Low Muscle Family Arabian Mares

Most Breyer molds have been modified at some point in their production life. Some of the changes can be chalked up to maintenance and repairs, and others are a result of changing tastes or breed standards.

And sometimes, we have no idea why changes are made at all. I suspect that some of the changes – like the alterations to the Clydesdale Stallion – might have been an instance where additional details were added to a mold to camouflage a serious repair. 

We know that the Family Arabian Mare has a complicated mold history. In addition to the In-Between Mare – the mold that briefly bridged the gap between the Old Mold Mare and the Family Arabian Mare, and looks a little like both – there’s a third variation of the mold who is so rare she only appears to exist in the 1960 Dealer’s Catalog.

It should not come as a surprise, then, that there appears to be yet another mold variation of the Family Arabian Mare. 

I happened to notice the difference while I was cleaning my most recent FAM acquisition, the Dark Sorrel. At first I thought her slight lack of detail was due to her possibly being bloated, like my Sorrel Family Arabian Stallion but nope, she just has… less molded in detail, particularly on the left side of her neck and (to a lesser degree) on her right shoulder. Here’s a comparison of that section of the neck in question, compared to my other Sorrel FAM’s neck:

(More on that in a bit…) 

That really pretty, really early Gloss Alabaster Family Arabian Mare I acquired earlier in the year also has this same lack of mold detail on her neck and shoulder! Since that one came with that pretty nice Old Mold Appaloosa Stallion, it’s safe to assume that this means the Mares with less detail – I’m calling them “Low Muscle” FAMs – are obviously an early, or the earliest mold variant of the FAM. (Barring the discovery of a “left mane” variant, if one ever actually existed outside of the catalog.)

What’s really interesting is that my other Sorrel FAM has the neck muscle striations and extra shoulder detail. This means that the Sorrel Family Arabians had to have occurred early on in the mold’s history, and spanned the transition between these two variations.

What this also suggests is that the Matte Sorrel Family Arabians were the first Family Arabians, outside of the Woodgrains, to be released in Matte, and were issued concurrently with the Gloss releases in Alabaster and Gray Appaloosa. 

I still happen to think that they were a variation of the Bay, rather than a separate release; whether it was for a specific customer, a random thing, or something else entirely is still a matter of debate.

It will be interesting to see if I can find any Gloss Charcoals or Gloss Palominos in the “Low Muscle” variation. I’m pretty sure that those two colors were not released on the Family Arabians until 1961 at the earliest, so it seems unlikely. 

If they do, the timeline will have to be revised. Of course.

So anyway, guys, y’all now know why I’ll be obsessively checking Family Arabian Mares over the course of BreyerFest. It’s all about the research, folks….