the model horse community are NOT Original Finish pieces. Most appear to be Chalkies stripped of the paint they wore when they shipped out of the factory, presumably because they were in an otherwise unsellable condition.

I guess you could call them "reverse" customs: instead of paint being added to the model, the paint is completely taken away. Obviously, I think it’s improper to show it as an Original Finish piece, though it has been done.

Are there authentic unpainted Colored Tenite models from the Chalky Era out there? Yes, of course. I have an unpainted opaque white plastic G1 Saddlebred, and a couple of "test shots" molded out of contaminated regrind (with little black floaty bits!) Those Lime Green Quarter Horse Foals I mentioned above are the real deal too, though I’m not sure if they were from the 1970s or not.

There may be a few genuine Kelly Green pieces from the 1970s. But I can’t recall seeing one that I could comfortably call "Factory Unpainted".

As for those prices - yeah, wishful thinking. They’re not that rare, either painted over or stripped.

Oh No, Not Again - Again!

I had heard rumors about as-yet-unreleased Reissues being spotted at the Factory Tours during the latest Exclusive Event, but I hadn’t given them much thought. I assumed that they’d spring them on us the way they did last year. You know, just setting them out in the Sales Tent, no announcements or nothing.

Nope. Say hello to the latest Warehouse Finds.

I swear I did not know they were being released on the web site this week, just a few days after I mentioned my hunch. I had a hunch something was coming because we had the White Moose Ghost in March of last year, and the Buried Treasure Lusitano in April the year before.

Logic and recent history.

Sometimes, though, I feel like Reeves is punking me. (Decorator Khemos? Let’s do it! Another web site surprise? Let's move it up to this week!)

So anyway, I bought a Pacer and an Old Timer. because those are molds on my "Approved to Buy" List. I picked up a Sucesion and LeFire too because I’ve been wanting to upgrade my set for a long time, and the prices for them on eBay have been out of my league.

430006 Quarter Horse - Blue Roan (AQHA Horse)
430007 Standardbred - Chestnut (Pacer)
430010 Thoroughbred - Chestnut (Halla/Bolya)
430011 Arabian Mare and Foal (Sucesion and LeFire)
430012 Redmond - Bay (Midnight Sun)
430019 Paint Horse - Bay (Cody/Ranch Horse)
430020 Old Timer - Appaloosa

The Old Timer is sans blinkers and hat, like the Palomino, but it’s too soon to tell just how much the other Reissues vary from the originals, outside of the VIN numbers and better executed paint jobs.

I have a feeling that the Midnight Sun will be the Huck Bey of this group - different enough from the original it was inspired from to qualify as a distinct release on its own. It even has a "real" name as opposed to a generic descriptive one, which I find interesting.

Plus, it’s been 25 years since the original #704 was discontinued, back when Reeves was still having some significant quality control issues. He’ll be different just by virtue of that. (I remember liking the release back then, and having a very hard time finding one that did not have major issues.)

It might be worth noting that this may represent the last official production release of the Midnight Sun mold. Due to the ongoing issues within the real world of Tennessee Walking Horses, there hasn’t been an official production release of the Midnight Sun mold since the last Special Run was made for WCHE in 2002.

The only other Midnight Suns we’ve seen in the meantime have been either auction pieces, or the Unpainted ones Reeves has periodically tried to sell us at BreyerFest.

Those "Whiteware" collections might be the key to figuring out what Reissues may be coming down the pipeline in the future. (There are gaps in the Reissue numbering system that still haven’t been accounted for yet. Seems inevitable to me.) The last boxed Whiteware sets included the following molds:

• Sucesion and LeFire
• Gem Twist
• Belgian
• Cody/Ranch Horse
• Midnight Sun
• Clock Saddlebred
• Clydesdale Mare
• Family Arabian Stallion
• Stock Horse Stallion (original tail)
• Shetland Pony
• Western Prancing Horse

Six of the twelve have turned up as Reissues! So I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the other six show up soon. Gem Twist seems the most likely choice, but I would be most excited about the Western Prancing Horse. (Another one on my Buy List!)

Reeves has disabled the parts of the inventory system that allowed us to figure out the rough counts, but (no surprise) the Sucesion and LeFire sets are already gone. Everything else still seems to be available, though.

Unfinished Business

As you might have guessed, I am blissfully uninterested in the Passage to the Pacific. It is an event that’s clearly designed for a very, very small subset of hobbyists, a subset that can drop a month’s income on a trip on a moment’s notice. And I am not a member of said group.

(It is true that this week's one and only Powerball winner bought his/her ticket less than 30 miles from my house, but it wasn’t any one in this actual house.)

I suppose it’s nice that it’s on the West Coast, as sort of a consolation prize for there not being a BreyerWest this year, but all in all, these VIP events feel like subsidized vacays for the Reeves Staff. No thankies.

The event also ties in to the topic of privilege within the hobby, but I’m not quite ready to get into another extended philosophical discussion just yet.

Speaking of: in light of the new information that was posted on Blab, and some that I have received privately, I should have a follow up on the CheaterFest post in another day or two. I still need a little more time to collect my thoughts and clarify my opinions. (The super-short version, for those not in the know: steps are being taken to remedy the live show incident.)

Now, back to the actual horses…

One of the things that I failed to pick up in the Ninja Pit - and should have - were the two assortments of unpainted models (aka "whiteware"). They were dirt cheap - twenty bucks per assortment, with six models per box. Better yet, not all of them were weird unsellable things, either: Gem Twist, the Clydesdale Mare, the Clock Saddlebred and even Sucesion and LeFire (yes, you read that right - two of the hottest molds on the planet right now.)

My stack was already almost as tall as I was, so there wasn’t any way I could throw those boxes on the pile without losing something else. I really, really wanted to: even if I sold everything in each of the boxes for five dollars apiece, I could have made my money back, and then some.

By the time I was able to get back in the Sales tent, though, they were gone. It wasn’t a huge deal for me, since I still had plenty of bodies to sell at that point. What’s bugging me now is that I forgot to write down the numbers they assigned to each assortment.

I’ve been able to track down what was in these assortments from their rather conspicuous appearances on eBay. But naturally, the sellers haven’t exactly been eager to show the tag on the box with the assortment number in their listing, since the twenty dollar price the tag would also reveal would probably put a bit of a kibosh on their sales.  

It’s not a super-important bit of data, but dang it, you know I’m kinda anal about this sort of thing.

What’s interesting about the molds in these assortments is that so many of them had been made into Web Specials: Clock Saddlebred (Spring has Sprung), the Belgian (Red Rocket), Family Arabian Stallion (50th Anniversary FAS), Sucesion and LeFire (A Mother’s Love), and the Stock Horse Stallion (Summer Solstice).

Throw in the fact that the Clydesdale Mare and the Ranch Horse/Cody have also had a few low-piece Special Runs not all that long ago (Del Mar for the Mare; Chico and Opening Night for Cody) and you’ll see why they’ve piqued my interest.

In case you were wondering, the models in the assortments that haven’t come out as limited SRs (yet) include the Western Prancing Horse, Shetland Pony, Gem Twist, and Midnight Sun.

FYI: there hasn’t been a regular - or special - run of the WPH since 2004. Or of the Midnight Sun since 2002. While the Midnight Sun is probably out of the question, the Western Prancer? The model whose vintage Black Pinto paint job was recently repurposed for the Vintage Club Salt and Pepper release?

Hmm. 

Blank Slates

I’ve never really understood the fascination with unpainted models. Sure, they’re nice to have if you’re a fan of a particular model, and a few of them technically qualify as special runs. But laying out the extra cash for one - over and above body or retail price, I mean - has never made much sense to me. Because every model starts out as an unpainted. And some talented folks can turn them back into one.

Some unpainted models are interesting from a sculptural standpoint: many of the Hess molds look more like art than toy in their naked state. But for the most part, I regard unpainted models as blank canvases - one indistinguishable from another. It’s the paint job that makes a horse rare or stand out from its identically-shaped cohorts.

A few unpainted models technically qualify as special runs - such as the G1 Riegsecker Draft Horse that came with the multiple-piece SR set in the 1980s, and the 1980 JAH Special Offer Unpainteds. Even so, it’s difficult to impossible to tell those SR Unpainteds from a run of the mill factory escapees, unless you can provide the documentation (receipt, or in the Drafters' case, a complete unbroken set and/or history of ownership.)

Now, there are always some exceptions to the rule. There have been many subtle - and not so subtle - mold changes over the years, and an unpainted model of an earlier version of a mold will have some historical value. The Saddlebred Weanling is an obvious candidate - the pre-Rocking Horse, attached tail version will definitely have more value and cachet than later one with a detached tail. An unpainted unmuscled Clydesdale or a supermuscled Quarter Horse Gelding would be a major coup for almost any collector, too.

(What, you don’t know about the various different versions of the Quarter Horse Gelding mold? Another topic teaser, I know.)

Unpainted chalkies have some value, too - some of you probably familiar with the infamous Pinkie Proud Arabian Foals that have floated around the hobby for years now. One of the few unpainted models I have in my collection is a chalky G1 Saddlebred (she’s not basecoated: she’s actually an opaque white plastic one.) Sorry for the small pic - it’s a former Blab avatar:


The swirled-plastic and solid-colored Stablemate keychains also qualify as unpainted models, as do the Tortuga-style Decorators, but I would argue that in those cases, it’s the plastic itself that becomes the "surface" treatment, not the paint.

There are some unpainted models being sold by various dealers as samples - with rough seams, handwritten notations and tags and stuff like that - that may also have a slightly higher-than-nominal cash value, depending on how trustworthy you consider the dealer and the documentation he or she provides. (I’m going to assume that, being the conscientious hobbyists that you are, you probably already possess the slightly skeptical mind to be wary of anyone’s extraordinary claims of rarity or general awesomeness.)

I suspect in most cases where an unpainted model goes for an exceptional or seemingly unwarranted price, it’s just another case of someone’s (or a couple of someones’s) overwhelming need to have something special and unique. It’s just that in the case of unpainted models, there are very few true instances of uniqueness: underneath every painted model is an unpainted one.