Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Glossy Thorn

He took the scenic route, apparently, but my Gloss Thorn is finally here, yay!

Other than the “impossibles” – the Grab Bag Chestnut, the Gloss Hickstead, and Test Colors (naturally) – all I am down to are either easier to acquire releases and variations I haven’t gotten around to yet, mostly because of space issues. 

I don’t count “The Trakehner Society” Trakehner because I think 95 percent of the models being claimed as that are wishful thinking. The same way everyone was claiming back in the 1980s and 1990s that their lighter-than-average Sham just had to be a Golden Bay Kansas City Sham. 

Yeah. No.

Occam’s Razor, people: the simplest explanation is usual the correct one. 

The original #54 Trakehner release came in an insane number of variations – from light sandy bay to nearly black. If you find a random Trakehner that’s different than the one you currently own, it’s probably just another variation of the #54 Trakehner. 

And when you think about it, the likelihood that your Trakehner is a Trakehner Society Trakehner is almost vanishingly small, especially when you consider that when it was allegedly released, hobbyists (for the most part) were unaware of its existence. 

Look at how hard it is to find the Spiegel Catalog Pluto. Most hobbyists assumed from the photograph in the catalog that he was a garden variety Chalky Alabaster Pluto, and not actually an unadvertised Special Run. And consequently didn’t buy him.

They still managed to sell over a thousand of them – five times the higher end of claimed run of the Trakehner Society SR – but you’re lucky to see one for sale in any given year. That’s what happens when you sell something like that to the general public: for all intents and purposes, they disappear! 

I only happened to get mine because I literally logged onto eBay less than five minutes after it was posted at a cheap-enough-to-take-a-risk Buy It Now price. Back when my eBay luck was absolutely golden.

If I do happen to run across an exceptionally nice or distinctive Bay Trakehner, I’m certainly not going to pass it up. But I’ll just be happy that he’s a variation; and not hang my hopes on him being something even better. 

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have one of those elusive soft dapple Pluto models and always wondered how many may be in existance. I always questioned the quantity! Which leads me to suggest that someone should create a rare Breyer census list. You up for it?!

Anonymous said...

We've discussed the ATS dude on a FB Breyer value group until we are blue in the face- with pics showing the variations side by side- and the poster still insists it's the SR one. I have one that is a dead ringer for it- and I KNOW he isn't, as I bought him NIB in 1984. But you know, rare and stuff. Then they get mad, delete the post and storm off. Because me and my vintage OF peeps don't know nuthin'....

PixelPerfectStables said...

For awareness- I used to have a gray plastic Trakehner (medium gray). He's a psuedo chalky- no basecoat. Definitely notable because he wasn't released until the major chalky/odd colored plastic period had passed. I traded him in late 2019. Just wanting to put his existence out there- since there's one, I'm sure there are at least a few more of them out there in this color plastic. I'm pretty sure I put pics on Blab at some point?