A Tale of Two Ruffian Variations

Might as well discuss these two before they get lost in the shuffle of everything else that’s been coming and going:

You know how you’ll sometimes look at a Regular Run model and tell yourself “If only I could find just the right one…”

This is the story of how I ended up with not one, but two Palomino Classics Ruffians.

The last time I was at Tuesday Morning, pondering those Semi-Gloss Stablemates and the Squishie Classic Haflinger, I also spent a little time looking over a couple of the Classic Palomino Ruffians – aka the #932 Thoroughbred Cross, just discontinued late last year.

I liked the concept of a Palomino Classic Ruffian, but none of the ones I had come across really appealed to me. The ones at Tuesday Morning were very nice; additionally, the packaging was slightly different than the standard Classics packaging, and the assortment consisted of recently discontinued items from very late in their production run – possibly the last pieces produced in their respective runs, making them another possible de facto Special Run.

But like the Haflinger and Stablemates, I left them behind.

Then I found that slightly pearly Palomino one on eBay a few weeks ago, with the unmasked mane and oversprayed tail, and no eyewhites. I was in love.

Because I happened to be in the area and I needed to buy some storage boxes for some of my ephemera anyway, I went back to that Tuesday Morning and bought one of those, too. Obviously they needed each other, and I felt I could justify it because unlike her Traditional-scale sister, the Classics Ruffian takes up hardly any room at all on the shelf.

This is where my lack of attention to the recent Classics releases has come to bite me in the behind. Is my pretty, pearly Ruffian a variation, an oddity, or something else? Her VIN number says she was produced in early 2014, but all the photos of her in the ephemera, and online show masking right from the start.

I have similar questions about the Tuesday Morning Ruffian (whose VIN number indicates a September 2017 production date). Is she different from the bulk of the run, or am I just imagining it?

I fear this may lead to me buying more Palomino Ruffians.

Sometimes oddballs and variations just happen, for no rhyme or reason. Fretting over their origins sometimes gets in the way of appreciating them in the first place.