Crash, Burn, Reboot and Taima

My brother thought he was being helpful updating my computer for Virtual BreyerFest, and now I no longer have Microsoft Office on my main computer right now. Great, another problem to deal with…

It also puts a kibosh on the diorama thing I was doing. Long story, won’t go into it: basically if everything had gone according to plan, it would have been done on time, but dealing with this mess (and others) means that I won’t.

I don’t have the time to stress out about it. I could theoretically get it done on time, but I would rather finish tit at my own pace and for my own pleasure; if I rush it, it will not turn out the way I want it to anyway.

I’ll just have to refocus/redouble my efforts on the photo show instead. (Ha!)

I also plan on redoing some of my previous non winning entries, strictly as art/display pieces. Since I’ve invested a great deal of time and energy into them already, I might as well finish the job, because there’s too much of me in them to simply throw them out.

(This is also an issue with me and customizing: by the time I’m done with one I’m too darn invested in it to part with it.)

I wasn’t too keen on doing the video portion of it anyway: while I don’t have any anxieties about speaking in public or appearing on camera, I do not like “watching” myself. That part feels very, very wrong to me.

Which is also why I haven’t done anything on YouTube yet, though I suppose at some point it is going to be inevitable.

Anyway, here’s some compensation for my rantings today: here’s my Sample/Prototype Taima, and his photograph from the Just About Horses issue he was featured in back in 2010.

I purchased him in the NPOD a while back when getting Samples and other such goodies involved secret handshakes and passwords. Later on, I had a hunch and decided to check out his original offering in Just About Horses and… the spots matched!

I would have been happy even if he wasn’t, because I have a fondness for the mold, being part “Buffalo” myself.

Waban

Just when we though we were safe, after the 350-piece release of the Woodgrain Special Run Jasper Hawthorn back in December, Micro Runs are ba-ack with the Gloss Charcoal Buffalo Waban:

The problem that comes with Micro Runs – namely, that so many people enter Micro Run drawings not for the item itself, but for what they can get for it – seems so insoluble that I’d feel like an actual genius (and not just a presumptive one) if I could somehow engineer an equitable solution to it.

But so far, nada.

The closest I can come is this: since many Nonhorse collectors are also Vintage enthusiasts, future Micro Run Animals could be exclusive drawings for Vintage Club members. The odds would be better – competing against 500 people instead of a couple thousand – and nonwinners could take some consolation that a bigger percentage of the entrants were entering because they actually wanted the model itself.

Considering Reeves upped its game on the Vintage Club, that might not necessarily be an extra perk worth throwing into the pot.

(But if it’s the only way to get another affordable #36 Racehorse Special Run, I am all for it. That darn Charcoal one in last year’s Benefit Auction was the first thing that popped in my head when I saw Waban.)

Special Run Nonhorses are a niche market, at best – certain cattle molds always do well, and items that can be targeted for very specific non-hobby markets (like the Donkey and Elephant, naturally) can usually sustain a larger piece run.

But everything else is a gamble, sales-wise – hence my mild hesitation about the BreyerFest Saint Bernard. I don’t want to “blow” my ticket slot on a Bucky if there will be substantial leftovers, especially since I’m liking/loving so many of the other releases that will be harder to acquire in the secondary market.

Unless they make the quantity on Bucky sufficiently low that the question becomes moot.

Semi-Gloss Buffalo

Another recent addition to the family:

A Semi-Gloss – or Glossy, depending on who’s looking – Buffalo, with pink hand painted nostrils and lips.

He has a few condition issues, but he’s got a great provenance: he (and his brother) were a part of that odd stash of models from Chicago that sold on eBay a little while ago. Back when most of them were still being listed in smaller batches or even individually – and thus somewhat affordable to the likes of me.

All of the listed models appear to have been manufactured prior to 1966/7, and from some of the oddities and anomalies that were visible in the photos – and later in person, via my purchases – it’s apparent that this collection was that of a former employee or jobber.

These were not your run-of-the-mill mid-1960s Breyers!

These Buffaloes have all the indicators of being really early releases, including the absence of a USA mark and the Semi-Gloss/Gloss finish. Since the Buffalo debuted in 1965, it is most likely that they are simply first-batch runs, but the circumstances in which they were found raises the possibility that they might be Photographic Samples, Salesman’s Samples or even (though most unlikely) Test Colors.

The more time I spend examining my purchases (including a Jumping Horse and a couple of Poodles) the more I regret not upping my bids on the ones I lost. Clearly there was an interesting story here I would have loved to uncover, but the seller was either unwilling or unable to offer more.

And certainly I couldn’t afford more – especially the giant lot that was thrown together after the first batch, consisting of all the previously unpaid lots and a Donkey sporting a yellow(!) Elephant’s Howdah tossed on top: a gold-plated maraschino cherry on one of the most expensive sundaes ever.

Auctions like that make me wish I could somehow structure a small hobby history syndicate to keep the collection in situ long enough to research, photograph and document it, before releasing it back into the wild.

It wouldn’t work for a number of reasons (trying to imagine the custody battle over that Donkey alone, yikes!), but the history that gets lost when collections like that are sold like that keep me up at night wondering what if…

Original States

Before I forget, here’s my Banff:

As others have pointed out, he still has the "B" mold marks on his horns, 30 or so years after that experimentation with different plastic ended. But they did remove the U.S.A. mark in the meantime!

The difference there is that the B mark was originally for internal inventorying purposes (keeping two incompatible plastics from mixing) and may still serve a function in making sure the separately molded horns go in the right slots during production. The USA mark was to comply with import/export laws. Reeves might have run afoul of the government if they hadn’t removed it.

(Speaking of the removal of the USA marks in general, it is so weird for me to see newer hobbyists refer to models with USA marks as "older"! Well, technically, I guess…)

Since the Family Arabian posts have been going over so well, here’s another: how about a look at a matching set of FASes, from that fascinating ca. 1959-1962 collection I bought a little while back?

The Charcoal and Palomino Family Arabians didn’t debut until either 1961 or 1962; the 1959-1962 ephemera gap leaves the exact date up to debate. Although Palomino had been a part of the Breyer color palette from the very beginning, Charcoal didn’t debut until ca. 1961, appearing on both the Fighting Stallion and the Rearing Mustang.

Breyer’s Black Pintos prior to 1961 did come with white manes and white/partially white tails. Unlike the Charcoals that followed, the black paint on the Pintos tended to be unshaded, or at the very least undifferentiated (no black or blue undertones).

What’s interesting about the simultaneous appearance of the Palomino and Charcoal (aka Charcoal Palomino, on some early mail-order sheets) is that they both used the same mane stencils/masks. All of the other colors manufactured on the Family Arabians/Old Mold Arabians didn’t need them; the only other masks they did use on the Arabians prior were the facial markings for the Bays.

The near side of the neck is plain, by the way, with none of the extra stenciled tendrils or hairs that show up on other examples. The outline of these stencils did change significantly over the years, especially on the near side; other hobbyists have done a better job of tracking those changes, though.

What I like about these guys - and part of the reason they're sticking around - is that they likely show us the "original state" of the stencils. At least until further research proves otherwise.

You know how that goes.

Banff and Other Not Brown Buffaloes

Well, there’s that last crazy-weird-awesome special of the year I feared: a Silver Filigree Buffalo?!

I want to be ridiculously excited about Banff, but after what happened with the Polled Hereford Bull Marshall, I have to temper my excitement just a bit. Even if the piece run this time is 300, not 40.

It’s true, according to the e-mail Reeves sent, that most previous Buffalos have been some shade of brown. Even the two nominal Decorators - the Connoisseur Tortoiseshell Taima, and the Ranchcraft Woodgrain - were brownish.

The only established releases in not-brown (outside of Test Colors) were in white, or nearly so: the #380 Tatanka from 1992-1993, and a very low piece special run made possibly as a tie-in or promotional item for Dino De Laurentiis’s 1977 film The White Buffalo.

If the posters and online reviews are any indication, it’s basically Jaws in the Old West - starring Charles Bronson and an animatronic Buffalo. Sounds like my kind of film!

These older special runs are grayer - almost Smoke - and don’t have the red handprint that the Tatanka has.

There may have been a Post Production Special Run of the Tatanka made in 1995, to commemorate the birth of a real white buffalo in 1994. The details about that SR are a little sketchy; all we know for sure is that they don’t have handprints either, and are probably hand-numbered.

The Tatankas used to be one of those hot must-have items that regularly commanded three-figures on the secondary market. He’s still pricey (for a Buffalo) but not unreasonable for a scarce nonhorse mold. The two handprint-free SRs, early and late, I can’t judge: they are so scarce that I can’t remember even seeing one for sale recently.

As for the alleged "Bronze Glo" Buffaloes - Bronze-colored Buffaloes that may have been a part of a paint test/experiment in the 1970s - I am about as skeptical as I am of the Mobil Red Pegasi. While a few of them may indeed be the real thing, some (if not most) are not.

I’ve seen too many "Bronze Glo" models claimed to be real for all of them to be real, unless it was one very large bucket of paint that Peter Stone and Chris Hess were playing with that day in the factory. Stranger things have happened, but fakes (innocent and intentional) happen, too.

As with anything claimed to be exceedingly rare, caveat emptor.

Chestnut Buffalo

I didn’t much time to go Vintage shopping in Kentucky this year, but I still managed to score one nice variation: a Chestnut Buffalo!

He was a want, but a lower-priority one; like most of the Wildlife molds, the Buffalo is a big fellow, and space is at a premium here. But the opportunity presented itself - and I knew if I left him behind I’d regret it.

Most of the original release #76 Buffaloes (1965-1991) are some shade of Brown - veering from near Black at one end, to Buckskin/Dun at the other. The Red Chestnut ones are something altogether different chromatically, enough to make you think they were a separate and distinct release. I haven’t seen any evidence that this is the case, though. They just happened to make the #76 Buffalo this color for a while. (The Elk and the Moose, too. Neither one of those is on my want list, yet.)

This particular example is one of the redder and less shaded ones I have seen. 

Other than being a newer rather than older piece, I’m not entirely sure where the Chestnuts fit in the Buffalo’s variation chronology. To give you an idea how complicated that web of variations is, the Buffalo behind "Red" here is an early one with nostril and lip liner, yet I also have another early one with a Small Blue Ribbon Sticker (ca. 1966-67) that is very matte and very much on the Buckskin side. There doesn't seem to be any logical progression or evolution.

Dealer and Collector’s Manuals from the mid-1980s onward do show more "chestnutty" Buffaloes, for what that’s worth. The overall quality of the paint job and the seams would be consistent with this, so I'm content with pegging it as a late variation, for now.

An Extra Special Buffalo

Almost caught up with everything here; if you’re expecting an e-mail or PM from me, I'm hoping to catch up on those on Saturday.

One of the many fabulous things I found in the Pit on Friday morning was a Taima - the Connoisseur Tortuga Buffalo - at an exceedingly good price. I didn’t get pulled for one when they came out, and I was way too much of a "Buffalo" myself to pay retail for one. So when the opportunity presented itself Friday morning, into the buy pile he went:


It wasn’t until yesterday, as I was finally starting to unpack the last of my personal stash, that the thought occurred to me: what if, was he, could he be…? He didn’t come with a velvet bag, or a certificate, and he wasn’t numbered. Hmm. So I pulled out my July/August 2010 issue of Just About Horses, and checked.

… all the lumps, bumps, swirls and bubbles match: he IS the very same Sample used to illustrate the announcement in Just About Horses! (The scanner hasn’t been behaving, so you’ll just have to refer to your own copies, folks.)

I actually found myself shaking, for a moment. It has always been a dream of mine to have a photography Sample; I have a few that I suspect might have been, but in this case there is no doubt.

I found myself carrying my newest treasure around the house the rest of the day, holding him up to every available window. In spite of my abundant joy, foremost in my mind were the comments of a couple of fellow hobbyists I shared my find with, who had dismissed him altogether. "Oh, he wasn’t very popular to begin with." "Eh, I thought he was kind of ugly, myself."

Definitely not the responses I was hoping for. Not unexpected, mind you - I’ve lurked on enough boards to know just how catty and judgmental my fellow hobbyists can be - but, yeesh. Way to put a little damper on a momentary bit of happiness.

Look, you don’t have to like the choices other people make when it comes to collecting, but when someone shows you their latest "score", the proper, decorous response is to be happy for them. Especially if they got it for a good price, or through some extremely fortuitous circumstances. They want to share their happiness: for Pete’s sake, let them!

I was already excited to have gotten the Taima for such a good price; now that I know his specialness goes beyond his cheapness - well, I just wanted to share.

(Oh, and FWIW, his name is Basil. After my "Buffalo" Great-Grandfather.)

Taima

Connoisseur Buffalo? Awesome.

Some folks are in a tizzy because Reeves is "repeating" a color, but it doesn’t bother me at all. Lots of real horse colors have been repeated in the series, on different molds, and this really isn’t any different. Like Silver Filigree, I think it’s something that’s going to be reserved for special runs and special occasions; I just don’t foresee the Tortuga-style coloring become a widespread technique.

I can understand why folks might have wanted to see a Decorator Buffalo in a more "theme-appropriate" color, but what, exactly?

Woodgrain is out of the question; they already did a tiny batch of them as a special run for the Ranchcraft line in the 1960s - one of the rarest of all Woodgrains, but still. There are a handful of stone-based color might work (marble, sandstone, basalt, agate?) but then you’d run in some potential conflict with Peter Stone, who seems to think he has a lock on all colors based on rocks. A metallic color might work, but then there’s the infamous "Bronze Glo" pieces to contend with.

I’m guessing they decided to play it safe with the Tortuga-style coloring; the crazy prices the original Tortuga has been bringing in the aftermarket might have had some influence on the decision, too.

I have a great deal of affection for the Buffalo mold, because I am part Buffalo, myself. "Buffalo" is a slang term for persons of Belgian/Flemish descent; in some circles it’s seen as a mildly derogatory term, but that’s not been the case in my family or any one else I know of similar ancestry.

What I was told about the origin of the term is that Buffalo, New York was the first place Belgians emigrated to, en masse, from the old country. I’ve always wondered if it had something to do with the old Buffalo nickels. Belgians are notoriously thrifty; my Grandma never relinquished a nickel without a fight. (When we moved her from her apartment to the nursing home after her stroke, we found 88 dollars of spare change in her bedroom, alone!)

Like the Elk, he’s come in multiple variations and releases in Brown, from Buckskin, to Chestnut, to near Black. The earliest Buffaloes have hand painted lipliner: mine looks like he’s got a bit of a smirk on his face. The Buffalo was also one of a handful of models to get the unpainted gray plastic treatment in the 1970s; the easiest way to tell is by the color of his (mostly) unpainted horns.

Among the most desirable of Buffaloes are the White ones: the brief regular run Tatanka, a small special run of Tatanka that was made a few years later, and a tiny batch of heavily shaded ones that were probably made for the movie The White Buffalo, ca 1977. You’ll have to part with an awful lot of nickels to add any one of the three to your collection, though.

As you might have guessed, I have a lot of Breyer Buffaloes. I’d love to have the Woodgrain, the Bronze Glo, or the Presentation piece, but so far I haven’t lucked into one via my usual sources. I’m way too much of a Buffalo to pay "retail" for any of them.

Oh, I won’t give up hope; I did manage to get a Tatanka in an extremely favorable trade deal at BreyerFest several years ago. Would have made Grandma proud!