More Exceptions To The Rule

Pretty excited about this little bag of mostly Hartland Tinymites!

I’m hoping there are at least some upgrades in here somewhere. (I see no Barkies, alas. I really need more Barkies!) If not, I’ll still have fun cleaning them up and sorting them out for the sales list.

Yes, I am a dork. Is that even a question? 

Here’s the other item that came with it, a lovely early Alabaster Proud Arabian Stallion with extra shading. He’s not perfect-perfect, but he’s pretty close, and I couldn’t argue with his price one bit:

That now means I have examples of the Proud Arabian Stallion in all three of his original release colors in acceptable – or more than acceptable – condition. 

That is not the case with the Proud Arabian Mare, and I doubt it ever will be. I find that bothersome, but not enough to spend the extra money to change that. I’ll find them at a price I’m comfortable with, and not a moment sooner.

(I have a lovely Dapple Gray, an adequate Mahogany Bay, and nicely shaded but battered Alabaster. And let’s not even discuss the Chalky variations…)

As I’ve mentioned several times before, vintage Alabasters are notoriously difficult to find in good condition, and the Proud Arabians are no exception. Considering the popularity of those molds in the 1970s, maybe even moreso!

I can’t count how many Alabaster Proud Arabian Stallions I’ve had in my collecting lifetime, but it’s been a lot, and they’ve come with the full gamut of problems: heavily yellowed, rubs, chipped ears, weird paint flaws, or (most commonly) scuffs galore. 

I also wanted an earlier example, rather than a later one: ones manufactured near the end of his production run in 1981 only had a bit of shading on the mane, tail, head and hooves. Very early examples – like the new guy – obviously have significantly more. 

The new guy isn’t quite as heavily shaded as some I’ve seen, but other than that (and a few stray marks) I have nothing to complain about. And he’s so white, he nearly glows! I am very happy to have made an exception for him. 

I also bought some Stablemates and a few random accessories (socks and blankets) from Breyer’s Black Friday sale: combined with a new mini Shop Vac I purchased in a store on actual Black Friday (half price!), that will probably comprise my Christmas Gift to myself this year.

February in Michigan

First, here’s a lovely photo of that actual Hartland Arabian I was talking about last time, sent in by loyal blog reader Penny:

One of a handful of my Hartland Grails, right there. Along with the Pearl Arabian, the Blue Roan Polo Pony, and all the missing bits and pieces in my Tinymite and Barkie collections. And a complete, mint-in-box Nativity Set, too!

(I will find them, eventually. No worries.)

Anyway, I’m still in a bit of a writing funk: the crazy weather and my Seasonal Affective Disorder are doing its usual serious number on my creativity. Which is why I laugh whenever I read about people participating in NaMoPaiMo. Just about the only truly creative thing I am capable of working on in February is my taxes!

Well actually, I did buy some fabric at the local Salvation Army Store yesterday for a quilt project, but that’s at least a half-dozen sewing projects down the road. It was a good price and almost the exact amount I will need, so I bought it anyway; I also happened to find one other thing there worth buying:

The Bay variation of the old Breyer Donkey! There are several holes drilled into her from a previously attached harness, as well as a few light rubs and slight seam splits, but as my “first find” of the year, I almost felt obligated to bring her home.

I already have a this particular variation of the Bay Donkey – some (like this example) are Five-Gaiter Sorrel, others are more red – so it’ll be heading to my sales list momentarily. I only hesitate because I’m not sure how to classify her: with all of her issues she’s most likely a body box prospect, but as you can see she’s just a tad bit better than that.

She might be a good prospect for the “White Elephant”-style sale I was thinking about having at BreyerFest this year.

It started out as a good-natured joke among friends, but I think I might actually do it: having a flash, semi-organized 9 p.m. Saturday night sale at the CHIN of otherwise hard-to-sell models at seriously marked down prices?

With fun giveaways – maybe a free mystery grab bag with every purchase? – and other silliness, like buttons and magnets and horse-shaped cookies?

And instead of calling it a White Elephant Sale, we’d call it a “White Khemosabi Sale”, because seriously, that mold is almost the hobby equivalent of, yes?

It’s something we already sort of do – everyone’s looking to make a last-minute deal on Saturday night anyway – so why not have some fun with it? It might also be a good way of helping newer hobbyists acquire some inexpensive models that might not necessarily be “A-List” molds or who may need a bit of work, but still have a bit of life and love in them.

I kind of want to design a logo for it and start planning things for it/about it, but it being February, mustering any energy beyond watching cat videos on YouTube is a stretch. I made myself some French Toast today and felt like I conquered the universe! February in Michigan, in a nutshell...

Charcoal on Steroids

The interminable Winter and the car shopping have left me exhausted and in little mood or desire to write today. Things should improve now that the car shopping is done, at least, and I have seed catalogs to tide me over until it’s actually warm enough outside to do something.

(We’re hoping/planning on a nice little vegetable garden this year. Nothing fancy, just beans, tomatoes, squash, and maybe some greens. And a few exotic annuals, just for fun.)

But I am also not in a model horsey mood right now; most of my BreyerFest projects remain on hold as I work through more pressing personal and professional business. Even my soon-to-be-beloved Rockford remains unopened.  

The latest Test Color Raffle piece is definitely stirring something inside me, though:

He’s described as a “Glossy Dappled Black” but I’d describe him as more of a “Glossy Dappled Pearl Charcoal”. “Charcoal on Steroids “ and “Give Him To Me Now” also come to mind…

Actually, he’s a fairly close reproduction of Hartland’s version of Charcoal, as seen on the Regal Series #9913 Arabian. They didn’t call it Charcoal, though: they described in their literature as “jet black with silver pearl mane and tail”.

The similarity to the color of the Test piece is so strong that I think it’s fair to call it the direct inspiration – with a funky Breyer Resist Underdappling twist! Hartland’s version came out ca. 1967 – about six years after Breyer “invented” Charcoal in the first place, so fair is fair, I suppose.

I’d love to show you a picture of the #9913 Regal Arabian, but I have neither the model in question (not for lack of trying: he’s a pricey one on the secondary!) nor a decent picture of it in my files; your friendly neighborhood search engine should be able to point you in the right direction of more recently expired auctions and such.

(And give you an idea of why I still don’t own one. Yikes!)

I’ll put all my allowable entries in for the Mustang, but as always, I won’t get my hopes up. All I wish for is that he goes to someone else who actually wants him for his own beautiful sake.

Hartlands, Again?

By the time I entered the hobby in the late 1970s, Hartlands had already been out of production for several years. They were never formally a part of my childhood, though once I discovered Tinymites and Barkies, those did become as crucial a part of my early hobbyhood as Stablemates did.

Because just like Stablemates they were cute, little, and affordable!

My Hartland collection has expanded and contracted multiple times over the years, almost entirely dependent on incidental flea market and thrift store finds.

I still have all of my Tinymites and Barkies, but the rest of the Hartland collection now takes up about half a shelf in the display collection in the bedroom. Other than a few minor grails – a Blue Roan Polo Pony, the Pearl 11-inch Arabian, a couple of stray Barkies I’m still missing – I doubt it will expand much further.

My opinion on the latest attempt to revive Hartlands? (What is this now, the third, fourth or fifth attempt?)

The past is a nice place to visit, but you don’t want to live there.

This has nothing to do with their style: you all know I’ve never been a stickler for anatomical or conformational fidelity. I’d be all for adding more models in the Hartland style to the hobby world.

If the latest attempt happens to include new molds in the Hartland style – either entirely new sculptures, ones that had been planned in previous revivals, or even older unreleased designs, like these mysterious and tantalizing fellows – I’d be all for it:

(These photos are from Marney’s files, naturally, included in a small group taken during a trip to Hartland Collectables in the 1980s. There were no notations on these photos, so I have no additional information to give about them or their whereabouts.)

But if it’s going to be just another attempt to market older molds, I just don’t foresee it being viable.

Toy companies – like any companies, really – require innovation to thrive. Marketing and nostalgia can only take you so far: new molds, new products, new colors, and new ways of thinking are all necessary components for long-term success and viability.

I think most of us have harbored the fantasy of having a model horse company of our own, running it the way we think it should be run.

Even I had this fantasy for a brief while: I worked at a plastic-injection molding plant for several years, and they were going through a phase where they wanted to create proprietary toy products of their own.

My suggestions were largely for naught, because the owner was in the habit of ignoring the input of people who weren’t also members of his immediate family. (If that. The company is long gone, unsurprisingly.)

I still get twinges of this fantasy, usually when I find myself perusing the toy horse selection at the dollar store. Could you imagine if those companies invested just a few dollars more into development of slightly more horselike molds? And what impact cheap, decent, and widely available bodies for customizing could have on the hobby?

Red Shift

Just to show you that the Five-Gaiter thing wasn’t me being a pill about condition, here’s a box lot baby I do intend to keep:

A poor three-legged Bay Old Mold Foal! Minus the missing leg, he’s in not bad condition - it’s just the typical ear-nose-hoof rubs and stuff. Since I have had a notoriously hard time finding Old Mold Mares and Foals in any other color than Alabaster, a three-legged Bay Foal is a treasure. He can keep my ragged, 50 cent Gloss Alabaster Fighter company!

As mentioned in the comments last post, I am not sure if early Breyer Bays were subject to color shifting like the Palominos. It’s possible, but I haven’t seen enough early New-in-Box Gloss Bays to compare against more "weathered" Bays, nor have I seen any early Bays where the color was noticeably different from one side to the next that could be indicative of prolonged exposure to the sun, heat or other environmental factors.

It’s definitely an issue with Hartland Bays - like many Hartland Palominos, the red base in the paint fades, leaving the models a distinct shade of green (Olive for the Bay; Chartreuse for the Palominos).

The red shift/red fade does happen with some early Breyers, but tends to be limited to those models that came with pinking of the eyes, ears, muzzle and hooves. Since it is limited to accent areas - and the absence of the pinking tends to be so complete - the lack of pinking is sometimes labeled as a variation or production error.

It’s also not that much of a dealbreaker; while we’d prefer the pinking to remain intact, most hobbyists are not going to turn noses up on an otherwise flawless model without it.

There is some color-shifting going on with Shrinkies, to be sure. Chestnuts turn peachy-pink, and Bays turn to Buckskin. But that’s a slightly different process there - a chemical reaction that is primarily a result of a breakdown of the plastic itself, and not a consequence of environmental issues. (Though excessive sunlight, heat and humidity certainly don’t help!)

Whatever other color shifting may be occurring with some Breyer paint jobs, nevertheless I haven’t seen anything green that didn’t start out green in the first place, either by design (Little Bits Unicorns, some of the Classics Blossoms) or by default (Dappled Green Bay Sham).

There’s been some recent speculation that the reason why Reeves hasn’t released any new "Christmas" Decorators may be due to the issues with color shifting or fading, especially with the color Red. Indeed, it could be the reason why the mythical Christmas Decorators might not have made it past the testing phase back in the 1960s.

But here we are speaking of a hypothetical of a hypothetical: we don’t have any confirmed examples of Christmas Decorators in the first place.

Oh, and re: other posts on the topic of fugitive paint, the most recent - I think - was the one last year about the 2013 Volunteer Clydesdale Mare. I really need to index these posts better…

Stablemates Riders

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been getting so many e-mail offers from Reeves lately that the e-mail servers now think I live in New Jersey! No, really, I don’t need to know what the weather is like in Mt. Laurel…

Last week’s most interesting e-mail was a special offer for a Free Stablemates Rider with purchase of 25 dollars worth of Stablemates merchandise. A little weird, but I thought maybe they just had some leftover play set "rigid" riders they wanted to get rid of in a creative way. Today they sent out another e-mail about them: nope, apparently they are a thing they are selling separately now.

http://www.breyerhorses.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=6505

Interesting. I haven’t done a comprehensive search yet to see if the paint jobs are unique, or if they can be identified from specific sets. I can’t tell right off because I haven’t been buying many Stablemates lately, outside of vintage pieces to fill in collection gaps, upgrades, and Special Event/BreyerFest ones. (Though I’d like to buy more!)

Regardless, I don’t know if I now need to classify these as separate mold releases or continue to treat them as accessories. I guess it’ll have to depend on how long the program runs.

When I saw the original e-mail, the first thing that popped into my mind were the smaller-scale (about Little Bits/Paddock Pal size) Horse and Rider sets that Hartland released in the 1960s. Like these guys:

The horses to these sets I find occasionally, but the riders I almost never do, which is another reason why I’m reluctant to pass up on the Stablemates Riders. If it is an experimental thing, I’ll probably regret not getting them now while they’re still (relatively) cheap and affordable. Some of the bills for my Kentucky misadventures are starting to come in, though, so it looks like another no-can-do here.

Like Breyer is doing now with their various Stablemates Play Sets, Hartland made a lot of odd bits and quasi-accessories like that back then too, and I find them fascinating. I don’t go out of my way to collect them, but if they happen to find their way here, they tend to stay. I recently purchased a big bag of plastic animals, pursuant to another crazy idea I had rumbling around in my head. In the bag were two Hartland Farm animals, from their "Sunny Acres Farm" series. The Goat, and the Black Lamb:

So cute!

Just goes to show that there’s really no such thing as a new idea in the hobby. Just the same ideas, in endless iterations.

Feeling My Oats

What do you do when someone offers you a basket of horses?

You buy the basket of horses, of course! Especially since the basket got thrown in for free! Sweet!

No actual Breyers or Hartlands, just some Hong Kong copies and a Barbie Dallas. There’s nothing here I intend on keeping, though I will be talking about the Classic Quarter Horse copies later in the week; there’s actually a really interesting story behind them. But today is definitely not the day for me to go rummaging through my reference files.

(If there’s anything here that’s interesting to you, by the way, most of these guys will be in my very well-stocked Dollar Table selection at BreyerFest this year. The Barbie Dallas won’t be, though - he’ll be a couple dollars more, and either be sitting on a shelf or in the body box, depending on the space situation.)

I also picked up a nice - though not mint - Adios, some cool minis, a couple of adorable handmade ceramic Bloodhounds from ca. 1971, another stack of old quilt blocks, and a vintage fluorescent pink floral muu muu. Apparently I'm going as my Grandma Jankowiak for Halloween this year. (Tillson Street, here I come!)

There were a few other horses I passed up. Most of them were a bit overpriced - 18 dollars for a slightly yellowed and bloated Bay Running Mare? No can do.

I also got into a slightly heated shouting match with one dealer whom I normally respect. He picks up Breyers from time to time, and they tend to be both decently priced and in good shape; I always try to give his booth a little extra attention when I happen by.

Yesterday, he had a Hartland Regal Saddlebred. You know, this guy:

(Link to recently ended eBay auction)

It was a little rough, with some dings and a few sloppy old paint touch ups - about average for the 11-inchers. The price was actually good for the mold and the condition it was in, but he insisted that it was a Breyer, and I must have been feeling my oats that day because I insisted on telling him that it wasn’t.

"It’s a Breyer."

"No, it’s not."

"Yes, it is."

There was about five minutes of that, followed by him walking away, and me just shaking my head and laughing, not believing the whole thing just happened.

I’ve been going to this flea market long enough that I like to think that I have earned the trust and respect of most of the regular vendors: they know I am not going to baldly lie to them when it comes to the horses. If they ask questions, I answer them honestly and truthfully, and I’ve even occasionally given some of them advice on pricing and marketing! So it came as quite a shock that this guy went almost immediately into "You want to rip me off" mode. 

I never got around to telling him that it was a Hartland. Didn’t buy it either, even though I could have made a nice profit from it. I had already bought my basket of horses, and my glorious you-can-see-it-from-space muu muu, so it’s not like the purchase was going to make or break my day anyway. 

Honey

I had to cut my first trip to the flea market since Fest a bit short on Sunday, since I’m still feeling stiff, yucky and mildly nauseous from the back pain.

There were a few decent vintage Hartlands there, but as I’m still not finished inventorying the haul from BreyerFest, I left ‘em behind. (The inventory isn’t done because I still can’t find the receipts to reconcile everything. Phooey!)

I will be selling some of the stuff I brought home: a few items were de facto pick-ups, and some upgrades and duplicates were also in the mix. Plus I had absolutely no idea I had nabbed THAT many samples and oddities. As much as I’d love to keep them all, there’s just no way.

One item that is not going anywhere is this pretty little lady:

So my first instinct was right: the Volunteer Model WAS the Gloss Palomino Clydesdale Mare. (Apparently there are also three Mattes, for the volunteer coordinators. A different twist on the "Make It Extra Special With Gloss" idea. I like it!)

Sigh. I really need to stop second guessing myself.

It is a bit of a misnomer to call Gloss Honey Palomino a true "vintage" color: Early Palominos back when were more or less the same shade of Sunkist Orange that later Palominos were. The paint itself simply changed over time, from neon bright to mellow honey.

I’m not sure if it’s completely due to exposure to sunlight, or if another environmental factor such as heat is necessary. Several years ago I saw a Gloss Palomino Fighter that had been kept in a window for some time: one side was Orange, and the other side was Honey. (Wish I had bought it! Water over bridge, etc.)

All I know for sure is that occasionally a boxed example of a Five-Gaiter, Fighter or even a Family Arabian from the 1960s will show up, looking just as bright and orangey as a model made in the 1970s. And causing some hobbyists to question its authenticity.

It is merely a happy coincidence that the color is so appealing in its "degraded" state. Hartland had a similar problem with their Palominos, but they tended to turn chartreuse instead.

(Think November Blossom Horse Chrysanthemum Green. That I also happen to like, by the way. Though I completely understand if most do not.)

(Hartland Tall Columnar Mary, sans halo.)

The formula for Palomino changed to something less fugitive sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s; while some of them have shifted colors too, it’s usually in completely different ways and for completely different reasons.

I know there was some initial huffing and pouting over the fact that she was, in fact, the Volunteer model. I wasn’t overly bothered: you’re talking to someone who’d be thrilled to get a FAS Yellow Man o’ War, for Heaven’s sake.

Heck, I’d volunteer if all it meant was a t-shirt, six-inch tuna sub and an extra ticket. (What can I say? I’m a cheap date.)

Though that Auction Performance Horse will haunt my dreams for a while. I do have a body now to play with, at least, whenever time presents itself.

(In case you were wondering, yes, I totally did sniff her and lick her at the Volunteer meeting on Sunday, because a model just isn't mine until I do so.)

The Western Horse and His Kin

Here’s a better picture of the Western Horse copy in that box lot. The current "flying nun" shape of the saddle amuses me:

One topic I don’t cover much here is the Western Horse and his "kin": it’s been better covered, and better researched by others, to the point where I don’t feel any contributions I can make (at this point) would be very helpful.

Part of the reason for me keeping this fella is to help remedy this issue. Knowledge requires access. And in this hobby, access usually requires ownership.

It is also, surprisingly, a rather controversial and political topic: there are people within the hobby who are, shall we say, extremely devoted to certain opinions and viewpoints. And there is no room for discussion. Having discussions where no one is willing to concede a single point one way or another, ever - well, they don’t tend to be very interesting or productive.

It is especially so when it comes to the Western Horse. So I usually demur.

I will say that when I refer to the mold as the "Western Horse" I do so out of the common hobby convention of calling a model or mold by its best known or most commonly used appellation. Adios is Adios for instance, not Yellow Mount, Best Tango, or even Frappe.

Whether these Western Horse copies were copied from the Hartland, the Breyer, or their potmetal precursors is irrelevant. In most cases it can be hard to determine which copies were copied from where anyway.

Trying to put too fine a point on the origin of the copies also just ends up confusing the mundanes, too. When you start saying stuff like "It’s a copy of a Breyer, which may have been a copy of the first version of the Hartland Champ, which may have been adapted from the potmetal carnival horses…" they are only momentarily impressed.

Then they get a little nervous. Or walk away.

You gotta ease them into stuff like that. For most, "It’s a copy of a Breyer" is all they’re going to hear anyway. You can explain the finer points later, if it’s clear they want to know more. (One of the reasons why this blog exists!)

And once they reach that point, it's time to tell them about the birds and bees of the model horse world - "pedigree assignment"! (If they don't completely freak out at that point = another convert!)

So, This Happened

So this happened on Sunday, at the flea market. This is as I found - and bought it:

Whoo-hoo, big box of horses! Here’s the box, emptied out:

Yeah, it’s mostly not-Breyer, but I’m not picky: I’m an equal opportunity horse-shaped-object lover here. It’d been a while since I had a "major" score at the flea market, anyway. And the price I got it at? Ain’t no way I was going to pass it up! I swear the whole flea market could hear me cackling on my way back to the car.

(The best part? The old guy who walked up behind me and shook his head. "You got a good deal!" Darn tootin’, I did!)

The only items I’m keeping out of the lot (for now) are the Ohio Arts Western Horse copy, and the Appaloosa Western Prancing Horse. I already have three or four other Appy WPHs, but unlike the others, this one has gigantic polka dot spots. That’s fairly unusual for that particular release - I should know! I’d been on the lookout for that variation for a while, but most of the ones were either too expensive, or didn’t pass muster.

And he’s almost mint! With his original saddle and reins! Remarkable, considering the circumstances he came from.

Some of this stuff will not be making it to BreyerFest, though. I thought I’d toss the Lone Ranger and Tonto on eBay, for instance, considering that the movie premieres this week. Especially since the Scout that came with Tonto is the rare one.

I’m not too wedded to getting a certain price, though. If the contents of this lot cover its initial cost, plus my gas money for BreyerFest, I will be happy. Even if it doesn’t, the thrill of excavating a whole box of vintage horses - everything in the box was at least 35 years old - was worth the price.

I like to make a profit as much as the next person, but I’m also realistic: collectibles, in general, aren’t that great an investment. They can be, if you can keep your emotional distance from them, but this is a difficult thing, since so much of the value is tied up in our emotional attachment to them. 

A Third Company?

According to my work schedule, it looks like I might be taking another trip to happy fun researchland in another week or so. I won’t have the same amount of time to plow the stacks, but I’ll be able to make a little bit more progress, at least. Every little bit helps.

One thing I found rather distracting in my previous research excursion was the non-Breyer horse stuff. It wasn’t just the Hartland material, it was all of the other model horsey things I was running across, like this ad for Lido:


Lido wasn’t exclusively a model horse manufacturer; model horses were just something they added to their toy line in the 1950s. Most of the secondary manufacturers from the 1950s and 1960s were like that: Westerns were "hot," and it made good business sense to add a few horse and/or cowboy pieces to their toy lines.

What made Lido a little bit different from the others is that the other companies were, by and large, copying Breyer and Hartland. Lido was one of the few who was forging ahead with original molds and concepts.

Most of these secondary lines of horses died out by the end of the 1960s, and so did Hartland, before it was revived a short time later (and later, and later again.) Breyer almost gave up the ghost itself around that time too, but fortunately for us they did not.

Other known manufacturers from that time period included Pressman, Ohio Plastics, and Kroll. They turn up from time to time, usually as unidentified knockoffs. Like this odd, but not bad Pressman version of the Stretched Morgan, in Alabaster:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&Item=160481717242&Category=35999&_trkparms=algo%3DLVI%26its%3DI%26otn%3D2

That one’s managed to fool me more than once, at the flea market! He has probably played a part in those "Alabaster Stretched Morgan" rumors that crop up from time to time. The actual existence of a few true Alabaster Stretched Morgans does, too:


(Marney’s album, again.)

Among my favorites are the "textured tack" horses by an otherwise unidentified maker, an example of which is seen here on, of all things, a knockoff of the original Breyer Western Horse Clock!


They’re referred to as "textured tack" models because the Western Horse and Pony copies that they made have an odd, wire mesh texture to their tack. They’re otherwise remarkably good reproductions. They even "feel" right: they’re either made of some type of Cellulose Acetate, or a similarly sturdy plastic.

Oddly enough, the clock case and the base seem to be made of a different type of plastic; it feels like ABS (Styrene) to me. (BTW, the plumber’s chain reins are original, but the saddle probably isn’t.)

The fact that the entire Breyer Clock was knocked off - not just the horse, but all the "trimmings" - fascinates me. Was the original Breyer Clock itself so popular that it inspired its own knockoff? Who was this third company that made these horses - and what happened to them? Why did they decide to go with Cellulose Acetate, when many of the other secondary manufacturers didn’t? Did they have bigger plans?

What a different landscape we could be living in, if only we had a third serious contender in the model horse market back then!

Beer Mountie

In case you missed it in the comments, we were able to determine the identity of that big, funky horse on the wooden plank: he was a "backbar sign" for the Burger Brewing Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. I’ve found a couple of links, including this one:

http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/burger-beer-horse-backbar-statue-figure

I haven’t had time to track down a copy of the book this piece is in, so I can’t give you any more details like the date of manufacture, or the manufacturer. Hartland did a number of advertising pieces for the beer and liquor trade, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they had something to do with it.

Breyer did briefly make a brief foray into the beer and liquor trade, as well - with the Drewry’s Mountie.

The Drewry’s Mountie is distinguishable from the regular run piece by only one feature: small decals of the Drewry’s logo on the back corners of the horse’s saddle blanket. The logo consists of, rather redundantly, a Mountie and his horse. (That logo was eventually replaced with one featuring a large capital D, when the Canadian Government let it be known that they didn’t want the RCMP associated with a cheap, American-brewed beer. As far as I know, all of the Mountie figurines feature the Mountie and Horse logo.)

Drewery’s originated in Canada (thus explaining the original logo), but then moved production stateside to South Bend, Indiana. It was popular in the Midwest - Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, mostly - but like most regional beer brands, was bought out by a series of increasingly bigger breweries, and eventually ceased to be.

The exact nature of this piece is unknown. Was it an advertising or backbar sign, a promotional gift with purchase, a little something for company employees? When was it made? Was it a commissioned piece, or did the beer company buy up batches and affix the decals themselves?

I know nothing. This not-knowing bothers me more than it usually does in this case because there’s some family history tied to it.

My thrifty Grandmother’s second husband, Art Kuhl, worked for Drewry’s in the 1950s as a delivery driver. During the summer, Dad sometimes accompanied him on some of his deliveries. Somewhere in the family archives - I don’t know where, so you’ll just have to take my word for it - there’s a picture of Grandma leaning provocatively against the beer truck, a bottle of Drewry’s (presumably) in hand.

The Breyer Horse and Rider Sets have always been pretty high on my want list; it should go without saying that the Drewery’s Mountie occupies the top spot on that list.

Spring Cleaning

I spent a pleasant day yesterday detailing out my car. It’s not something I do on a regular basis, but I had a rough week emotionally, and I needed something to take my frustration out on. That’s how I deal: either I clean stuff, or make stuff. (I started a new quilt project this week, too.)

I was also partly inspired by my recent flea market finds. Cleaning my finds is probably my favorite part of the whole search-and-rescue process, but these last few batches have been more challenging than average. Here’s that Hartland Polo Pony I mentioned earlier, for example:


That’s what she looks like after I spent two days working on her! She took a little longer than average because I haven’t had the best luck rehabbing Hartlands. There’s something to the paint jobs or the plastic that doesn’t respond quite the same way that Breyers do, and I’ve found that they require a gentler, more cautious touch. Generally I don’t do much restoration after cleaning, but I might give this old girl a few touch-ups; she’s had a hard life, and I think she deserves it.

(Some clumsy clod stepped on her head! I'll spare you the gruesome closeup.)

I take a pretty conservative approach to conservation and restoration: most of my models don’t get "restored" beyond degreasing, cleaning and unyellowing. Even my repairs to broken pieces tend to be temporary and removable: white glue only. I’ve found that this approach leaves less to explain should I ever have to sell or upgrade the model in question.

I wrote an entire booklet on the subject restoration and conservation (out of print, for the time being) but honestly, 90 to 95% of models don’t need much more than a basic cleaning to bring them back to their former glory. And most of that can be with a few basic supplies: a good quality dish soap, Lestoil, cotton swabs, toothpicks, paintbrushes, that sort of thing.

I’ll occasionally use bleach for unyellowing, or substitute some other degreasing agent for Lestoil, but that’s about it. Oh, I’ve experimented with other stuff, believe me: that’s why I’m rarely hesitant to pick up the icky-sticky bodies everyone else leaves behind. If you’re lucky, you can make a bad model better - and if not, into to the body box it goes!

In most cases, everyone gets the same treatment: a light rinse with warm water, a gentle rubdown with either dish soap or Lestoil, undiluted, and a full body dunk in a bucket or sink of hot (but not boiling) water for a half an hour or so. Add more soap or Lestoil to the water, as necessary (a couple of capfuls is usually sufficient.) Dark marks and particularly dirty nooks and crannies will get worked over with cotton swabs or brushes dipped in soap or Lestoil, and very gently scrubbed while still wet. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

Models with labels or stickers, of course, wouldn’t get the full body dunk - in those cases, I use cotton swabs or pads for spot cleaning to keep the fluids away from those critical areas.

I’ll use toothpicks to pick away any odd bits of glue, house paint, or any other foreign substance that happens to find itself attached to the model in question, though your fingernail will work in a pinch. Both are soft enough that a little slip won’t lead to the kind of scratch that’s likely to happen with a knife blade.

And that’s about it. It might take a day or two to clean a really sorry looking specimen (like my Polo Pony) but most of your finds can be shelf, show or saleslist ready in an afternoon or less.

There are two popular cleaning techniques I will recommend you avoid: toothpaste and hairspray. Both are used as spot cleaners to remove dark marks; toothpaste is used as a slightly abrasive scrub, and hairspray as a mild solvent. They both "work" in the sense that they do remove the marks in question, but they also have a tendency to remove the paint, especially if you haven’t had a lot of practice with either.

Both of them also leave residue behind that’s almost as hard to remove as the offending marks. (The toothpaste, believe it or not, is the harder of the two to remove!) Sometimes I’ll use one or the other if nothing else will work, but only if I follow up with rubdown and full body dunk.

Another Winning Sunday

As I mentioned before, this past Sunday’s flea market was another winner. It wasn’t as mind-blowing as last week’s spend-a-rama, but any day with cheap Breyers, Hartlands and Hagen-Renakers in it is most definitely not a loser:


Yeah, I’ll confess to it: the first thing I did when I got home from the market was run into the closet and test the Hartland Child of Prague for glowiness. No such luck, but I didn’t have that version before, so I’m still keeping him. The Buckskin Polo Pony is another keeper, even though he has significant condition issues: I love that mold, and that color is not easy to find.

I have no idea what the big goofy-looking horse is; it appears to be styrene, mounted on a solid oak(!) base. I’m assuming it was some sort of beer/liquor promo: it certainly smelled like it lived in a bar for a couple of decades. (And he was …sticky! Eww!) There are no identifying marks or labels anywhere, though. My reference files come up a little short in advertising promo department, so if anyone out there can provide clues, or point me in the right direction, it would be much appreciated.

At first glance, he almost looks like a high-end home décor piece, the kind interior designers would pay good money for if he was made of wood, metal or stone. Sculpturally, he reminds me a little of the Mortens Studios horses - awkward, yet appealing and well-finished - but I have absolutely no clue if there’s any actual connection.

Even though I have a sneaking suspicion he might actually be worth something, I think I might be keeping him, too. I have no idea where I’m going to put him if I do. He's huge!

The booklets are those injection molding manuals I mentioned in passing last time. Lots of fun bedtime reading ahead of me - no, really, I do love reading about the mechanics of polymer flow, and methods for correcting flow lines and flash. It’s all relevant to the discussion here, you’ll see.

Here’s a close up of the H-R I found: the A-297 Prancing Arabian. (I didn’t put him in the group shot, because there are a couple of giant, hairy mutant spiders crawling around the basement floor. Big spiders and little H-Rs don’t mix - not in this house, anyway.) I can’t remember the last time I found an H-R horse at this flea market. I’ve found other minis, dogs, and even a few Disney pieces, but the horses are super-scarce. It’s probably a consequence of having several major H-R collectors in my territory: there just aren’t that many left in the wild here anymore, at least compared to other manufacturers.


He was in a large grouping of Japanese China dogs, that I only happened to notice because there were H-R knockoffs among them. (Including yet another Greyhound "Comet" - one of these days I’ll find the real thing!) I bought the best of the bunch, but other than the Greyhound (and the horse, of course), they’ll probably all end up in the sales stash.

Most of the rest will be going on the sales list, too - a nice mix of stuff, with a little bit of everything for everybody. My room sales prospects are definitely looking up this year. Sales weren’t bad last year, but that was more a result of having a superior location - in the 100s - and being somewhat confined to my room due to me injuring myself (and thus making extensive room hopping out of the question.)

Shiny, Glowy Horses

A few other things came up, so my forensic analysis of the Swap Meet will have to wait until later in the week. I also became rather distracted by that box of quilt scraps I bought on Sunday; all of my spare "thinking" time has gone towards puzzling those pieces together. (I guess my brain enjoyed the challenge of reassembling that Double Wedding Ring more than I realized!)

I forgot to mention that the guy who sold me the wicked white platform go-go boots also had a stash of vintage Black Light posters. If I had had more money, or more space in the car, I would have definitely brought a couple of them home. I love Glow-in-the-Dark stuff: I even keep a small collection of early Glowy Hartland religious figurines in my bedroom window as a makeshift, retro nightlight.

Hartland was using phosphorescent plastics in the early 1950s, but it wasn’t until 2003 that Breyer had cause to, in their Halloween program. Phosphorescent plastic kinda-sorta makes sense for religious figurines, but not for horses so much, especially if you’re big into recycling the scrap plastic as regrind. The inevitability of accidentally mixing the Glowy plastic with the standard white stuff was probably also another factor in their hesitation.

I liked the concept of Reeves’ Halloween program, but I wasn’t completely into it when it began. Halloween was never a big holiday at our house: I liked the candy, and watching other people dress up, but mostly I thought of it as my Uncle Fred’s birthday. He didn’t just revel in the coincidence, he lived it: slicked black hair, a goatee, and a mostly black wardrobe were part and parcel of his identity. (Such a sweetheart, too - of all my departed relatives, I think he’s one of the ones I miss the most.)

It wasn’t until they came out with Merry Widow that I became a believer. A Traditional-scale Breyer horse - that glows in the dark? Sold!

I was a little upset about the Glowy G2 Andalusian keychains they used as giveaways at BreyerFest that year, naturally. Combining two of my favorite things - Stablemates, and phosphorescent plastic - in one neat little package? Argh! I took some comforting in believing that I’d get one eventually; the event that they gave them away at was not well-attended, and they had to have had a lot left over. Right, right?

Yes, they did. But no, I don’t.

The Glowy Keychain is one of the few recent SRs that hasn’t made it into the Ninja Pit of Death, or Grab Bags, or Shopatron. It’s one of Reeves’ few pure "promo" horses, outside of the BreyerFest Volunteer Gift Horses (but even those you still have to work for, technically.) Either Reeves gifts you one, or you buy it from someone who was gifted.

Enough of them are circulating around now that the prices for them have dropped out of the stratosphere, but I still can’t cross that line and actually pay for something I know someone got for free. It just feels weird to me. I also don’t buy other people’s Volunteer Horses, for pretty much the same reason. (Additionally, they tend to be too expensive, even the so-called "homely" ones.)

The reason given for the end of the Halloween program was that they "ran out of ideas," but the Halloween-themed SRs for the invitation-only events since then (VRE and LSE) argues against that. I suspect the sales were probably lagging just enough to no longer make the program economically viable, but I don’t have access to the sales records to know for sure.

It’s also true that the Missouri Fox Trotter "Frankensteed" wasn’t all that popular among the LSE attendees last year, but I believe that was more a function of the relatively high piece count compared to other available SRs, and attendees’ unreasonably high expectations. (Nothing less than "Test Colors for Everyone" would have satisfied the critics, in the end.)

I think there’s still enough support for the idea to continue making Halloween Horses on a limited basis. There’s already a modestly successful, existing program that it could be incorporated into: the Shopatron Web Specials.

(If you're looking for idea, people at Reeves, may I suggest a metallic orange Belgian with a painted, glow-in-the-dark Jack O’Lantern face on it?)

Side Stander Clocks

Let’s continue with the theme of "whatever happens to be on or near my desk" with this not-so-little beauty, a Palomino Side Stander Clock:


Unlike the "Horse Over" Clock (now considered largely a Hartland-molded product) there’s little dispute over the "Side Stander’s" origins: the horse Breyer-molded. The base probably is, too - there’s no identifying mark to speak of, but the plastic has the same texture, weight and consistency as the horse, and the molded-in swirly color is similar to the color seen on my square tortoiseshell clock with the early Breyer mold mark.

The clock itself is painted metal, with a "Ceramic Clock Co." label on the back. It is generally assumed that the Ceramic Clock Company was a subsidiary of MasterCrafters: some labels show that they shared the same street address. What the exact relationship is not known to me; I haven’t followed up on that topic, not for a lack of interest, but because of the paucity of the paper trail.

The exact chronology of the two clocks is unknown; it’s believed that the Side Stander Clocks came after the Horse Over Clocks, but when exactly - and how long - I don’t know. I don’t think I have any documentation in my archives that even shows a true Side Stander clock for sale, either. A page from the Fall-Winter 1951 Sears Roebuck Catalog does show the non-Breyer, pot-metal version of this clock: I don’t know who was copying whom, though.

Wherever the truth lies, the horses found on the Side Stander Clocks represent some of the earliest Breyer model horses known, if not the earliest. Both White and Palomino versions have been found; White ones seem to be slightly more common than the Palomino, but that could be a sampling error on my part.

And did you happen to notice this clock is a variation, too? He has two socks, not the standard four! It’s definitely not very common: I’ve only seen two others like this, and both were Clock Horses as well. Four-sock versions of this clock exist, too, so I don't know if this means that the two-sock version was the first version of the Palomino Western Horse, or just an early variation.

Swing Time

In honor of Daylight Savings Time, let’s talk about clocks today. Let's begin with this beautiful little wreck I found at the flea market last week: a MasterCrafters Swinger!


(Photo lightened somewhat to show the detail - the clock doesn't actually look like it's molded out of chocolate, in person.)

They’re known as "Swinger" clocks because they have a figurine attached to a pendulum mechanism that would swing back and forth. Most of them - including this one - had a girl on a swing, but some have both a boy and a girl, or a bird on a perch. Someone swiped the figurine from this particular example, which partly explains why I was able to snag it for a mere 5 bucks. (It was also dirty, greasy, cracked, and covered in duct tape.)

Most collectors know that Breyer’s first horse was designed as a component for a clock manufactured by the MasterCrafters Clock Company. Mike Jackson, at his Hartland History web site Hartland Westerns, goes into the history of the MasterCrafters Horse Clocks, and there’s no need to duplicate the effort here. (I have a few quibbles with it, but I’m in no mood to start a catfight over tone or details.)

Lesser known is the fact that Breyer made more than just the horse for MasterCrafters. It’s been difficult to track down which parts, and for which clocks precisely: the records (as always) are virtually nonexistent. So far only one clock - one that I discussed in one of my first posts - bears what appears to be an early Breyer mold mark. The clock in question:


It’s possible that the plastic components of the Swinger Clock were also manufactured by Breyer. Nancy Young notes in Breyer Molds & Models that Steve Ryan, during his brief tenure at Reeves in the early 1990s, claimed that Breyer molded those components, but in a footnote comments that Hartland expert Gail Fitch believes Hartland did. I took the opportunity of having a trashed and partially disassembled Swinger Clock to see if I could find any physical evidence one way or another.

Nothing. I found neither Hartland’s Iolite mark nor Breyer’s wavy-ribbon mark. The clock had been messed with before, so it’s possible something was lost or somewhere along the way. It’s also possible that I’m not looking in the right places, that my eyesight is shot, or that it never received any recognizable mold stamps in the first place.

It didn’t hurt to look; it was only a five dollar investment, and I had a fun afternoon disassembling, cleaning and repairing it, at least. (It’s my favorite part of the flea market process!) Once I’m finished repairing and rewiring it, I’ll probably stick something in the empty space left by the missing Swinger. But should it be a Stablemate, or a Tinymite? Decisions, decisions…