The Narrative

Way to ruin the narrative guys…

Since this is like the fourth, fifth or sixteenth draw, I’m not sure this even counts as pull from the waitlist anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I am absolutely taking him, but it all seems so anticlimactic now, like being told you can eat that last piece of birthday from a party held three days ago you weren’t invited to in the first place. 

I mean, I will say yes to cake always, but it definitely feels weird.  

There’s been a lot of news in the past several days and I’m not quite sure where to begin; I suppose I should begin with the giant elephant in the room: the Spokes & Spurs Exclusive Event.

Remember how I was telling you how my vacation plans for next year were so completely messed up I had to come up with an alternative to my alternative plan? Not only would this event fit perfectly into the alternative plan I had been cooking up, it is almost like it was planned with me in mind. 

Originally I wanted to go to the Kentucky Derby, but unfortunately so did a couple million other people, and because my back still hurts and I am super-judgey right now, my mind imagines (mostly unfairly, I know) that many who did secure tickets either don’t know one end of a horse from another, or cannot even rattle off three random Kentucky Derby winners off the tops of their heads. Grr, argh….

(If on the slender but not impossible [for once!] chance that the Detroit Lions make it to the Super Bowl, I am not going to stand in the way of people who have been waiting since 1957. That would just feel mean.)

I did not get picked for the ticket lottery, and due to a series of unfortunate events, I did not find out about the public part of the sale until five days after it happened. All that’s left now are infield (drunk people), box seats (nobody I know who wants to go has the money to split one with me), insanely expensive luxury seats, and scalpers (both self-explanatory). So yeah, unless a miracle happens, I will not be attending.  

My backup plan was San Diego Comicon.

(Yes, I can hear you laughing.)  

The backup to the backup plan was Iceland, but since one of my cousins expressed an interest also, that’s going to require more planning and coordination.

Which left me with… the Redneck Roadtrip Redo. My family had a weird, epic roadtrip to the Southern parts of the U.S. in the summer of 1979; it was the closest thing our working class family had to a “real” vacation, and included stops at Graceland, Lexington, Nashville and Little Rock, Arkansas. Other than Lexington – where I got to go to the Kentucky Horse Park for the first time, and met Forego – a lot of the places I wanted to visit along the way were nixed. 

I always thought that someday I’d redo that roadtrip, but do it right. Dig for diamonds at Crater of Diamonds State Park! Take my picture in front of the post office in Gurdon, Arkansas! Actually go inside of Graceland! (Technically it wasn’t even open to the public in 1979.) And other stops Dad didn’t bother to slow down for, for reasons both known and unknown.

(Known: my always impeccably-dressed Grandmother wasn’t going to go digging in the dirt for anything, even diamonds.) 

I had thought about taking this roadtrip the week before or after the Derby, as a way of both avoiding and thumbing my nose at the Derby festivities I will be missing out on, and because life is too short to be hate-watching anything anymore anyway. 

Combining this roadtrip with an Exclusive Event in the middle of it would be perfect. But will it actually happen? 

Spotting Things

Welp, I bought stuff over the weekend anyway, but not from WinterFest. I got this guy instead, because he was (a) on sale, (b) the 15 percent off offer also worked on him, and (c) after I tossed in some show pouches because I needed them anyway, shipping was free! 

Every time I saw the Ideal Appaloosa in the wild – a couple of times at the Tractor Supply, and once at one of my local toy store haunts – he kept catching my eye, but I was a little hesitant to lay out the cash, or acknowledge the fact that I now seem to be collecting the mold (he would be number four!) But for the same price I would have paid locally, I got some “free” pouches, and I couldn’t pass that deal up…

So even if I don’t get a Garret – which, considering my luck lately with the larger piece Special Runs, is not out of the realm of possibility – at least I have one package coming in the mail.

And it may also cover whatever transpires with the Christmas Day Special, which in light of the WinterFest revelation that it’s going to be a Moody mold, I simultaneously fear and hope it really is Emma. (This could also mean Rain or Ethereal, but Ethereal has already had one Gambler’s Choice, so maybe not…) With the hours I keep at work, sleeping in could also happen, like it did the year of Spice Drop. 

Special Runs, Oddities and Test Colors on the realistic Deer Family are something of a rarity. All of the previous releases from their introduction in 1964 going forward have been some shade of brown or tan, with various amounts of detailing. 

I do have a few oddities, including a Chalky Plastic Buck, a Fawn without spots that was part of a larger collection in Arizona that may or may not have been related to Breyer’s attempt to relocate production to Mexico (probably not, but close enough to make me go hmm...) and a Doe that came with the Fawn that’s shaded a little bit different than the standard paint jobs of the era.

I know most hobbyists would have preferred an entire Deer Family, but I wouldn’t rule out the rest of the family turning up soon, especially since the molds technically have an anniversary (the sixtieth!) coming up next year, along with the Stretched Morgan and the Belgian. 

The Belgian has already had a couple of recent releases, including the Ponies & Palm Trees Coconut Grove and the TSC Gibson, but the Stretched Morgan has been absent since 2018’s Web Special Kaibab. In fact, he hasn’t had a larger, Regular Run release since the 1990s; all of his subsequent releases have Special Runs, Test Colors, or Club models, with the largest being the Appaloosa Halo from the Vintage Club in 2013.

In other words, he’s due, especially considering how well-received the Troubadour doppelganger was. 

The Legions

Here I thought the reason I was in kind of a sour mood this week was because I just missed getting a really sweet deal on a Presentation Collection Bison on eBay. Nope, it was something else entirely:

https://ew.com/comic-books/keith-giffen-dies-superhero-comic-creator/

Most comic book dilletantes know Keith Giffen as the co-creator of both Rocket Raccoon and Lobo, but I first encountered him due to his work on The Legion of Super-Heroes. After I came back to comics after a brief hiatus, I was fortunate enough to do it literally at the very start of The Great Darkness Saga. (Why it has not been made into a DCAU movie yet is beyond me!)

Even though I was involved in Legion fandom during his tenure on the title, I never got to make his acquaintance. Other in my orbit certain did, and I heard stories, so I can perhaps still claim him as part of my “Six Degrees of Separation” circle.

And now, back to our program…

I’m sure the season is partly to blame, but I can’t generate the same enthusiasm everyone else is expressing over the 2024 Deluxe Collector’s Club membership exclusive Stablemate Horatio, who is a mini-me of Othello:

I was just wondering what the next “mini-me” Stablemate was going to be, and I definitely did not have Othello on my Bingo card. (I am still holding out for Ethereal!) 

I don’t dislike him, but much like the Silver, he’s already come in a lot of colors, and it’s hard to do anything original with him. (My first reaction to Horatio: another fuzzy gray one?) And with his legions of fans – no pun intended there, I swear – he’ll be very hard to acquire when they do. 

I like his larger counterpart better: the first 2024 Collectors Club Special Heath. You all know I am a sucker for roany paintjobs. But like most Othellos before him, I’ll probably be bowing out of buying him. I am quite happy with the assortment I already have. 

And one final note, because I know the right people will be reading and I don’t have a Facebook account to correct it at the source, and it’s bugging the heck out of me: the realistic Deer Family debuted in 1964, not 1974. That sell sheet/insert itself is from 1964!

There were the usual variations in color, finish and mold marks throughout the years, but the Deer Family was relatively unchanged from 1964 through 1997. The only thing “new” about the 1974 release – aside from the box and the model number for the gift set – was that the individual members of the family were no longer available separately.

(I’m crossing my fingers and hoping it’s a hint. Now that, I will buy.)

Setting Them Free

In case you were wondering, I (probably) won’t be making a pit stop at the former Chicago location of Breyer Animal Creations while in town for Chicon 8 next weekend. 

It’s not the neighborhood that scares me (hello, I grew up and around Detroit!) but my schedule is already very full, and I’m nervous enough about potentially missing out on the Exclusive Event waitlist draws (ha!) and Johann. 

I also want to heed my own advice and not overschedule myself. I have a… bad habit of doing that. (Someone please talk me out of volunteering at Chicon next week. Seriously, why am I even entertaining the notion?)

Anyway, here’s the set that the laundry room forced me to unbox earlier than I expected: the #1734 Deer Family!

(I had a heck of a time setting them free from their soggy mess of a box, though. I swear they used about ten feet of wire to secure them inside it!)

One of the scarcer Deer Family releases, this set was only available in 2015 and 2016; mine came in a Grab Bag, back when they still sold them on the web site and they had good stuff to include. 

The only Deer Family items that might be scarcer are the #3125 Whitetail Deer Family in Summer Coats, and maybe the Fawn Flicka, who was included in one of the Walmart Exclusive Wild Mustang sets. Both were 2005 releases, not coincidentally.

One of the reasons I put off unboxing them is because, as anyone who has had a set of these in their possession knows, both those legs and antlers are crazy fragile. I just repaired a Fawn who took an unfortunate dive off a shelf several months back, and somewhere around here I still have the assorted pieces of my Chalky Buck’s antlers rattling around.

(His little slip and fall was when I discovered just how brittle Chalky plastic actually is!)

Even though the Deer have been perennially solid sellers since their debut in 1964, there aren’t a lot of bold or distinct color options they could go with for future releases, other than Piebald or something Decorator. Either one would make lovely future Winter Web Specials, though.

Happy Family

The cold that I thought was a passing thing last week? It must have seen that I had a small lull in my schedule, and came back for an encore. So much for getting anything extra done around the house; the only energy I’ve had for the past couple of days was expended going to the store to buy more Nyquil.

I have not said much about the latest Breyer exclusive event, the Big Easy Bash. There were a few days back when the tickets were being sold that I considered the possibility of going, partly to help a friend out, but mostly because I wanted to visit the factory again. And road trips, I needed another road trip.

It didn’t materialize because we couldn’t get our ducks in a row in time.

Whilst helping out another friend, I was made aware of the existence of a wait list, and my name was put upon it. The closer and closer the date became, the less and less likely that a last minute call was going to happen, so I took progressively less interest in any of the details of the event.

And…if I say any more, you’d probably get annoyed with me, mostly because I’d start rambling about my thoughts about hobby gentrification - and since cold medication does weird things to my head, probably end with me babbling about Bigfoot or the Illuminati.

Anyway, happier thoughts of happier families: here is a picture of my Deer Family. I bought them at the flea market quite some time ago; the wooden bases are not original, of course. They were purchased from a dealer who had obviously bought out the contents of someone’s hunting lodge or trophy room; in addition to the Deer Family, there were multiple antler mounts from the 1960s, most of them not much to brag about.

The Breyer Deer, on the other hand, were. Older, with beautiful shading, no rubs in sight, no USA marks, and every tine on the Buck's rack intact: it was the finest Breyer Deer Family that I found up to and since then.

I decided to keep them on their bases because they were in good shape, and well done. They had done their job in keeping the entire family intact in every sense of the word, so why mess with success, right?

The Deer Family are in the small group of molds that are more popular among the general public than they are in the hobby. Hobbyists prefer two things that the Deer Family are not: horses, and variety. The Family returned in two different tweaked versions of the tan/brown: the #3124 "Whitetail" Family from 1998 through 2004, and the #3125 "Summer Coat" set in 2005. The Fawn was rereleased in some of the Wal-Mart Special Run sets, too. But other than that, what you see above is what you would have gotten - in the 30 plus years the originals were available (ca. 1964-1997).

There are some variations. The Buck is sometimes found in Chalky, and the Fawn is occasionally seen without spots. Items issued during the brief bi-eye era came with bi-eyes. Early models were sold separately, in addition to being sold in sets, and also came with Large or Small Blue Ribbon Stickers. The original box for the #3123 Deer Family set has very appealing graphics. And as I mentioned above, early models came without USA marks. Test colors and oddities are rarer than your average horse mold, but do exist.

So if you are truly a dedicated Breyer Deer collector, you could keep yourself modestly busy for a while tracking all that down.

Even so, I think it’s funny that their names rarely come up when discussing future Nonhorse Special Runs - online, BreyerFest, wherever. A Piebald set would be fairly well-received, especially as a Special Run set for Tractor Supply.

Great Breyer Graveyards

They just listed a few more items from the Big Hobbyist Auction on the Munda’s web site (May 24th) so I’ve decided to temporarily add the Munda’s Auction site to my link list, for your convenience. The listings this go round are slightly better, though much amusement will still be found there. ("Bat Pinto"? Batman had a horse?)

Like a lot of people, I’m currently intrigued and baffled by the eBay auctions of a vendor out in Arizona: what looks like variations, oddities, culls and outright test colors are being auctioned off in rapid succession, and in great quantity. I’ve already bought a couple of what I’d consider
"safe" lots, where I think my potential loss of investment will be minimal if they don’t turn out to be what I think they might be. The first one has already arrived:

A Fawn without spots, and a Doe with darker than normal ears? Yeah, I know, not the most exciting lot of Breyers ever, but remember who you’re talking to here. This is the kind of stuff I eat for breakfast.

There’s been much speculation about these models and their origins. I’ve done a little of it myself over on Blab, but I’ll expand and continue my thoughts here, for the benefit of a wider audience.

There are several locations that seem to be harbors or wellsprings for rare and odd Breyers. Chicago is the first, of course: that’s where the factory was for the first 35 years or so of production. Then there’s New Jersey, the current location of Reeves International, and where full-scale production continued for the next 15 years, give or take, and still continues on a minimal basis.

California is sometimes seen as another one of the Great Breyer Graveyards, though I think its plentitude is exaggerated, a bit. California is BIG, in every sense of the word, so it’s only natural that there’d be slightly more rare and unusual stuff coming out of California than, say, Kansas or Wyoming. I do think that the Decorator saga has its roots out there, due to the Ungers, toy development gurus and longtime Breyer Sales Reps who were also partly responsible for bringing us Brenda Breyer.

The location that has always fascinated me, however, has been Arizona. When I was just getting into the hobby in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I kept hearing stories about crazy things being found at the flea markets in Arizona. I had relatives out in Las Vegas, and whenever it was casually mentioned that we might go on a road trip to visit them, my thoughts always turned to those magical flea markets I heard so much about.

(The furthest west we got was Arkansas. It involved Elvis, the Kentucky Horse Park, a liquor store, and Breyers. Of course.)

A few years ago - when I was working for an antiques dealer, who also was a story unto himself - a number of lots came up on eBay from a seller in Arizona. Lots with multiple pieces of the same item - a half dozen Bassett Hounds, or Benjis, or Charolais Bulls - and one spectacular collection lot with multiple bulls in colors I had never seen before: Brick Reds and Browns and Chocolate Milk Sorrels.

I tried for the lot, but naturally failed: I think it went somewhere in the $4000 to $5000 range, which isn’t as outrageous as it sounds, considering that there were at least 10-12 of those bulls in it, not including the more "normal" looking stuff that was thrown in for good measure. Even at that price, money could have been made.

They looked authentic to me, and apparently, it did to a lot of other people, too.

Since then I’ve always kept a lookout for auctions in the Arizona area, just in case. I’ve come across a few treasures, but I missed this vendor’s auctions earlier this year because I’ve been trying to keep my eBay shopping to a minimum. I was doing so good, until this week!

As to why Arizona, that’s still something of a mystery. Longtime mail-order company Horses International was based in Phoenix, and had many unique Special Runs of its own: perhaps these were samples from the warehouse that somehow came into someone’s possession?

Another theory that I’ve been mulling over is that these were somehow connected to Breyer’s little adventure in Mexico in the late 1970s. Peter Stone got a wild hair and thought that they could move production to Mexico, an endeavor that likely failed due to infrastructure problems. Most - though not all - of these models seem to be from that time period.

It could be that there’s a more mundane reason. Like all of the other Sellers of Unusual Breyers of Dubious Provenance, this seller is not being terribly forthcoming about their origins. Whether it’s because he’s got something to hide, or is just bluffing to cover his lack of knowledge, we also do not know.

All I know is that I performed the Lestoil test on the two most peculiar pieces in my Deer Lot - the Doe with the dark ears, and the spotless Fawn - and nothing but a little dust and dirt came off. 

Insert Sheets, Pt. II

If I come across as a bit of a cranky-puss today, I apologize. My work schedule was completely, utterly messed up this week; I ended up driving about twice as far as anyone else, for about half the hours. Listening to other people complain about all the overtime they’re getting gets very old, very quickly.

I am still Esprit-free. This is not really a surprise - I know how the hobbyists are around here - but it did irritate me more than I thought it would.

I think there’s just something fundamentally flawed about the way this mold’s been marketed. Restricting availability to a new item does drive up demand; overdo it, and it becomes a deterrent. I’ll have at least one in my collection eventually - the BreyerFest Pecos - but that may well and truly be it.

In other words, there’s no need for anyone to go out of their way to get me one. If I find one eventually, at a price I can afford, awesome. If not, no big whoop.

Back to the Insert Sheets discussion. First, here are some scans of the little seen 1964 Inserts:




I really like the way these pages are designed; if I had the money-time-inclination, I’d have them blown up to one-sheet poster size and frame them for my office. (Note to the folks at Reeves, if you’re reading: you might want to look into this idea. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who’d be into that sort of thing.)

You’ll note that unlike the 1963 Dealer’s Catalog, these sheets are not full-color. The 1963 Catalog was a bit of an outlier; most of Breyer’s marketing materials prior to the late 1960s were not printed in full-color. It wasn’t purely an aesthetic choice: full-color printing was expensive. If they could get away with printing something in a duotone, or with a spot color or two, they would.

A restricted color palette isn’t that big a deal, as long as the materials themselves are designed and rendered well. And for the most part, they were, but that’s another topic I haven’t even begun to research yet. (I met Richard Lewis once, in passing, about 10-12 years ago. Another one of those "wish I had a time machine for a do-over" moments.)

As far as I know, the 1962 Insert Sheets haven’t shown up - yet. Now there’s something I’d pay an almost-crazy amount of money for. It’s possible they may not even exist, but we didn’t know the 1961 Sheets existed, until they resurfaced.

We’ve got a good idea of which molds those sheets might feature - the Running Mare and Foal, the Western Prancing Horse, and maybe the Texas Longhorn Bull - but having those sheets would prove it, definitively. I’d be fine with finding that information via other routes, but the sheets themselves would be sweet.