Thursday, February 9, 2017

Locarno 62

It’s that time of the year when everyone is cleaning closets, slashing prices, or listing their otherwise unlistables in order to pay off their bills and/or stay on budget. I’ve been trying to be good about my budget, too, but some of the deals I’ve had to pass up have nearly killed me.

I finally broke down and bought a box lot. The price was right, and after I resell the bulk of it, I’ll be left with this handsome fellow free and clear:


It’s a Special Run #1406 Morganglanz Locarno 62! I had been wanting one for a while; I have a bit of a soft spot for this largely unloved mold, and his Mahogany Bay paint job is so dark and pretty.

This release is one of the best illustrations of why the most important component of “Collectability” is Desirability. He has all the points in his favor, on paper: he’s a relatively scarce Special Run, distributed overseas, in a genuinely beautiful color.

But he is not considered particularly desirable. While his coloring does give him a bit of reprieve from the antagonism the 2014 Exclusive Event Gris Gris receives, he’s still not beloved or sought out by many. A lack of interest translates into a lack of listings, so you hardly ever see them for sale stateside – and that’s most of the reason why it took this long for me to get one.

It’s mostly about the mold: there’s never been a lot of love for awkward and ungainly Morganglanz. He’s a tough sell even when you dress him up in pretty clothes, like last year’s BreyerFest Reserve Grand Open Show prize Brigadeiros.

http://www.identifyyourbreyer.com/images/brigadeiros1.jpg

That might change in the future. The original Decorators were a huge bust in the 1960s, and molds like the Classics Mestenos and Brishen have gone from “not” to “hot”. So as unlikely as it may seem, it could happen.

In the meantime, I’ll enjoy the fact that rarities like Gris Gris and Brigadeiros are within the realm of possibility in my budget.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brishen is/was an undesirable mold!? I loved him from the moment I first saw him! Especially in the Gypsy Cob, hairy version of the mold. But I am a big fan of Kathleen Moody's sculptures in general.

The Mestenos are popular now? Because I have a covey of them and I figured they would never sell in a million years. Might be time to list them! They've done them in such pretty colors but they are such lumpy, conformationally challenged horses.

Morganlanz I've always been sort of neutral on. I don't hate him but I'm not in love with him. He's a lot like other early Hess molds, which is not a bad thing. Chris Hess gave us a lot of nice molds! He practically built the Breyer line. But Morganlanz while nice doesn't really stand out from the rest of the Breyer line done around the same time.

Truson said...

I've always thought that if they would just give this mold a realistic tail, there would be a LOT more interest.

Anonymous said...

I love this mold and would be over the moon to have found the one you just did in such nice condition! And I've managed to get both a Gris Gris and a Brigaderios, both for "reasonable" prices in comparison to other similar models on different molds, so I'm perfectly happy for Morganglanz to remain "unpopular," at least until I can complete my conga! LOL