So Bright and Blue

I am of two thoughts when it comes to the current maybe-probably Wedgewood Blue BreyerFest Special Run sneak peek:

It might be a play on the Danube River, the second longest river in Europe that also happens to originate in southern Germany. The Danube is the subject of the famous waltz “The Blue Danube” by Austrian composer Johann Strauss. It’s a song you’ve heard just about everywhere, from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Squid Game. Some of the relevant lyrics here:

Danube so blue,
so bright and blue,
through vale and field
you flow so calm,
our Vienna greets you,
your silver stream
through all the lands
you merry the heart
with your beautiful shores.

There’s also a subtle equine connection at play here: the German name for the Danube is Donau, which also happened to be the name of the ill-fated 1910 Kentucky Derby winner! 

The other line of thinking is that this release might be (as I speculated a while ago) related to German Expressionism: either The Blue Rider School (Der Blaue Reiter) or specifically to the artwork of Franz Marc, whose artwork frequently featured… blue horses. 

If they go with the latter idea, I would hope (again, as I speculated back in late July) they would do a modified version of Wedgewood Blue with a darker blue mane and tail, to replicate the horses in Marc’s work. 

I have no idea what mold this would be. I know a lot of people are hoping/fearing that this will be Georg, but I’m personally rooting for something more Warmblood-ish, like the Cleveland Bay. 

Either way, this model will possibly create a conundrum. I was hoping to get away from BreyerFest with relatively little financial damage, but with the Gummi Bears, the Stablemates, that magnificent Fireheart Stein, and now maybe/probably The Blue Horse, I can see this is not going to be the case. 

Speaking of Stein, while we all get annoyed at times with Reeves shoehorning in newer releases into BreyerFest themes where they don’t necessarily belong (rolling my eyes, again, at the Wyatt Marzipan) I am a little surprised that they did not mention Germany’s fascination with the American Old West after World War II. It would have created a more palatable rationale for its inclusion, rather than an obtuse one about its color. 

Off to do a little online seed shopping. Will this be the year I finally get Penstemon to grow from seed?

Wedgewood Blue Stud Spider

I love him and I want him:

I am assuming that he was a Test Color for the 2006 Treasure Hunt Lady Phase in Wedgewood Blue, since the color and the eye details are similar, as are the molds themselves.

This raises all sorts of questions about those Golden Charm Appaloosa and Honey Bay Lady Phases and the 2013 Mother Lode models, too. Ones I’ll set aside for now because I’m elbow deep in tax paperwork today and I promised myself I’d get that done by the end of the weekend.

The online discussion of this particular Test Color is a little frustrating, but not entirely unexpected: an entire generation of hobbyists have grown up assuming that what they see in BreyerFest Benefit Auctions (and donation pieces to hobby events/organizations) are Test Colors, when most of them are more akin to Factory Customs.

(Not all, but the percentage does vary from year to year.)

Most of the Test Colors featured in the earliest BreyerFest Auctions – particularly the ones in the 1990s – were actual Test Colors, featuring strange or unappealing colors on molds now considered undesirable.

As their stable of molds and color techniques improved, so did the auction pieces, and their prices, thus creating the crazy feedback loop we have today. Something that’s both (or neither) a good thing or a bad thing, but again, a topic for another day.

So now Reeves offers up something closer to the actual nature of a Test Color – unapologetically and unequivocally an experiment, dings and all – and this has been deemed unsatisfactory by a lot of hobbyists.

As someone who owns multiple Test Colors with issues (a three-legged Dapple Gray Family Arabian Mare, a bloated Bay Stormy, a Sorrel Classic Quarter Horse Foal with about 300 rubs) condition is not an issue for me. The price is not terrible, and his provenance is fabulous: I’d love to have him live here. He’d make an especially nice companion to my 4-stocking Stud Spider variation!

That’s not my decision to make, unfortunately. Stud Spider does have his fans, enough to make me wonder why he hasn’t been a part of the Vintage Club program, except as a color inspiration to the Man o’ War Storm. 

Incidentally, I’ve decided that my next big Breyer “Grail” is going to be one of those early funky BreyerFest Auction Tests. Someone put up a 1990s Morganglanz on eBay a few years back for a not-at-all terrible price, and I’m still kicking myself for not buying him.