Another Oddball

Here’s a little something to tide you over while I go off on another ill-advised weekend excursion. (I’m telling myself that it’s a dry run for next year’s Upper Wyoming Grand Adventure, but it’s really more of a “I need to get away from my life for a couple of days, please and thank you” thing.)

Apparently I have moved on from weirdo Shams to weirdo Proud Arabian Stallions! As you might have noticed – at least, I hope you did! – this beautiful fellow has no black points on his front legs. This is an unusual variation of the Bay that Breyer employed on some of releases in the mid-1970s, most notably on early examples of the G1 Stablemates Citation and Arabian Stallion.

While I have occasionally spotted this variation on other releases – l have a matching Bay Grazing Mare and Foal set, for instance – this is the first time I’ve seen in on the Proud Arabian Stallion. When I eyed him on eBay, I found him so striking that I realized he had to come home with me. 

Even though I already have a couple of pretty nice Mahogany Bay Proud Arabian Stallions, and didn’t think I needed more. (The *Witez II that you’ve seen here a few times before because he’s unbelievably gorgeous, and a Chalky who I keep forgetting that I own, for some strange reason, who is also extremely nice. But I digress.)

The Mahogany Bay Proud Arabian Stallion went through several different markings variations – beginning with two neatly airbrushed short hind socks on the earliest *Witez II models, and ending with four stockings that were sometimes rather… undefined. 

That was nothing unique to the Proud Arabian Stallion, though. Most leg markings in the 1970s were pretty darn fuzzy. And variable. Oh, so variable.

I’m assuming the new guy is from the ca. 1974/1975 era, because he still has the neatly airbrushed hind socks typical of the *Witez II. Some Mahogany Bay Proud Arabian Stallions still rocked those socks even after they started adding front stockings to the paint job later on in the 1970s. 

I am assuming that all they did at the factory was instruct the painters to add some front stockings to the original paint job. Since it is likely they didn’t specify what they had to look like, they just went with the standard fuzzy markings of the era. 

He is in excellent shape, but he does need a little bit of cleanup before I decide what to do with him. (Have I mentioned before that I own too much stuff?)