Saturday, April 3, 2021

Swing And A Miss

Sigh. Weren't we just talking about bad information?

This picture – from the latest Collector’s Club online newsletter, celebrating mold birthdays from 1961 – is mostly wrong:

The first and most obvious: the Grazing Mare didn’t come out until 1965. This is not a matter of a lack of documentation. She’s not in the 1961 Dealer’s Catalog inserts, she’s not in the 1963 Dealer’s Manual, and she’s not in the 1964 Dealer’s Catalog inserts. The first time we see her in any official Breyer ephemera is on the official pricelist from 1965, with the Grazing Foal.

The Running Mare and Western Prancing Horse are probably 1962 releases; I don’t have any official Breyer ephemera that says so, but I have multiple copies of Red Bird Sales Company fliers from the early 1960s, and the Running Mare and Foal and Western Prancing Horse don’t appear on the earliest of version of them. The earliest version of these fliers does include the Semi-Rearing Mustang and the Five-Gaiter, who we’re pretty sure are genuine 1961 releases.

The Fighting Stallion is the most questionable one here: although he does appear in the 1961 Dealer’s Catalog insert sheets, I think he might have been released as early as 1960, but I only have circumstantial evidence of that. 

So, at best, Reeves got only two out of five right? 

I could kinda-sorta understand why they didn’t get the Running Mare and Western Prancing Horse right; that ephemera is pretty scarce and not widely circulated, and despite my best efforts to the contrary, bad information has an annoying habit of persisting long after it has been corrected. 

To the point where I wonder if I should even bother sometimes.

But the Grazing Mare? A pretty big swing and a miss here, guys.

6 comments:

Carrie said...

Ah, I knew you'd have things to say about that article! Even my jelly-memory felt things were a bit out of whack.
Please keep bothering. I, for one, truly truly enjoy learning from, & have mad props for, your vast knowledge base. :)

timaru star ii said...

Yes, it is annoying, but the only way to fight it is keep trying. I cherish your proper documentation. Hang in there!

PixelPerfectStables said...

I was thinking when I read this article that I was fairly certain the GM was never released without her foal, so her inclusion here was a bit odd to me.

Yvonne said...

Obviously more interest in the pretty picture they all made together rather than the actual facts...

Julie said...

They are accepting applications for feeelance artists and columnists at the moment. You should apply. You're clearly qualified.

Julie said...

By "they" I mean Breyer. It was posted on their Twitter page