Black and White and Gray All Over

And now, George Pérez. I mean, I’ve known that one was coming since late last year, but it hits hard in a different way, because I actually met him once. It is one of my most delightful convention memories, in fact. 

He was good friends with some artist/creator friends of mine. I was sitting with my friends in the Artist’s Alley at the Motor City Comic Con one year, just goofing around as they were fielding questions and sketch requests. George, who was one of the featured guests that year, just walks up to the table and starts singing show tunes. And my friend Mercy starts singing show tunes back. 

What a strange and magical moment it was: stuck in the middle of an impromptu Broadway medley with George Pérez! 

(No pictures were taken to record the event, alas. I think I would have been too dumbstruck to take any, even if I had brought my camera.)

This whole weekend was kind of downbeat, when I think about it. First, most of my seedling have shriveled up and died for reasons I absolutely cannot fathom. I’ve had seedling failures before, but nothing like this. All I can hope for at this point is that I can salvage something. Anything, really.

After (finally!) finishing up my sales list inventory, I also came to the sad conclusion that I will not be able to bring everything to BreyerFest as I had hoped. There’s just too much stuff – nearly nine pages of it, and that does not include the most recent collection pulls! So I’ll have to make some hard decisions on what I can and cannot fit in the car. Selling things online is currently not an option, at least until late Summer or early Fall. 

On a more cheerful note, here are two other pieces from the collection that brought me my Charcoal Running Foal:

A few years ago I discovered that I did not possess a complete Gloss Charcoal Family Arabian Family, as I had thought. I was hoping to find a complete family to purchase at some point to remedy this situation, but like so many things, I never got around to it.

Although the Foal above is not an exact match for my Mare (who is currently in storage), I really doubt that I could find better, and I am not going to try: bright white, perfect pinking, minimal molding flaws.

I’ve had several Alabaster Family Arabian Mares – both Gloss and Matte – and this example is also one of the best I’ve seen. Quality vintage Alabasters on any mold are challenging, but on Family Arabians even moreso, since they were tailored specifically for the toy market. 

I’m not at all worried about matching up my Alabaster Family Arabians, though. I have an insane number of Alabaster Foals – Matte and Gloss – as a consequence of a research project that went a little too far (don’t ask!). My Gloss Alabaster Family Arabian Stallion is actually an Old Mold Stallion with a crazy amount of shading – the kind you normally see on vintage Fighting Stallions, Five-Gaiters or Rearing Mustangs – and I just don’t think it’s likely I can anything that can even remotely match him. 

He does have a matching Old Mold Foal for company who is also pretty nice. My Old Mold Mare is… potentially upgradeable, and I’ll leave it at that. (You would not think that the Alabaster Old Mold Mare would be such a tough nut to crack, but she is for me.)

The Charcoal Running Mare

Today definitely a “crawl into my Batcave and hide” day: lots of issues at work, the national news was terrible, it rained all day so my garden was a swampy mess, and I’m still out of sorts to find out that Neal Adams died on my birthday. 

And yes, I am very familiar with that auction lot on eBay with the three probable Chicago-era Test Colors in it. In fact, I saw it a few minutes after it got listed and momentarily panicked as I searched (in vain) for a Buy It Now button!

Heck, I’d be happy buying everything in the lot except the Fighters and the Black Yellow Mount, but that’s not going to happen, so I’m just going to watch it like everyone else and wonder just how high it’s going to go. (Those Black Pinto Western Horses are Matte – kind of a rare variation, and one I’ve been looking for.)

I hadn’t expected it to hit $3000 this early in the game, but the market is insane right now. I wish it wasn’t so, but this is where we are. Lucky for the seller, though! 

Because you asked for it, here’s the Charcoal Running Mare with her now-matching foal:

The Mare is slightly semi-gloss/satin, and the Foal is very matte, but I am quite pleased how well they otherwise match!

Of the Mare, she’s nice but nothing remarkable by today’s standards. She’s also something that I probably overpaid for: I think you can get a comparably nice one today for about the same amount of money.

In my defense, I was a junior high school horse girl and history dork who was very excited at the prospect of getting an old and rare variation of a Breyer that was discontinued years before I even knew Breyers existed. 

Our choices of molds and colors were also significantly more limited than they are now. At that point, the only color I had ever seen the Running Mare in was the #124 Bay. A Charcoal variation of Smoke seemed so exotic!

I also bought her sight unseen. That’s just how we rolled back then. Most of the time things turned out… fine. Or at least not terrible. Live showing wasn’t as big a deal back then, and even models with obvious flaws – and sometimes, broken limbs! – could compete. 

A model in better condition was always better, yes, but finding old models of any sort was difficult enough. You made do with what you could find, and what you could afford. A couple of small rubs and rough seams? Still LSQ!

I can’t recall if I ever did live show her back in the 1980s. Collectability wasn’t its own separate category in the 1980s outside of Collector’s Classes. They were pretty similar to the Collector’s Classes at BreyerFest Open Show now, except that most collectors back in the 1980s worked on presenting a well-rounded collection, rather than organizing it around a theme or concept.  

Variations on a Theme

My Phineas arrived today and he’s… nicer than I expected! Definitely not as weird or goofy as I thought it would be. I still think they need to work on the technique a bit more before they try to issue it more regularly, but they seem to be heading in the right direction.

But let’s talk about another new arrival that I am much more excited about: my Charcoal Running Foal!

He came in a box lot of models of similar age, condition, quality and rarity, with that final factor being in the “not very” category. But everything else about them was superb: I really couldn’t have asked for a better group of vintage “commons” to buy, except for the price. (Not expensive, but you know I am also very cheap. Cheaper is always better!)

As I told you a little while back, I’ve been obsessing over the Running Mare and Foal, so when I saw this stunner in a box lot, I was smitten. One of my first in-hobby purchases was a Charcoal variation of the Smoke Running Mare, so finding a matching Foal for her has been on the backburner for a very long time. 

This was the first one I’ve seen that I seriously considered buying. Running Mares and Foals, like the Family Arabians, were primarily purchased as toys, not as Decorative pieces. Finding them in acceptable condition is a challenge, to say the least! 

Other than a minor (factory?) paint flaw on one hoof, this fellow is perfect. His color is rich and dark, and in spite of what the photograph says, his pinking isn’t faded or pale either. I just adore him! 

The rest of the lot was pretty awesome, too, but whether I keep them or not depends on me making some hard decisions: do I upgrade, or do I keep old favorites because they are old favorites? 

I’ll be pretty busy for the next month or so, so I might be able to kick those decisions down the road a little bit, or at least until the threat of BreyerFest looms.

Show Time

I spent most of the day geeking out in the DC Fandome today, which – to me – has been the most successful online replication of a convention experience I’ve had this year so far.

(For the fellow nerds in the audience, I will reveal no spoilers. Except for the fact that one of Jim Lee’s favorite characters is Matter-Eater Lad, which both amuses and delights me. LLL!)

The first part (this weekend) was essentially a live stream with some interactivity, some taped content, and a store; the second part on September 12-13, and will featuring multiple worlds/streams and more interactivity, and sounds like it will be close to the kind of experience we were hoping for at BreyerFest this year.

DC is, of course, part of a huge multimedia conglomerate that has the resources to pull something like this off and Reeves is actually kind of a small company with very few full-time employees at their physical location in New Jersey, many of whom already have to wear multiple hats to begin with.

But it will be interesting to see if this particular event has any influence on anyone planning virtual events going forward.

Since I am spending the rest of the weekend catching up on my quilting projects (the sewing machine is back up and running, huzzah!) I’ll just close with another Virtual Photo Show photograph I was especially proud of:

One of the difficulties in photographing vintage Glosses is in trying to convey that glossiness without it distracting from or altering the color of the finish, and I think I managed to do that here. The color is a touch more yellow than he is in real life because of the light sources I used, but I couldn’t color correct the photo any more than I did without it becoming obvious or distorted.  

This model, incidentally, was not my first Charcoal Fighting Stallion. My first one was an earlier and browner version with more body shading, but who was slightly more yellowed and that I attempted to unyellow in my car one day

… and who I forgot about the next day when I went to work and parked in a freshly blacktopped lot. On a hot summer day. 

Don’t do that, kids.

Fortunately for me, my “new guy” showed up at one of my local flea markets a couple weeks later, and I ended up selling my original at BreyerFest to someone very happy to add a Bloated Charcoal Fighter to their collection.

2020 One Days

I have way too much to do today to spend too much time with you guys today (it’s still April, right?) but the One-Day Stablemate Skye did me in yesterday:

You could put that Gloss Black Silver paint job on anything, and I’d buy it. Yeah, the mini Croi Damsha Arran is pretty great too, but that was a given:

And excellent, a Roan! I am always up for a nice Roan – either the realistic variety, or those funky Freckle Roans that debuted in 1968 on the Running Stallion. Man, when teenaged me found out that Breyer had painted Roans – they were discontinued about the same time I started collecting – I became a little obsessed.

It would be a few years before I even saw a Breyer Red Roan person though, because the hobby was almost entirely “virtual” for most of us back in the Dark Ages. Everything was done by mail, occasionally by phone, and news was transmitted only on a monthly (or bi-monthly) basis via mimeographed newsletters worth their weight in gold. You were lucky to get photographs of anything before you bought it.

When I finally did get a Red Roan it wasn’t what I expected but I fell in love, anyway.

(The 1980 Special Run Running Mare. I no longer own it. Long story.)

Back to Skye for a moment.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have reason to believe – but no concrete evidence yet – that Breyer’s Charcoal paint job was probably inspired by a black and white photograph of a Black Silver in an equine periodical, back when the genetics of horse colors were a little less well researched and the names of some colors had yet to be more clearly defined in equine circles.

I hope Reeves is planning on upping their production counts on the One-Day Stablemates, because I have a feeling that a lot of hobbyists are going to go for the “four-pack” option, since it appears to come with most the benefits of the standard Celebration Horse Ticket package, sans the SR Ticket and Celebration Horse.

I also hope they go on sale at a time when I actually have access to a device to purchase them on. 

And finally, as to whether or not I still believe the Surprise Model is Croi: I’m still not ruling it out, especially since the “no duplicates” rule got tossed out the window last year when the Standing/Clock Saddlebred was used for both the Early Bird and a Tent Ticket Special Run.

Expectations

And the winner is…

Gloss, as I expected. And this is fine.

For a multitude of reasons the past month has been very stressful, the weather has been very cold, and with the days getting darker sooner I’ve been feeling more than a little down. Something like a Matte rarity would have brightened my mood considerably, even if only temporarily.

Considering Claude’s popularity, it should be enough that I have one at all, and that he’s just as beautiful as when I first saw him.

I should also be happy that he even exists in the first place. I am trying very hard to remind myself of the moment when I saw him for the first time, and living with the thought that he was going to blow everyone’s minds. And being a tiny part of that. 

I am glad to see that next year’s Vintage Club offerings also seem to be going over almost as well. The Powers-That-Be finally seem to be getting it, at least when it comes to Vintage-type stuff.

(More or less: you’ve already seen my opinion on some of the initial 70th Anniversary merchandise. Yoo-hoo guys, I’m right here…)

So there’s that.

I also know that the luck that I do possess is in living in an area where Breyers (in general) are plentiful, and that I have the ability to handpick almost anything. (Except, ironically, Walmart Specials.) Most hobbyists don’t have that.

Yet, and yet.

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.

Charcoal on Steroids

The interminable Winter and the car shopping have left me exhausted and in little mood or desire to write today. Things should improve now that the car shopping is done, at least, and I have seed catalogs to tide me over until it’s actually warm enough outside to do something.

(We’re hoping/planning on a nice little vegetable garden this year. Nothing fancy, just beans, tomatoes, squash, and maybe some greens. And a few exotic annuals, just for fun.)

But I am also not in a model horsey mood right now; most of my BreyerFest projects remain on hold as I work through more pressing personal and professional business. Even my soon-to-be-beloved Rockford remains unopened.  

The latest Test Color Raffle piece is definitely stirring something inside me, though:

He’s described as a “Glossy Dappled Black” but I’d describe him as more of a “Glossy Dappled Pearl Charcoal”. “Charcoal on Steroids “ and “Give Him To Me Now” also come to mind…

Actually, he’s a fairly close reproduction of Hartland’s version of Charcoal, as seen on the Regal Series #9913 Arabian. They didn’t call it Charcoal, though: they described in their literature as “jet black with silver pearl mane and tail”.

The similarity to the color of the Test piece is so strong that I think it’s fair to call it the direct inspiration – with a funky Breyer Resist Underdappling twist! Hartland’s version came out ca. 1967 – about six years after Breyer “invented” Charcoal in the first place, so fair is fair, I suppose.

I’d love to show you a picture of the #9913 Regal Arabian, but I have neither the model in question (not for lack of trying: he’s a pricey one on the secondary!) nor a decent picture of it in my files; your friendly neighborhood search engine should be able to point you in the right direction of more recently expired auctions and such.

(And give you an idea of why I still don’t own one. Yikes!)

I’ll put all my allowable entries in for the Mustang, but as always, I won’t get my hopes up. All I wish for is that he goes to someone else who actually wants him for his own beautiful sake.

The Charcoal Lady Phase

Taking a brief break here from another project with a hard deadline (how did I get so busy in December?) so I’ll get back to the Collector’s Club Appreciation stuff another time, when I’m a little less stressed and less likely to voice some of my thoughts in the form of ALL CAPS, anyway.

In the meantime, here’s something short and sweet that will make everyone happy: I found those pictures of the Matte Charcoal Lady Phase! They are not the best, but that (for once) is not my fault:

After the Family Arabians were discontinued in 1973, it’d be nearly 20 years before we’d see another production run of a Charcoal, with 1992’s Gloss Charcoal Memphis Storm.

There are a few other Charcoal Test Colors and Oddities floating around that also date from The Great Charcoal Interregnum, though as with most Test Colors from that period, it’s hard to tell whether they were done to actually “test” for the color’s possible return, or someone (like Marney) simply wanted a Charcoal something-something.

(I know if I had painting booth privileges, I would have painted my share!)

I can’t offer any context for these photos, other than the fact that they predate the arrival of Memphis Storm by at least a few years, and Marney may have/probably had something to do with her.

Where this Lady Phase is now, I have no idea. I’d snap her up in a heartbeat, for the right price.

(Charcoal + Lady Phase + Vintage Test Color = No gonna happen.)

Old News, New News

Whoa, lots of news today.

Finally got another reveal on the Vintage Club – the (mostly) Gloss Charcoal Shannondell Claude!

This is old news for me, but probably just about the hardest to keep on the down low, especially when I saw so many hobbyists saying… some less than nice things about the Vintage Club program.

I am especially pleased with the added dash of randomness, with the addition of 30 Mattes in the mix. It also makes sense: historically, Matte Charcoal releases have been far scarcer than their Glossy counterparts.

They just seem less rare because the models most people think about when they think of Matte Charcoal are the Family Arabians. And Family Arabians, themselves, are almost the very definition of not rare.

Earlier Gloss Charcoal releases like the Running Stallion, Mustang and Fighting Stallion didn’t make the transition to Matte like the Family Arabians did. Since the Family Arabians were discontinued in that color in the early 1970s, the vast majority of Charcoal releases have been Gloss, not Matte.

(Though Matte Charcoals as Tests and Samples aren’t completely unknown. There is a Matte Charcoal Lady Phase in one of Marney’s photo albums that I would definitely elbow someone over.)

Ironically, it appears that most folks are of the opinion that getting the Matte version of Claude would be like getting the proverbial lump of coal in one’s Christmas stocking.

Of course, I want him, but I’m not going to pay extra if I receive a mere Gloss. Just because something is technically rare doesn’t necessarily mean it should have a price to match.

(I’d love to have a Gris Gris, for instance, but I don’t plan on spending much above his issue price when I do take the plunge.)

I am more conflicted about what appears to be the Holiday Animal release, a Woodgrain Jasper named Hawthorn:

That was not what I expected. The Woodgrain part is great – I’m all for more widely available new Woodgrain releases – but I’m confused about it being so large a run (350 pieces) for a piece that caters to a very narrow niche. This feels like it should have been a Micro Run, or at the very least a First-Come, First-Served piece like the previous two Animal releases – the Longhorn Bull Olaf and the Gold Charm Cow and Calf Eldora and Sol.

Oh, I’ll enter the Purchase Raffle, but the way my luck goes with these things I won’t get picked anyway. So I’m probably safe either way?

Not going to sweat this one, regardless.

A Smoke Western Prancer Hoof Variation?

The flea market was better for me yesterday:

Two more bodies, and a pretty decent Zippo Pine Bar. Good enough to consider keeping, but I’ll have the look at the budget in a week or two before I make that decision.

I’m also hedging a bit on the Quarter Horse Gelding, since he’s a “transitional/in-between” body – toned down muscles, but no tummy tuck – and I’ve always wanted to make a Suffolk Punch out of one. (And I just bought a fresh batch of epoxy. Hmm.)

The weekend was productive on a number of fronts. In the process of doing a bit of research on my Sampler, an interesting little something jumped out at me that I hadn’t noticed before. Notice anything unusual in this picture of the Smoke Western Prancing Horse from the 1963 Dealer’s Catalog?

His hooves are black! Typically Smokes have gray hooves. In fact, it’s what distinguishes darker Smokes from Charcoals, which have pink or tan hooves. I can’t recall ever seeing a vintage Smoke Prancer with black hooves.

The color Smoke debuted around this time – 1962/1963 – so it might just be a case of an early Test or Preproduction piece being used for the photo shoot. (Check out the fancy feathering on his mane, too. Sweet!)

It’s also possible that the photographer or graphic designer who put the catalog together might have done a little photo retouching, and assumed that the hooves were supposed to be darker. Or it just did it because they thought it looked better that way anyway.

I had “seen” this photograph before, multiple times, but it was usually a black and white photocopy I was examining. I alway assume that any odd color shifts I see in black and white copies are the result of the copier distorting the image. But as I was examining my color original –  researching another topic entirely – it became obvious that there was no distortion: those hooves really are black.

Yet another example of why it is so important to have access to original source materials, and not just copies.

As I said above, I’ve never seen a Smoke with black hooves – on the WPH or anyone else – so it’s likely just a Test. If one ever did show up, though, I would be all over that….

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.

Commander

I feel like such a bad model horse mama. 

I can’t believe it took me this long to finally open up my Vintage Club Commander. The box got tucked up in the blind spot underneath my desk, and I almost completely forgot about him. I’ve been selling off a few odds and ends on eBay - nothing worth mentioning, just the kind of stuff that doesn’t seem to sell elsewhere - and as I was shuffling boxes around, I noticed his.

I had seen some comments here and there about his color being just a little bit off, and after having him sit on my desk for a few days, I think I can see it: mine definitely has a rosy tinge to him. Most vintage Smoke paint jobs have more of a blue-ish cast.

Reeves did try to distinguish the hoof color from the body color: early gray hooves (on all models that sported them) were black-based: black pigment, watered down. So, good for them for noticing that little detail.

Smokes and Charcoals, however, were not black-based - at least, not entirely. They both had a little extra "color" added to help distinguish them from each other.

Early Smokes, as I mentioned above, tended to have a blue tint: if anyone out there is a rock hound, think of the natural blue-gray color of slate or shale. Early Charcoals - until the late 1960s - had a definite brownish cast; early Mission Supply House and Red Bird sales fliers even went so far as to  describe the color as "Charcoal Palomino". It’s a term I believe originated with an as-yet-undiscovered Breyer price list or flier, and has also led me to speculate in the past that the color might have been an early attempt to recreate the color we now know as "silver dapple".

In the late 1960s, Breyer Charcoals switched to a more blue-ish (or at least, less brownish) tone, with the exception of some very late (possibly the last run?) of the Matte Charcoal Family Arabians, who are a distinctive dark chocolate brown without even a hint of black pigment on them.

Those late Charcoal Family Arabians are so different from the earlier Charcoals - even their hoof color is a near-fluorescent pink - that I’ve often wondered if they possibly might have been a Special Run of some sort. (I have no evidence of this, beyond the color being so off-spec.)

The shading is really nice on Commander, and they’ve managed to get most of the little details right - it’s just that the color is just a little bit off. I would have gone with a different ribbon color, too, but I’m just nitpicking at this point.

When, Not If

My standard work procedures involve me pecking away at several small projects simultaneously, based on my levels of time, interest and energy, with the goal of finishing them all within a relatively narrow time frame. (That’s similar to how work works, too - we run multiple work flows with the intent of finishing them up around the same time.)

It doesn’t always work out, but it works out well enough most of the time that there’s little reason to change it.

Most of the time. Every once and a while I get into a fit and I just have to see a project through from start to finish, RIGHT NOW.

Anyway, that’s my excuse for not opening up my Commander, even though I got him late Thursday afternoon. If I opened him, I’d have to deal with him, and until a few hours ago, I couldn’t. I have to work tonight (a new account, too, I think) so I’ll probably have to put off his unveiling until tomorrow morning, when my mind has room to roam.

One minor distraction I did allow myself was the one-question Vintage Club survey asking members about our preferences: Do you want Vintage colors on Vintage molds, or Vintage colors on Newer molds?

Y’all should know by now what I picked. There was also room to comment, but I didn’t: trust me, Reeves already knows. 

I am not philosophically opposed to Vintage colors on Newer molds, I’d just rather see them released in a different context or program - either as a extra release, like Gus, or as a part of some other program. (A "Retro" Club?)

The molds they selected to show us as examples were quite interesting, especially the Vintage/Vintage pieces:

 For balance, here were the Vintage/New pieces:

No promises were made about the models depicted in the survey - they were being used merely as examples of the kinds of items they were discussing.

Judging from the reactions I’ve seen to the Charcoal Adios, though, I think it’s just a matter of when, not if, on that pretty boy. (Next year’s "Exclusive", maybe, if he ain’t the next release?)

I liked the Gloss Honey Bay Pinto Yellow Mount more than I thought, too. When I initially saw him in that group shot they sent out last year (the one with the Morgan now known as "Halo") I thought "Nice, nothing spectacular". He looked like a glossed regular run Yellow Mount with added black points. (Something they've done in the past, by the way - anyone remember the BHR Bay Running Stallion, made out of leftover 1988 JAH Special Run? And the Small World Trakehner?)

No, he’s an actual Honey Bay, complete with four stockings and black hooves, just like an honest-to-goodness vintage Honey Bay.

And just to let you know, I’d buy either of the Nokotas in a heartbeat, especially the one in the Splash Spot Black Leopard. I like the mold, but I’d dig that color on anything. (As long as they actually do the Splash Spots as Splash Spots, of course.)

Egg on my Face

Well, in my defense, I was only mostly wrong about the third Vintage Club release: I did get the "Reeves wouldn’t release the Running Mare without the matching Foal" part right.

And it’s nice to see that Reeves is now acknowledging that the Running Mare and Foal were released prior to 1963, which makes up (slightly) for the time that they misidentified (and misdated!) the Proud Arabian Stallion as the Family Arabian Stallion on their Facebook page.

There was an offhand comment by someone on Blab a few weeks ago about a Reeves employee/rep mentioning that the next Vintage Club release was "black and white", but I had discounted that because a similar rumor about a "buff" (Palomino?) Silver a few years ago never amounted to anything.

Oh well, I guess that just means I’m merely an expert, not a prophet. Major league baseball players only need to get one hit out of every three at bats to be considered "All-Star" material, right? I’ll comfort myself with that thought.

I am getting annoyed that it’s being referred to as a "Charcoal" Pinto, since the colorway that "Salt and Pepper" sport was never formally identified as Charcoal Pinto in any of the contemporary ephemera. (Just as the Smoke Belgian was never actually called "Smoke"!) It’s a nitpick, I know, but hey, I’m the queen of nitpicking. (And their hooves aren’t pink, either, so there.) The Foal’s pattern is based on the Western Prancing Horse’s, but the Mare is a little harder to tell (Shetland Pony-ish?)

My only other concern with the release is that it’s going to make the Breyer web site forums even more insufferable than they already are. (Are they a textbook argument for firm moderation, or what? Sheesh.)

Let’s see, in the next week we should see: a half dozen threads harassing/demanding Reeves release a matching Stallion; several more complaining about the overspray (it’s intentional folks - check out the Regular Run Bay Pinto Fury Prancers); and at least one griping about it not being solid Charcoal instead.

(I love Charcoal, but the obsession the Breyer web site forum-dwellers have with it is making me reconsider.)

Oh, and three or four threads of people crowing/chest thumping about how Reeves listened and responded specifically to their demands. That line of argument especially gets my dander up.

Other than a few extra-limited Special Runs and Glosses, Reeves does not have the ability to execute "quick" responses to collector demand: the factory is in China, for Pete’s sake. The rest of the releases for the Vintage Club - the fourth release, and any other special offers - are probably already either in production, or in the advanced planning stages (subject to minor, last-minute tweaking). 

We all like to entertain the notion that we’re more influential than we actually are. I’m not any different - and I get reminded of it all the time.

That Charcoal Five-Gaiter

I suppose you’ve all heard of it, seen it, or bid on it by now. For those of you who haven’t, here’s the link:

Charcoal Five-Gaiter

That means there are at least three - or possibly four - vintage Charcoal Five-Gaiters now in collector hands. As I said on Blab: one is an oddity, two is a coincidence, but three or four now becomes something else.

But what kind of something else - a special run, regular run, or some crazy sort of color variation?

My guess is that it represents yet another brief, early regular run model, like the Buckskin Running Mare and Foal and (possibly) the Appaloosa Shetland Pony. From the level of detail on these models, it’s also possible that these models were sales rep pieces from a proposed regular run that was cancelled before it went into production, sort of like what happened to the original Small Poodle.

The ribbon colors on the Charcoals are identical to the Gloss Palominos, and some have suggested that these fellows are just a more-peculiar-than-average variation of the Palomino. That’s a very appealing notion: the Five-Gaiter’s distinctive "Honey Sorrel" coloring appears on a number of early models (the Family Arabians, the Fighting Stallion, the Western Prancing Horse) as an apparent variation of Bay.

Another point in that theory’s favor is that term "Charcoal Palomino." As I’ve discussed before, "Charcoal Palomino" is a term that appears in some early Breyer-related ephemera, and was used to describe the color we now simply call Charcoal. That term, as far as we know, still hasn’t shown up on any actual Breyer materials from that time period (yet), so there’s still a slight chance that it was a term coined by the mail-order companies instead.

Gloss Charcoal and Gloss Palomino were both introduced as new Breyer colorways at roughly the same time - ca. 1961 - and if they were using the term "Charcoal Palomino" to describe the Charcoal, I could see how that could have lead to interesting mistakes happening. (Are some of you salivating at the thought of Gloss Palomino Mustangs? I know I am.)

Rather than regrind the otherwise perfectly good mistakes, they could have discreetly mixed them in with the regular shipments. Or perhaps, they made it a one-time-only, oops-we-made-a-mistake offer.

As always, our lack of documentation from the era is a problem.

Bidding got real crazy, real quick, so I’m not even going to entertain the thought of putting one in.

Gathering Storm

Never fails: I go away for a few days because of work commitments, and actual news breaks out. (A mild sinus infection didn’t help matters, either.)

"Collector’s Choice" models becoming online exclusives? I didn’t see that coming. Since the voting for these models has been an online-only affair, it only makes sense that the sales of the models selected would go that way, too. It’s the model that the online model horse community selected, not the entire model horse buying public.

I’m not quite sure what to make of it, yet. Some of the issues inherent in the sales method - rapid sellouts, limited availability, crazy price points - aren’t going to be that big a deal. It’s going to be available for six months, which should minimize the information gap. If you’re a member of the model horse community, and don’t find out about it in time to order (or find someone to order for you) in six month’s time, you might want to rethink the way you interact with the Internet.

I am somewhat more optimistic than most hobbyists about Reeves dealing with Shopatron's international sales problem, especially if they are going to commit to "onlining" their direct-to-collector sales. Until that problem is corrected, it’ll probably generate a small industry of "pickup" services, a la BreyerFest. (I’ve had a lot of experience shipping items overseas, so I’d do it if I had the time. But I don’t.)

I am a little concerned about the availability of the model to offline hobbyists, though. How will they explain the disappearance of the Collector’s Choice from the catalogs? Will they even advertise it at all? Will there be other direct-purchase options available to those folks (Phone, Fax, or Fun Days?)

As for the model itself - a Gloss Charcoal Tobiano Pinto Big Ben, named Gathering Storm - I think he’s quite lovely. I liked all three of the voting choices they offered us back then, though the Chocolate Ethereal was my favorite. I’m assuming that this means the flaxen chestnut Bouncer is going to be the Fall Collector’s Choice model, since the test piece for the Ethereal was offered as the Raffle Model for the JAH subscription/resub drawing at BreyerFest last year.

I might pick the Big Ben in the Spring, for my birthday, depending on the finances. I have a lot of other things I have to commit to before then - new glasses, car repairs, possibly some minor (but necessary) elective surgery - so it’s a big if.

How would I get around my prohibition against buying any new models for myself this year? Easy: I’d rationalize him as a purchase of a new and (momentarily) unique production paint job. (Oh, there are a probably a few tests floating around, but tests don't really "count," y'know.)

Some of Breyer’s early Black Pintos paint jobs came with white manes and tails - the #113 Western Prancing Horse comes immediately to mind - but the color and quality of the black paint used on Black Pintos was quite different from that used on contemporaneous Charcoals.

Early Gloss Charcoals tended to have had a brown undertones and some body shading, while the early Black Pintos were usually an inky black, and minimally shaded. Some did have pangare-like shading on the undersides of their barrels, but I don’t think it was a conscious effort to add a touch of realism, or even something that was a part of the painting specs. It was just the way they (or perhaps, a certain member of the painting staff) painted them for a while.

Blue Charcoal, Brown Charcoal

I took a well-deserved day off yesterday. I puttered around the house in my PJs, baked some cookies, got caught up on my teevee watching, and even worked up the courage to restart the biggest, scariest quilt project in my craft closet. (Google "Double Wedding Ring Quilt" and you’ll see what I’m getting myself into.)

I see the Cream and Cocoa sets are starting to ship. Very pretty! The price seemed a little on the high side to me; combined with my ongoing space issues, I decided to take a pass on these two for the time being. If I see them in the NPOD next year I’ll definitely reconsider, in spite of my reservations about the whole "Gloss Smoke" thing.

Ah, such is the power of Gloss Charcoal.

Although I’m not a big fan of online polls - they’re far too easy to manipulate - whenever there have been polls about Decorator colors, Gloss Charcoal always comes out on top, or darn near it. And it’s easy to see why: black is very dramatic, and gloss black? Doubly so!

Such was the selling power of Gloss Charcoal that it continued to be produced even after the transition to Matte finishes ca. 1967. Both the Fighting Stallion and Mustang continued being produced in Gloss until they were discontinued in 1970. And one model, the Running Stallion, was actually introduced in Gloss Charcoal in 1968. (If any of these three models exist in a Matte version, it’s darn rare. Or it’s a test color.)

The color did undergo a bit of a shift, however: later Gloss Charcoals are darker, blacker, and less dramatically shaded than their earlier counterparts. No less beautiful, I would argue, just different. Sometimes I refer to the two different hues as "Chocolate" and "Blue," though the only blue tinge detectable in the later, blacker versions is in comparison to the Chocolates.

As always, I speak in generalities: there are earlier Charcoals that are profoundly black, and later Charcoals that have a definite Chocolate hue. You see that tendency more in the Matte finish Charcoals than the Gloss, and with Family Arabians more than any of the other vintage Charcoals.

There’s even a variation of the Matte Charcoal Family Arabians that are very, very brown, with shocking hot pink hooves. I suspect that they are very late variations, possibly among the last batches produced; all of the ones I’ve seen had the characteristics of models produced in the early 1970s (the mold marks, the trimming idiosyncracies, the painting style, etc.)

I’ve cut back considerably on my variation addiction, but the Matte Chocolate Charcoal Family Arabians are still on my want list. It’s just something about that color combo that tickles my fancy. (I've been watching way too many home decorating shows, I'm sure that's it.) But they've been darn hard to track down.

It’s not that they’re particularly rare, but that they’re Family Arabians. Aside from the condition issues that plague these models, most hobbyists don’t pay that much attention to Family Arabians generally, especially the matte-finished ones (except the Five-Gaiter Sorrels) and don't bother making note of their variations, outside of chalkiness or mane wisps.

The brown variation is also pretty hard to photograph accurately. Here's a Chocolate Charcoal FAS I picked up at the flea market recently; even with some extensive color correction, the brownness of coat isn't readily apparent:


Stand him next to a standard Matte Charcoal, in natural light, and you'd swear they were from completely different releases. But all the hot chocolate in the world isn't making me go outside to take that picture today, nuh-uh.

Silver Filigree

I didn't run out of things to write about: I ran out of time this week to write! I was totally not expecting to get overtime at the part-time job this week. The lack of food, the lack of sleep, being away from home for days: I was starting to get BreyerFest flashbacks at one point. (In a rare spare moment, I even bought some Stablemates because if I was going to suffer a little, I deserved some ponies...)

Anyway, back to the horse business. I'll deal with a few questions that have come up in the past couple of weeks in a long, rambly post later today or tomorrow. Right now, it's something a little more focused: let's talk about the color Silver Filigree.


Silver Filigree is one of the “newer” Decorator colors, first issued on the lovely and highly coveted 1993 BreyerFest Judge's Model Proud Arabian Mare. It wasn't used again until 1999, when The Ginger Horse commissioned a Legionario in that color as a special run for Equitana that year. It had been used sporadically since then, but within the past couple of years it appears that Reeves has decided that Silver Filigree – and hobbyist favorite Gloss Charcoal, to a degree – are their Decorator colors of choice to drive us all crazy.

While other Decorator colors have lost a bit of their luster with recent reissues, the “mystique” of Silver Filigree continues unabated. That's mostly because except for the Legionario “Grane of Gotterdammerung,” who had a healthy 2000 piece run, virtually all of the other Silver Filigrees Reeves has issued have either had extremely low piece counts, restricted distribution, or both:

Proud Arabian Mare: Volunteer Model (30)
Saturday Night Fever (Proud Arabian Stallion): BreyerFest Raffle (26)
Born to Run (Proud Arabian Foal): BreyerFest Raffle (26)
Quicksilver (Clydesdale Foal): BreyerFest Contest Prize (<30)
Silver: Treasure Hunt Surprise (250?)
Silver Snow (Othello): Web Special (200)
Surprise (Quarter Horse Gelding): BreyerFest Gambler's Choice (10)

That's not including tests and auction pieces, which are by nature either unique or close to it. (And I just noticed that five of the eight official releases were BreyerFest-related, too! Interesting.) There may also be a very small run of Running Foals (less than five?) that was associated in some way with the Ginger Horse's promotion of the Grane model, but I've only heard rumors of this little fellow, and no pictures, so I'm a bit reluctant to list it as something official. (Any pics or links would be appreciated!)

It's a smart move, albeit a frustrating one for those of us who absolutely love the color: by associating a certain color with rarity and exclusivity, it makes new releases in that color even more desirable. That's what fueled the online feeding frenzy with the Silver Snow: for a lot of collectors, it was a rare chance to get an example of a rare color, at a reasonable price.

Remember when we used to get the same thrill when they started rereleasing the old Decorator colors on new molds? They still have the power to excite hobbyists – especially when a new or popular mold is involved – but they are no longer as rare and exclusive as they used to be. If you really want a Florentine, Copenhagen, Gold Charm or Wedgewood Blue and you're not extremely picky about your choice of mold, you can get a newer release for a not-scary price (well, maybe not Wedgewood Blue, just yet. Talk about another color that drives collectors crazy!)

The only Silver Filigrees I have so far are the more “common” Grane and Silver Snow – and I was lucky to have a friend help me with the Silver Snow. I'd love any of the others, but I don't have that kind of money or luck right now. Maybe I'll be lucky or rich in the future: I doubt we've seen the last of this color. (Silver Filigree or Charcoal would look mighty fine on the Stretch Morgan, don't you think? It would also probably cause my head to explode.)

No discussion of Silver Filigree is complete without mentioning the fact that we also owe its existence to the power of suggestion. And in this case, it's one of those rare instances where one person was responsible: the late hobbyist Shirley Ketchuck. The Powers That Be at Reeves liked her idea, and started making their own.

Where's There's Smoke, There's Charcoal

I don't know what's up with the Cream & Cocoa Grazing Mare and Foal Set seen in the the JAH banner ad on Blab, either: my suspicion is that it's an end of the year JAH Special, probably (hopefully?) a Gambler's Choice, like so many of them have been lately.

This is purely speculation on my part: the twist here, I'm thinking, is that you could get any one of four different combos: Charcoal Mare with Smoke Foal, Smoke Mare with Charcoal Foal, Charcoal Mare with Charcoal Foal, or Smoke Mare with Smoke Foal. Four different possible combos, yet only 4 different models total: if you're lucky, you'd only have to buy two sets to get them all.

Breyer did offer these mixed combos before: back at the dawn of Breyer Time (1962-1964, to be precise) you could get mixed Running Mare and Foal sets: you get either get a Smoke Mare with an Alabaster Foal (352), or an Alabaster Mare with a Smoke Foal (351.) The Smoke Mare/Alabaster Foal combo were even used to illustrate the Running Mare and Foal in the Dealer Catalogs back then.


Other combos were available, too, but aside from the Decorators, none of them had unique numbers assigned to them. (If you wanted a “Chestnut” Running Mare and Foal combo, you'd have to write the number 124-134 on your order form, instead!)

Grazing Mare and Foal Sets were briefly available in 1965, and also came with their own unique numbers – 1411 for the Bay, 1422 for the Black, and 1433 for the Palomino – but I have no evidence to suggest they were orderable in mixed combos.


Again, this is purely speculation: with the Cream & Cocoa, they could simply be offering the single set, or maybe just the two different Smoke and Charcoal combos, or whatever. All we've got is a brief, tiny glimpse in a banner ad to go on. I don't know any more than the rest of you on this matter. Heck, the picture is so small, the Smoke might actually be a Honey Palomino! And if that's the case, the “Cream” part of the “Cream & Cocoa” name would make a little more sense.

By the way, there are no true vintage Glossy Smoke models: actually, it's probably better to say that I haven't seen any Gloss Smoke models I could conclusively call authentic. I've seen a handful of Gloss Charcoal models that could possibly pass for a somewhat-dark Smoke, but those are pretty uncommon. It is exceedingly common for a Smoke to be dark enough to pass for Charcoal – common enough that there's often little additional value attached to that variation.

It's probably a little too much to hope that they make the rather nuanced distinction in the advertising between a reproduction of a vintage Decorator color, and a Decorator color done in a vintage style. (And for the record, yes, the VRE Silver Screen Andalusian in Gloss Smoke bugged me a little, too – I don't want hobbyists going off on wild horse chases for models that don't exist. There are enough impossible-to-find rarities out there as it is.)

Ah, well, we'll find out soon enough.