Bravour

I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised to see them using a vintage mold – Chris Hess’s Trakehner – for next year’s BreyerFest Celebration Horse, Bravour 54:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=2J2l1EiS44A

The original Trakehner’s mold number is also 54, which I’m sure is just a happy coincidence.

As a big fan of the Hess Trakehner, I do have some mixed feelings about this mold selection. 

The first being that I still prefer the first version of the mold with his rougher coat and thinner tail. I suppose it’s possible that they might have a few unpainted bodies of the original mold floating around the warehouse, but I am going to assume that any models painted from these will be pricey and difficult to come by. 

The second one is that we know there will be Gloss Prize models of him: I do not have a good track record of obtaining these things. Even though the mold is not as popular as it once was, rare Glosses of almost anything drive collectors (and prices) mad.

(The prices for the Gloss Nikolases are still straight up ridiculous!)

And third – something I’m already starting to see – is that there’s going to be a backlash against using an older mold to begin with. And when I mean an older mold, I mean anything that predates Huckleberry Bey. And he was released in 1999!

Sure, there was a period in the mid to late 1980s and early 1990s – the immediate post-Hess period – where Reeves was still searching for suitable sculptors to replace him, with mixed results. 

But it is a little disheartening to see hobbyists and collectors being so dismissive of the first fifty or so years of Breyer’s output. The Trakehner’s underpinnings are a bit light in comparison to his body, and he’s not quite as clean or refined as newer molds, but I consider him one of Hess’s better efforts from that era. 

I just wish he showed better: I’ve got some darn fine examples, and they straight up get ignored in the show ring nowadays…

Some hobbyists also fail to realize that with most portrait models – and especially the Celebration Horse – the owners are actively involved in the development process. Newer molds may have been considered, and rejected. 

As I have said before, mostly in relation to the more recent Arabian releases, cleaner and more refined sculpts are not necessarily more realistic or accurate. 

When I took my car in for a bit of work at the dealership last week, I found out the service rep was also a horse person, and in fact owned a Paso Fino. I showed her a picture of the new Premier Club Paso Fino mold Cancion, but she much preferred El Pastor: the new Vivaldi de Besilu release looked just like her old mare!

And I have to say that the prototype for Bravour is also a pretty good likeness, too. Thumbs up from this old fart!

Glossy Stock Horses

In case you were wondering, I did participate in the second round of the Collector’s Club Appreciation Sale; I still wanted everything that was left in my cart (minus the sold out items), and the teases that they gave us for the second batch of Glossies – Integrity, Khalid, and even the Stock Horse Stallion King – were all perfectly acceptable.

I couldn’t pass up that Spirit Jersey, especially since it was in that familiar shade of purple (sorry, “Deep Lavender”) that I found so appealing on the Unicorn Zenith. I had been shopping for a new oversized pullover, and since this one was actually cheaper than most of the ones I had been considering, I would have bought it (and the socks) by the end of the year, anyway.

I might even buy a second, if/when the larger sizes go back in stock.

Incidentally, as the Breyer web site states, it’s true that the Stock Horse Stallion has rarely come in Gloss: aside from a few stray Tests and Raffle pieces, the only Production Runs that comes to mind are the 2008 BreyerFest Live Show prize DZ Weedo, and the Gloss version of the 2009 Web Special Summer Solstice, who showed up in the NPOD later that same year.

The Gloss Summer Solstice, in particular, was mostly unnoticed and/or outright ignored when he was “released”, but you don’t see much of either of those Glosses on the secondary market anymore.

It’s not really a surprise that he – or any of the other 1980s Stock Horse Family molds – have had many Gloss releases. Very few Glosses were being produced in the heyday of the Hess Stock Horse Family in the 1980s, and by the time it became a thing again both Breyer and the hobby had moved on to newer and more glamorous molds.

Typical of Chris Hess’s later work, the 1980s Stock Horse molds also have a less “polished” finish than both their predecessors and successors, which doesn’t really lend itself to glossing, though I think it looks perfectly lovely on both the Summer Solstice above, and the King below.

The second round of Glosses aren’t scheduled to ship until the beginning of May – close enough to my birthday that I’ll simply treat it as a de facto birthday present, regardless of who I get. And it’s the thought that counts, right?

Malik and the Classic Andalusian Stallion

It’s nice to see everyone excited about a new Classics mold that not either a Love reissue, or a repurposed Nonplastics/Gallery piece:

A lot of the excitement over Malik is because OMG, it’s an affordable Original Finish Plastic Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig Arabian! 

That’s totally fair.

But what got me excited was its obvious visual shout-back to another Breyer Classics milestone, the Andalusian Family Stallion:

Breyer had released individual Classics-scale horses as early as 1965 – starting with the Rearing Horse Rex – and used the molds leased from Hagen-Renaker in the early 1970s to launch the “Classics” line altogether.

But in late 1978, the Andalusian Family became Breyer’s first fully formed, internally-designed (Hess, of course) Classics family set.

More sets would shortly follow, including the No. 3040 Black Beauty Family and Friends Set and the No. 3035 USET Gift Set in 1980, and the No. 3030 The Black Stallion Returns Set in 1983.

The Andalusian Family was such a big deal for me, though, that I went out of my way to hand my aunt the Bentley Sales Company order forms – carefully annotated, naturally – with my Christmas list, so I could be the first kid in my social circle to have them, at least a month or two before they hit retail stores!

(Yes, that’s the very Stallion from the set that I received, above.)

It was also an important moment for me personally, as it was one of the earliest moments in my life that I realized I had access to the power and resources of a “fandom” – i.e. the model horse community – and I liked it!

The Chris Hess Flier

I had a really rough day today. Actually, the whole week has been suboptimal.

Imagine baking a cake just to be nice, and it turns out great, but nobody in the house wants to eat it? For no particular reason, either?

That’s the kind of week I’ve been having. The worst part? The cake isn’t even metaphorical.

(If there’s anyone within driving distance of my house, I have free Applesauce Spice Cake to give away. Not joking.)

Anyway, rather than bore you with any more details of my I-just-can’t-even kind of week, I’ll present a transcription of the flier from the 1996 Breakfast with Peter Stone held at the Holiday Inn-North on July 27, 1996.

I transcribed it a while ago, as I was getting a number of requests for more biographical information about Chris Hess. It seemed to make more sense to just publish the text from the flier than to quote and paraphrase it. Scanning it wouldn't have made it as searchable as text, either.

There’s much more to his story, of course. But this will help put a little bit more of his life and legacy on the Internet:

Welcome to 

“A Tribute to Christian Hess”

Christian Hess was a handy man to have around. According to his son Chris, Christian could repair anything and everything. Combine those talented hands with a love for art, and it’s not surprising that you’ll have someone who sculpted hundreds of horses and animals that continue to delight collectors today.

Christian Hess was born in Chicago in 1918. After studying art at the Art Institute of Chicago, Christian began a career as a commercial artist. He started as a wood carver, creating decorations for buildings, and eventually turned his talents to mold making. According to Chris, his father made more than 100 molds for Breyer, his first being the Western Horse #57 in 1950. Some accounts have that number as high as 118 including traditional, classic and Little Bits models. His last piece was Secretariat in 1987.

Christian also made over 50 other animals and figures for other companies, including the children’s riding toy known as the “Wonder Horse”, Santa Claus figures, art and advertising pieces. Christian was the sculptor and mold maker responsible for many of those familiar plastic pink yard flamingos.

Christian was married to Elizabeth for 55 years. They have 4 children, Barbara, Christian, Pamela and Lisa, and are the proud grandparents of 10 and great-grandparents of 4. Chris, who worked with his father in their company from 1963 to 1988, describes him as hard working and conscientious, always thinking about his business. Chris says his father hated to go on vacation because he didn’t like to be away from the business for very long!

Though Chris died in 1988, his art lives on in the models he produced. His sculpture “Trouble” is the basis for the first model of the new Peter Stone Collection.

(Note: there are some obvious errors and typos in the text itself, but they have been left as-is.)

The Newest Old Gray Mare

You can also count me among the unimpressed with the Breyer Cyber Monday sale. Free shipping is great, but since I’m lucky enough to live in an area that affords me the luxury of handpicking, it’s not that big a temptation for me personally.

I thought they would have pulled out one or two moderately interesting “new” things to spice things up a bit, unless they’re saving them up for Grab Bags. They did come out with some pretty decent Grab Bags in early December of last year – featuring BreyerFest Specials, the French WEG Classics, Zodiac Series Classics and some of the Holiday Mare and Foal sets.

So my little “fun money” fund remains intact for now. Good.

Here’s a picture of the other Warehouse Find/Reissue I purchased along with the Bluegrass Bandit – the Stock Horse Mare in a particularly carbonated version of Dapple Gray:

There are no obvious flaws on her I can see, beyond the ones inherent to the mold itself and the Resist Dapple painting technique.

I have a slightly higher than average fondness for the Hess Stock Horse Family: they came out in the early 1980s, at the peak of my early hobby “career”, and they made up a significant percentage of my purchases then. I didn’t realize how much of a fondness I had until I was reorganizing my boxed models over the weekend:

That’s just a small portion of the Stock Horses I have – most of them are not boxed. Then, as now, boxes weren’t that high a priority for me. These boxes may look a bit rough, but what is important is that all the models in those boxes are top notch examples of their respective releases. And not going anywhere, either. (A few of the later arrivals, maybe…)

I just realized that I have Tests or Oddities of three of the four Stock Horse Family members, but none of the Stock Horse Mare yet. Hmm. I’ll have to keep that in mind, should the opportunity ever arise.

And it should, eventually. If any vintage Test Colors are “easy” and/or inexpensive to acquire, it’s the Hess Stock Horses. Marney’s albums and ephemera is full of them, and this one is a particular favorite of mine:

I often wonder where she is, now. 

Literary Aspirations

The book sale on Monday was better than I expected – I ended up doing a nice little “restock” on my own sale books and added a few to the personal collection, including an older (but not a first edition) copy of Tschiffely’s Ride. It’s kind of beat up, and without a dust jacket, but I can live with that:

I know it’s still in print, but I’m a sucker for older editions: they tend to be cheaper than newer editions, and just as sturdy, if not more so. Chances are if I hadn’t picked it up, it would have gotten tossed into someone’s “decorative book” pile anyway, and that weirds me out to no end.

I’m not as averse as some are to using books in crafting (the “altered book” movement) but the idea of buying books strictly as decorative objects is not something I will ever be (or need to be!) into. If I’m going to have “pretty” books on the shelf, I want books that I would also want to read or find useful.

Another book in that stash was a more recent copy of Will James’s Smoky. I only bring it up here because I’ve been meaning to get the illustration that Chris Hess clearly modeled the Traditional Smoky on, because it’s not one easily found on the Internet:

(Not the best quality, I know…)

As to why Chris selected this pose and not the others, I’d suggest taking an online looky-loo at some of the other original Will James illustrations from the book: this pose was probably one of the easiest to adapt to injection molding!

A More Polished Secretariat

So tired today; work is in its busy season, and sleep has been in short supply. I’m grateful for the overtime, but what I wouldn’t give to be able to sleep in one day this week ...

(Sunday. Maybe.)

I did take a quick opportunity to do a little decompressing after a particularly rough day earlier in the week, at an undisclosed location on the way home that had some Breyers in it. I was mulling over the recently discontinued #1440 Let’s Go Racing Set – the one with the Black Secretariat. I collect the mold, and the notion of buying a Breyer play set appealed to my inner nine year old.

Then I noticed something: the Secretariat mold has been “polished”, just like the Traditional #54 Trakehner mold!

It actually looked good on him, though as a member of that mold’s slender fanbase, I’m a little wistful about alterations being made to Chris Hess’s last official Breyer mold.

I don’t know when the polishing occurred; I traded for an NPOD sample of one that still had that slightly rough-hewn look, and the promotional photos and video all show that version as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBgP2EPRfG0

I hadn’t noticed the change before because it wasn’t something I had been looking to get until recently, now that it’s been discontinued and some of the remaining warehouse stock has been shipped to Tuesday Mornings and the like.

Plus I had the Sample, and Burmese the solid Black Export Special Run of one of Queen Elizabeth’s favorite horses. Black Secretariats are not in short supply here.

It’ll probably be a while before I actually pick up the polished mold version – it’s time, not money, that’s not on my side.

More BreyerFest 2013 Releases

I did get the Vintage Club "Ephemera Extra" the other day: it IS the 1961 Duotone Catalog Insert pages that most of you should be at least vaguely familiar with. And which was used as one of the illos in my original article.

I’ll work around it. As for any further commentary on the Extra itself, I’ll leave to private communications. (Nothing racy, just unduly speculative.)

Reeves also released photos of three more BreyerFest releases - a Decorator Blue Bandana Bucking Bronco named Rock-a-Billy for the Boots & Bling Store, a Decorator Blue Overo Pinto Lady Phase named Twill, and a "new" Moody Iberian Horse named Laredo, who’s pretty over the top - even for a Moody. He’s apparently a reworked Brishen, with multiple swapped out parts, so he's only partly new.

I’ll reserve my final judgement on him (as always) until I see one in person. There are a few photos of a sample from Equine Affaire last weekend, but they’re taken at a weird and difficult to judge from angle.

I’m also going to assume - until the artist issues a statement otherwise - that the increasing over-the-topness may be a Reeves directive/suggestion, and not artistic derangement/degredation, as some people seem to be suggesting.

Wild, crazy horses with big hair sell better - not to us, maybe, but definitely to the rest of the world. Anatomical realism? Not as much as we might think, outside the live showing niche.

As for as much attention as they lavish on us, we have to be reminded of this simple fact: we are not the center of Reeves’ universe, or at least as much they are of ours.

The front leg does bother me a bit, but I think it’s more because I’m used to Breyer molds having abnormally short raised forelegs, like the Western Prancing Horse, the Running Stallion, the Belgian... It’s almost like an artistic marker/tic for Chris Hess’s work, the more I think about it. It makes me wonder if it was also related to any molding issues.

I suspect that Laredo’s funky foreleg may be the victim of a similar problem, though from the opposite direction: instead of erring on the side of caution, I have a feeling that Reeves is pushing the molding technology a little bit too close to the edge of what’s possible.

I do like his hair. And the paint job is very pretty. Like some commenters have been saying, I think some of the people making yucky faces over him now may be swooning over him in the future, once they get to know him.

Or not. He’s not really designed for "us", anyway.

Twill was the one who finally pushed me over the line in ordering another BreyerFest ticket, though. Not because I’m a huge Lady Phase fan, but because she’s painted to resemble denim - like the Fighting Stallion centerpiece for the original "Denim and Diamonds" Exclusive Event in Texas.

With overo pinto marking that look like (to me!) holes ripped into those jeans. Which, duh, obviously means something to me, in light of recent events: if I manage to snag one, she is so going to be called "Vita’s Fault". (She was a bad girl again, yesterday, though not for me.)

Lest you think we’re running out of surprises, other models we can still speculate about include: the Stablemates One-Days, the Live Show prizes, the second day Raffle horse, the Volunteer Model, all of the Auction pieces, and possibly a few more Store Specials.

And who’s going to be the Glossy/Matte Half and Half SR. Because if they’re doing a Gambler’s Choice model, they’re doing a Half and Half. (My current bet? The Haflinger Buckaroo.)

Next up: another "secret" project, you say?

Getting It All Done

I am just having the hardest time finding the time and motivation for this year’s NaNoWriMo novel. Even though I technically have what most people would consider to be an ungodly amount of free time on my hands (because of the slow work season), it isn’t, actually.

It’s all nonfrivolous work, none of that "alphabetizing canned vegetables in the pantry" stuff that desperate writers turn to when the words don’t work. It includes, among other things, taking care of a high-maintenance dog, helping a coworker build a web site, helping with the Copenhagen Belgian auction, trying to get my own auctions listed, last minute work assignments, fighting the crowds at the last big rummage sale of the season, sorting and inventorying that paperwork…

Even so, I’m not that far behind - maybe half a day’s quota off. And I really don’t even have to leave the house the next couple of days if I don’t have to, so catching up - or getting ahead of myself - is theoretically possible.

A picture’s worth a thousand words, as the old saw goes, so I offer to everyone a photograph from the archives that truly lives up to it - and which is providing me with some unexpected motivation, as well:

It’s a photo from May 1977, of Chris Hess working in the shop. It’s probably partially "staged" - it was part of a group of photographs taken for the Spring 1977 issue of Just About Horses - but still, take a closer look at everything going on here.

The lumpy blob in his hands is that of the Benji, being prepared for the moldmaking process; on the table and off to the side is a Charolais Bull, possibly being used as a reference point for the Standing Black Angus Bull, which would come out the following year. Multiple photographs and other reference materials cover the table - some for the Black Angus, obviously, but also for the Stud Spider, another late 1977/early 1978 release.

Other photographs in the set show him fiddling around with the molded halves of Stud Spider, and of another project he was working on at the time, which was apparently repairing a crack in the Longhorn Bull mold. Other molds that were making their debut around this time - but not seen in this set of photos - included Tiffany, San Domingo, the Galiceno, and the Rough Coat Stock Horse Foal.

And he had the nearly completely sculpts of the Legionario and the Andalusian Family ready for approvals by January 1978.

"Get" the picture now? The man was busy!

You can understand, then, when it raises my hackles just a tad to see hobbyists dismiss Chris Hess’s work as lightly as they do. In the space of a year and a half, he casted or sculpted nearly a dozen molds, largely by himself, many of which are still staples in the Breyer line today.

Every time I’ve found myself getting discouraged by my work load over the past several days, I look at that picture and think: Get it done, get it done. Find the time, and just get it done.

Letting Sleeping Molds Lie

This is the kind of week I’ve been having: the post I was working on for today just vanished, completely and utterly. I was typing along, making a few grammatical corrections, and then the file just disappeared. It left no evidence behind of even existing: no recovered files, work files, error messages, nothing.

Great, just awesome. As if I wasn’t already in a pretty cranky mood. It’s mostly due to work, the circumstances of which I’d rather not talk about in public. All that can be said is that I’m very much looking forward to Friday.

The horses have also been the furthest things from my mind. I did get a package on Monday that I’d like to talk about, but it won’t be until Friday before I get a chance to even open it. The anticipation is probably the only thing keeping me from randomly smashing things with my fists.

I did see, in passing, that the old Trakehner mold has a newly resculpted tail, for the upcoming Hickstead release. I haven’t had a chance to take a good look at the photos yet, much less see one in person, but I have to say that I’m feeling a little apprehensive about the whole thing.

I understand the need to freshen up molds to keep them viable, but with the Trakehner, I’m not quite seeing the point. We already have another, more modern standing Warmblood mold: the Idocus. Why try to make the Trakehner into something they already have?

I have nothing against change: my entire life has been defined by the fact that I seem to do nothing but. What’s jarring to me is the dissimilarities in the style of these more modern hairdos compared with the molds they are applied to. As someone who was trained as an art historian, I find conflicting styles within a single artwork jarring and obvious: that’s one of the things we look for. Sometimes, it’s the only thing we’ll see.

Hess’s sculpts, particularly his pieces from the mid-1970s onward, tend to be loose and impressionistic, in stark contrast to the tighter and cleaner styles that are more in fashion today. I may be committing a great heresy by even mentioning them in the same sentence, but I think the only current Breyer sculptor who comes close to capturing that impressionistic feel is Brigitte Eberl.

(Before some of you get your knickers in a knot, remember that style and quality are two completely different things.)

Anyway, like I said, I’m not quite seeing the point with this particular change in the mold. I’m a little concerned that the tail isn’t going to look like it "goes with" it, the same way the new tail for the Stock Horse Stallion doesn’t look quite right to me. I am a little too fond of the old Trakehner mold, and I don’t want to find myself reduced to obsessing over his tail.

Back to work, again.

Vintage

Note to self: stop buying collections from non-collectors. Way more work than they’re worth, frankly. Nothing more disheartening to pick up a box and hear loose bits rolling around - loose bits that you know aren’t Stablemate-sized.

I don’t mind a good-sized body box, but mine is now verging on the ridiculous. Anyone in the market for some older bodies? No respectable body box should be without a few vintage clunkers!

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the word vintage, especially in respect to Reeves’ new "Vintage Collectors Club." Some collectors are understandably a little concerned about what Reeves’ definition of the word might entail.

The word vintage originally applied only to wines; it migrated across the rest of the collectible spectrum when the word antique fell out of favor, a consequence, partly, of the fact that it does have a legal definition. (In most jurisdictions, this definition is usually something along the lines of "an object of personal property of 100 years of age or more.")

Like the word rare, however, vintage has been bandied about in the world of collectible so much, and so carelessly, that it has essentially lost all meaning.

If I had my druthers, I’d define vintage in the Breyer world as "any mold, model or color originally designed, produced or released prior to the acquisition of the Breyer brand by Reeves," which would include anything made prior to 1985.

It’s a (relatively) neat and clean cut off point, and it’s by no means an arbitrary one, either. The acquisition of Breyer, by Reeves, represents a significant turning point in the history of the brand. After that point, molds and models became a more realistic, and a more "finished" product. Reeves has spent a considerable amount of effort catering to the collectibles crowd, a trend that existed in the Chicago era from the very beginning, but which did not become fully implemented until the Reeves era.

There’s also the Chris Hess factor: if there’s any one thing that hobbyists agree on, it’s that Chris Hess molds are vintage. The bulk of Hess’s work for the company was done by 1985: only Touch of Class in 1986, and the much-delayed Secretariat in 1987, remained to be released.

A time-based definition could work, too: "any mold, model or color originally designed, produced or released at least 25 years ago." Or whatever number we happen to decide sounds reasonable. Twenty-five seems like a reasonable enough distance from the present, for me. (I think it used to be the same amount of time required to get a "classic" license plate in Michigan, but don’t quote me on that.)

I have no idea what concept of vintage Reeves has in mind. I suppose, like most things, they'll just make it up as they go along.

Cutting out early again: I’m trying to finish the novel tonight. I don’t have to be anywhere tomorrow, so I am free to pull an all-nighter, if I have to. I don’t think have to - I only have about 1500 words to go, more or less, which should take about 3 or 4 hours to pull out of me. However, I’m starting to get harassed by the rest of the residents of this household on my general lack of non-novelly activities in said household.

Better for me if I can get done as much as I can tonight, and leave the rest of the day to defending Fort Christmas Tree. (More on that, next time.)

Model Horse Metadata

I’m still sore and exhausted from shoveling the consequences of Snowpocalypse II. Ten inches! It took three of us an hour to shovel, scrape and snowblow the driveway yesterday.

And today, despite the snow coming up to her chest, Vita decided to take off after some deer in the yard. (Apparently she now thinks she’s the world’s smallest Deerhound.) Thankfully, the people who finally managed to catch her called the vet’s number on her microchip tag, and the little sociopath is now back home. (The people who caught her thought she was "just the sweetest thing." Ha!)

I’m also sulking about my work situation: basically I’m getting fewer hours (and less money) because I’m doing such a good job at what I’m doing. It’s not manager double-talk - the way the assignments get set up, it’s in the company’s best interest to put the better-skilled people on the shorter assignments, and the less-skilled people on the longer ones. What that means is that in exceptionally busy weeks, less-skilled people get way more hours. Making more per hour doesn’t mean much, when you’re working 10-15 fewer of those hours.

So yeah, not a whole lot of happy in my corner of the world at the moment.

One thing that is making me happy: a big heaping pile of vintage photos I purchased recently. Test colors, live show photos, old photo show pics - all sorts of awesome here, including these:




Yes, those are photographs of the original clay sculpts for the Classic Sagr, Shetan and Johar. Just, wow. I almost feel like I’m touching history!

The bulk of photographs in this archive aren’t quite as impressive. Most of them are reference photos of what we considered the pinnacle of rare and desirable things in the pre-Reeves era: Decorators, Glosses, Horse and Rider sets, early Special Runs, that sort of thing. (Many of these things are still rare, of course, but considerably less desirable in this era of micro runs.)

Back then, information on older models was much, much harder to come by. We didn’t have any books to go by, and early Collector’s Manuals and Dealer Catalogs were almost impossible to find. It was not unusual for those of us with older or more rarely seen pieces to buy, sell and trade photographs of these models to each other for reference.

Even though many of these photographs are no longer technically useful, they’re still valuable - as a document of our efforts of documentation.

Behold, I have finally crossed that final threshold: I’m now collecting research materials about research materials. It’s not just research, it’s metadata!

(Is it time for me to go to bed now? Yes, yes it is.)

The Day I Met Chris Hess

Fidelity to reality (or lack thereof) has never been a "deal breaker" for me in regards to the plastic horses: there’s so much more to a model’s appeal beyond how closely it matches the real thing. It’s not just a physical representation of a horse.

There’s a persistent strain of hobbyist that takes perverse delight in delineating every single fault in every new release. Take a look at any given thread on a new mold on any of the major discussion boards - it never takes more than five posts on the subject for the model to be declared either an abomination, physically impossible, or an affront to someone’s delicate sensibilities.

I try to keep my eyerolling and keyboard in check when the inevitable destruction of the newest Breyer releases comes up. (The original Auld Lang Syne thread on Model Horse Blab was particularly embarrassing. Upchuck smilies? Seriously?) But I get somewhat more defensive and chatty when the target of derision du jour is a Secretariat.

You want to know why? The first time I saw it was also the first - and only time - I ever met Chris Hess. You know, the guy who, more than any other person, made Breyer what it was - and what it is.

It was at Model Horse Congress (the BreyerFest before BreyerFest) in Chicago. Marney had casually mentioned something about the casting of the new Secretariat model being brought in, and in a spare moment I went over to see it.

I can’t remember what the indignation level was, if any. Other hobbyists examined it, made a few comments and minor critiques, though I can’t remember what they were. If any sentiment was expressed, it was the pleasure of actually being able to see a brand new Breyer mold, in the pre-production phase - in person!

This was in the mid-1980s, way before this sort of thing became commonplace. The coolness factor for me was pretty darn high. I was also pleased to see it because the Secretariat mold was something that was a very, very long time in coming - and here was proof, at last, that the promise was about to become reality.

The person who had brought the model in was, of course, Chris Hess. He sat next to the casting, in a rumpled windbreaker, looking a little out of his element. I didn’t realize who he was at that very moment - I guess I assumed he was someone’s father or grandfather. It wasn’t until after he left that it dawned on me.

I probably would have been too intimidated to ask him any question, even if I had been formally introduced. Although I was not the history diva then that I am now, I was well on my way; I had already had the audacity to rewrite the Master List Breyer had been sending out to collectors back then - and send it back to them!

The questions I would ask now are probably quite different from the questions I would have asked then. Not because I know more about Breyer history, but because I didn’t know that the Secretariat mold was going to be Chris Hess’s last gift to us: he "retired" from mold making with his completion. And that he would pass away not much longer after that.

In fact, I’m not so sure I would ask any questions at all. If I could have a time machine do-over moment, I think I’d just use it as an opportunity to thank him for giving us Secretariat (the horse that, in a roundabout way, brought me to the hobby) and for making my childhood a little less lonely.

Not so much history in that one, but an interesting post for some of you, I hope.