Christmas Lists

Well, I thought I was going to talk about the Roan Running Mares today, but there’s been lots of odd bits of news in the past few days that should be covered sooner, rather than later. 

First, it’s good to know I wasn’t the only one who got shorted on the Spooky Stablemates! It would also explain why the CSR I spoke to was unfazed about it. That makes me less worried about the whole situation.

Second, they finally confirmed the dates for next year’s BreyerFest; I know there were several folks out there worried about the dates changing after that initial announcement, but I think most of the delay was in getting the legal paperwork ironed out. 

(I’m not privy to any of that, but based on prior experiences, it seems like a pretty reasonable guess.)

I’m kind of hoping that their casual mention of Morgans in their BreyerFest ad copy means we’ll be seeing the Stretched Morgan next year, but it’s more than likely another release of Troubadour. Which I don’t mind, but my Stretched Morgan Army could use a few fresh recruits. I don’t think the mold has ever had a truly acquirable BreyerFest Special Run release, so he is due. 

(I am not counting Bennington or Showboat, because buying a Special Run should not require the sale of your kidney.)

And right after I put my foot down on my new pony purchases, Reeves casually dropped images of a ton of holiday merchandise, including a creepy-cool Winter Decorator Classic American Dream named Neva:

I’m pretty sure those zombie snowmen want to kill me. I wonder if this design got its start as a Halloween concept and was…slightly repurposed? I really dig the dark metallic blue and silver combo; it reminds me a little of the more blue-ish variants of the Sham release Rana. 

I will likely end up buying the Christmas Socks, because I’m always up for more novelty footwear, but otherwise I think I’m safe from temptation. 

As far as the Holiday Pony Playset goes, even though I am a big fan of the Pony of the Americas, I’d rather stick to the original version of the mold, rather than whatever goofy mane and tail wigs they’re putting on it now. 

It’s also extremely likely that I’ll never find the original Black Appaloosa POA or any of the 2010 WEG Toby variations, so the risk of a spontaneous shopping eruption is very, very small…

(And every time I say something like that, something magical inevitably happens.)

Always Room For Another

FYI: I made some changes to my links; more may be added in the future. For the record, adding the OMH link does not mean I am leaving Blab. As far as drama goes, it’s not a topic-specific problem, but a people-specific one. Same people? Same dramas eventually, whether it’s over politics, preferred brands of mustard or judging standards at NAN.

I am of the opinion that more forums lead to better forums. Heck, I’d start my own, if I had the time. My recent forum activity has been somewhat minimal lately because I’m (a) currently in the busy season at work, and (b) working on some other personal and professional concerns that are a higher priority now. I’m hoping most of what I need to get done will be done by the middle of the year, and I can get back to my more usual level of intensity.

And now back to the show.

From its earliest days, this mold has always been known as the Western Prancing Horse, or Western Prancer:

So to see this in the solicitation e-mail for the Vintage Club Two-Bits made me do a double-take:

Two Bits' glossy leopard appaloosa pattern is borrowed from the Western Prancing Pony, and the color has rarely been seen in the Breyer line since the 1960s.

Western Prancing Pony? The only recollection I have of this mold ever being called a pony is with the Red Dun #889 Ranger - Cow Pony, from 1994-1995. The WPH mold did "replace" the Fury/Prancer mold in the Breyer line ca. 1962, and the Fury/Prancer is ponyish in size compared to Breyer’s other horse molds then.

But the WPH is clearly intended to be horse-sized.

The part about the splash-spot nature of the Vintage Club Two-Bits’ paint job is true: it was a very rarely seen color even back in the old days, and best known as a color specifically associated with the Western Prancer. There was a brief renaissance of the color in the early 1990s, most notably with the release of two Special Runs - on the Pony of the Americas mold, and as a part of the BHR Balking Mule set - though in those two cases they were Matte, not Glossy.

It’s a color that’s also known for its great variability. Some have big spots or little speckles, many spots or only a few. The points vary widely too, from high to low, and from black to charcoal to light gray. You could spend a lot of time collecting many different variations of the Appaloosa Western Prancing Horse, and I have:

Always room for more!

One, Two, Three...

Head’s up: I was just informed a few days ago that the basement, where my office resides, going to continue being messed up through July and part of August. So you’ll be seeing more "scenic" photos here in the next several weeks.

I haven’t been online much the past few days; I’ve been spending most of my free time dealing with BreyerFest stuff. (My printer was possessed by demons yesterday. Grr.) All I’ve done online is skim the auction pictures, download the PDF of this year’s program, and do a few quick look-sees to make sure the model horse world hasn’t burned down while I was out.

Crazy things start happening the closer we get to Kentucky, you know, and I don't want to be completely out of the loop!

Like everyone else, the price on the Bluegrass Bandit Store Special Champagne Wishes gave me pause. I want her, badly, but $250 for a 350-piece Special may be just a bit too far for me; I was expecting something more in the $200 range. The pricing seems a little out of place, too, since everything else - except the Surprise SR - seem so modestly priced this year. (The Western Horse Gossamer is only 50 bucks?!)

I know they’re just trying to get a cut of that sweet secondary market cash, but I might just pass her up and stick to the danger-mystery-excitement of the Sample boxes.

I'm also a bit shocked that the piece count for the Surprise Model "Pop the Cork" is so high - 2700 pieces? Which works out to 675 pieces per color, though I am also assuming that those colors may  be split into Gloss and Matte. (If so, 550 Matte and 125 Gloss? Just wild guessing.) My first ticket isn’t until Friday afternoon, so I’ll have some time to decide if he/she is worth it to me.

Since I need to get back to wrestling for the soul of my laser printer, here’s a picture of my Mr. Chips:

He’s pretty! I wouldn’t mind seeing this colorway on anything, old mold or new.

My only quibbles are that (a) I would have preferred the loose mane to the braided, and (b) I’m a little disappointed he’s not the six-spot version! You know, like this:

I have no idea why Breyer made the earliest of the Leopard Pony of the Americas that way. As you can see above, I do have a splash spot Test Color of the original Leopard POA, and she has just a sprinkling of spots on the near side, too. So the sparseness of the spots was intentional.

Truth be told, I actually prefer few-spot Appaloosa patterns, but I’d rather have the whole horse be that way, not just one side. The six-spotted version is so odd that my only guess is that they might have based the pattern on a specific horse or reference photo.

Because you know how good real horses are at following the rules and stuff. Every time I see a real live Splash Pinto, my first reaction is always "Who dumped a couple buckets of paint on you?" Yet I'd still bid on the Splash Pinto Strapless auction piece, if I had that kind of cash to spend. (I don't.)

Blue Chips

It’s going to be a bit rambly today; dealing with more paperwork. I’m also trying to get a head start on my taxes this year because hokey smokes, I had no idea I sold so much stuff last year!

First, let me congratulate Vita’s distant cousin for winning Westminster yesterday.

http://espn.go.com/new-york/story/_/id/10441487/wire-fox-terrier-wins-best-show-westminster

"Her personality is she loves to kiss people and she connects with everybody," Rangel said.

That’s Vita, too.

As far as whether I’d recommend this breed to anyone, it depends. Aside from being adorable and incredibly personable, she’s also high-energy, bossy and a demanding little attention hog who likes taking long walks in blizzards. Like a cat, she only cuddles when she wants to cuddle, and sleeps where she darn well pleases. Which we all like (except for the blizzard part) but we can completely understand why some would not.

Anyway, back to horses.

When I opened up the e-mail for the Vintage Club Mr. Chips earlier this week, my first reaction was "Should I go ‘Ouch’ or ‘Moo’?"(My second reaction was "Time to start selling more stuff!")

Boy, Reeves has been throwing a lot of stuff at us awfully early this year.

My fondness toward the original Pony of the Americas release is well-known, so I will probably be getting him in spite of his slightly higher than expected price tag. I have a feeling that he may follow the same trajectory of another Web Special - the Rose Gray Smarty Jones release Riley - and become more popular and desirable after the fact.

I think a few too many people in the hobby gamble that way, though, and the problem with gambling is that most people lose, in the end. (Confession: I did eventually sell my Glossy Riley for a slight profit last year. My shelf space is limited, and it came down to either him or my Daytona, and I liked Daytona’s matte chocolatey Bay a little better.)

I could well be wrong with my assumption, and I’m okay with that. I’ll be buying him because I like him, not because I’m betting on any potential financial rewards down the road. That’s just the butter to my bread, if it happens.

It’s been said before, multiple times, because it’s true: you can’t go wrong buying what you like.

I have no opinion on the BreyerFest Special Run Andalusian Jubilee, in Gloss Silver Bay. I can say that I wasn’t all that impressed with the initial photos of Special Run Andalusian Galahad in 2005 either, but now he’s one of my office desktop horses.

Potsherds

This is how my October is going: on Monday, I accidentally picked up a live spider with my bare hands, and it wasn’t even the worst thing that happened to me on that day. Just the worst I can mention in public. (I don’t mind spiders, as long as they don’t invade my personal space. Or pretend to be a piece of lint sitting on my desk.)

On a more pleasant note, I did get a chance to see a Tractor Supply Special Dillon in the wild this week. He did have a couple of smudged spots, which is why he was probably still there. He might still be there, since due to some unwelcome schedule changes (October, see above) I am still way behind in the herd culling process here. No new horses until then, if I can help it, and if Reeves can hold off on the surprises.

One thing that I have managed to make some headway on is in the scanning of a big batch of vintage hobby photos that I received a few months back. There’s nothing groundbreaking or historically significant in what I’ve seen so far, other than a nice smattering of old customs and Chicago-era Test Colors. Most of the photos are either old photo show pix, or from the live show scene in the 1980s, full of goofiness like this:

Top that, NAN!

Even though there doesn’t seem to be any "there" there, I still think it’s important to scan and document everything. Sometimes you need a lot of bits of data to reveal a larger truth, and sometimes we have no idea what that truth is until we step back and assemble the pieces.

Years ago, in college, I took an "Intro to Archaeology" class, partly out of personal interest, but also to fulfill a Social Sciences credit. The professor (Who was a collector, himself! Not horses, though.) related a story about how they were on a dig and recovering potsherds - broken bits of pottery. Pottery is one of the better ways to date archaeological sites: either by its increasing sophistication, or by an already established history taken from similar sites.

Anyway, they were rushed for time, and they made the decision to recover just the decorated potsherds, not the undecorated ones. They were all mixed together, and they figured that the more decorated ones were either more interesting, or more representative of the culture, something like that.

Several months later, as they were reconstructing the potsherds back into pots, they realized that the reason why the plain and fancy potsherds were mixed together was because they were from the same pots. All they could piece together were the decorative bands around the pots, not the pots themselves!

Hence my reasoning behind my "scan/save everything" philosophy. Some of the more humdrum stuff may be important too, and we’re just not seeing the bigger picture yet.

There was one photo did make me do a double take during my scanning yesterday, though. Can you tell why?

(Click to see the much bigger photo, for the details.)

No, it’s not the fact that an Original Finish Alabaster Proud Arabian Stallion won big; it was the 1980s, and our "Arabian Stallions of Traditional Size" options were rather limited.

No, check out who’s standing next to rather nice Alabaster Proud Arabian Mare, in the back: it’s the infamously rare Special Run Black Blanket Pony of the Americas, with the striped hooves! Not an everyday sight - now or then.

(In case you were wondering, he’s one of the few models on my short list that I might actually hurt someone for.)

The second thing I noticed in this picture: the POA didn’t win her class. That’s almost as inconceivable today as a PAS winning a Breed class, but Collectibility was not as big a thing back then.

Yes, it played a part, but we were still at the stage where we weren’t quite sure what was and wasn’t truly rare, and how much that mattered. This was an era where it was still possible to have your Test Colors get beat at a live show by a horse bought off the shelf in an enclosed cardboard box on Friday afternoon before. (Handpicking? Yeah, right!)

Things were a little wilder, woolier and unpredictable back then, and it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some of the photos that were left behind, on the other hand, are debatable.

Stripes

I finally found one of my most coveted grails:


It’s the #154 "Bay" Blanket Pony of the Americas, with the factory striped hooves. It’s the version that appears in the Dealer’s Catalog and Collector’s Manual in 1979, the year it was released, as well as on the original version of the box it came in (which I also have, but can’t find at the moment.) Here it is in the Dealer's Catalog:


This is what a more typical Bay POA looks like, with dark gray-brown or black hooves:


You’ll notice that the color appears to be different too - it’s definitely darker and richer in the striped hoof version, with darker splash spotting. However, I haven’t seen enough of these variations to tell if this is an actual characteristic of this particular paint job, or a consequence of the natural variation that occurs over the length of production.

I had’t noticed much variation in the paint job of the Bay POAs before, but I it’s also true that that’s not the first thing I’ve been looking for when I’ve been looking at them. It’s those darn hooves that have transfixed me ever since I saw them on the darn box, ca. 1979. The Bay POA that came in that box - the same non-striped one you see above - was by no means deficient qualitatively, but it wasn’t the one I really wanted. I wanted the one with those cute little striped toes!

After several years of looking, I had become convinced that the striped hoof versions were, like so many other items seen in the catalogs and manuals of the times, preproduction or test pieces that were either long gone, or now beyond my reach. Those striped hooves, I reasoned, must have been deemed a detail that was deemed too fussy, or funny-looking, or too expensive for long-term production.

Then eBay came along, and I started seeing just enough of them to convince me that they may have been a legitimate - albeit very briefly issued - variation. Or possibly used on the original salesman’s sample pieces: I have noticed that salesman’s samples do seem to turn up on eBay with a greater frequency than normal, due to the very nature of the site.

In either case, I realized that my "grail" wasn’t completely unattainable.

Alas, I wasn’t the only one who was looking, apparently. I always got outbid or outmaneuvered, until now. Now I can exhale, and find another possibly-not-unattainable grail to obsess over now.

Toad

Finally, a good weekend! I was so excited about the magnificent weather, I had to suppress the urge to rip off my coat and run around the market grounds screaming for joy. Instead, I opted to go with giddily mumbling to myself, and buying random crazy stuff like bullwhips and auto shop name patches.

(I’m not kidding about buying the bullwhip. Next time, kids, next time.)

All told, I bought nearly a dozen horses: a few bodies, some decent vintage Regular Runs, and one okay Chalky - an Appaloosa Yearling with chipped ears. Nothing spectacular, but it did scratch that itch. I left a ton of stuff behind, too, including a few things I probably shouldn't have, but I was feeling good, and wanted share the joy with some of my fellow hobbyists.

Some of you have already met one of my "keepers", but he’s too good - or perhaps, too bad - not to share with the rest of the world. Meet my lovely little Toad:



At first I thought he had been the victim of a fire or some other sort of household incident, but when I picked him up and got a good whiff of him, I realized he was no accident victim: he was a Shrinky. Possibly the worst Shrinky I’ve ever seen. He’s not just shrunken, discolored, smelly and cracked, he’s lumpy: Lumpy and warty, like a toad!


Hence, his name.

I’ve seen some pretty messed up Shrinkies in my time, but this guy’s right up there with the worst of them. I’ve never seen lumpiness on a Shrinky like that before. Was it a consequence of the plasticizer pooling on the surface of the plastic? Was a "good" batch of plastic mixed in with a "bad" batch, with the lumps representing the unshrunken "good" bits?

I found him in a fairly large (60 piece) collection of contemporary (late 1980s-early 1990s: i.e. The Shrinky Era) pieces, most of them in good or better condition. There were a few other Shrinkies in the herd, but most of them were just smaller, smellier, and a little discolored - nowhere near the same horrifying level of deformity of my little Toad.

Some folks on Blab have speculated that something must have happened to Toad to make him this way, but I’m not so sure of that. It could be that like some people, he "lost" the genetic lottery, and just happened to get made out of a particularly bad batch of plastic, at a time known for that sort of thing.

He’s not oozing or weeping, at least not anymore, though I am hesitant to give him the "taste" test. I already suspect I got a contact high the other day from handling him so much. It’s not like I need to confirm what is already very obvious to my eyes, and nose. (Did I forget to mention that you can smell him a couple rooms away? That boy is pungent!)

Oh yes, he’ll be coming to BreyerFest this year; I’m thinking about setting up a little "kissing booth" for the Toadster and run some sort of fairytale-style promotion. "Kiss the Toad, and get a prize?" Hmm.

(Too bad I already have a great idea for the "Happy Endings" contest, because he’d make a great - and super easy - "Frog Prince" entry. Just set him up next to an unshrunken Rocky, with "Before Kiss" and "After Kiss" signs, and voila!)

The POA Pippin

I’m feeling completely antisocial today - a week’s worth of unpleasant news, allergies and insomnia will do that to you. So you’re getting another spotlight on another Fest purchase. This one is the 2009 UK Special Pippin:


I found him in the Pit, in a box with a "Racing Legends" backer and absent the "UK Special" sticker. He was correctly labeled on the front and back of the box, so I’m just going to assume that it was either a mistake that was set aside, or something cobbled together from spare box parts lying around.

It could have been a box sample of some sort, too. I’ve seen a few of those in the Pit before, and I’ve even bought a couple for my own collection. Unlike the Pippin, the boxes were rather obviously something out of the ordinary, and the models contained within were not exceptional in and of themselves.

This Pippin though - man, he’s beautiful. Immaculate too, except for a slightly bent front leg, which probably occurred during his brief stay in the truck while waited for my line ticket time. It’s an easy fix, whenever I get around to it. I’m still not crazy about that tail, but the rest of him? He just about demanded to be taken out of the box!

I have no idea if he’s representative of the entire run, since he was the only example of his kind I found in the Pit, and I never bothered to look at others at the Park or the hotel. I suppose I’ll have to look into the possibility of him being a sample or test or something, eventually.

I have set the box aside, with all its various ties and trimmings, just in case there might be more to the story. It’s not something I’d normally do: I’m about as anti-MIB as they come. I try to keep a representative sample of every kind of box and packaging, but unless there’s something rare or significant there, most of the modern boxes get trashed. They’re not very sturdy, and they’re just about useless for storage. I cut off all the relevant pieces, peel off the stickers, and then we have a parting of the ways.

I haven’t taken my All Glories out of their boxes yet, either. It has nothing to do with any added value the box might bring to the model. I just really, really like the look of the box - the color scheme, the graphics, the whole "package." Kudo to the designer or designers responsible for it.

More on the POA

I was going to follow up with more thoughts on the QH Gelding Surprises today, but I think I need a couple more days to ruminate on them; I'm not entirely happy with what I've written so far. (This will involve more weeding and quilting, I'm sure.)

I'll talk a little bit more about the Pony of the Americas mold, instead.

I still stand by my estimate of 750 pieces for the Toby: I saw the cases they came in and they were labeled “x of 125.” I saw no other boxes marked otherwise that would indicate an additional 1000 pieces that might have been a second shipment, unless they have plans for those additional pieces down the road. (Perhaps as Mattes?) That “1750” quantity doesn't even make sense: 750 pieces is a sensible and conservative 50% increase over the previous Traditional Store Special Magnifico. 1500 pieces I could have understood, too (that's a pretty standard JAH SR piece run) if a little overly optimistic.

I think we're being thrown off by this year's slightly lackluster sales: just because there were a significant number of leftovers doesn't necessarily mean that the piece run was high. It just means that hobbyists put their money elsewhere – in the Stablemates Sets, most likely, which even at a mere 500 pieces took until Saturday afternoon to sell out. At a significantly higher price, true, but with a bigger potential return on one's investment. (As many hobbyists probably realized, $100 for twenty SR Stablemates is practically a money-making machine in a box.)

The fact that they were boxed, and not bagged and wrapped, may have played a factor, too. Some hobbyists may have assumed from the visual evidence that he was a larger or open-ended run, not taking into account that a boxed model takes up more table space than a bagged model. I suspect if Reeves had labeled them – either on the box, or in a sign – with the piece count, we might have seen brisker sales.

I attempted to find my photographic evidence of the existence of the elusive SR Black Blanket Pony of the Americas I mentioned in passing on Monday, but it's still lost in my archives somewhere. It's probably for the best, though, since it wouldn't have been terribly impressive: it was dark, out of focus and kinda small. In other words, it was about as convincing as your average photo of Bigfoot.

I do remember what he looked like, more or less: he was painted just like the Bay Blanket POA, except in black. He had a small, splash-spotted hip blanket, and no other markings; I believe he had striped hooves also, but since I can't find That Darn Photograph, I can't be 100% sure of that.


(Just illustrative: nothing special about this particular guy, other than being a particularly nice example of a Bay Blanket POA from my herd. No stripey hooves, extra details or any of that. I'd love a stripey-hoof version, too, but I'm not holding my breath.)

Oh, how I wanted him so – and I still do. He was one of those mysterious late 1970s or early 1980s special runs that drove us all absolutely mad. Small special runs of every variety were popping up all over the country back then – and tantalizing rumors of others – but we often didn't know about them until a lucky collector happened to run across one at a tack shop or in a horse show vendor's booth. And by then, the original run would have been long sold out, usually into the general (nonhobbyist) population.

I still occasionally prowl around the usual web sites, looking for him. Even though he's actually quite easy to distinguish from the regular run POA Pantomime – who had an extensive blanket, blaze, stockings and tan hooves – I still hold out hope that (just maybe) enough collectors won't know about him, or won't notice the differences. I've lucked out before.

But so far ...

Toby and the Illusion of Rarity

We'll be back to our more-or-less normal, three-posts-per-week schedule starting today. As was patently obvious, neither my head nor my heart was into it last week. I spent most of my free time pulling weeds, quilting, and obsessively following San Diego Comicon coverage. (Still in shock over the fact that Marvel now owns Miracleman. And I SO wanted to see the sneak peek of the Jonah Hex movie ...)

Moving from that universe back to this one … here's another overlooked SR from this year's Fest: the Glossy POA Toby. (Don't read anything into the fact that he's still in his box: I just haven't gotten around to de-boxing everyone just yet.)


Even though he was newly-remodeled mold, and glossy, with an intricate paint job, of rather limited quantity, and less expensive than most of the other Fest specials, he didn't sell out. Normally, any one of those factors could have sparked a hobbyist feeding frenzy. But he wasn't rare enough, unusual enough, or exclusive enough: he got lost among the rarities available to the rabble this year at BreyerFest.

It's really a shame, because Toby is a really, really nice model with a beautiful paint job. It's almost Connoisseur quality: well shaded, with neatly stenciled spots, carefully striped hooves, eyepinks, chestnuts, the whole nine yards. All for only $35!

There were 750 of these little beauties available for general sale in the the Sales Tent (125 boxes, with 6 pieces to a box: 125 x 6 = 750.) That's about half of a normal JAH Special run, and 300 pieces less than the Line Special Cupcake, the gloss bay Newsworthy.

Oh, the mysteries of popularity! And to think, just a few years ago we were on the verge of breaking each other's arms to grab that last Peruvian Paso Magnifico. Maybe it's a good thing that we're not so hung up over the concept of Store Specials now: I think it's a great idea to have exclusive, Traditional-scale horse available for general sale in the tent. Casual or last minute attendees have the chance of getting something special too, without the expense or the bother of getting in the line.

I wonder, though, if the way the Tobies were sold may have affected the way other hobbyists perceived them: the thinking there being that they couldn't possibly be that rare if just anyone could walk in the store and buy them, right? (The topic of what makes a model “rare” I will leave for a future discussion, however.)

The Newsworthy “Cupcake” may have played a factor, too: some hobbyists may have found themselves looking hard at their budgets and flipping a coin to decide which of the two shiny new ponies to take home. Cupcake didn't sell out, either: in fact, only Gala, Sprinkles, the new Arabian Mare and the SM set did. Darn economy! (The Surprise QH Geldings would have sold out, too, if the “surprises” had launched properly, but I'll discuss that in another post.)

I don't know the status of the Tobies that remained unsold; they may just be held back until next year (like last year's SM-scale Tang Horses, which made a return appearance in the Tent), end up on Shopatron (like the Romanticos), or get dumped into future Grab Bags, if that program ever gets restarted.

I got a chance to see the UK Pippins, too – I'm a sucker for a nice bay roan, and he didn't disappoint in person. Unfortunately I was unable to escape my room at the HIN to procure one. My chorus line will have to remain incomplete for now, alas. (No, I don't have the no-one-can-find it Black Blanket Appaloosa SR, either – you know the drill: 'nother story, 'nother time.)

(And yes, I did make a cursory run through of the Tobies in the tent to check for random Matte Finishes. No dice!)

Just Say No. To Mullets.

Technical difficulties today. Sorry about that.

I got all excited the other day – I found another test color splash spot Pony of the Americas! Well, okay, he was in the 1976 Dealers Catalog and Collector's Manual, and I wasn't actually looking for him, per se. I was researching another topic entirely, and I just happened to notice that he wasn't the same pony on the white picture box. That's how research works sometimes: you make discoveries while you're busy looking for something else.

I already knew that the POA in the catalog was a test piece – I just assumed that the one featured in the ephemera was the same one that was on the box. Silly me, making assumptions again. (Alas, he was not the same fellow in my collection, either. So that means there were at least three of them.)

I'm not sure why I have this mild obsession with the POA: I remember when it came out in 1976, and there was just something about it that I really, really took a shine to. I think it was its unique appearance: roached mane, short tail, that leopard appaloosa paint job. The POA was no ordinary, generic pony!

Like everyone else, I finally managed to get a look (via the Internet) at a “live” version of the UK SR Pippin on the newly remodeled POA mold. They “updated” it with a new mane and tail. It wasn't necessary, in my opinion; my first reaction was annoyance. They took away the crew cut and gave him an equine mullet!

I don't like mullets. On horses, or people. (I don't have a preference for crew cuts, but on the right person, it works. If I had a preference, it'd be towards the Byronic. For both men and horses. Let's just leave that discussion ... at that.)

I know “big hair” is back in style, for both horses and people, but I never really struck me as either attractive, or practical. And just like people, some look good in big hair, and some don't. The mane is fine – the mold has a nice enough neck to pull off a short mane. But that tail is weird: it's not an improvement to me.

I'm already predisposed to buy the first two near-simultaneous SR releases of the POA in spite of the less than appealing tail – because of the roany paint jobs on both the UK Pippin, and the not-quite-sure-what-it-is Toby. I love roans! Speckled, freckled, or airbrushed, I'm not fussy. And I'd seriously trample people for a freckle-style black roan – you know, like the old-fashioned red roan paint job with big honking freckles, except in black.

And speaking of trampling people, rumor has it that the Toby is an in-tent BreyerFest store special, like the Porcelain Stablemate from last year. This little nugget of information, however, came in the form of a verbal comment from an unidentified Reeves employee: as I’ve explained before, that’s not the kind of information you can completely rely on.

(I’ve received neither a thumbs-up nor a thumbs-down from the powers-that-be to my attempt to organize the Ninja Pit of Death line last year. The issue has been brought to Reeves's attention, but I’ve heard nothing personally. Yet.)

Photo Shoots & Artist's Proofs

Just something short and sweet. I’m still feeling a little down today.

I thought I’d share a particularly handsome and treasured little dude here at my ranch: he’s a splash-spot test color for the leopard Pony of the Americas. I purchased him from the Nicklas sisters a couple of years ago at Breyerfest. Pam and Polly were very active in the 1980s, and had a reputation for having a rather fine collection. I have no doubts about his authenticity:


My guy is very similar to the test model that appears on the POA’s original white picture box, but he’s not identical. This is not surprising: as I’ve mentioned before, test colors were rarely unique, especially during the Chicago era. I always lusted after the model on the box - I was extremely enamored of the POA when he was first released back in 1976, and I had always hoped that I could find him, or a model just like him someday. So when I saw him, I knew that instant he was coming home with me. He ain’t mint, but I don’t care!


(I’m still very fond of the mold today, but I’m not so sure about that newly remodeled mane and tail. I’ll just have to wait and see one in person, I guess.)

I’ve always been very curious about the models that have appeared in catalogs, boxes and other promotional materials. Some of them are undoubtedly airbrush, touch-up or Photoshop creations, and therefore nonexistent, but some of them aren’t. Some we’ve been able to track down. The story about the 1981 Dealer’s Catalog test stand-ins for the Stock Horse Stallion is relatively well-known, and I have pictures of other known photo shoot models in Marney’s album, too.

I own a few other models that I have suspected of being photographic models - bought from certain folks, or under certain situations that make the notion seem at least plausible. I haven’t been able to confirm any of them, unfortunately.

I’m a little surprised that Reeves hasn’t taken the opportunity to label and sell their duplicate photo shoot models as such - at the Breyer Sales Tent, at the very least. Some of them are undoubtedly samples now residing in the sample room, but what of the rest?

They’ve been touting various "Artist’s Proofs" of the showier, more desirable specials as prizes, gifts and donations - some of whom I suspect were done primarily for photographic intentions. (I’m not entirely sure I like the term "Artist’s Proof": sounds like a bit of marketing puffery to me. If it’s a test, or a sample, or a preproduction piece, call it that: there’s no need to gild those particular lilies!)

That’s all very nice of them, but even the "proofs" of ordinary regular run models have some appeal to collectors. I have a Lady Roxana piece that I suspect might be one: I got her for less than retail - she is, after all, a Lady Roxana - but she still has a place of honor on my shelf next to the less humble treasures. Like my POA.