Cooler Things

It just amuses and baffles me that I can’t “win” 1000-piece Special Runs, but Test Colors, 50-piece runs, and things other hobbyists are like “what, they made that?” No problemo!

(Yeah, still no Vail. At this point I’m just laughing and shaking my head about it.)

The Bay Lady Roxana has soared past my upper bidding limit; but that’s fine: I went and bought some box lots on the Internet for less that are probably worth more; I’ll find out by the end of the week!

So here’s another cool thing I have been looking for for an insanely long time:

As you might have guessed – because it’s me we’re talking about here – this is no ordinary Family Arabian Foal. Check out the location of her mold mark!

(Just above the drip mark.)

The belly-stamped Foals are obviously very early; in fact, I think they represent the “first state” of the mold, before any of the multitude of other changes were made to it. 

The Family Arabian Foal was likely Breyer’s most popular and in-demand mold through the 1960s and a large portion of the 1970s, and because of the wear and tear of near-constant production, it went through many repairs and revisions. So many, in fact, that with a little extra research, we could probably create a pretty accurate year-by-year timeline of the changes.

(Sorry folks, I do not have the time for that right now!)

Looking for a belly-stamped FAF has been awkward, to say the least, and is complicated by the fact that the best place you would think to find something like this – BreyerFest – has also become one of the less likely. Unless it’s a Test Color, Oddity, Rare SR, New in Box or another known rare variation (like the Sorrels), people don’t bring Family Arabians to sell, because they’re old-fashioned, common and allegedly boring. 

Fortunately, on places like eBay, a lot of sellers don’t know or don’t care: they just want to make a sale. The more diligent ones do what sellers selling items outside of their comfort zone usually do: they photograph everything, including the location of the mold marks. 

Although there are instances where the presence or absence of certain mold marks is historically important, usually it isn’t, so most of us roll our eyes when we see that photo included in a listing. Yeah, I already know that’s a Breyer, doofus.

But in this case, it’s what made the difference for me. I immediately saw it and jumped on it like a cat on a can of tuna. 

I’m beginning to wonder if the FAF was the first – or one of the first – molds to receive the mold mark, before they decided that putting it on the inside hind leg was the way to go. The change happened very quickly, and before they revised the curled eartips: curled eartip FAFs with the standard leg stamp are a little uncommon, but not super-rare. 

(The Shetland Pony also received a belly-stamp around the same time, but it never got removed or repositioned).

Theoretically, the Belly Stamp Foals should only exist in the original four Family Arabian/Old Mold colors: Alabaster, Bay, Woodgrain and Gray Appaloosa. Palomino and Charcoal didn’t show up until later; how much later I am not sure, but I do know I still haven’t found any evidence of Palomino or Charcoal FAFs with the curled eartips.

I haven’t done a comprehensive, point-by-point study of the Foal to figure out what else was changed or corrected from the first state of the mold to the second. Having a sample size of only one is also not helpful, because you don’t know if the variations are the result of a molding or production change, or just something idiosyncratic to that particular Foal.

The Foal’s legs are definitely not in the same places as most of my later examples, but that could just mean the cooling boards weren’t ready yet and everything was assembled by hand, as was the case with the original In-Between Mares around the same time.

Even though Breyer had been producing horses for nearly a decade by the time this Foal was manufactured, she does feel a little – primitive? Maybe they had rush orders to fill, and even though they didn’t have a production process or even all the equipment “ready”, they just got them done by any means necessary?

(I work in a production facility: some of the crazy stuff we do to get product out the door...)

The real question, though, is this: just how rare are these Foals numerically? 

Well, the first problem here is that we don’t have any production records from this period to establish a lower limit. We also have to consider that the mold change happened very early, maybe/likely after the first production run; this first production run could have even been a test batch! It’s been over sixty years now since they were produced, so a lot of them have gone to the model horse graveyard by now, too. 

So my guess (and experience!) would say that unless several come out of the woodwork like the Woodgrain Old Mold Foal did, I’d say she was pretty rare. I do think these Foals are probably a little more common than we realize, because most hobbyists have been unaware of this variation’s existence, until now. And now they will look!

I’d love to have a complete set of four, but I’m happy with just the one, for now.

Low Muscle Family Arabian Mares

Most Breyer molds have been modified at some point in their production life. Some of the changes can be chalked up to maintenance and repairs, and others are a result of changing tastes or breed standards.

And sometimes, we have no idea why changes are made at all. I suspect that some of the changes – like the alterations to the Clydesdale Stallion – might have been an instance where additional details were added to a mold to camouflage a serious repair. 

We know that the Family Arabian Mare has a complicated mold history. In addition to the In-Between Mare – the mold that briefly bridged the gap between the Old Mold Mare and the Family Arabian Mare, and looks a little like both – there’s a third variation of the mold who is so rare she only appears to exist in the 1960 Dealer’s Catalog.

It should not come as a surprise, then, that there appears to be yet another mold variation of the Family Arabian Mare. 

I happened to notice the difference while I was cleaning my most recent FAM acquisition, the Dark Sorrel. At first I thought her slight lack of detail was due to her possibly being bloated, like my Sorrel Family Arabian Stallion but nope, she just has… less molded in detail, particularly on the left side of her neck and (to a lesser degree) on her right shoulder. Here’s a comparison of that section of the neck in question, compared to my other Sorrel FAM’s neck:

(More on that in a bit…) 

That really pretty, really early Gloss Alabaster Family Arabian Mare I acquired earlier in the year also has this same lack of mold detail on her neck and shoulder! Since that one came with that pretty nice Old Mold Appaloosa Stallion, it’s safe to assume that this means the Mares with less detail – I’m calling them “Low Muscle” FAMs – are obviously an early, or the earliest mold variant of the FAM. (Barring the discovery of a “left mane” variant, if one ever actually existed outside of the catalog.)

What’s really interesting is that my other Sorrel FAM has the neck muscle striations and extra shoulder detail. This means that the Sorrel Family Arabians had to have occurred early on in the mold’s history, and spanned the transition between these two variations.

What this also suggests is that the Matte Sorrel Family Arabians were the first Family Arabians, outside of the Woodgrains, to be released in Matte, and were issued concurrently with the Gloss releases in Alabaster and Gray Appaloosa. 

I still happen to think that they were a variation of the Bay, rather than a separate release; whether it was for a specific customer, a random thing, or something else entirely is still a matter of debate.

It will be interesting to see if I can find any Gloss Charcoals or Gloss Palominos in the “Low Muscle” variation. I’m pretty sure that those two colors were not released on the Family Arabians until 1961 at the earliest, so it seems unlikely. 

If they do, the timeline will have to be revised. Of course.

So anyway, guys, y’all now know why I’ll be obsessively checking Family Arabian Mares over the course of BreyerFest. It’s all about the research, folks….

Chestnut Clydesdale Foals

I’m in a weird place right now: everything I want to talk about is in transit, unopened, unfinished or unordered. (But the Mystery Five-Gaiter is currently “out for delivery”!)

So let’s talk about something that everybody – or almost everybody – has, or has had in their collection at some point: the #84 Chestnut Clydesdale Foal! As you may remember, this particularly fine filly came out of that “Dirty Pony” lot I bought last Winter, and other than a bit of yellowing is in beautiful condition otherwise. The yellowing has not improved much since then, but that’s because some of the sales ponies took precedence: 

(My apologies for the quality of the photograph: my “studio” is currently dismantled.)

The #84 Clydesdale Foal was in production for over twenty years – from 1969-ish through 1989. As for the “-ish” part, as I’ve mentioned before, Breyer has never strictly adhered to January as the official release dates for new molds or new colors, and that was especially the case in the late 1960s, when Breyer first began to directly court the hobbyist market. 

(I remember how happy I was to get the Classic Andalusian Family for Christmas in 1978, a whole month before they hit the stores! I was quite chuffed at my already-budding hobby acumen.)

As with any model released for any length of time, the Chestnut Clydesdale Foal has come in its share of variations, veering from the Very Chestnut to Almost Bay. It also comes in a Chalky variation (one of the easier Chalkies to find, in fact) and early examples can also come with the large Blue Ribbon Sticker. For completists, there’s the #8384 Clydesdale Mare and Foal Set, too, with not one but two different versions (with metal clasps, or Velcro fasteners) of those Kelly Green Felt Blankets we all know and love.

The Clydesdale Foal has come in a number of uncommon or flat-out rare releases – like the Silver Filigree BreyerFest Diorama Prize Quicksilver, the 1998 Tour Raffle Model Captain in Gloss Charcoal, the 2009 BreyerWest Delano, the 2009 Fun Foals in Bay and Chestnut Roan, and the surprisingly difficult to find 1980 release of the Dapple Gray – but alas, I own none of these, nor am I likely to. 

I do have most of the variations of the Chestnut, so I have that going for me, at least. And whatever this girl turns out to be.

Incidentally, I would like to inform you that the Five-Gaiter just arrived and all I can say for now is that he’s definitely Original Finish. And I have so many questions. 

But more on him next time, after a good afternoon’s sleep.

The Nuisance

This Adios doesn’t look like much at first glance, but it was kind of a big deal for me – but more as a nuisance and a lingering bother at the back of my head than an actual grail:

He has no USA mold mark, which makes him a 1969 or early 1970 release. Although there are subtle differences from Adioses that came after – the color on the earlier examples seem a little redder and flatter than slightly later ones, with more noticeable shading in the face and the genitals – the absence of the mold mark is the only significant difference.

And for me, it was a variation that I could never manage to score, ever. I’ve owned a lot of Adioses over the years; the area I live in used to be home to several Standardbred farms, and there used to be harness racing just up the road at the Eastern Michigan State Fairgrounds. Seeing campers with sulkies strapped to their roofs or being pulled on trailers were a very common sight during my childhood.

In short, I find a lot of Adioses. I thought finding this variation would be easy. 

But most of them are either later examples or in, shall we say, unsuitable condition. My efforts to shortcut the process and buy an example with a Blue Ribbon Sticker didn’t pan out as expected, either: while I have excellent examples of both the Adios and Yellow Mount with stickers, both have the USA mold mark. 

This one came up on eBay a couple of weeks ago, with a very clear photo showing its obvious lack of said mark. So in spite of my spending moratorium, he had to come home to me to (finally) put that nagging nuisance to rest. 

While the Adios without the USA mark is not particularly rare variation overall – he was a pretty popular fellow upon his release ca. 1969, and sold briskly – his mold mark is something that only Breyer History nerds like me, and a not insignificant portion of you, care about. 

It’s not something that is usually noted upon in online listings. Exceptions are ironically made by sellers unfamiliar with Breyers in general, who tend to take pictures of the mold mark to prove to us what we already know (that it’s a Breyer!) not realizing it also tells us other, sometimes more important things (that he’s old!) 

Anyway, he’s neat and he’s sticking around, unless a mint condition one with a Blue Ribbon Sticker happens to show up at the right place, the right time, and at the right price.

Immutable Laws of Model Horsery

An acceptable Tractor Supply Eclipse and Classic Drafter have been acquired; I even found a couple of good things at the Salvation Army next door, including a Will James hardcover with most of its original dustjacket. 

But I am most excited about the Bay Running Foal that arrived a couple of days ago in a box lot I assumed was going to be mostly bodies:

It’s like an immutable law of model-horsery that any box lot over a certain quantity must contain either a Misty, a Bay Running Foal, or both. (FYI: there’s a Misty in another large box lot I am saving for the weekend.) 

I knew he was in there – I saw him in the photographs, obviously – but what surprised me is that he’s a near mint* pre-1970 variation that almost perfectly matches my near-perfect pre-1970 Bay Running Mare.

With the exception of the eyewhites, which were very, very rarely a thing for Breyer Foals in the 1960s. I am not sure why, it just was. 

I could have sworn that I saw a Bay Running Foal with eyewhites in a body box at an early 1990s BreyerFest, but not having seen any since then, now I’m not so sure. It may well have been either a figment of my imagination, or a little aftermarket customization.

One other interesting thing worth noting about this model is the fact that its frontmost hoof was rather aggressively trimmed or “nubbed” at the factory. 

This wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, especially in the 1960s and early 1970s. Even though the mold halves were fixtured after molding to prevent that sort of thing, there were enough variables in the manufacturing process that some models still wouldn’t stand properly after assembly anyway, and thus require adjustments after the fact. 

What cracks me up about these “nubbed” models is that, for the most part, they still don’t stand up very well, or often at all. It makes me wonder if the surface they were using at the factory wasn’t level to begin with, resulting in models perfectly designed for an imperfect surface?

I still love him anyway, and until I find an un-nubbed one just like it (or better!) he’s staying. 

*(He may appear to have some marks in the photo, but these are all removable. Cleaning the sales items takes priority!)

The Three Body Problem

By popular request, here’s the other two Quarter Horse Gelding variations. Since I don’t have the time to dig out my Buckskins, a Gloss Bay and Special Run Matte Bay will have to do:

The only immediately noticeable difference between the Variation Two and Variation Three is the very obvious tummy tuck on Variation Three.

As far as when the third variation occurred, I am less certain. Because of the lack of notable production variations and few newer releases of the mold during the time period in question – other than the #97 Appaloosa Gelding in 1971 – it’s difficult to pinpoint the change the way we could with the second.

All I can say for certain is that it was done before 1980, or when the Appaloosa Gelding was discontinued.

And to be honest, pinpointing the change has been a low priority because (until this week) outside of me I didn’t think there was that much interest in the mold to actively pursue.

(And while I have a lot of Appaloosa Gelding variations, it is true, but just how many do I need?)

Because the tummy tuck can be difficult to see if it’s not photographed properly (it can kind of disappear if taken at a slightly elevated angle) it’s also something that benefits from the in-hand field research BreyerFest provides, and that’s not happening this year, obviously.

Speaking of that, gotta get back to my BreyerFest prep.

While everything is going fine in the general sense, this weekend has reminded me just how much I really, really do not enjoy photography. Like painting, I can be more than competent at it if I try, but it just really stresses me out when I do.

Muscles

Most of us are familiar with the Clydesdale Stallion, who went from originally being a bit of a blobby beast in 1958 to something a little more buff shortly after.

Hobbyists are less familiar with what happened with the Quarter Horse Gelding, who went in the opposite direction – going from ripped to “dad bod”!

This happened in the very early 1960s, shortly after the introduction of the Buckskin, since the Buckskin version of this mold variation seems to be the rarest of the three early Quarter Horse Geldings.

I sometimes call him the “Supermuscled” Quarter Horse because, well, look at him! He’s awesome. 

I presume the mold change was either a consequence of another mold alteration that necessitated removing some of the extra detailing, or the “bulldog” body type was already trending out of fashion and Breyer did an update to tap into the market for less beefcake.

There was a second round of alterations that softened the detail even more and eventually gave the mold a tummy tuck, but I haven’t been able to determine when that happened, exactly.

I only discovered this alteration by accident when I bought the above pictured Quarter Horse because he had eyewhites, a very rare feature on Buckskins. When I opened him up and looked him over, I was astonished at how well-shaded he was… then realized it wasn’t just the paint job I was looking at!

Apparition

Except for some photos, formatting, and about an hour or two worth of nitpicking/editing – all stuff I can finish the weekend before – the Sampler is done. Now on to the “taking pictures for the photo show” thing.

(This week: Stablemates and Foals!)

Pictures of the Mid-Years are up on the Breyer web site, though nothing is officially for sale yet. Aside from the 70th Anniversary Stablemates – which are already sold out everywhere they went on pre-sale – the one new release that has me the most excited is Apparition:

My first reaction to seeing the 2020 Halloween Horse was “It’s a Scooby-Doo Horse!” 

The second was “I want it!” 

Honestly, this is just about the perfect marriage of mold with an idea: a mold based on a cartoon with a Deco paint job based on another cartoon. Love it!

The “glowing in the dark” part is just a bonus.

Well, technically I was never a huge fan of Scooby-Doo (aside from those goofy “Scooby-Doo Movies” in the 1970s with celebrity guest stars, like Batman and Sonny and Cher.) But still, as an animation fan I adore it, and I’m glad that they’re “leaning in” to the Spirit mold’s aesthetic rather than trying to deny or downplay it.

Though it wouldn’t take that much to get the Spirit mold up to snuff conformationally, I’d rather they just leave the mold as is and find creative ways of utilizing it as is, like they did here with Apparition.

Just like I would have preferred they keep the original #54 Trakehner’s tail the same, the Stock Horse Stallion’s too, and the “bulldog” physique of the Quarter Horse Gelding.

The main problem I have with mold alterations isn’t the negation of history or the adulteration of the artist’s original vision (more the latter than the former with me, but let’s not go there today) but the fact that they are rarely done well.

In short, the alterations look like obvious alterations, and don’t blend seamlessly into the overall sculpt.

That’s my primary beef, for instance, with the Sherman Morgan. While I was perfectly fine with the necessity of changing his original tail – let’s get real people, the original was basically shaped like a turd – the style of the new tail doesn’t match the rest of Jeanne Mellin Herrick’s sculpture, either. I like it better, but it doesn’t quite… fit.

And just like the tail it replaced, it’s the first thing that draws my eye whenever I see a Sherman Morgan. That is exactly the opposite of what these kinds of alterations should be shooting for.

A Week, Well-Ended

I just spent almost an entire day in my garden and I feel so much better than I did earlier in the week. (You know, one of those long stories.) The garden, on the other hand, is still a wreck – the weather wasn’t quite cold enough this past Winter to kill off enough things, unfortunately – but I feel like I’ve made good progress.

I am especially pleased with my English Daisies, but alas, I didn’t have a chance to take a picture while the sun was still shining today. Maybe next time.

Well, up and did it: I entered the BreyerFest Open Photo Show: Halter Only, and no Collector’s Classes, because that would feel too much like work. I figured since my prep for BreyerFest is going to be minimal – no sales tagging, packing, shopping for snacks, volunteer stuff et al – I could channel that energy into this possibly-once-in-a-lifetime show.

(Though I am hoping that a photo show of some sort actually does become a component of BreyerFests going forward.)

A potential positive side effect of this show I’m spinning for myself is that even if I don’t win a darn thing, at the end of it all I should at least end up with a nice archive of photos use for future blog posts. 

(Laughs hysterically.)

All of the Glossies in the second round of the Collector’s Club Appreciation Sale are really nice, and I would have been happy with any of them. It also appears that the quantities on all four seem to be more or less the same – in other words, none of them are more rare than the others, except by dint of desire.

I know some of it is dictated by actual quantities on hand, but that’s how I think it should be.

My Collector’s Club Appreciation Model is… Integrity! Yay!

As others have noted, the Gloss Integrities all appear to be the Mare version of the mold as opposed to the standard (for this release) Gelding. I don’t get the impression that the Mare variation is particularly hard to get, it’s just not something that’s in super high demand, so the mold variation doesn’t get noted in listings.

I’d like to get a Matte of the mare version eventually – one of those things I was going to be looking for at BreyerFest this year, sigh – but it’s something that can wait.

Squishies

Had a close call earlier this week; I had to make a quick pit stop after work (bran muffin-induced emergency) and found myself in a Tuesday Morning – and ooh, they had some mighty fine high-semigloss Stablemates Mystery Foal Set variations!

They were quite tempting, especially since my attempts last week to track down the Walmart Specials – not to buy, necessarily, but just to see “in the wild” – met with abject failure. Every store I happened to find myself in during my work travels either looked liked it hadn’t been reset yet, or had already been plundered for all the gold. It was nice to see a store with actual models on the shelf, for a change.

Fortunately I managed to escape the Tuesday Morning unscathed, but tomorrow is payday and I’ll be in the same part of town….

…and they had an intriguing Classic Haflinger Mare that is bothering me even more than those lovely little Stablemates. She was seriously squished, kind of like my Woodgrain Boxer here:

He’s normal looking from the side, in case you were wondering:

The Haflinger’s side profile was also distorted – that’s how I noticed she was a little peculiar in the first place – so an even better example would have been one of the later Stablemates G1 Quarter Horse Mares with the twisted barrels. But I am in no mood to go digging through my Stablemates tonight.

I’m fairly sure it was a factory-originated flaw and not one that occurred in shipping, because her shading was exquisite – either someone at the factory took it upon themselves to make up for her other deficiencies, or her more dramatic contours enhanced her paint job naturally.

The Haflinger was obviously a one-off, possibly caused by a handling or machine error while the mold halves were still warm and freshly molded. More uniform examples like the Boxer might be – like Bloaties – a result of climate/temperature changes, issues with the mold itself, or a problem in the assembly process.

(The narrowness of more recent molds – like Duende, or the Imperador das Aguas – is most likely an issue with the metal molds themselves, I think.)

Although not as common – or beloved – as Bloaties, this molding flaw occurs with enough frequency that I feel like I need to coin a name for the afflicted. Collapsers? Squishies? Skinnies?

I kind of like Squishies, at the moment.

Rebel Rebel

Ugh. Today. Long story.

So here’s a picture of a model that makes me smile every time I see him:

It’s the 2002 QVC Special Run Texas Longhorn Bull, named Rebel. He has masking identical to the Regular Run #399 Texas Longhorn Bull, who ran from 2000 through 2004.

But he’s also Glossy, his color is lighter and less red, his eyes are nicely detailed out and of course – his horns are backwards!

As with most molds with separately molded horns, antlers or ears of unusual size, there’s always going to be some degree of variability when they are finally installed: up, down, or even a little (or a lot!) cock-eyed one way or the other.

Sometimes – as in not very often at all – you’ll even find an occasional horn or other odd bit that’s been cemented in backwards.

The handful of notable examples I’ve seen have been on the Cow, where the horns are small enough – and the curvatures slight enough – that most collectors either shrug it off as part of the normal production variability, or don’t even see it until someone else points it out.

They’ve done other alterations to the Longhorn’s horns over the years. The Broken Horn Special Runs had (factory) broken horns, the 2008 Exclusive Event Longhorn Wrangler had an intentionally cock-eyed one, and in relatively recent times the overall wingspan of the horns themselves have even been shortened.

But Rebel was the first to have his horns deliberately set backwards.

And I love it.

I sold off several of my Longhorns recently because they were simply taking up too much shelf space, but this guy and his “happy” horns had to stay.

The Other Black Bear

So far, so good on the Black Friday sales – I was initially tempted by the Premier Club Stablemates and was actually online when they were still available, but I managed to wait it out until they went away.

Actually, aside from a handful of eBay transactions I’ve been real good – no Rosalind and Rigel, no Griffin, no Fletchers, no Goblin, no dubious Craigslist deals, no side trips to farm stores, and the only actual Black Friday sale I attended was at the JoAnn Fabrics. (Kona Cottons were on sale! And I had a coupon!)

But we all know something else is coming shortly, right?

I’m trying not to think too much about it – I’ve got a few other things that take financial priority this time of year – but still can’t help but worry that the Elk, Saint Bernard or Deer Family I’ve been hoping/campaigning will turn up either at an inopportune moment (like last year’s Olaf) or show up as another frustrating Micro Run.

(I am kind of baffled that everyone is so convinced that this year’s special Animal is going to be a Moose. It’s not going to be a Moose, people. That ship sailed with Ghost.)

Since I’m not feeling terribly chatty today and I need to re-check my final count for the Dun Scotty contest (ha!) here’s a picture of my Warehouse Find Reissue Bear on the Bluegrass Bandit mold:

I’m kind of surprised she’s still available on the web site, but we’ve been so bombarded with new product over the past few months that maybe we shouldn’t.

She does have a few flaws and goobers – nothing I can’t live with, but if I can upgrade sometime in the not-too-distant future, I’ll do it.

There’s a higher-than-average incidence of manufacturing flaws on the Warehouse Finds/Reissues. That’s because they are/were manufactured from unpainted bodies stored in the warehouse for an indeterminate period of time, then shipped to China – and back. All that travel (in time and space!) is going to take a toll on a body, plastic or otherwise.

Brown Bear Mama

I was quite pleased to finally upgrade my Brown Bear Mama recently:

And the best part – she has a Blue Ribbon Sticker, too! Not a common thing to find on the Breyer Bear or Cub, since they don’t have much in the way of smooth surfaces where stickers could stay stuck.

The original release Bear Families (both the Brown and the Black) were one of my first “big” flea market finds back in the day – that day being in 1982! My family thought I was a bit nuts.

(These are not horses. Why is she buying these things that are not horses?)

Well, for one thing, they were one of my earliest Nonhorse purchases, and old ones, too. The original Breyer Brown Bear and Cub – numbers #307 and 309, respectively – were only available from 1967 through 1971. The Black Bear and Cub lasted through 1973 as individual releases, and then as a Family Set through 1976.

Even though they were relatively “rare” they weren’t all that expensive or desirable, which was another plus for me. Old, Scarce, Exotic, yet Affordable: that was a pretty potent combination for a budding Breyer Historian!

I could upgrade or collect variations as I pleased, and not worry too much about prices or competition. While they’ve never been a high priority in my herd, I’ve managed to keep up with the releases over the years, until recently.

I still need to get the Walmart Mustang set with the Cub, and the releases from the early 2000s. None of them are hard to get: newer, shinier things always seem to come up first and get in the way.

The Silver Charm Kodiak and Denali from BreyerFest 2014 also took a bit of wind out of my sails, dashing my hopes of completing my collection: I wasn’t lucky enough to get that set, and cheapskate me certainly can’t afford the aftermarket prices.

The Brown Bear was in the roughest shape of my original four: the timing, the price, or the condition never seemed to line up properly to allow me to upgrade her. Until I was cruising for some price comps on eBay a few weeks ago, and on a whim I decided to do a bit of Bear shopping.

And there she was!

There’s also one other thing worth noting about this particular Bear: take a look at the gigantic factory molding goober on her leg where the mold mark normally is. (One corner of the mold mark is just barely visible.)

While a flaw this large usually sends a model straight to the regrind bin, the fact that the mold already had a roughly textured finish (and was not a horse!) probably allowed it to pass QC.

It’s also interesting in that it’s more evidence to the contrary that everything was so much more awesome back in the Chicago days, quality-wise.

Everything else about her is great, so I see it more as an odd little quirk than a flaw.

Unfinished or Unpainted?

No luck in the local Walmart Stablemates hunt so far; it looks like that experiment/promotion may be a little more limited than we imagined.

C’est La Vie.

The past few days at work have been slow going, and a new shiny thing would have been a nice distraction. I’ll just have to distract myself with other things.

Speaking of Stablemates, here’s that Stablemates Painting Kit I found a little while back at the local Salvation Army. Complete with all the painting bits too, remarkably!

The models in these kits may be unpainted, but they are not raw or unfinished. They’ve been trimmed, cleaned, and the surface lightly prepped/primed to accept paint. Painting is just one step in the production process, albeit the finishing one.

I don’t have any true Factory Unpainted pieces out right now to show you the differences, and it might not be that helpful anyway. Like Chalkies, true Factory Unpainteds can be difficult to photograph, with nuances that are probably best demonstrated with an in-person examination or comparison.

Ironically, these early Test Color Quarter Horse Mares may be most helpful here, since I suspect they were Preproduction pieces that didn’t go through the full finishing process before they had a paint job slapped on them. The paint job caught and accentuated all the ridges and roughness of the back seam:

The unfinished nature of the seam is especially visible on the example on the left. Most of this roughness wasn’t from the mold itself, but from the acetone used to melt and soften the edges prior to assembly.

Most (but not all!) Stablemates come out of the mold solid, so they wouldn’t necessarily have this kind of problem to deal with. Most of the molding issues with Stablemates would be with sink marks (indentations caused by overheated plastic), mold flow lines (squiggly lines on the surface of the plastic), and flashing (rough extruded edges at the seams).

Sink marks can’t really be fixed or finished away, but mold flow lines and flashing can, to a degree.

So this is why I wince a little whenever I read complaints about newer releases that are either mostly or extensively white, as somehow being less finished or less complete. Perhaps, but there’s still a lot of work that goes into getting a model to that state in the first place!

My Jet Run

With the Event now just a week away, it seemed like a good time to dig out my original Jet Run, so I did:

He was in storage for a while, so I had forgotten just how nice mine was – dark, pretty, with no significant flaws! Almost live show quality, if I were considering it (maybe next year).

Jet Runs tend to be a little bit lighter than mine, sometimes drifting into Olive Bay or even Buckskin territory, though I wouldn’t necessarily call the darker ones rarer or more desirable than any other variation. Jet Run – and his cohorts Might Tango and Keen – are rather lightly collected molds, even for Classics.

They don’t command much attention or money, unless they are exceptional or special in some way. I happen to think mine is, but he’s not going anywhere, so the point is moot.

Mine has a B mold mark, which I had also forgotten about. It makes sense that he has one: I did get the set for Christmas in 1981, during the “Propionate” era ca. 1979-1983. (When Breyer briefly switched from Cellulose Acetate to the Cellulose Acetate Propionate, with mixed results.)

The USET Set came out in late 1980, so examples with the mark are easily identifiable as earlier pieces.

If I recall correctly the other two members of my set are also pretty good, especially the Keen; manufacturing quality in the early 1980s could be a bit iffy – the contents of every box truly were a “surprise” – so I lucked out with my set.

No Star Halla

So here’s one of the newest beauties I was alluding to – the No-Star variation of the Halla! She wasn’t a high-priority want, but she was still definitely a want! She is not perfect-perfect, but is still pretty darn nice. (The face speckles are house paint.)

And you gotta love those “black to the belly” points and the shaded ventral stripe/windpipe! Just goes to show that some of the weird painting/shading tics we complain about now (like Three-Sock Tobianos) are part of a long history of Breyer painterly weirdness.  

The No-Star Halla was the first/earliest variation of the Halla, and is even featured on the White Picture and Brown Picture boxes. I’m not sure why it was originally omitted: my best guess is that like the El Pastor, whatever references Breyer was using didn’t include detailed head shots.

The primary (perhaps only?) reference that was used to sculpt Halla was a photo featured in M. A. Stoneridge’s Great Horses of Our Time:

It is a near spot-on likeness, too! Other than the front legs – corrected in Hess’s sculpt – and the just barely visible star, which I can easily imagine getting overlooked.

Breyer caught on to the mistake quickly, no doubt corrected by a small tide of letters from nerdy horse girls who knew all about the legendary Halla:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQKu0ikGero

(FYI: The video linked to is in German.)

The No-Star version is fairly uncommon. She was a somewhat sought after piece during my live showing days (pre-BreyerFest), but it wasn’t so much her rarity as her shading and detailing that made her a must-have. The paint job on my new girl here was fairly typical of this variation: if you wanted a “nice” Halla for your showstring, this was the kind you were looking for!

The mold itself has fallen somewhat out of favor in recent years, replaced by more dynamic and/or aesthetically pleasing hunter/jumpers. With the diminishment of her fortunes, the knowledge and interest of this once sought after variation has largely faded, as well.

I was rather surprised how inexpensive my newest darling turned out to be – especially since she came with a similarly rare/weird variation I’ll get to next time.

Brunello and Stuff

First, the stuff.

I made the mistake of wandering into some online discussions about Geronimo a few days ago, during some rare downtime. I keep telling myself not to do that, and one of these days I’m finally going to listen!

Reading new mold discussions always makes me want to go out and buy the model, just to give it a hug. I can’t afford to do that right now!

http://www.breyerhorses.com/brunello

Anyway, most hobbyists know by now that the early release Brunellos with the Tryon blanket were not just the standard release, with blanket: nope, instead of the braided mane and tail that the Regular Run release was supposed to have, these Brunellos have the standard loose Idocus mane and tail.

And what should have been a moderately interesting blip in the Breyer SR radar – a Regular Run release with limited edition accessories – suddenly became much more interesting to many more people.

Supposedly some of this 400-piece run are (or were, until recently?) still available through Tryon Tack, but I’m still on my rigorous budget right now, so I have been trying my darndest to resist calling them to find out. I really like the Idocus mold, but I am not sure I love him enough to stray off my budget.

From what I’ve heard, they were made because the braided bodies weren’t ready in time for the event? I want to believe that, but with Breyer you can never been sure if that was a genuine answer or a wink-wink to those of us who obsess over every little thing.

Ironically, I do collect the “Regular Run with Accessories” category of Special Runs, though not in a directed or organized way. Many of the early Sears and JC Penneys Christmas Catalog items actually fall into that category. If I happen upon them at a reasonably good price, I’ll jump on them. But I don’t get too upset if they go above and beyond my price threshold, unless the model itself is interesting or especially pretty.

This is often the case, because many of those sets also featured newly released molds in their earliest iterations. The dark and pretty Legionario that came up in my discussion of the dorsal-striped Legionario a little while back was just such a creature:

I also like to collect them because the box art is so interesting and fun – like that Classics Race Horse Set one that had me strutting around the house a little while back:

Until recently, most hobbyists didn’t collect this sort of thing either, unless they were mold or series completists. Now that that’s become more of a thing (because most of us can’t afford to have it all!) they, too, have become more of a thing.

Tipsy

This guy arrived in a recent body box lot, and is worth a further examination. Notice anything odd about this #415 Buckshot?

He seems to be a standard issue Buckshot in very good condition with a decent paint job and no significant flaws, other than…

That Hind Hoof. What the heck happened there?

The Buckshot mold is notoriously tippy: he has rather narrow footing, and an elongated pose that ends in an almost solidly-molded tail. It’s like he was designed to tip over.

Part of the problem probably lies with the fact that his sculptor, Bob Scriver, was more accustomed to working in bronze, not in injection-molded plastic. As you might imagine, the weighting and balancing issues are completely different!

Some of that could have been corrected during the actual moldmaking process, but sometimes there is only so much you can do before interfering with the integrity of the original sculpt. And with the sculptor being Bob Scriver, Breyer probably wanted to avoid that.

I have – and have had – a number of Buckshots that stood up just fine. But it doesn’t take much in the way of a variance – fraction of an inch here, a tiny bit of extra plastic there – to make him tip over like me in a pair of platform shoes.

It’s never been a huge issue in the show ring, because he’s never been popular piece to show. I have a couple of Buckshots – an early, extra dark one, and a finished cull/quasi-test – that I did live show, but I “solved” the tipping problem by laying them down on neatly trimmed pieces of fabric.

It was Buckshot: judges understood.

Anyway, Breyer obviously made an attempt to “right” this particular piece by grinding down one of his hooves. It was a technique they used quite frequently on their less stable molds; I have several Pacers, for instance, with all manner of factory hoof deformities.

You would assume that they ground it down to the point where it stood on its own, right? You would think they had to have tested the piece before it finished going through the production process.

The thing was, this technique rarely worked: most vintage models I find with trimmed hooves still don’t stand properly – or at all. As is also the case with this Buckshot.

Either the workbench or carts where the prep work took place were also not level in some way, or they just decided at some point to shrug and say “good enough”.

I’m not sure if any work has been done on the mold recently to correct its tipping issue. The newest of my Buckshots is Monty Robert’s Shy Boy, from 2002-3, and I can’t recall if he was prone to being prone. All of my Buckshots are in storage, because I can’t have anything out right now that cannot tolerate a stampeding terrier.

I’m going to hope and assume that, being prize models and all, that the Diorama Contest Pele models will be upstanding citizens.

So Many Wishes

No Persimmon, and not worrying about it. Money’s running a little bit tight right now anyway. (Taxes, dental appointment, BreyerFest tickets, tags for the car….)

The Asian Delegate for BreyerFest has been announced, and it’s a glossy little something on the Make a Wish mold. Her name is Furano:

First, let me toss in my usual boilerplate about my mention of the mold last week and her appearance within the Breyer web-o-sphere this week being a complete coincidence. I’ve been meaning to do a write up about this mold for a while, as a follow up to the Brishen/Laredo piece. I guess that means the time to do so is today!

To continue… the mold is extremely popular now in all its various iterations, especially among newer hobbyists; it makes sense that Reeves would go with her over someone like Weather Girl. Every generation of hobbyists has its Arabian Mare, and for all the hobbyists (young and old) who are now doing their darndest to make this year’s Family Vacation is BreyerFest or nothing, it’s the Make A Wish.

Like the Brishen/Laredo mold, the Make A Wish mold comes with some interesting documentation challenges. With three different neck combos, and three different tails, there are nine different possible mold configurations:

• Neck Up, Swish Tail
• Neck Up, Fan Tail
• Neck Up, Long Tail
• Neck Down with Left Side Mane, Swish Tail
• Neck Down with Left Side Mane, Fan Tail
• Neck Down with Left Side Mane, Long Tail
• Neck Down with Right Side Mane, Swish Tail
• Neck Down with Right Side Mane, Fan Tail
• Neck Down with Right Side Mane, Long Tail

I haven’t quite worked out the categorization of the parts here, so I’m just using basic descriptors for now.

Of the nine (for now) different configurations, only five of them have been used for production pieces so far: all three versions of the Neck Up, and one each of the Neck Down-Left and Neck Down-Right.

Neck Up, Swish Tail: Furano, S Justadream
Neck Up, Fan Tail: Gold Raven, Oasis
Neck Up, Long Tail: Music Row
Neck Down-Left, Swish Tail: Make A Wish, Summer Love
Neck Down-Right, Long Tail: Burnham, OT Sara Moniet RS, Smoke and Mirrors

There was also an Auction Test Piece in 2009 – the year the mold debuted – of the Neck Down-Right, Fan Tail variety, but as far as I know that was a genuine one-off. I don’t have access to the factory or the warehouse (11.5 hour drive, peeps) so I don’t know if they have more of that particular body stashed away somewhere for future use.

(Oh, to nose around that warehouse for a day….)

I’ll definitely consider Furano if and once I get to see one independent of the PR shot; for now my thrifty heart belongs to just Dag Dia and Namid.

By the way, it is so nice to see the tide of opinion turning on Namid after BreyerWest! But more on all that next time.

And Now, a Regular Run Gambler's Choice?

Loose-Maned Newsworthy/Connemara Ponies have been found in the wild; apparently Reeves is doing a “Gambler’s Choice” with the two different versions, though I suspect the Loose-Maned will be scarcer, at least at first.

It’s nice to know that the option is out there, since the positive online response to Persimmon is making it less likely for me to get picked for one. (More people entering, more often = worse odds.) I’ve heard almost nothing but nice things about the paint job for the Connemara, too, so it won’t be a mere consolation prize when I find one.

While we’ve had simultaneously released finish variations (Gloss vs. Matte) for both Regular Run and Special Run items for a while now, simultaneously released mold variations are a relatively new thing.

This is because the ability to release multiple mold variations simultaneously is a relatively new thing.

But not a new-new thing. We’ve had separately molded and theoretically swappable parts on molds since the 1950s, primarily via the various “saddled” horses (Horse, Pony, Fury/Prancer, Western Prancer) and the cattle with their separately molded ear and horn pieces.

The closest corollary to the Connemara, I believe, would be the original Breyer Dairy Cow, who had unique horns or sets for its five different releases: Ayrshire, Holstein, Brown Swiss, Jersey and Guernsey. They were not always consistently placed, or done with the correct pieces, but the effort was made.

The Dairy Cow experiment ended after a couple of years, but not due to technical issues: being the most popular dairy cow breed in the U.S., the Holstein outsold all of the other Dairy Cow releases, plain and simple. So much so that many of the subsequent releases, reissues and Special Runs were some flavor of Holstein, like the Weber Scientific Cow:

The two-year production run for the other Cows (and Calves) was atypical for Breyer releases in the 1970s, but it’s fairly average for a release today. It’s a different market, requiring different marketing techniques, so I wouldn’t “read” too much into the length of the Connemara Pony’s run, one way or another.

Though I do think the release will get a little bit of a bump in sales, since a scarcely produced and previously much more difficult to obtain mold variation is now in the mix.

All I’m asking for is that it run long enough for me to find and procure one at a reasonable price. This might take a while, since my work schedule has not been conducive to pony shopping lately.