Always Room for Candy

It’s only Tuesday? 

While the extra money has been be nice, it’ll be nice to get back to my more normal schedule next week. I am also kind of bummed that it’s also prevented me from partaking in the extended BreyerFest access. 

It’s been a while since I formally considered myself a PEZ collector – it’s another one of those long and winding stories probably best told in person – but I had to buy this last week when I saw it in the checkout of a local Meijer’s:

My first thought: why is the unicorn facing the wrong direction? My second thought: your move, Reeves.

Pez is actually an abbreviation of Pfefferminz, which is the German word for Peppermint: that was the original flavor the candy originally came in. Even though Pez was technically an Austrian innovation, I would not be averse to having a Pez-themed Special Run for next year’s German-flavored BreyerFest.  

It’s probably as likely as a Steha-themed Special Run, though. I’m not normally a huge fan of Flockies in general, but I did pause for a moment when this delightful fellow showed up on eBay a little while ago: 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/274924618658?hash=item4002c8c3a2:g:bXYAAOSw4D9hKqst

I don’t remember them being that cute when I saw them being sold at the mall back in the late 1970s. Back then, I only had eyes for the Breyers on the other side of the store: it didn’t hurt that Breyers were also one third the price. Little did I know then that the company that imported Stehas back then would be buying and manufacturing Breyers a few years later! 

While I’ve contemplated adding a Steha or two to the collection for its historical value, the handful of vintage Stehas I’ve found locally have either been prohibitively expensive, or in pretty rough shape. I only hesitate now because I really need fewer fragile, breakable things in my life.

But getting back to the Pez idea: as I’ve discussed before, Breyer did sell Horse and Candy Gift Sets back in the 1950s – I call them Candy Packers – but they didn’t involve elaborate candy delivery systems, just cellophane-wrapped bags of hard candy slung over the body of the horse. 

And it was just the same candy that you’d find in your Grandma’s candy dish. About the only stuff in that mix I had much use for were the Strawberries and Raspberries with the soft, chewy centers. 

I have, on occasion, thought about doing a fantasy custom of a Breyer into a Pez dispenser: both the Forever Saige and the Family Arabian Mare have necks that could accommodate a modest supply of candy. But then I think about the dozens and dozens of other projects I currently have ongoing, and it gets put back into my “maybe later” pile.

I have a fairly important presentation to finish prepping for Thursday, so I’ll see you all again on the other side of that. 

Anyone remember Steha?

Another short one today - I’m in the final throes of a big, complicated non-horse, non-writing project, and I don’t want to lose my momentum. (It’ll be done today, and then I’ll move on to the next big, complicated non-horse, non-writing project. Yes, I do have way too many hobbies!)

Some hobbyists think that Reeves’ involvement in the wonderful world of model horses began in late 1984, when they acquired the Breyer brand. This is not so: prior to that, they were the exclusive U.S. distributor of Steha Horses.

I didn’t know this until recently, myself. A few years ago, I purchased a couple of Reeves’ Great Lines Catalogues on eBay. These books contain bound copies of dealer catalogs of all of the lines that Reeves imported and distributed. I found a Steha catalog bound in the 1981-82 edition.


I don’t have a lot of data about Steha in my archives, aside from this bound-in dealer’s catalog. Stehas were flocked and haired horses made in West Germany, and were available from the 1950s to (at least) the early 1980s. Here’s a link to a good-sized picture of one:

http://www.instappraisal.com/content/steha-horse

Stehas were never a big part of the model horse world, at least in the U.S. First of all, they weren’t very realistic: some were nicer than others, but none of them could pass competitive muster, even in the more forgiving earlier days of the hobby. Second, they were rather expensive compared to Breyers: the wholesale prices for Traditional-scale Breyers in 1981 ranged from $3-6; the wholesale prices for comparable Stehas were $14-19! Yikes!

Some Steha items did find a place in the hobby: their carts and wagons were surprisingly nice, and of much better quality than hobbyists were able to create for themselves at the time.


I remember at least one local toy store that carried Stehas in the 1970s, but I never actually owned one. Aside from being expensive and homely, I was never a big fan of flockies in general: they’re hard to keep clean, and they have a nasty habit of yellowing, shedding and disintegrating.

Stehas are rather expensive and hard to come by nowadays, presumably for the same reason. If I had known back then that they’d have a Breyer connection now, I might have parceled out a bit of my allowance money and bought one.