More Loose Ends

Have you seen the train wreck that is today’s Daily Breyer entry on the Facebook page? Holy cow, that’s bad! They’ve had some doozies before, but I this one’s so wrong, it’s not even wrong. It’s wrong in a way that should win a prize for wrongness.

The Old Molds were not introduced until 1958, and the Stallion - who became the Family Arabian Stallion - didn’t arrive on the scene until (probably) 1959. Except that Saturday Night Fever pictured on Breyer’s Facebook page is actually the Proud Arabian Stallion, not a Family Arabian Stallion. And the PAS wasn’t officially released until 1971.

Seriously, how do you manage to confuse the Proud Arabian Stallion with the Family Arabian Stallion? Even my Mother can tell the difference, and her only involvement in the hobby is pretending not to dust my collection when I’m in Kentucky for ‘Fest!

I know in the grand scheme of things these details don’t matter that much, but researching the details of Breyer History is what I do in the hobby and for the hobby. It’s upsetting to see how little the company I research seems to care about getting its own history right.

There, I feel better now. Every once and a while you’ve got to get a rant out of your system, you know?

My schedule for the next couple of weeks looks a little rough, so I’ll spend the rest of my post today tying up some loose ends.

The Woodgrain Donkey pics in the surprisingly robust Donkey discussion thread are duly noted. I’ll probably categorize it as a Test, or part of a small SR of the Ranchcraft type. I still think a lot of hobbyists may be confusing sightings of the Red Mill Donkey for the Woodgrain one, though. I don’t know how rare the Red Mill Donkey is, but it’s certainly less so than a Breyer Woodgrain Donkey would be.

I also live by the motto "Trust, but verify." I’ve had way too many experiences with folks swearing that they heard, or saw, or owned something that turned out not to be what they thought it was. It’s a big problem, especially in the realm of Glossies, Chalkies and Tests; anything questionable of that nature needs an in-person inspection before I’m comfortable in declaring it authentic.

Yes, I am aware of the eBay auctions with the dumbbell stickers - and the insane prices that went with them! The nature and limited release of these stickers means that they’ll always be numerically rare, but $400 rare? I don’t know how long that price point will be sustainable. And I thought the $25 I spent on mine back in the 1990s was a bit high.

A lot of foofah was made on Blab over a report that a couple of Web Specials (Riley, and Summer Solstice) turned up at a hardware store somewhere in the Minnesota, at a slightly discounted price.

The Sales Rep in question probably had some discretion of throwing in some choice items from the warehouse to help close this particular deal; instead of older regular runs or special runs with larger piece counts, they just happened to be Web Specials. This sort of thing happens way more often than most hobbyists realize. Hobbyists don’t pay much attention when the items in question are more common; if they notice them at all, they just write them off as old store stock, and walk on by.

If they still have Summer Solstices and Rileys come June, I think the remainders will end up in the NPOD. Along with the remainder of the Dealer Special Autumns, Medalist Ponies, and whatever "gotta have it" model turns up between now and then. And who knows - maybe the leftover LSE Frankensteeds, too. (From what I’ve read, all of the LSE participants had a chance to buy one, and passed them by; seems only right that the rest of us mere mortals have a chance.)