Some Final Fun Foal Thoughts

So it looks like that many of the last round of babies in the Fun Foals program - the all-black Grazing Foal, Scratching Foal, and Running Foal - were probably just repainted leftovers from the less popular Mom and Dad match-ups. That’s not a surprise: the Wixom/Mustang combo was by far the most popular of the four, especially after the earliest orders started arriving. A little black paint, and voila! A little something extra special for those last minute shoppers.

I wouldn’t be surprised if these little ones were painted stateside, too; it wouldn’t make sense to send them back to China for such a simple repaint job. It’ll be interesting to see if any of these leftovers - original recipe, or crispy - end up in the Pit this year. The slight possibility of a Black Scratcher or two being in attendance just might be reason enough to justify breaking in my shiny white platform boots.

(BTW, those boots are definitely coming with me this year. I’ve been trying for the past couple of days to brainstorm a most excellent Hollywood Costume idea incorporating them, without success. You know, I was never that motivated to dress up for candy for Halloween! And anyone who knows me knows I love my chocolate.)

Breyer’s done this before (the repainting of foals, not just the humiliation of hobbyists via silly dress-up contests.) Many of the Black foals available in the 4000 Classics Arabian and 4001 Classics Quarter Horse Blister Pack Assortments in the 1970s were repainted culls. The one way you can tell? A bit of bay or chestnut paint will show through the airbrushed transitional areas on the head or legs.

Someone on Blab a few weeks back suggested that this program - selling Classics Foals individually, sans a parental unit - be reinstituted. I’m all for that, for a number of reasons.

First, it already has a history as a successful program: the original Classics Foal Assortments lasted about ten years. Second, the Adults are already available individually: why not the Foals as well, to make our own custom family sets? Third, you can’t go wrong with adding another low-priced (and presumably, high-volume) piece to the line.

And finally, the cuteness factor: hello, these new Classics Foals are absolutely adorable. I’m slightly obsessed by the newest member of the herd, that little cutie pie first seen in the 62006 Pinto Horse and Foal set. (Is there an "official" name for this foal, yet? Or one we’ve all sort of agreed on?) I’d buy multiples of that one, for sure.

The only drawback I can see is the cost - of the packaging. There might not be enough profit in packaging and marketing individual Foals. Reeves has been selling Foal 2-Packs for a while now, at pretty much the same price point as one Adult. Customers may expect - or demand - that the prices on the individual Foals be exactly half that price. Twice the packaging, for the same amount of money? Yeah, that might not work.

Black Scratch Fever

(Scheduling issues again. The rest of the week is free and clear, thank goodness.)

I think of all the Fun Foals that have come out - barring any last minute surprises - the Black Scratching Foal is my favorite.

I’ve wanted a Solid Black Scratching Foal for a while - a really long while, actually. When I first entered the hobby back in the late 1970s, I read either a rumor or an ad that mentioned an all-black Scratching Foal, and I immediately wanted it with every fiber of my being. (You know, the way any 15 year old girl wants anything.)

I’m not sure why a Solid Black Scratching Foal tickled my fancy so back then. There were lots of rumors of lots of other "Solid Black" test colors - and some actual, genuine Solid Black special runs - but nope, the Scratching Foal was the one I really wanted. It was a foal, it was cute, and it was rare. That was enough to do it, I guess.

(I did buy the Solid Black Mustang and the Family Arabians, eventually. Our special run options were a little more limited back then.)

I’d occasionally run across an alleged one or two, but careful inspection would always reveal the truth: Fake. It was the splash spots on the Foal's butt that would be the tell: painted over, they’d leave a slight raised edge, visible in raking light.

I did get pretty close with one - a cull from the estate of a former Breyer employee I purchased on eBay a while back. Check out that cute roany butt:


I have at least three other Black Appaloosa Scratching Foals - the original one I got for Christmas in 1978, one with a Blue Ribbon Sticker, and one without the USA mark. The one without the USA mark is probably the rarest of the three; the mold debuted in 1970, the same year that the USA mark was added to most - but not all - existing Breyer molds.

The 1970 Dealer Catalog features a photo of a test Scratching Foal with four stockings. Here’s a scan of my not-so-great copy. I have a better copy somewhere, but it’s still lost in the chaos.


I’ve looked in vain for this variation. (How else do you think I ended up with four different Black Appaloosa Scratching Foals?) I don’t think it exists beyond the original test piece, or pieces. Many Appaloosa Scratching Foals have gray hooves; sometimes the gray shading extends up the leg a little, giving the illusion of socks. But that’s as close as most of us will get, barring the appearance of more culls or test colors.

Just one more note here: you might notice the clean edge to the Catalog Scratcher’s blanket. It’s not masked: it’s "neatly" airbrushed. The painter would paint the outline of the blanket first, then paint up to that outline. It's not just a catalog thing: I’ve noticed quite a few of the early Black Appaloosas - the Running Stallion, Lying Down Foal, and the Scratching Foal - came with very neatly airbrushed blankets.

I don’t know if it was a specified technique for a while, or a quirk of one painter or group of painters. A similar technique was used on early versions of Jasper, the Market Hog - but that was probably an instance where they were making do until the painting masks were ready.

The earliest Stud Spiders - the ones sold in the 1977 J. C. Penney’s Christmas Catalog, and into early 1978 - had very neatly airbrushed front socks, too, so I’m thinking that the outline trick was just another technique in the painter’s arsenal of tricks - being able to substitute skill, for stencil.

At least until the production quotas started catching up with you.

Traditional Foal Shortage?

Still having some time management issues here. I didn’t realize how far behind last week’s crazy work schedule put me. And that rambly post I had been working on all weekend was, frankly, an unpublishable mess. Something I wasn’t in any mood to rewrite last night, especially since I had to be up early this morning for the BreyerFest Reservation Roulette.

So I’ll just spread out what I was attempting to cover in that one post over the course of the week. They’ll be a little shorter than average, but they’ll have the added benefit of actually making sense. And today’s topic shall be… Traditional Foals!

I was originally going to present some research to show you all that there was a dire shortage of Traditional Foal Molds, and that Reeves should do something about it. This was partly in response to a comment about the need for another Draft Horse Foal (something I agree with, wholeheartedly) and also an observation made in light of the recent Fun Foal releases.

The funny thing is that I did the research, crunched the numbers, and guess what? There isn’t a shortage, or at least, there isn’t a significant percentage difference when compared to the Classics or Stablemates line. Foals comprise about 11 to 13% of all three lines, depending on how you calculate it.

For the record, there are approximately 17 different Traditional Foal molds - 16 if you discount the Proud Arabian Foal, who is currently unavailable, or 18 if you want to include the Quarter Horse Yearling:

Action Stock Horse Foal
Amber
Ashley
Clydesdale Foal
Family Arabian Foal
Grazing Foal
Le Fire
Lying Down Foal
Phantom Wings
Proud Arabian Foal
Quarter Horse Yearling
Running Foal
Saddlebred Weanling
Scratching Foal
Sea Star
Standing Stock Horse Foal
Stormy
Suckling Foal

I haven’t included the Connoisseur Foal Gilen yet, since he’s still technically unreleased, and his status as a production plastic mold is still uncertain. (I did not include any exclusively non-plastic molds in my original calculations of the Traditional line anyway, precisely for that reason.)

There were several factors that skewed my perception of the Foal situation. First and foremost was that we’ve had number of new Classics and Stablemates Foal molds that have come out recently. Since 1997, we’ve had six new Stablemates Foals, four Classics, but only three Traditionals (Amber, Ashley and Le Fire.)

Second, there may be more Classics and Stablemates molds historically, but some of those molds were created to replace the Hagen-Renaker molds that are now unavailable for production: the Classic Arabian, Quarter Horse and Mustang Foals, and the G1 Thoroughbred Standing and Lying Down Foals. If you just count the molds that are available, the percentages fall back in line with the Traditionals.

Third, most of the Traditional Foal molds are quite old. Prior to Amber and Ashley, the next youngest Foal mold is the Action Stock Horse Foal, who was released in 1984 - 13 years earlier! While they still retain a lot of sentimental charm, they’re from another time period altogether, both historically and artistically. There have been only three new Foal molds in the modern, post-Chicago era.

Actually, the age issue may be argument enough for more Foal molds. While the Clydesdale Foal is still as cute as he ever was, I’m not so sure he really "belongs" with Wixom, any more than the Family Arabian Foal would go with the new Arabian Cross Mare. These foals were designed for a different time, and a different line.

So, here’s hoping that Gilen is a harbinger of things to come.