Zahra

When I found out about the return of the In-Between Mare, my first reaction was “I can’t believe they’re actually doing this.” 

My second reaction was “Keeping this secret is going to be next-level hard.”

My third reaction, when they finally decided what colors she’d come in as the Gambler’s Choice model, was “I guess that means I’ll be getting the Matte Dappled Palomino one, then.”

Yep:

And that’s fine. I haven’t even attempted to acquire other Vintage Club Gambler’s Choice pieces beyond the one my subscription gives me, so I certainly wasn’t going to start that nonsense now with a mold so rare that most hobbyists haven’t even seen a vintage example in person. 

Having an actual piece in hand that I can now examine at length and at my leisure, you know what she reminds me of? A Hong Kong Breyer Knockoff! 

But I don’t mean that in a negative way: my Zahra is just as well-constructed and painted as any other of my Vintage Club pieces. It’s in her awkward similarities to both the Old Mold/Proud Arabian Mare and the Family Arabian Mare, without be an exact copy of either. 

In other words, like many Knockoffs, she feels both a little familiar and also a little off. Her legs also seem a bit “knobby” in the same way a lot of Hong Kong Knockoffs are, but I think I my mind might be accentuating the knobbiness because of the other Knockoff vibes she gives off. 

As mentioned on their blog, this is the real deal, not a digital rescan: the mold was built up and around the original metal insert from 1959/1960. This also means that unlike the Traditional Alborozo, it’s now a permanent addition to Breyer’s stable of molds, which means we will be seeing her again. 

When, and in what context, I do not know. I’d like to think that they would use her sparingly to preserve her mystique, possibly only for Special Run items. 

I would forego attempts to camouflage her anatomical issues with more “normal” horse colors, though, and lean into her oddness. Personally, I’d go with either Decorator paint jobs (Christmas or otherwise) or improbable but theoretically possible realistic color combinations, like Dunalino Pintaloosa or Reverse Dappled Flaxen Liver Chestnut Roan Splash Pinto.

What’s nice about this approach is that it would roll very neatly into next year’s BreyerFest theme of “Horse of Another Color”, however they choose to execute it. (A topic I promise to get to, eventually.) 

And in case you were wondering, I’d take that Chalky Buckskin Stud Spider Appaloosa Test Piece one in a heartbeat:

The Narrative of History

Hey guys. Long story short, I had an emotionally rough kind of day today, and I am not in the most… talkative mood right now. At least not in public.

On a slightly more positive note, I’ve been doing a little research – trying to get that paperwork for BreyerFest done that I know some of you are most anxious about – and I ran across this almost by accident:

The original source page from the 1950 Sears Wishbook, here:

https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ShowCatalogPage/1950-Sears-Christmas-Book/0315

It is sometimes stated that history is written by the winners, but I think it’s a little more complicated than that. It’s partly about who controls the narrative – it’s not always the literal or metaphorical winners – and also about access to the source materials.

I’ve had to struggle with both issues, but more with the latter than the former: a lot of research materials are inaccessible, unaffordable, or simply (but hopefully, only temporarily?) lost to time.

Anyway, I knew about the existence of this particular page – the first appearance of Breyer’s earliest proprietary products in a holiday gift catalog – for a while now, but I didn’t have access to a decent image of it until this week.

It doesn’t necessarily add much more to the Breyer story, but it is nice to have, nevertheless.

The reappearance of this page on my history radar, however, also happens to bring the narrative control issue into high relief.

Breyer is technically celebrating its 70th Anniversary this year, but if you go back to 1950, the only Breyer products that Breyer was actively engaged in promoting were… the Money Manager and the Cigarette Host, as shown above.

The Western Horse likely had its “soft” (informal) release sometime in 1950, but it wasn’t until 1951 that it had its official introduction at Toy Fair. “Breyer Animal Creations” probably didn’t exist as a formal division of the Breyer Molding Company until 1952, at the earliest. (But it definitely did by 1953!)

But 1950 is a nice round number and all the other facts are close enough to be good enough, so the finer and more accurate nuances of history often get shunted aside. 

The Forgotten Generation

Star Wars tickets were successfully purchased, with a minimum of drama. And why yes, I am super-excited about the SPACE HORSES.

The connection between the model horse community and the science-fiction one is long and well-documented, so I will be very disappointed in you guys (waving hand at entirety of the model horse community) if I don’t see any Orback customs by BreyerFest at the latest. Get to it, everybody!

Anyway.

I only just skimmed my issue of Just About Horses (it arrived yesterday) so I’ll leave that for another time, other than to express the sentiment that I am sure is on the lips – or in the thoughts – of many model horse hobbyists: an injection-molded Akhal-Teke, at last!

No, what I want to discuss today is my annoyance at some of the early 70th Anniversary merchandise, like this Journal here:

(There’s also a blanket and a beach towel.)

Conceptually, these products should appeal to me as both a quilt designer and a Breyer historian. And at first glance, they did.

But then I took a closer look at it, and realized that… this was not terribly well-thought out or well-executed.

I think they started out with the idea of seven different models for each of the seven different decades, but started taking some liberties with it when they realized there weren’t that many horse molds released in the 1950s.

And by the end of it, it looks like they just decided to use whatever silhouettes they had on file.

Not only that, there are a number of historical errors in it. The Family Arabian Stallion probably debuted in 1959; the Family Arabian Mare debuted ca. 1960, not 1958 – that was the Old Mold/Proud Arabian Mare; the Running Mare was probably released in 1962, not 1961; and of course, the Zippo Pine Bar was a 1999 release, not a 2007 one.

(The graphic for Zippo obviously being cribbed from the 30th Anniversary BreyerFest graphic without being properly edited, I presume.)

I am also not thrilled that, like the generation that grew up on them (frantically waves hands) – models from the 1980s were largely ignored. Only four models from that decade were included, but three from the last two years – Bristol, Hamilton and Georg – were?

Not cool, Reeves. 

While it may be true that the 1980s were considered the least artistically successful decade in Breyer History, many of those molds are still in active use today. I’d consider some of them more historically significant – at least, at this moment in time – than newer releases like Latigo or Desatado.

Phar Lap (1985) was used for the first BreyerFest Celebration Horse Dr. Peaches; Buckshot (1985) has appeared as a BreyerFest Raffle Model, Prize Model, and Live Show Benefit Model (Winchester, Pele and Reno, respectively); Roy (1989) was sculpted by the legendary Francis Eustis and recently used as a BreyerFest Celebration Model; and Secretariat (1987) was Chris Hess’s last official sculpt for Breyer and also Secretariat.

So I would have swapped out a few of the 2000/2010 models with a few of those, and maybe included the Fury/Prancer and one of the Nonhorse molds (Boxer or the Brahma Bull) from the 1950s to even things out a bit.

But what do I know, right?

The Western Horse’s Cousin

Another quiet and mostly offline weekend here, working on quilts; I finished one, and prepped a couple of others. I wasn’t so optimistic about it pre-BreyerFest, but now I think I just might make my goal of completing 20 quilts this year!

Also worth noting: the passing of fantasy writer Barry Hughart. Due to a dispute with his publisher, his output was limited to only three novels, but it is well worth the effort to seek them out. There is nothing specifically horsey about them, but I know a large chunk of hobbyists are SF/Fantasy aficionados and might appreciate the recommendation.

My only find worth mentioning this week was a Western Horse knockoff. I was momentarily excited when I entered the Salvation Army a couple days ago and saw his legs sticking out of one of the toy bins; with my other craft projects moving along at a decent pace, perhaps now is the time to stash away a body box quality Western Horse for that Christmas-themed custom that’s been on my to-do list forever?

Alas no, not yet.

That’s fine; I still had some fun cleaning him up. He was one of those models who obviously spent a lot of time in storage under less-than-ideal conditions. He wasn’t sticky, but he was definitely not pleasant to the touch. (He might not look all that great now, but you should have seen what I started with!)

And he still has his original reins and saddle after all these years, so I suppose that counts for something. That doesn’t even happen with actual Breyer Western Horses as much as we’d like.

Lots of hobbyists collect knockoffs, but other than the notorious “Diamond P” ones, I don’t actively seek them out. When I do find them, keeping them is a matter of deciding whether they are (a) historically significant in some way, or (b) are so hysterically incompetent that they make me smile. 

(You know the ones!)

Although I do consider this particular knockoff historically significant, I already have him – and one just like him, in black – so he’ll be heading to the sales list shortly.

The early history of the Western Horse and his cousins is convoluted and interesting, and I like having them around to remind me that there’s still so much to sort out about early model horse history.

That’s Entertainment

It’s amazing how much you can get done when your allergies leave you largely housebound.

(I did make an exception for the flea market this morning: my sales list has been a mere shadow of its former self since BreyerFest, and the pickings have been pretty good there lately.)

I even started a custom, but I’ll talk about that later: I started with a Family Arabian Mare missing three legs and an ear and covered in brown enamel spray paint. It’s going to be a while before I have something worth showing.

Here’s one bit of older news I’ve been meaning to cover for a few weeks, about Breyer’s upcoming horse-themed TV show and other projects:

https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/breyer-horse-toy-imagine-tv-series-1203262655/

This link provides a little bit more info beyond the press release:

http://kidscreen.com/2019/07/18/breyer-saddles-up-with-imagine-for-its-first-series/

It’s also mentioned in passing in a New York Times article about Imagine Entertainment from a few days ago:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/business/media/imagine-entertainment-brian-grazer-ron-howard.html 

The news initially dropped during BreyerFest week – which makes sense, since it’s referenced in the press release – and it did not surprise me in the least. In fact, I made the assumption that a TV show would happen sooner rather than later when they added Rick Rekedal (formerly of DreamWorks Animation) to the team in late 2017.

I thought they’d go with an animated show first (for obvious reasons!) And also because, as some of you may know, I am not a fan of most fictional live-action equine-themed entertainment: it tends to be formulaic and overly sentimental. Though this quote from the Kidscreen article gives me some hope it won’t be the Hallmark Horses Channel:

For example, while humans will play an obviously important role in the upcoming show, horses will be at the foreground, with an emphasis placed on their own social relationships, trials and challenges, and an element of magic will also help bring the animals to life, she adds. This insight comes straight from Breyer, who found that, among fans, the animals’ interactions and dramas are just as interesting as that of their owners and riders.

Though this part of the original press release is what made me go Wait, wait, what?

Along with the series, Imagine Kids and Family and Breyer are working on several other development prospects including a documentary about the history of Breyer.

(Looks at my giant wall of historical materials.)

That sounds... interesting.

My Own My Own Money Manager

I sometimes joke – only slightly – that I’m allergic to the month of August.

Judging from the way I’ve felt for the past three or four days, it looks like it’s going to be an especially rough August this year. Time to stock up on the Benadryl…

Anyway, now seems a good time to show you a picture of this, a birthday present from good friends Larry and Ellen:

It’s a Flag Red version of the infamous My Own Money Manager – aka Breyer’s first, modestly successful attempt at breaking into the children’s toy market, in its pre-equine days.

Our best guess now – based on the documentation we have, an examination of existing pieces, and a confab* with fellow Early Breyer History Nerds – is that the Money Manager predates the Cigarette Host.

The Money Managers merely have a “Pat. Pending” mold mark, while the Cigarette Host has a more detailed one; I still haven’t located the Patent yet, though that’s mostly because it’s been relegated to my “TBD” file, along with “find the original Hagen-Renaker lawsuit paperwork”, “finish your Playthings Magazine research”, and “locate any actual company wholesale price lists from 1959-1962”.

Based on a short article featured in a 1952 issue of Playthings, it is mentioned that the Money Manager had been on the market for “three years”, which would mean a debut date of 1949; the Cigarette Host first appears a year later, in the 1950 Sears Wishbook – right next to the Money Manager.

So even before they got started with the horses, Breyer was already repurposing molds!

All I need now is a “Forest Green” version of the Money Manager, and the alleged 6-Drawer version (that still remains unfound) to complete the most obscure Breyer Collector’s Class entry ever.

(*It has been pointed out to me by a couple of different people now that I might have to start arranging meetups at BreyerFest like the YouTubers and Instagrammers do. I will have to give it some thought.)

Black Beauty Western Pony

Let’s see – the garden’s been abandoned, for now. I gave up on even starting the diorama yesterday. I’m tripping over almost everything in the house and I still haven’t entirely finished either the Sampler or my Sales List.

Yep, full panic mode activated!

I know I’ll pull it out like a superhero, but dang, the view is scary from here!

Anyway, here’s a little something to admire along the way – a Black Beauty Western Pony! Isn’t she cute?

She was one of my earliest in-hobby purchases, from ca. 1980: I think I bought her from an ad in Shari Struzan’s The Hobby Horse, a hobby publication that briefly became the hobby’s oasis after Linda Walter shuttered The Model Horse Shower’s Journal.

(And I only managed to get a subscription to The Hobby Horse because I managed to place a classified in either the last, or next to last issue of the MHSJ. More about that crazy story some other day…)

Back then, we pretty much bought and sold everything sight unseen: in the stores, everything except the Stablemates came in closed cardboard boxes, and it was too much of a hassle to take and send photographs back and forth while negotiating for a horse off of a newsletter sales list.

You took your fellow hobbyists at their word, and sent the money. For the most part, I wasn’t disappointed. (Sure, there were some, but not as many as you might have thought.)

I bought her along with the Black Beauty Western Horse, because even then I was kind of obsessed with early Breyer History, and why the heck not?

Keep in mind, I hadn’t even seen an actual Black Beauty Western Horse or Pony at that point, either. So not only was I buying something I hadn’t had a chance to inspect, I had virtually no idea what to expect when they finally got here.

I was obviously pleased, because they’re still here, all these years later….

As a bonus, here’s an ad for the Black Beauty Western Pony from the September 1953 issue of Western Horseman. 

Saddle Snaps

Sometimes research hunches lead to big or significant finds… and sometimes, they don’t.

This is a case of the latter, rather than the former.

I had always been curious about the snap fasteners used on Breyer snap saddles – specifically the ones used on the Western Horse, the Western Pony, and the #36 Racehorse. Was there an interesting tale to be told there?

Depends on your definition of interesting, I guess.

Most of these saddles used Klikit brand fasteners, which were manufactured by the Rau Fastener Company of Providence, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1911, and ceased to be in the late 1990s, when it was acquired by its competitor, Scovill Fasteners.

Here’s the trademark info: https://trademarks.justia.com/714/29/rau-klikit-71429825.html

Just about the only other thing worth noting about Klikit snaps is that they were extensively used in apparel, especially on the old-timey Western-style shirts favored by Hollywood cowboys and rockabilly artists.

However, most snaps – then, and now – were used on more utilitarian articles of clothing, where buttons would be either a hassle or a liability – like uniforms, outerwear, and baby accessories.

(And costumes, too. But I’m not thinking about that right now, I’m really not…)

Even though the Klikit brand has been out of production for at least 20 years, old warehouse stock can still be found on eBay – if you’re especially keen about restoring Breyer snap saddles or vintage clothing.

Snaps aren’t all that hard to assemble/attach, incidentally, as long as you have the right tools for the job. Easier than sewing on a button, actually!

Vanity Organizer Redux

Friend of Blog Ellen tipped me to this wonderful ancient Breyer History nugget, from the 1948 Sears Wishbook:

The brown thing in the lower lefthand corner is the Vanity Organizer – a Breyer-manufactured item from its pre-equine days. I wrote about in an early blog post, when I made the initial discovery:

http://breyerhistorydiva.blogspot.com/2010/11/my-awesome-thing-revealed.html

Here’s the copy from the catalog itself:

New! Vanity Organizer. 
A smart gift women will appreciate. Provides “place for everything.” Sturdy brown plastic; 12 compartments for bob pins, comb, brush, manicure needs.
15" x 12 3/8" x 2" inches. $2.79

So we now know when the item was manufactured, what it sold for, and one of the venues it was sold through!

The company that the Vanity Organizer was manufactured for – The W.F. Goodell Company – was based in Louisville, Kentucky; Sears, like Breyer, was a Chicago-based one. This makes me wonder what role Breyer had, if any, in getting the item in the Sears Wishbook in the first place.

And was the experience what led to the first identifiably Breyer product appeared in the Sears Wishbook: the Cigarette Host, in 1950?

Curious.

Right now I am beginning to wonder what other still-unidentified items could be lurking in these early Sears Wishbooks that were also Breyer-molded. Another thing to add to the “research topics” list, I guess.

An Early Chalky Western Horse

Since my back has been really bothering me the past several days (it’s nothing serious, just a chronic condition that periodically flares up) I’ll have to kick my commentary about that announcement Reeves made last week down the road a couple of days:

https://www.breyerhorses.com/index.php?pageId=13261

I want to add a bit of historical context to discussion, but my mobility issues have been putting a serious damper on my research abilities. (Note to self: buy smaller, lighter binders.)

But today I’ll spotlight what I hope is going to be one of my last eBay purchases for the year: a ca. 1951/52 Chalky Palomino Western Horse with black hooves, o-link reins and a high-grommet saddle!

Yeah, he’s not in the best of shape. That I attribute to his age: he was among the earliest Breyer models manufactured for sale independent of the clock, and Breyer probably still hadn’t realized that items sold as playthings will take more of a beating than a clock that sits on a mantel!

I had the opportunity to purchase a beautiful and near-mint Chalky White Western Horse at a very early BreyerFest and passed, and have regretted it ever since. This guy was cheap, and y’all know I’m not a huge stickler for condition.

But I know what some of you are thinking: What’s up with the Gray saddle?

Guys, it’s probably the least interesting part of him: it’s just a Brown saddle, faded to Gray. The only thing truly unusual about it is how nice and even the fading is, which suggests to me that it’s more than simply the result of sun-fading:

Again, it’s something I’d attribute to the earliness of his manufacturing. They were still in the earliest stages of figuring out this toy horse thing. Maybe this particular batch of brown plastic was not particularly color-fast?

We would not get true Gray/Graywashed plastic saddles until ca.1961/2, with the debut of the Western Prancing Horse, and it would not be until 1966/67 that we would see something similar on the Western Horse and Pony.

Breyer Promoted Smoking?

I’d thought that I had already discussed this topic here, but it appears I am mistaken. So here’s a slight rewrite of the article I wrote in my 2003 MGR Sampler about the Breyer Cigarette Host.

I don’t have color copies of the original photos: the Host itself is translucent tortoishell, the box it came in was light brown, and the cigarette labels are metallic gold. Also, the auction I refer to in the article was in November, 2002.

At the time I also assumed that the Cigarette Host predated the Money Manager, but they may well have been released simultaneously.

After the government contracts dried up after WWII, the Breyer Molding Company struggled to find proprietary products to supplement its business. One of these products they experimented with was the Cigarette Host, a miniature cigarette case/humidor. Resembling a miniature filing cabinet, and molded of swirly, imitation tortoiseshell, it was meant to hold an assortment of cigarettes. Each of the four drawers had pull tabs where labels of your favorite brands could be placed.

As you might have guessed, it didn’t sell well. It was neither particularly useful – each drawer could barely hold a dozen cigarettes – nor unique. Just like ashtrays, plastic cigarette cases were given away by local businesses as advertising novelties. Why buy a cigarette case at the dime store when your local bank or auto dealership was giving them away for free?

In an effort to recoup their investment – and to break into the emerging postwar toy market – the Cigarette Host was retooled and sold as a toy bank: the My Own Money Manager. The Money Manager, available in either “Flag Red” or “Forest Green”, met with marginally more success; it can be seen in early Breyer advertising, usually alongside the Western Horse. It even merited a full-page ad in the March 1952 issue of Playthings (tucked behind the Western Horse ad, of course.)

Once Breyer discovered the awesome selling power of plastic horses, however, the Money Manager was also doomed. An educational toy bank (with a booklet on the principles of money management!) simply can’t compete with a toy horse (with removable saddle!) I mean really, if you were an eight year old, wouldn’t the choice be obvious?

While we have plenty of documentary material about the Money Manager, the only evidence we had that the Cigarette Host actually existed (outside of Peter Stone’s brain) was the 1950 Sears Wishbook, where it was listed next to the Money Manager. (Yes, a child’s toy bank was listed next to a cigarette case: this was 1950, remember?) And that’s as far as our knowledge of this bit of history went, because no one actually owned an example.

Until now.

A Cigarette Host turned up in the one place where everything has (or will eventually) end up: eBay. It was listed, not illogically, in the Tobacciana category (smoking memorabilia). It was in the original box, complete with labels. I had to have it – not just for its historical value or rarity, but for an unbeatable collector’s class entry. (Test Colors? Decorators? Bah!) Luckily, I was the lone bidder, and it was mine for the princely sum of $1.99 – exactly 30 cents more than its original selling price in the Wishbook.

I was amazed to find it as small as it was advertised: just a little over 4 inches square. The most amazing thing to me was the fact that was embossed – not with the familiar round Breyer seal, but with the words BREYER MOLDING CO., CHICAGO, ILL., PAT PENDING, MADE IN U.S.A. (I haven’t had time to dig up the alleged patent, just yet.)

Further physical examination of the piece also reveals other reasons why the Cigarette Host wasn’t the success Breyer hoped it would be: it appears to be a rather complicated piece to assemble, and was probably not very profitable to make. And from the amount of warping and shrinking visible in my example (the drawers cannot be opened), we can guess another reason why we haven’t seen many (or any) others: after a few years of use, most of them probably ended up in the trash.

The most interesting thing about the Cigarette Host is how much it actually has in common with the plastic equines, aside from a common heritage. Both products promote two well-known products of Kentucky (horses and tobacco); they encourage addictive behaviors that drain your pocketbook; and in large quantities, are probably bad for you (in completely different ways, of course.) Unfortunately for us, they haven’t invented the “Breyer Patch” yet.

Cheetahs and Memories

I’ve had this picture for a couple of months now, and I’ve been wanting to post it here, but I haven’t quite found the right angle. But now I think I have, so here you go:

Yes, it’s an old taxidermy mount of a cheetah. Wearing a hat.

So, what does this have to do with Breyers or Breyer History, other than being an indirect reference to the Cheetah in the Chris Hess Wilderness Animal Series?

More than you might think.

Those of you who know me well (or better) know that I have a wealth of stories to tell – some about my family, some about the strange things that only seem to happen to me (a potential blog in and of itself), and quite a few about the hobby.

I alluded to one such story – about the Cheetah, above – in a post from about a year ago about the Solid Black Morgan:

http://breyerhistorydiva.blogspot.com/2014/10/solid-black-morgan.html

Whenever I do tell the extended story of the weirdest things I’ve ever found at the flea market, the Cheetah usually comes up, partly because of the fabulous punchline: Oh, and by the way, it was wearing a hat.

It never fails to get at least an eyeroll from my audience.

It wasn’t until I was doing a search for something else entirely that I ran across a photo of the fabled beast. It really is him, and not something just like him, though I suppose with my track record that wouldn’t be out of the question, either…

Anyway, I knew it was real, but everyone else has just assumed that it had to be real because (1) it’s me doing the talking, and (2) the story is just too strange for it not to be real. There was no actual proof that this thing ever existed, except in my stories.

This is actually a significant problem in the model horse hobby. Because of the Breyer’s lackluster recordkeeping, and significant gaps in our ephemera stockpiles (especially for the 1959-1962 era) we tend to rely a great deal on stories that have been handed down, told and retold.

While there does tend to be a kernel of truth in many of these stories, there’s often no actual proof, other than the believability of the narrator and whether or not it fits the narrative we’ve already constructed.

That’s why I continue to look for evidence of things that we “know” to be true – because, in actuality, it might not be. Memory is a funny thing, and not 100 percent reliable, especially as the moment the memory was made rolls further away into the past.

That Cheetah is pretty much the way I remembered it though. Which is both reassuring, and disturbing.

Archives, with Issues

This is something of what I hope to accomplish with my archive, someday:

http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/4/9257455/university-iowa-fanzine-fan-culture-preservation-project

The Model Horse Hobby has similar conservation issues, especially with early mimeographed items. The mimeographed items I have I keep in my office, completely out of the reach of direct sunlight.

One point in our favor is that model horse zines didn’t start appearing until the 1960s; the materials are still in the hands of the original recipients, for the most part. Many of our earliest participants are still with us, and still active.

On the negative, we were – collectively – much younger when we started publishing, too, and it also shows in the formatting. I have at least one early newsletter that was done as a carbon copy, on onionskin paper. Round robins – where one person started a “book” and each subsequent recipient added to the book before mailing it on – were also a popular early format, and not likely to survive.

(I came in at the very, very tail end of that. I might have the one I received, somewhere: I remember getting it and thinking “What is this?”)

One of the other reasons for my end-of-year sales push is – I hope – to generate enough money to buy more archival store materials, to accommodate some of the latest arrivals.

Everything is safe as it is right now, but I would like to upgrade some of the storage (a) for my own peace of mind, and (b) to make a show of its significance and importance, in case arrangements for its aftercare are not already in place in event of something dire happening to me. (In short: This is important – take care of it!)

I also wanted to make a point of linking to this article because I’ve always considered the Model Horse Hobby to be, in some ways, another facet of Fandom itself, and that can be seen in the sheer amount of ephemera we both generated, and how similar they both look and feel.

(Another point in common: content. A few older hobby zines from the 1970s have first-person Worldcon reports!)

As the article – and some of its links – allude to, another issue with conservation is that the authors of some of the materials don’t want them preserved. I’ve definitely run across some materials that would probably fit in that category, too, mostly disputes and feuds long since forgotten. (But not all!)

Lucky for us, most of the “naughtiest” stuff is associated with breeding/pedigree assignment, and even that is pretty tame.

In the Beginning

The Western Horse is one of the handful of Breyer-related topics that I defer to others; most of my research on Early Breyer History tends to focus on Breyer’s pre-equine proprietary products, like the Checkers, Poker Chips, Cigarette Host, Money Manager et al.

It’s not that I have less interest in the Western Horses per se, but that I believe - for want of a better word - that the pre-equine products and their history are more "endangered".

Whether or not a model horse is classified as a Hartland or a Breyer, it will be collected and treasured regardless. Funky things like plastic humidors or vanity organizers, and the lesser-known clocks? Maybe not as much.

For the definitive guide to the Western Horse and the disentanglement of most of its mysteries, I send you here: http://www.myhartlands.com/pages/MastercraftersClocks.html

I mostly concur with the research, outside of a few minor quibbles. The one I want to discuss today is the assertion that "Breyer’s own documentation says they started in 1950."

Well, yes and no. Breyer does assert that start date - and is using it to celebrate its "Fanniversary", but the reality is far more complicated than that. "Breyer" has several different start dates, depending on how you want to define it.

The Breyer Molding Company itself existed several years prior to the introduction of the horses; though the exact date is not known, with some research it is probably knowable. (Per Nancy Young’s Breyer Molds and Models, it’s likely pre-1943.) I do not know if Reeves does, in fact, have any documentation at all in their archives prior to the early 1950s.

Back then it was a standard plastic injection molding shop, molding whatever they happened to win a contract on. That included government contracts; when many of those contracts disappeared after World War II, Breyer decided to position itself as a toy and novelty manufacturer in order to keep the shop running even as the contracts themselves ran out.

Documentation for these early products is scarce. The Cigarette Host appears in the 1950 Sears Wishbook, and a brief article/PR piece in the February 1952 issue of Playthings magazine, entitled "Attractive Items from Breyer" mentions that the Money Manager had been "[o]n the market for 3 years".

That Breyer started molding the Western Horse in or around 1950 for Mastercrafters appears to be true, but the Western Horse as a product independent of the Clocks? We’re not as sure; the similarities between the Hartland and the Breyer Western Horses are such that it’s sometimes difficult to determine which is which in early magazine and catalog advertising. Neither company, at that point, was a recognizable enough "brand" that advertisers saw it necessary to call attention to it.

I presume that Breyer’s Western Horse made its formal/official debut in 1951, with a brief article in the March 1951 issue of Playthings, entitled "Breyer Molding Co. Announces ‘Palomino’". It’s possible that the model may have been in production for several months prior; it wasn’t uncommon for Breyer to do such a thing later on, as was the case with the "Big" Poodle mold.

The brand known as "Breyer Animal Creations" seems to have debuted in 1952: prior to that (such as in the March 1951 article, above) all Breyer-manufactured items - animals or otherwise - are referred to as products of the Breyer Molding Company.

Whew.

For what it’s worth, I’m a bit of a pedant, and consider the Breyer brand to have formally started in 1952, with the apparent creation/registration of the "Breyer Animal Creations" brand. Reasonable arguments could be made otherwise, for any number of dates.

The Modernistics, Part 2

(As I am in some considerable pain today because of my back - something I will be going to the doctor for sometime next week, so don't fret - I'll be running the second half of the Modernistic Buck and Doe article today. BreyerFest coverage will continue next week.)

I’m guessing that Saunders Tool & Die either went out of business, or decided to get out of the toy business, and all their related assets went up for sale or auction. Since Aurora is only about an hour’s drive from Chicago, I would also assume that someone from Breyer might have been at that event, and thought purchasing these molds was a good idea.

There is – or I should say, will be – more to this part of the story. A few years ago, I thought I had tracked down some court documents relating to that sale, but due to a lack of time and resources, I haven’t been able to follow up on that lead. So the "how" and "why" part of the Modernistic Deer story, while not completely known, is at least knowable.

As to who Don Manning is, and what his relationship to Nosco Plastics was, I have no idea. Was he a client, a contractor, or a business partner? The fact that he had his name specifically molded into the larger pieces suggests that it was a more complex arrangement than that of a mere contractor or employee. But if that’s the case, then how did the molds end up as part of Nosco – and then, Saunders – inventory?

The only bits of information I have on Don Manning come from plastic toy historian and author Bill Hanlon. According to Hanlon, the "Don Manning Studio" was operating in New York City prior to the start of World War II. That would explain their extreme stylization: the Buck and Doe were products of the late Art Deco era!

Don Manning (or his studio) designed more than just a pair of deer, though the deer seem to be the only pieces that came in that larger size. The Don Manning animals came in several different sizes – all the way down to petite, one and a half inch creatures designed as party and/or drink favors. The most common ones, though, are in the four-inch range (such as my little black horse), and were sold either individually, or in boxed sets.

If my general theory holds up – that Breyer did buy these molds, essentially, secondhand – what that means is that the Modernistic Buck and Doe are technically Breyer’s "oldest" molds, predating the Western Horse by a decade or more!

I think it’s a matter of confirming and rearranging some of the details, now. The Nosco Deer and the Breyer Deer are clearly the same mold, minus the mold marks. Nosco’s assets were sold to a molding company in the Chicago area, and a few years later, near-identical deer – completely unlike anything the Breyer Molding Company produced, before or since – made their debut in a Breyer Dealer Catalog.

The status of the Don Manning figurines is also a matter of debate: do they "qualify" as Breyers? Would they be appropriate in a Collector’s Class?

That’s hard to say. Since I’m interested in them from an historical perspective, so my tendency would be to say yes, but the Creata micro minis – the precursors of the MiniWhinnies – generally are not. Regardless of their status, though, I don’t think any early Breyer collection would be complete without a pair or two of these exotic creatures!

The Modernistics, Part 1

(Well, THAT was an interesting BreyerFest. As I am currently unable to bend at the waist [more on that, next post], I'll just post the first part of what I was going to on Friday, before the laptop disappeared for a day. Then post the second part after I get to the BreyerFest stuff. Including the now infamous "The Horse Who Looks Like...")

(Like I said, interesting.)

No molds invoke more mystery, or invite more questions than the Modernistic Deer. Indeed, their very existence is a mystery: these highly stylized creatures are completely unlike anything else in the Breyer line. Where did they come from? Why were they made? And the near-identical "Don Manning" Deer – what are those about?

Many newer hobbyists are barely aware of the Modernistic Deer’s existence, and for good reason: the Modernistic Buck and Doe were discontinued in 1964, and haven’t been seen since. The conventional thinking today is that they were "officially" released in 1961, when they appear along with the Fighting Stallion, Mustang, and Five-Gaiter in a set of Insert Sheets meant to supplement the 1960 Dealer Catalog.

I have reason to believe, however, that they might have been released earlier than that. In a very early, but undated price list from Mission Supply House, a well-known mail-order company, the Modernistic Buck, Doe and Fighting Stallion appear, but the Mustang and Five-Gaiter do not.

Selling brand new molds and releases in advance of their "official" release dates is nothing new for Breyer. The Stud Spider, Legionario III, and Classic Andalusian Family, and even the folded-wood Corral were all sold in holiday catalogs several months before they appeared in Dealer Catalogs or Collector’s Manuals.

So it’s completely possible that the Modernistic Deer (and the Fighting Stallion) could have been on store shelves in time for the holiday gift-giving season in 1960. (The Deer were advertised in the Dealer Catalog, coincidentally, as ideal for "Christmas and other special occasions." Hmm.)

While the explanation for the absence of the Mustang and Five-Gaiter mold could be, quite simply, that they weren’t quite ready yet (Breyer has a long history of that sort of thing, too) there’s another reason why I think the early release theory is plausible: there’s a strong case to be made that Breyer may have bought the molds from another company, ready to go.

Many hobbyists are aware of – and may even have – some of those "non-Breyer" Modernistic Deer that come in such unconventional colors as translucent blue or red, black, silver, or clear. Many, though not all, of these non-gold examples come with an assortment of different mold marks: one says "Nosco Plastics," and another says "Designed Don Manning."

Let’s tackle the Nosco Plastics part, first.

Nosco Plastics was a division of the National Organ Supply Company of Erie, Pennsylvania. In 1934, National Organ Supply instituted the Nosco Division to make injected molded plastic parts for electric organs, but the division quickly grew into much more than that. By the early 1950s, they were best known as the company that produced the first plastic toy soldiers (the ones heavily advertised in comic books) and Cracker Jack prizes.

In 1955, Nosco was sold to Saunders Tool & Die of Aurora, Illinois – another custom molder with eyes on the Post-War plastic toy boom – and the Nosco disappeared. I’m assuming that the sale included all of the molds that Nosco had in their inventory, which would have included the Modernistic Buck and Doe. Bucks and Does that don’t have the Nosco mark would date to this period, I'm assuming.

So, how did these molds end up in Breyer hands? That, and the other half of this story, coming soon!

The 1963 Dealer's Catalog

Sure wish I could remember what brand of batting I used on the quilt I finished yesterday, because it felt like I was quilting through cardboard. I can just barely flex my fingers today, so if you see any typos above and beyond my usual quota, there’s my excuse.

(Web surfing’s been extremely entertaining today, to say the least.)

I got all excited last week when I noticed someone had listed a "1965" Breyer Dealer’s Catalog on eBay. Alas, it was only a 1963 with the 1964 inserts:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SCARCE-Vintage-1965-BREYER-ANIMAL-CREATIONS-Horse-DEALERS-COLOR-Manual-CATALOG-/190610885026?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c614b49a2

A true 1965 Dealer’s Catalog is very similar to the 1963, but comes with an extra, bound-in signature, rather than loose insert sheets. Since I have the 1963 and the 1964 inserts, I didn’t pay any more attention to the auction after that. The letter that it came with would have been nice, but I already have two that predate that.


I was doing a little bit of research on some completed listings yesterday, and when I ran across it again, I did a double take on the price. I really wasn’t expecting it to go quite that high: I thought it’d land somewhere in the $200-225 range, not $300+.

It is true that I paid about the same amount of money for my 1963 Catalog with 1964 inserts. However, my lot also came with the Red Bird Sales pages that included the (so far) only known documentation for the original Buckskin Running Mare and Foal. When I bid on that lot way back when, the majority of my money was going towards those extras. The Dealer’s Catalog just happened to be an excellent "comes with."

What was shocking to me about the price on this latest auction is that the 1963 is probably the least rare of the pre-1970 Dealer’s Catalogs. They’re by no means "common," but of all the other known Dealer’s Catalogs, the 1963 is the easiest to obtain - easier than most of the late 1960s, even.

I think that is because I think Breyer printed up way more of them than they did of any of the other early Dealer’s Catalogs.

But why, and to what end?

I suspect that Breyer blew a big wad of cash on the 1963 catalog in an effort to upgrade the image of the brand in the eyes of retail buyers. It was clearly designed to do more than just sell specific products to existing buyers: it’s 16 pages, and in full color. Most of Breyer’s PR materials prior were either smaller in scale, or made limited use of color printing.

In some respects, I think it might have also served double duty as Breyer’s first "Collector’s Manual." It wouldn’t surprise me if Breyer had kept a few cases of this Dealer’s Catalog in the offices to mail out to all the kids that were writing to them back then. My 1963 Catalog came in a lot with a similar letter to a prospective collector, too.

It’s still a very, very good thing to have in anyone’s reference collection, but dang, I sure hope that price is not a harbinger of future ephemera auctions to come.

Buckskin Lady Phases

The Seasonal Affective Disorder must be kicking in, because I’m feeling spectacularly unmotivated today. I haven’t even begun making one of Mom’s Christmas presents, and the other two aren’t looking so hot either.

I have lots of time on my hands for the next two weeks, so everything will be fine. It’s just the getting started part that’s hard, especially when you’re trying to finish at least a half dozen other projects, too.

Here’s one of those handful of things - besides Fall in Love - that I’ve added to my own herd recently:


It’s the 1980 Model Horse Congress Buckskin Lady Phase, the one with the pinked nose, B mold mark, and black eartips!

That means I now have examples of all three Buckskin Lady Phases special runs: the 1979 VaLes Solid Buckskin with charcoal/black nose, the 1980 MHC Special Run, and the 1983/84 J.C. Penney’s Buckskin with bald face.

(Yes, I know the JCP one comes in a solid-faced variation. Notice that I prefaced my statement with the phrase "examples of"? )

One of the most infuriating bits of misinformation that gets passed around on the Internet is that of the alleged rarity of the Buckskin Lady Phase. A case could be made for the 1979 or the 1980 ones being especially difficult to acquire, and I wouldn’t argue with that: there were only about 200 made of the 1979 SR, and about 240 made of the 1980.

On the other hand, however, the J.C. Penney version was probably one of the most popular Christmas special runs Breyer ever made: according to Nancy Young’s Breyer Molds & Models, around 8,000 sets were made over the course of its two year run.

Eight thousand pieces is not "rare," neither then nor now.

I can remember a time when Buckskin Lady Phases were so common that customizers resorted to using them as bodies. Lady Phases became unexpectedly hard to find right around the time she was discontinued in 1985. The story goes - as I heard it from Marney, anyway - was that the last batch of Lady Phases made before she was discontinued in 1985 were lost in a fire.

With no fresh bodies available in the store, no new regular runs on the horizon, and several hundred - if not thousands - of Buckskin ones cluttering up hobbyist shelves, what else are you going to do?

(FYI: I don’t believe enough Buckskin Lady Phases were lost to customizing to affect their overall rarity. Enough to skew the perception within the hobby, maybe, but not overall.)

In the intervening years, a lot of hobbyists conflated the 1979 and 1980 special runs with the later J.C. Penney run. You’d think with all the Buckskin Lady Phases floating around that hobbyists would do the math and realize that they weren’t quite as rare as they thought they were.

Alas, many of our fellow hobbyists just aren’t that good at math. And are all too often plagued by the ghosts of wishful thinking.

Even so, the 1979 and 1980 special runs are still genuinely hard to come by. On average, I see about one of the 1979 pieces up for sale or auction per year, if that; the 1980 examples aren’t a whole lot more numerous.

I was lucky enough to get my 1979 one in 1979, straight from the dealer (yeah, I’m THAT old.) I had been shopping around for a 1980 for some time now, but the few that had come up recently had been significantly out of my price range.

This little lady wasn’t because (obviously) she wasn’t mint. I’m not much of a shower, so I’m totally okay with that. I’m not exactly mint, myself.

Notorious

This cold is now starting to really tick me off. Normally I’d just sleep it off as much as I could, but I’ve got too much to do between now and BreyerFest to "waste" time on things like napping.

One thing that’s probably already a goner: the saleslist. It was going to be a stretch to get it done and out to those of you who requested it, but now it doesn’t look like it’ll even happen. Sorry about that. If it’s any consolation, it also looks like I might have to keep some stuff home anyway, since it doesn’t look like I could possibly squeeze everything I want to sell in the vehicle.

And also, those of you who have expressed an interest in the chinas, please note that I prefer to sell them in person. I’ve had the rottenest luck with shipping anything beyond some of the smaller, more compact miniatures, and considering the quality of the stuff I’ve been finding lately (including that black pinto Lefton foal - I had no idea he was so popular!) I’d really rather not risk it.

As far as the preparations go, they’re going. As long as I don’t contract any other major illnesses, I should be able to get done what I need to get done. The Sampler’s almost finished; all I have to do there is a major rewrite on one of the articles (about the Modernistic Buck and Doe!), proofreading and tweaking. The Happy Ending Contest entry will be started by the end of the week, but I’ll put off assembling the costume for the Costume Contest until the week before. (Oh yes, I’m doing it! Nope, no telling!)

My sleep was restless, and full of strange dreams, so I pretty much walked around the flea market in a daze on Sunday. I only picked up two pieces: a Lomonosov Penguin (note: probably not for sale) and this notorious knockoff of the Western Horse:


It’s notorious, because there are still people out there who believe - and will continue to believe - that this sorry thing is a Breyer. It’s not even really a Breyer knockoff: the details of the molded on tack more closely resemble the original Clock Horse - the (now-assumed-to-be) Hartland piece.

Back when we had less history, and less reference material to go by, this particular brand of knockoff was collected rather avidly as very early Breyers. I remember wanting a "Brown and Gold" one rather badly, and not being able to secure one at an affordable price. ($20-25 back in 1980 - you could get an Alabaster Indian Pony for only a few dollars more, then!)

I was glad that I missed out when, a few years later, I actually saw one in person. Blobby hooves, crude seams, an ill-fitting saddle - and made of styrene? I wasn’t quite the "Diva" then, but I knew that Breyer had nothing to do with that sorry thing.

Some people still thought so, in spite of all that, and even now some people still do. Bad (zombie?) data has a particularly long half-life in the hobby, unfortunately. Just when you think it’s gone for good, it bounces back to life.

I did still want one, but now primarily for research purposes. They crop up from time to time on eBay and on MH$P, but I wasn’t willing to buy one "in the market." For some silly reason I had it in my head that if I bought one, others might buy one, then some folks might get the idea that there might be something more to it, and then those rumors of its alleged Breyerness would get going again, and I didn’t want that.

(It’s a consequence of a living a life smaller than you had hoped: indulging in fleeting delusions of power and influence.)

Actually, it was more me being cheap: I didn’t want to spend more on the postage than what it was really worth, which is considerably less than what they were going for back in 1980. Even if it’s a famous knockoff, it’s still a knockoff, and not a very well constructed one, at that.

Connecting the Dots

One of these days, when I finally have the time to do it properly, I’m going to write down the stories of how I acquired each and every one of my Test Colors, if and when they need to be dispersed. I went through a great deal of time and effort to acquire some of those things, and I wouldn’t want their stories - and the added value that comes with them - lost to time.

Documentation for early Test Colors is second or third hand, if it exists at all. You might get lucky and run across a photo or an article in an old newsletter somewhere, but most of the time, these things come to us bereft of their history. Or come with a history so distorted, it loses all value as history.

Which is why one of the most interesting - and valuable - things I found in my most recently acquired archive was a copy of one Marney’s legendary sales lists - one with Test Colors on it! Some of those Test Colors I recognize from her photo album - and a few of them are so famous, you’d recognize them, too.

I won’t regale you with what Test Colors they were, or the prices she listed them at. That would be mean, painful and kind of pointless, and lead to a lot of unnecessarily tense online debates and scary live show death stares.

(C’mon, we’ve all done a variation of "Let me express my jealousy over how much you paid for My Holy Grail by silently giving you the Evil Eye for the entire show." It can’t just be me, right?)

What I can tell you is that some of the prices she listed them at were cheaper, in many instances, than the regular run items that were also on this saleslist. A Gloss Charcoal Mustang, for example, would have cost you as much as the most expensive Test Color listed.

There were a couple of reasons why this was.

First and foremost, this was the pre-Internet era: vintage, mint regular runs like Appaloosa Fighting Stallions, Old Mold Mares and such were not as "easy" to come by as they are today. Our selection of molds and colors was also more limited, thus making what did come onto the market, consequently, more valuable.

Second, the Test Color market was different back then. Having a Test Color was just as much a status symbol then, as now, but since most of the tests came through Marney, Marney dictated the prices and availability. And she kept those prices relatively modest - not too far out of line with the going rate for high-end vintage OFs.

They’d still cost you, but you didn’t necessarily have to be a high roller to afford one. And she was cool with time payments, too, if you couldn’t pay it all up front. (She was actually cool with me taking a Test Color home from Model Horse Congress and paying for it later. No, really!)

Another piece of documentation that came with this archive was a letter, from one collector to another, discussing one of the Test Colors on that list (from other documentation that came in the archive, and my own, I’m fairly certain that it’s the same model in question.) Anyway, what struck me was the incredibly roundabout way she talked about it:

I knew a girl that lived right down the street from the Breyer factory, when it use[d] to be in Illinois. She was able to walk right in the factory and pick up some of the test colors that they were throwing out. Since then, this girl has died and the factory has moved to Illinois.

Gosh, so much wrongness there, and I’m not talking about the typos. It’s unclear whether the seller confessed to, or provided the additional information in the form of that sales list to the potential buyer, or the person just happened to put the pieces together later on.

In either case, I don’t think there was any malice or deceit intended. I think it makes an excellent illustration, though, of the kind of information loss that can happen within a single generation of ownership.

Write your stuff down, folks!