Sweetish

I spent an inordinate amount of time last night looking for an affordable wooden box or frame to finish my Joseph Cornell-inspired BreyerFest box. Then it finally dawned on me: they were assemblages of found objects, just haunt the local thrift stores until you find one that works. Duh.

In my defense, yesterday was not a good day.

Regarding the Just About Horses situation: yes, I am aware. (It’s complicated.)

As far as the popularity of the Gloss Bravour goes, I am not going to judge it by what the loudest voices on the Internet have to say. Some of the most popular and best-selling Breyer releases aren’t necessarily the ones that make hardcore hobbyists swoon, and current prices for items previously considered undesirable are also not to be taken lightly.

Things aren’t cool or collectable, until they are. And vice versa.

But just to throw this out there into the Universe: I do have a Sarong and/or a Peregrine available to anyone willing to trade for a Gloss Bravour. Or – let me dream big, here – a Brigadeiros.

And in regards to Gloss Bravours being given out for “services rendered”: they’ve been doing that with Gloss Celebration Models for years. It has absolutely nothing to do with mold popularity or desirability. They just did it to compensate some folks at BreyerFest one year, and kept rolling with it. End of story.

(FWIW, I have never gotten one that way. Probably never will.)

In other Morganglanz news, here’s another recent acquisition: the 1996 JC Penney Christmas Special Run Swedish Warmblood:

I just think he’s neat: a light, pretty Palomino with tri-colored eyes, which were not a common feature back in 1996, and primarily used for “premium quality” releases like the El Pastor Precipitado Sin Par in 1987 and Breezing Dixie in 1988. The release may have been kind of a trial-run of the infamous bi-colored eyes seen on most Regular Run releases in early 1997. 

Infamous because they were kind of creepy, not very realistic, and also not terribly well-executed. Most of that was due to scale: quality control for a single, otherwise simple Special Run is a vastly different undertaking compared to quality control on virtually every Traditional model in your product line.

And not well-received: unsurprisingly, they were quickly discontinued. Bi-eyed variations aren’t sought after today, except by mold completists. 

Another interesting feature of this release is the fact that they gave it a such an unusual breed designation for the time: Swedish Warmblood! It was obscure enough at the time that it was rather hilariously misnamed on the box as Sweetish Warmblood. 

I kind of wonder origins of this release; I always assumed that the color idea came first, then they did some research to find a breed where that was possible. When Swedish Warmbloods came up, they ran with it.

Personally, I think the mold looks more like a Silesian to me; if I ever decide to show my Gris Gris in something other than Collectibility, that’s what I’m going with.  

Patina

I wasn’t holding out much hope for the flea market this weekend – the weather reports were a bit iffy, and that tends to depress the turnout – but look who showed up in the last aisle during my last walk through…

… a mid-1960s Matte Bay Clydesdale Stallion with gold bobs and big handpainted eyewhites! He has just a few minor condition issues – slight yellowing, a couple of nicks, eartip rubs – all the usual stuff you’d expect in a fifty year old model, and what other hobbies would classify as desirable “patina”.

(He was actually a little more suspect-looking at the flea market, but he managed to clean up better than I expected.)

Desirable is definitely a word to describe him! He’s such a pretty boy I am tempted to keep him – I’m almost certain that I don’t have this particular variation in my multitudes of Bay Clydesdales, and his shading is outstanding – but I have a lot of things on my plate right now, and I haven’t had the time to cull the herd for potential sales items as I planned.

I am not letting him go for a lack of fondness for the release: none of my other Bay Clydesdales are going anywhere. It’s just easier to let more recent arrivals go, especially this close to BreyerFest.

There is also the issue of space: there is only so much room in the house for variations. (Perish the thought!)

Quarter Horse Gelding: First State

I’ve been meaning to get better pictures of this guy on the Internet, and now seems as good a time as any:

This is the earliest version of the Buckskin Quarter Horse Gelding, released ca. 1961; he came out a year or two after the Gloss Bay and Woodgrain versions. This particular example has eyewhites, which are an unusual feature for models in this color, and were the primary reason I bought him. He wasn’t cheap, but he was definitely worth it.

His color and shading are pretty awesome too, which was a bonus.

All that fabulous shading and detail isn’t just painted on, however, it’s molded in: this is the fabled “supermuscled” version of the Quarter Horse Gelding mold. He’s big, he’s beefy, he’s superdefined: he’s the epitome of the “bulldog” type of Quarter Horse that predominated when the mold was first produced.

Here's a shot that shows the muscle detailing on the shoulder and barrel better; there is scarcely a smooth surface anywhere on this guy:

Since the late 1950s, the preferred body type has changed dramatically, and so has the Quarter Horse Gelding mold – at least twice.

I’ll get to that some other time, though, when I have the time to draw up some diagrams that highlight the changes. I still want to do a bit more research on the subject, too: I’m still trying to figure out when the last major change (a belly tuck) was made to the mold.

In art historical terms, what this particular example above represents is a mold in its “first state” or “first impression”, before any significant changes were made.

Almost all Breyer molds have had modifications throughout the years, mostly as a consequence of maintenance. An eartip might get shaved a bit, a small flaw or bump in the mold might be polished out, undercuts or projections eliminated to reduce molding issues.

In other cases, as with the Quarter Horse Gelding, it’s done to update to mold to more current tastes.

The Buckskin version of the Supermuscled QHG is a lot scarcer than the Bay and Woodgrain, since it was introduced later. I’m guessing – based on its scarcity – that the first major mold change (eliminating/smoothing out most of the muscling) occurred not long after.

Harlequin

Well, at least I was somewhere in the ballpark: the fourth Vintage Club release is a Proud Arabian Stallion in Gloss Gray Appaloosa, named Harlequin.

Not exactly what I was expecting, but still cool. And it does look like they absolutely nailed the color this time, with darker gray (not black) legs, and black hooves. The smaller, finer spotting the earliest Gray Appaloosas were known for is also present, a nicely observed point. I don’t have either of the Old Molds (ha!) but I do have a Fighting Stallion of the same vintage with those same sort of spots:

Isn’t he neat? Most Gray Appaloosa Fighters have bigger, sparser and more random spotting patterns, so when of my roommates at an earlier BreyerFest pulled him out of her sales stash, I just had to snag him. He was a little bit pricey (back when) but I thought then - and still do - that he was worth the splurge.

(BTW, it was one of my better roommate years - even if we did break a chair and wasted a lot of toothpaste. And the gossip that year! Good times!)

You see a lot of variation on that release’s paint job, but the fine speckling is definitely on the scarcer side. It’s not something you even see in any of the earliest Breyer ephemera, either, including the 1961 insert pages.

They did get one little detail on Harlequin wrong, though: he has eyewhites, and most Gray Appaloosas back then didn’t. They do show up from time to time - I’ve seen a couple of the Appaloosa Mustangs sporting ‘em - but it’s very unusual, and the prices I’ve seen on those pieces tend to reflect that.

(You know, Reeves, you could solve most of this little issues if you just put me on retainer. A conference call once a month and a test color or two a year? That’d work for me.)

But man, what is it with all of the snarky, backhanded dumping on the Salt and Pepper sets that’s cropping up in the online commentary all of a sudden? The reaction to the set was mostly positive when it came out, aside from the silly argument over color, but now the grouchiness is starting to dominate. Weird.

Must be the change of seasons; everyone at work was on the cranky side, too, even the usually more even-tempered folks. (Me? Too tired to muster up rage about anything. I am so looking forward to my day off on Saturday!)

Mr. Right

I have been beset by many minor (and not so) annoyances over the past week. I broke my sewing machine, deer ate most of my Morning Glory seedlings, I’ve had a sinus headache for the past several days, and Vita got a boo-boo. (Nothing serious, just a torn-off toenail.)

And work? Let’s not talk about it. (The same problem I’ve been having for over a year. It just refuses to stay "solved".)

Not "winning" a Magnus doesn’t even rate. I sort of figured I wouldn’t be getting one anyway. Plus, this beautiful boy arrived the other day and made all my grievances fall away, at least temporarily:

I’ve been looking for a "premium" Man o’ War - with the eyewhites, gray hooves, sticker et al - for longer than some of you have been alive. Theoretically, he’s not an exceptionally hard model to locate, but I was always two steps behind, two dollars short, or two minutes too late.

And then, I wasn’t.

So my holiest of "Holy Grails" is finally here - not perfect mint, but close enough - and I don’t know quite what to do with myself. Well, obviously I’ll be needing a new "Holy of Holies", but besides that?

It feels all weird and anti-climatic. Not bad - because now I finally have my "Mr. Right" - but unfamiliar. Like I said, I’ve been wanting him forever, and now the epic quest that lingered in the background of my hobby career has ended.

I wish his arrival had been a little more epic than the journey that preceded it: I found a box lot on eBay, I placed a bid. I woke up the next morning and was shocked to find that I actually won it - at a price significantly less than my upper limit. I briefly hyperventilated, did a Snoopy Dance, then paid for the lot. The end.

The rest of the items in the lot weren’t too shabby, either, though most of them will be heading for my sales list, once I do a little minor cleanup work on them (dust, dirt, and a few marks). They’re all solid, collection-worthy vintage pieces I just happen to already own. 

Based on an odd pieces in this lot - that I will be discussing in my next post - I have reason to believe that this auction might have been one of those fabled "employee lots" that collectors dream about finding. If that’s the case, that makes my latest Man o’ War even more special.

Dark Mustang

There’s nothing overtly special about the next horse, except that he’s gorgeous. Behold my very dark buckskin #87 Rearing Mustang:


I paid a pretty penny for him - more than I thought I would have to pay, anyway - but some models just have to be had, y’know?

Added bonus: he has painted eyewhites, too. (A little hard to see, but trust me, they're there.) That’s a rare feature on early Buckskin Mustangs. It was my primary motivation in buying him; the fact that his color was so dark and rich was just a nice bonus.

Painted eyewhites were not a universal feature of all early Breyer paint jobs. Some models and some colors never had them, and some models rarely came without them, like the Brown Charcoal version of the Mustang. Beyond the Alabaster exceptions (they weren’t necessary!) there doesn’t appear to be much rhyme, reason or rule to early eyewhites.

At first glance, my dark Mustang could probably pass for Bay. There have been rumors of Bay Mustangs floating about for years, presumably based on the fact that the color was a part of Breyer’s limited color repertoire in the early 1960s. Surely they must have at least considered the idea, right?

I don’t doubt that there may be a few authentic, vintage test color bays - either gloss, or matte - out there somewhere. But I highly doubt that there was ever a regular run or special run of them, however brief, as I’ve speculated might be the case with the Gray Appaloosa Shetland Pony. At least with the Shetland Pony, there do appear to be a handful of authentic pieces out there. All of the "bay" Mustangs I’ve seen in person were either later tests or, like this boy, exceptionally dark buckskins.

Early Eyewhites

Prior to the mid-1990s, eye detailing was a relatively uncomplicated topic. You had earlier, overpainted two-stroke eyewhites, the slightly later underpainted "masked" eyewhites, and a few examples (usually among the non-animals) of eyeliner eyewhites, which were really just a variation of the two-stroke eyewhites. That were sometimes pink.

Overpainted eyewhites consist of two near-translucent paintstrokes over the back corner of the eye, painted over the black dot eye. As seen on this Bay Running Mare:


Underpainted eyewhites are done by painting the entire back half of the eyeball white, and painting the black dot eye over it. It gives a sharper, more masked look. As seen on this Pacer:


There were some notable exceptions - many of the Dogs, including the Boxer, Poodles, Bloodhound/Bassett Hound and the St. Bernard - had unique and detailed eye treatments. Some of the Dall Sheep and Mountain Goats had a type of brown bi-eye. And the earliest versions of the Fighting Stallion had a little extra airbrushed pinking around the eye (most of which have faded and disappeared over time.)

Nowadays it’s a rare model that doesn’t have some sort of fancy eye detailing - even Stablemates aren’t immune, though mercifully Reeves is backing off on them a little bit (presumably for cost, but also probably because of the freakish scale issues.)

The standard eye treatment, from the mid-1960s until quite recently, was the simple black dot eye, usually glossed. Some of the smaller scale models would have the entire surface of the eye painted black, but most Traditionals got a round or oval shaped dot that left part of the eyeball unpainted, giving the impression of eyewhites. I call these "unpainted" or false eyewhites. They’re most obvious on lighter-colored models, such as this Running Stallion:


Overspray on these types of eyes is common, often giving the appearance of gray or black eyeliner. It may or may not have been intentional.

Setting aside the Dog molds, the earliest known painted eyewhites didn’t appear until ca. 1959. It’s important to note that Breyer was not consistent with the application of eyewhites in its earliest days; some models got them, some didn’t, and there was little rhyme or reason why. Some early models are pretty rare to find with painted eyewhites, like the Buckskin Quarter Horse Gelding and Buckskin Mustang, while others are relatively common, such as the Gloss Charcoal Fighting Stallion. Early glosses are a little more likely to be found with eyewhites than early mattes, but there are exceptions to that rule, too (i.e. the Stretch Morgan!)

Some colors were less likely to have painted eyewhites, too. Virtually all white and Alabaster molds that I’ve seen have had the unpainted variety, and painted eyewhites tend to be rather rare on the whole spectrum of gray-based paint jobs (except the Smoke Belgian. Go figure.)

I haven’t done any elaborate charting of eyewhites to determine timing or rarity; there might have been an eyewhite gap between the earlier overpainted eyewhites and the later underpainted ones, but I haven’t been able to verify or deny it because of the consistency issue.

Painted eyewhites of all types - again, excluding the non-horse exceptions - seem to have been discontinued by 1968; the Traditional Man o’ War and Pacer, both of whom debuted in 1967, were the last regular run horses issued with factory eyewhites until the 1990s.