Nope, Not That One Either

Ugh. I feel like I’ve been moving in slow motion for the past several days. My back is definitely in a better place than it was last week, but getting anything extracurricular done – prepping a quilt for quilting, sorting out old mail, writing blog posts – has been an exhausting process. 

As you know, after several years of fruitless searching, I was finally able to find myself a Glossy Dapple Belgian. The search for an adequate Smoke Belgian still continues, however:

He wasn’t the main reason I bought that particular box lot – it was a good deal, and the majority of the models in the lot were not body quality, that’s why – but I was kind of hoping he’d be close enough. Nice shading, good pinking, no yellowing, snowy-white, beautifully executed eye whites and tail ribbons…

… but not quite nice enough for me to spend money restoring. Like all the other Smoke Belgians I’ve had in my life, he’ll probably spend several months here before moving along, like all the rest.

He’s not an especially rare model to acquire, but he is hard to find in good condition. Since he was primarily produced in the mid- to late-1960s (1964 to 1971, to be exact), the majority of them were specifically purchased as toys, not as collectibles: he’s a big, sturdy fella that I’m sure many parents assumed could stand up to some rough handling. 

And except for eartip breaks and rubs, they usually do! 

Smokes do seem more prone to rubbing than other paint jobs, too, which might have something to do with how they were painted in the first place: the paint was thinner and more lightly applied, and they were (except for a few Belgians on lamps) almost always Matte-finished. 

(By the way, the Smoke Belgian was never actually advertised as a Smoke: He is listed as a “Grey with white mane and tail” in all the known catalogs, manuals and other ephemera. Why that is, I have no idea. Just Breyer being Breyer, I guess.) 

Incidentally, I still haven’t gotten around to getting myself a Gibson; my work schedule hasn’t been very accommodating to casual shopping at Tractor Supply. That’s… probably for the best?  

I’m not in any hurry for either a Smoke Belgian or a Gibson: if anything, I need more excuses to sell more stuff, but until both my back and my work schedule clear up a bit more, sales are definitely not a priority.  

What is a priority, if it does happen? A vintage Chestnut Belgian with eyewhites! It’s been a couple of years since I’ve even seen one for sale, so I am not holding my breath. Catching my breath is hard enough, nowadays...

Chalky Western Prancing Horse

In addition to all the other things I have going on right now, I was also “gently” reminded that I needed to finish dusting, so I had to spent a good portion of my weekend doing just that. That set my self-imposed deadline for the latest writing project back a day, but at least I won’t have to hear complaints about the dust for another six months or so…

I’d also like to know how I ended up with three Test Color Shetland Ponies. I don’t dislike her, but she’s also not someone anywhere near my “Top Ten”, so me ending up with that many Tests on her is kinda weird. 

In my defense, I didn’t spend all that much on all three of them combined, and I do not pass by cheap Test Colors, no matter the mold or color. (Dear Universe: A Test Color Trakehner would be a very nice change of pace. I will also accept a Morganglanz.)

It occurred to me that while you know may quite a bit about the fact that a Chalky Man o’ War was my first Breyer model, you don’t know much about the second and third models.

I didn’t get them until the Christmas of that same year: they were a #46 Pacer and a #110 Smoke Western Prancing Horse. The Pacer himself is unremarkable: he’s just the standard release in Liver Chestnut, with a few minor marks because Pacers are notoriously tipsy.  

The Smoke Western Prancing Horse, on the other hand, is also a Chalky:

Since I never had to search for another, it took me a while to realize just how scarce Chalky Smoke Western Prancers were. I’ve tried getting the Palomino, and even scored a few, but the ones I found were not in the best condition, even for Chalkies, and then the market went boom and I’ve pretty much had to give up finding inexpensive, misidentified Chalkies since then. 

The scarcity of the Smoke is probably related to the fact that the Western Prancer was not a high-volume seller at the time, generally. While the Palomino did remain in production through 1985, the Smoke was gone by the end of 1976. 

This also explains why some Chalkies are easier to find than others. Newer molds and colors introduced during the Chalky Era (1973-1975) – like Brighty, El Pastor, and the Appaloosa Performance Horse – were better sellers than models like the Smoke Western Prancing Horse, something that had been around for over a decade and was near the end of its production run.

The Charcoal Running Mare

Today definitely a “crawl into my Batcave and hide” day: lots of issues at work, the national news was terrible, it rained all day so my garden was a swampy mess, and I’m still out of sorts to find out that Neal Adams died on my birthday. 

And yes, I am very familiar with that auction lot on eBay with the three probable Chicago-era Test Colors in it. In fact, I saw it a few minutes after it got listed and momentarily panicked as I searched (in vain) for a Buy It Now button!

Heck, I’d be happy buying everything in the lot except the Fighters and the Black Yellow Mount, but that’s not going to happen, so I’m just going to watch it like everyone else and wonder just how high it’s going to go. (Those Black Pinto Western Horses are Matte – kind of a rare variation, and one I’ve been looking for.)

I hadn’t expected it to hit $3000 this early in the game, but the market is insane right now. I wish it wasn’t so, but this is where we are. Lucky for the seller, though! 

Because you asked for it, here’s the Charcoal Running Mare with her now-matching foal:

The Mare is slightly semi-gloss/satin, and the Foal is very matte, but I am quite pleased how well they otherwise match!

Of the Mare, she’s nice but nothing remarkable by today’s standards. She’s also something that I probably overpaid for: I think you can get a comparably nice one today for about the same amount of money.

In my defense, I was a junior high school horse girl and history dork who was very excited at the prospect of getting an old and rare variation of a Breyer that was discontinued years before I even knew Breyers existed. 

Our choices of molds and colors were also significantly more limited than they are now. At that point, the only color I had ever seen the Running Mare in was the #124 Bay. A Charcoal variation of Smoke seemed so exotic!

I also bought her sight unseen. That’s just how we rolled back then. Most of the time things turned out… fine. Or at least not terrible. Live showing wasn’t as big a deal back then, and even models with obvious flaws – and sometimes, broken limbs! – could compete. 

A model in better condition was always better, yes, but finding old models of any sort was difficult enough. You made do with what you could find, and what you could afford. A couple of small rubs and rough seams? Still LSQ!

I can’t recall if I ever did live show her back in the 1980s. Collectability wasn’t its own separate category in the 1980s outside of Collector’s Classes. They were pretty similar to the Collector’s Classes at BreyerFest Open Show now, except that most collectors back in the 1980s worked on presenting a well-rounded collection, rather than organizing it around a theme or concept.  

Variations on a Theme

My Phineas arrived today and he’s… nicer than I expected! Definitely not as weird or goofy as I thought it would be. I still think they need to work on the technique a bit more before they try to issue it more regularly, but they seem to be heading in the right direction.

But let’s talk about another new arrival that I am much more excited about: my Charcoal Running Foal!

He came in a box lot of models of similar age, condition, quality and rarity, with that final factor being in the “not very” category. But everything else about them was superb: I really couldn’t have asked for a better group of vintage “commons” to buy, except for the price. (Not expensive, but you know I am also very cheap. Cheaper is always better!)

As I told you a little while back, I’ve been obsessing over the Running Mare and Foal, so when I saw this stunner in a box lot, I was smitten. One of my first in-hobby purchases was a Charcoal variation of the Smoke Running Mare, so finding a matching Foal for her has been on the backburner for a very long time. 

This was the first one I’ve seen that I seriously considered buying. Running Mares and Foals, like the Family Arabians, were primarily purchased as toys, not as Decorative pieces. Finding them in acceptable condition is a challenge, to say the least! 

Other than a minor (factory?) paint flaw on one hoof, this fellow is perfect. His color is rich and dark, and in spite of what the photograph says, his pinking isn’t faded or pale either. I just adore him! 

The rest of the lot was pretty awesome, too, but whether I keep them or not depends on me making some hard decisions: do I upgrade, or do I keep old favorites because they are old favorites? 

I’ll be pretty busy for the next month or so, so I might be able to kick those decisions down the road a little bit, or at least until the threat of BreyerFest looms.

Garage Sale Finds, Yay!

Earlier in the week I was going through my paperwork for the year thus far, and lamented that the “Nonretail” portion of my purchases – made at flea markets, yard sales, auctions and such – was pretty skimpy, and would probably remain so for the rest of it.

Then I did one of my intermittent searches on Craigslist and found a potentially interesting local garage sale that led to… these lovely finds!

Believe it or not, this is my first light, Nonchalky version of the #110 Smoke Western Prancing Horse. My first Smoke – my second model horse ever – was a Chalky variation I received for Christmas back in 1974. I’ve also gone through several Charcoal variations before settling (I think!) on the one I have now.

But a standard, actually “Smoke” Smoke Western Prancing Horse, or one I considered worth adding to my collection, had eluded me until now. I was kind of hoping to find a minty, New-in-White-Picture-Box one, or even an example with a Blue Ribbon Sticker, but this fellow with awesome pinking and original saddle and reins will more than do.

He needs a little bit of touch up work, but I’ll worry about that another day.

And well, you also know my fondness for vintage Red Roans. It’s kind of interesting that in spite of the Red Roan Running Mare’s relative rarity (produced only from 1971-1973) that’s she’s not considered more desirable.  

I think it’s a combination of two factors.

First, while she certain has her share of fans, the Running Mare is simply a less-collected mold than her 1960s contemporaries, like the Semi-Rearing Mustang and Fighting Stallion.  

Second, she’s come in so many Variations, Special Runs and even scarce Regular Run items over the years that the #119 Red Roan doesn’t even break the top ten in terms of rarity or desirability. Even vintage Test Colors of her are not especially difficult to find. (Still not cheap, though!)

Just about the only time you see the price of a Red Roan Running Mare hit the stratosphere is if it’s found in Showcase Collection packaging, or features an exceptionally beautiful or distinctive paint job.

Speaking of that, vintage Red Roans vary, a lot; I’m justifying keeping this pretty girl because aside from her original shipper box, she has finer freckling than my other Red Roan Running Mare, who also happens to have corn spotting. And a sticker that’s not really her sticker, but that’s another story.

All of the other goodies came along for the ride; they’re not things I normally collect, but I have a hard time resisting cute, little things.

The Expected, and The Unexpected

It’s interesting to me that of the two BreyerFest Raffle items, it’s the Duende North Star that intrigues me more – perhaps because it was slightly unexpected?

Only slightly – Straight Bet was one of the more popular items at BreyerFest last year. What I didn’t expect was that they’d follow up with another BreyerFest release of Duende a year later, also in a Glossy Solid colorway.

He reminds me of two previous BreyerFest releases: the 2011 Diorama Prize Model Happily Ever After, on the Justin Morgan mold, and the 2000 Raffle Model Showboat, on the Stretched Morgan mold. The previous I didn’t win, but the latter I did!

Will lightning strike again? Considering the two times I won the Costume Contest, both prizes were Solid Glossy Bays, it would be fitting and appropriate that the Glossy Dapple Gray North Star could be my second Raffle win.

But I don’t buy that many tickets, and I wouldn’t consider myself one of the lucky people who wins regardless of the number of tickets I buy.

Some folks seem to be a bit “meh” on his color, but like most of the recent solid releases, he’ll probably look amazing in person. It’s a modern, updated version of Smoke, but with Dappling, Gloss, and a Pearlized mane and tail.

(Yes, I know, there’s that Ranchcraft Gloss Smoke Belgian Lamp that proves that Gloss Smoke was once a thing! But it appears to have been a one-off of mysterious origins, so I still think the jury’s out on that one.)

North Star also appeals to me because I think I might have a marginally better shot at winning him compared to the Sunday Raffle pieces Valour & Honour, on the new (and not-yet-released) Premier Club Welsh Mare and Foal by Josine Vingerling.

That’s partly because that’s one that was… expected? A lot of hobbyists were speculating that this set would end up as a Raffle or Prize of some sort. The only really eyebrow-raising thing about them is that they’re Appaloosa.

Incidentally, both Raffle prizes are only tangentially related to comic books. Marvel’s Northstar was a Québécois superhero who was a member of the Canadian team Alpha Flight; Valo(u)r was a name Legion of Super-Heroes member Mon-el adopted after one of the team’s many reboots, though he’s since gone back to being Mon-el.

I doubt either one is intentional; Northstar’s never been seen on the big screen, and Mon-el’s stint at Valor was relatively brief.

A Smoke Western Prancer Hoof Variation?

The flea market was better for me yesterday:

Two more bodies, and a pretty decent Zippo Pine Bar. Good enough to consider keeping, but I’ll have the look at the budget in a week or two before I make that decision.

I’m also hedging a bit on the Quarter Horse Gelding, since he’s a “transitional/in-between” body – toned down muscles, but no tummy tuck – and I’ve always wanted to make a Suffolk Punch out of one. (And I just bought a fresh batch of epoxy. Hmm.)

The weekend was productive on a number of fronts. In the process of doing a bit of research on my Sampler, an interesting little something jumped out at me that I hadn’t noticed before. Notice anything unusual in this picture of the Smoke Western Prancing Horse from the 1963 Dealer’s Catalog?

His hooves are black! Typically Smokes have gray hooves. In fact, it’s what distinguishes darker Smokes from Charcoals, which have pink or tan hooves. I can’t recall ever seeing a vintage Smoke Prancer with black hooves.

The color Smoke debuted around this time – 1962/1963 – so it might just be a case of an early Test or Preproduction piece being used for the photo shoot. (Check out the fancy feathering on his mane, too. Sweet!)

It’s also possible that the photographer or graphic designer who put the catalog together might have done a little photo retouching, and assumed that the hooves were supposed to be darker. Or it just did it because they thought it looked better that way anyway.

I had “seen” this photograph before, multiple times, but it was usually a black and white photocopy I was examining. I alway assume that any odd color shifts I see in black and white copies are the result of the copier distorting the image. But as I was examining my color original –  researching another topic entirely – it became obvious that there was no distortion: those hooves really are black.

Yet another example of why it is so important to have access to original source materials, and not just copies.

As I said above, I’ve never seen a Smoke with black hooves – on the WPH or anyone else – so it’s likely just a Test. If one ever did show up, though, I would be all over that….

Commander

I feel like such a bad model horse mama. 

I can’t believe it took me this long to finally open up my Vintage Club Commander. The box got tucked up in the blind spot underneath my desk, and I almost completely forgot about him. I’ve been selling off a few odds and ends on eBay - nothing worth mentioning, just the kind of stuff that doesn’t seem to sell elsewhere - and as I was shuffling boxes around, I noticed his.

I had seen some comments here and there about his color being just a little bit off, and after having him sit on my desk for a few days, I think I can see it: mine definitely has a rosy tinge to him. Most vintage Smoke paint jobs have more of a blue-ish cast.

Reeves did try to distinguish the hoof color from the body color: early gray hooves (on all models that sported them) were black-based: black pigment, watered down. So, good for them for noticing that little detail.

Smokes and Charcoals, however, were not black-based - at least, not entirely. They both had a little extra "color" added to help distinguish them from each other.

Early Smokes, as I mentioned above, tended to have a blue tint: if anyone out there is a rock hound, think of the natural blue-gray color of slate or shale. Early Charcoals - until the late 1960s - had a definite brownish cast; early Mission Supply House and Red Bird sales fliers even went so far as to  describe the color as "Charcoal Palomino". It’s a term I believe originated with an as-yet-undiscovered Breyer price list or flier, and has also led me to speculate in the past that the color might have been an early attempt to recreate the color we now know as "silver dapple".

In the late 1960s, Breyer Charcoals switched to a more blue-ish (or at least, less brownish) tone, with the exception of some very late (possibly the last run?) of the Matte Charcoal Family Arabians, who are a distinctive dark chocolate brown without even a hint of black pigment on them.

Those late Charcoal Family Arabians are so different from the earlier Charcoals - even their hoof color is a near-fluorescent pink - that I’ve often wondered if they possibly might have been a Special Run of some sort. (I have no evidence of this, beyond the color being so off-spec.)

The shading is really nice on Commander, and they’ve managed to get most of the little details right - it’s just that the color is just a little bit off. I would have gone with a different ribbon color, too, but I’m just nitpicking at this point.

Blue Charcoal, Brown Charcoal

I took a well-deserved day off yesterday. I puttered around the house in my PJs, baked some cookies, got caught up on my teevee watching, and even worked up the courage to restart the biggest, scariest quilt project in my craft closet. (Google "Double Wedding Ring Quilt" and you’ll see what I’m getting myself into.)

I see the Cream and Cocoa sets are starting to ship. Very pretty! The price seemed a little on the high side to me; combined with my ongoing space issues, I decided to take a pass on these two for the time being. If I see them in the NPOD next year I’ll definitely reconsider, in spite of my reservations about the whole "Gloss Smoke" thing.

Ah, such is the power of Gloss Charcoal.

Although I’m not a big fan of online polls - they’re far too easy to manipulate - whenever there have been polls about Decorator colors, Gloss Charcoal always comes out on top, or darn near it. And it’s easy to see why: black is very dramatic, and gloss black? Doubly so!

Such was the selling power of Gloss Charcoal that it continued to be produced even after the transition to Matte finishes ca. 1967. Both the Fighting Stallion and Mustang continued being produced in Gloss until they were discontinued in 1970. And one model, the Running Stallion, was actually introduced in Gloss Charcoal in 1968. (If any of these three models exist in a Matte version, it’s darn rare. Or it’s a test color.)

The color did undergo a bit of a shift, however: later Gloss Charcoals are darker, blacker, and less dramatically shaded than their earlier counterparts. No less beautiful, I would argue, just different. Sometimes I refer to the two different hues as "Chocolate" and "Blue," though the only blue tinge detectable in the later, blacker versions is in comparison to the Chocolates.

As always, I speak in generalities: there are earlier Charcoals that are profoundly black, and later Charcoals that have a definite Chocolate hue. You see that tendency more in the Matte finish Charcoals than the Gloss, and with Family Arabians more than any of the other vintage Charcoals.

There’s even a variation of the Matte Charcoal Family Arabians that are very, very brown, with shocking hot pink hooves. I suspect that they are very late variations, possibly among the last batches produced; all of the ones I’ve seen had the characteristics of models produced in the early 1970s (the mold marks, the trimming idiosyncracies, the painting style, etc.)

I’ve cut back considerably on my variation addiction, but the Matte Chocolate Charcoal Family Arabians are still on my want list. It’s just something about that color combo that tickles my fancy. (I've been watching way too many home decorating shows, I'm sure that's it.) But they've been darn hard to track down.

It’s not that they’re particularly rare, but that they’re Family Arabians. Aside from the condition issues that plague these models, most hobbyists don’t pay that much attention to Family Arabians generally, especially the matte-finished ones (except the Five-Gaiter Sorrels) and don't bother making note of their variations, outside of chalkiness or mane wisps.

The brown variation is also pretty hard to photograph accurately. Here's a Chocolate Charcoal FAS I picked up at the flea market recently; even with some extensive color correction, the brownness of coat isn't readily apparent:


Stand him next to a standard Matte Charcoal, in natural light, and you'd swear they were from completely different releases. But all the hot chocolate in the world isn't making me go outside to take that picture today, nuh-uh.

Where's There's Smoke, There's Charcoal

I don't know what's up with the Cream & Cocoa Grazing Mare and Foal Set seen in the the JAH banner ad on Blab, either: my suspicion is that it's an end of the year JAH Special, probably (hopefully?) a Gambler's Choice, like so many of them have been lately.

This is purely speculation on my part: the twist here, I'm thinking, is that you could get any one of four different combos: Charcoal Mare with Smoke Foal, Smoke Mare with Charcoal Foal, Charcoal Mare with Charcoal Foal, or Smoke Mare with Smoke Foal. Four different possible combos, yet only 4 different models total: if you're lucky, you'd only have to buy two sets to get them all.

Breyer did offer these mixed combos before: back at the dawn of Breyer Time (1962-1964, to be precise) you could get mixed Running Mare and Foal sets: you get either get a Smoke Mare with an Alabaster Foal (352), or an Alabaster Mare with a Smoke Foal (351.) The Smoke Mare/Alabaster Foal combo were even used to illustrate the Running Mare and Foal in the Dealer Catalogs back then.


Other combos were available, too, but aside from the Decorators, none of them had unique numbers assigned to them. (If you wanted a “Chestnut” Running Mare and Foal combo, you'd have to write the number 124-134 on your order form, instead!)

Grazing Mare and Foal Sets were briefly available in 1965, and also came with their own unique numbers – 1411 for the Bay, 1422 for the Black, and 1433 for the Palomino – but I have no evidence to suggest they were orderable in mixed combos.


Again, this is purely speculation: with the Cream & Cocoa, they could simply be offering the single set, or maybe just the two different Smoke and Charcoal combos, or whatever. All we've got is a brief, tiny glimpse in a banner ad to go on. I don't know any more than the rest of you on this matter. Heck, the picture is so small, the Smoke might actually be a Honey Palomino! And if that's the case, the “Cream” part of the “Cream & Cocoa” name would make a little more sense.

By the way, there are no true vintage Glossy Smoke models: actually, it's probably better to say that I haven't seen any Gloss Smoke models I could conclusively call authentic. I've seen a handful of Gloss Charcoal models that could possibly pass for a somewhat-dark Smoke, but those are pretty uncommon. It is exceedingly common for a Smoke to be dark enough to pass for Charcoal – common enough that there's often little additional value attached to that variation.

It's probably a little too much to hope that they make the rather nuanced distinction in the advertising between a reproduction of a vintage Decorator color, and a Decorator color done in a vintage style. (And for the record, yes, the VRE Silver Screen Andalusian in Gloss Smoke bugged me a little, too – I don't want hobbyists going off on wild horse chases for models that don't exist. There are enough impossible-to-find rarities out there as it is.)

Ah, well, we'll find out soon enough.