I’ve finally started doing that herd culling I've been mumbling about for months now. With flea market season rapidly approaching, I forced myself to make the time for it. Outside of a couple of box lots I bought primarily to resell, though, I haven’t had too many new additions to the herd since BreyerFest, mostly because of the space (and time!) issues.
My criteria this go round is: If I don’t absolutely love it, or it doesn’t have some personal or historical significance, it’s gotta go.
The issue being that I love a lot of things, and as a kinda-sorta historian, I can find significance in almost anything, if I look long and hard enough. One particularly hard decision, for instance, was this guy:
It’s Little Man, from the Kelly Reno and Little Man Gift Set. I ultimately decided to cull him because he’s a little on the yellowed side, and I’d like to upgrade to a NIB set in the future anyway.
Heaven help me, it’s the color that’s most appealing to me: I don’t know why, but that hideous acid yellow Palomino colorway from that time period (early to mid-1980s) has been fascinating me of late.
(Let’s call it, for the sake of expediency, FAS [Family Arabian Stallion] Yellow, after the model who’s best known for it. The actual term I use for it isn’t exactly family- or Internet-friendly.)
I have this wild fantasy of a Vintage Club offering in this most eyeball-watering of colors, though I’m not sure who would get the honor of wearing it. Especially since most molds in the 1970s and 1980s - either as a Regular Run, or a Special Run - ended up sporting it at one time or another. Even molds as unlikely as the Pacer, the Belgian, and the Bell-bottomed Shire have already had their turn. (And I have them all! Mwah-ha-ha!)
Vintage Traditional molds that haven’t come in this color yet include: Man o' War, Trakehner, Stretched Morgan, Shetland Pony, Legionario, Appaloosa Performance Horse, the Clydesdales, Galiceno, Proud Arabian Stallion and Mare, Justin Morgan, Scratching and Lying Down Foal, Sham, Smoky, Stock Horse Mare, Stud Spider…
(Not including known Test Colors. Some of them came in different shades of something Palomino-like, like Stud Spider, Sham and the Shetland Pony. I am talking about FAS Yellow. My cut-off date for "vintage", BTW, are molds in production/conceived pre-Reeves, ca. 1985.)
As you can see, it’s not a huge list, and a number of these molds have already been utilized - or will be utilized - in the Vintage Club. Plus, the fact that FAS Yellow is probably one of the least-loved (to put it politely) of vintage colors means that it’s highly unlikely we’ll be seeing it on an new release any time soon, unless it ends up being one of those targeted mini Special Runs, like they did at the last Vault Sale. I can only imagine the reaction that would engender. (I hit refresh how many times to see THAT?!)
So I’ll just have to keep on dreaming about that FAS Yellow Man o’ War, Morgan or Trakehner. Though if I do, somehow, end up with a shot at a "Design a Test Color" thingie, I am so doing that. "She wants WHAT? Are you sure?"
3 comments:
I'm glad I'm not the only one with a fondness for 1980s lemony yellow palominos. I have a LB ASB in a rather blinding shade by the name of "Lemon Curd". She's body quality but she was $2 and I didn't have that model yet.
I'd love to see this color on a VC model, if only to savor the inevitable howls of protest.
"And I have them all!"
Sounds like a new collectors class theme right there!
My first thought was Running Mare and Foal, but they did that palomino RM in 1982. Dang.
I still want to see the Running Mare and Foal in old-school black (with bald faces and socks, like the Grazing Mare/Foal had). Come on, Breyer!
My first Trad Breyer was the Scratching Foal. She'd be cute in FAS Yellow, too, I think.
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