The Secondary Game

Oh look, another Special Run that sold out before I even knew it was up for sale!

You know, kind of like Fabio last year. That I still haven’t gotten yet because, aside from life in general, I don’t like doing the secondary market on brand new models. 

This is getting… tedious. 

You know, I wasn’t all that into the Frame Overo/Picture This vote thing for BreyerFest last year to begin with – heck, I can’t even remember who I actually voted for, out of the choices given – but it sure as heck is annoying to have another Collector’s Club Special come and go without even being given the opportunity to decide.

Something needs to be done about this. I mean, the secondary market for everything is so bad right now that if something’s not an open-ended regular run item, I now basically have only a matter of hours – if that – to decide if I even want it. And that’s if I’m lucky enough to find out about it in time. 

And you know I don’t play the secondary game, sorry. I don’t like to reward what I consider bad behavior. Anyone who has ever been owned by a terrier knows that all it leads to is more bad behavior.

It’s not that big a deal, again. But if this nonsense keeps up, eventually it will be. 

In a sense, it already has: I’m beginning to care somewhat less for more modern Special Run releases, especially on more modern molds. 

If this had been a Stud Spider, for instance, this would have been a much different conversation. 

A couple of months ago I was fantasizing about what kind of offbeat Test Color I’d “gift” myself if a “Design Your Own Test” opportunity ever actually came up and they told me that my Lemon Yellow Palomino Man o’ War and Wedgewood Blue Polled Hereford Bull (with pink hooves!) were definitely not possibilities. 

Okay, fine then, then give me a Blue Roan Frame Overo Stud Spider, but make sure the Blue Roan part is freckled like the vintage Red Roan. 

And while we’re at it, give him those goofy 1997 bi-eyes, because why not, right? I’ve seen some of the “creations” other people have come up with: bi-eyes and old-fashioned freckle roaning on a Stud Spider is pretty tame in comparison. 

I really don’t try to be the weird child in my play group. I just am. 

Anyway, peace out: I’ve got some edits to obsess over. 

Trying to Summon the Lightning

For lots and lots of reasons I’d rather not get into, I am going to pretend that Volunteer Models didn’t exist this year. (Not that I particularly love the mold, but…  yeah, let’s not go there. Be happy with my Glossy Surprise and move forward.)

Recent BreyerFest Nonhorse Special Runs haven’t been much to my liking – and I was baffled by the inclusion of a Spanish Fighting Bull in the French-themed year, when there were so many more appropriate (and less controversial) options available – but I am quite delighted by this year’s edition Hamish:

Take a boring but competent mold that’s been out of circulation for a few years and give it a snazzy, shiny makeover!

As I’ve said before, I would have been happy if they had just given him an updated version of his original Solid Black paint job, add some shading, hoof and facial detailing, and wrap it up in a Gloss Finish. But Hamish in all his sparkly, splashy, glittery glory is more than fine!

This has gotten me to thinking. Who else is a boring but competent mold who hasn’t seen a lot of action lately? And who would definitely benefit from a sharp modern update?

(FYI: Not a typical Stud Spider.)

Stud Spider! We haven’t seen much of Spider in the past ten(!) years; the last time we saw him as a production piece was Stetson, a very nice Dun Micro Run (24 pieces) for the Lone Star Experience in 2009.

As for whether or not there’s a market for a new Stud Spider release, all I have to do is point to one of the Regular Run releases that immediately preceded Stetson: the #1236 Banjo in Buckskin Tobiano Pinto. He ran a remarkable five years as a part of the My Favorite Horses Series, from 2004 through 2008. That’s longer than his beloved original pinto release – the #88 Overo Pinto, that only ran for three years, from 1979 through 1981.

I was thinking a minimal frame overo would be nice (Blue Roan, or Sooty Palomino?), but the Collector’s Club “Picture This” Sweepstakes – where we had to choose one of four different molds to appear as a Special Run Frame Overo next year – tragically did not include Stud Spider as an option.

(I would have voted for him instead of... gosh, I don’t even remember now! Was it Latigo?)

So, not likely.

But stranger things have happened, and maybe whatever magic I seem to have at my disposal here might help make another Stud Spider happen sooner, regardless.

Stud Spider Trophy

After nearly three days of continuous gardening, I am hurting in places I didn’t realize it was possible to hurt. And I am okay with that.

I still have a ton to do, but other tasks await and holy carp, it suddenly turned into Summer outside. (For the record: I like it hot, but I see no need to work myself into a trip to Urgent Care, especially nowadays.)

Here’s one of my latest binge purchases, a Stud Spider Trophy:

The #66 Stud Spider, like the #48 Black Stretched Morgan and the #47 Traditional Man o’ War, is another one of those releases that sort of multiplied on me while I wasn’t looking. I think I have… six or seven different Stud Spider variations now?

Almost enough for a Collectability Class entry, on its own!

So what did I do? After (obviously) not getting chosen for the Wedgewood Blue Stud Spider Test Color a few months back, I decided to be proactive and go looking for another Stud Spider or two to add to my herd.

The Trophy had been sitting on eBay for a while, and I finally decided to pull the trigger and bring him home earlier this month. Most Breyer trophies – outside of the occasional Sales Rep award that makes its way to the secondary market – are aftermarket jobs, and this is also the case here.

A moderately well-known one, at that. I don’t know how many of these were awarded, but it was definitely at least a handful.

I’ll still need to reacquire a decent #859 Family Appaloosa Stallion – a Bay Appaloosa Stud Spider using the original painting mask – and, eventually, a Test Color of some sort that also uses the original painting mask, like this slightly different Bay one:

It doesn’t have to be that one, though. I remember seeing other Test Stud Spiders back in the day in other colors, and I ain’t fussy. Just cheap!

Wedgewood Blue Stud Spider

I love him and I want him:

I am assuming that he was a Test Color for the 2006 Treasure Hunt Lady Phase in Wedgewood Blue, since the color and the eye details are similar, as are the molds themselves.

This raises all sorts of questions about those Golden Charm Appaloosa and Honey Bay Lady Phases and the 2013 Mother Lode models, too. Ones I’ll set aside for now because I’m elbow deep in tax paperwork today and I promised myself I’d get that done by the end of the weekend.

The online discussion of this particular Test Color is a little frustrating, but not entirely unexpected: an entire generation of hobbyists have grown up assuming that what they see in BreyerFest Benefit Auctions (and donation pieces to hobby events/organizations) are Test Colors, when most of them are more akin to Factory Customs.

(Not all, but the percentage does vary from year to year.)

Most of the Test Colors featured in the earliest BreyerFest Auctions – particularly the ones in the 1990s – were actual Test Colors, featuring strange or unappealing colors on molds now considered undesirable.

As their stable of molds and color techniques improved, so did the auction pieces, and their prices, thus creating the crazy feedback loop we have today. Something that’s both (or neither) a good thing or a bad thing, but again, a topic for another day.

So now Reeves offers up something closer to the actual nature of a Test Color – unapologetically and unequivocally an experiment, dings and all – and this has been deemed unsatisfactory by a lot of hobbyists.

As someone who owns multiple Test Colors with issues (a three-legged Dapple Gray Family Arabian Mare, a bloated Bay Stormy, a Sorrel Classic Quarter Horse Foal with about 300 rubs) condition is not an issue for me. The price is not terrible, and his provenance is fabulous: I’d love to have him live here. He’d make an especially nice companion to my 4-stocking Stud Spider variation!

That’s not my decision to make, unfortunately. Stud Spider does have his fans, enough to make me wonder why he hasn’t been a part of the Vintage Club program, except as a color inspiration to the Man o’ War Storm. 

Incidentally, I’ve decided that my next big Breyer “Grail” is going to be one of those early funky BreyerFest Auction Tests. Someone put up a 1990s Morganglanz on eBay a few years back for a not-at-all terrible price, and I’m still kicking myself for not buying him.

My Three Emmas

And for a few brief glimmering moments, my Emma collection is complete….

… except for the one BreyerFest Auction Test Color, at least one Sample that I know of, and any inevitable Prize or Raffle models that are probably in the pipeline because we know how that goes.

But, it’s still pretty remarkable to be able to keep up with all the (technically) available releases of any mold for over four years.

It helps that she’s not insanely popular, and has had only three releases since her introduction in late 2015. And that I was lucky enough to attend Chasing the Chesapeake in 2016 to get a Black-eyed Susan first hand.

Everyone else was gunning for the Brishen Sagamore Rye or the Shire Testudo, but the heart wants what it wants.

With more popular molds like Silver or Othello, the sheer number of releases overwhelms all but the most resilient of hearts, minds and budgets. And with molds like Esprit, you were pretty much out of the running before you even got past the starting gate.

Actually, I was just thinking about this a few days ago: for collectors, most (but not all) Breyer molds that debuted from the mid-1970s through the mid-1990s are not particularly challenging to collect. Sure, most have one or two really tough ones – the Pluto has the “stealth” Spiegel Special Run in Dapple Gray, the Stud Spider has Stetson, and even Morganglanz has Brigadeiros!

But being able to get most of the way there without emptying your bank account – and in the meantime possibly being able to save up for the one or two that just might! – is a not unappealing collecting strategy. One that I’ve been considering as I mull over what I might want to add to my BreyerFest want list this year.

Now that I have somehow, inexplicably, found most of my Man o’ War grails.

Boring, But Competent

Another busy day of stuff and things. Some stuff I wanted to get done this week got done, some of it didn’t, so here’s another exciting Special Run from the 1980s to thrill and amaze you while I vegetate in a corner of my office:

Yeah, it’s no Glossy Appaloosa Halla: it’s the 1986 Bay Stud Spider, who was an early gift with purchase model. (Yup, we had them back then, too.) You had to buy $30 worth of stuff from the mail-order company Your Horse Source to get him.

(That translated back then to about three Traditional Adults, or four Traditional Foals or Classic Racehorses.)

He’s pretty standard for a 1980s Special Run: a flat Red Bay, airbrushed markings, a bit of shading on the nostrils, on a competently executed mold doing nothing in particular.

That really is the definition of boring, isn’t it?

To be honest, we weren’t all that excited back then about him either, but our choices were more limited then – fewer existing molds, fewer releases per year, etc. – and he was technically free.

While he’s no Stetson – or even a Smooth Copper – of all the models I’ve bought and subsequently sold over the years, he’s still here. So that’s saying something about the power of boring-but-competent.

(There’s also a story. Most of my models have stories to them, but this one is rather mortifying and probably best left off the Internet. For now.)

Even though they made about a 1000 pieces of him, he’s not all that common to find – partly because he is boring, and also because I suspect the full complement of 1000 pieces might not have been made/sold, either.

Larger piece runs like that were usually reserved for bigger mail-order operations like Sears and JC Penneys, for JAH Subscriber SRs, or as an item that was available to multiple mail-order companies simultaneously. A thousand pieces for a modest mail-order operation out of Wyoming? It might have been a challenge.

Another Oddball Stud Spider

Something short today. Work’s been running late this week and my brains feel like mashed potatoes right now.

In spite of my best intentions, I bought a horse this week. You can totally see why:

It’s a Stud Spider with two socks!

Like the #48 Black Morgan, the original Stud Spider release was prone to variations. I’ve seen multiple blanket variations, gray hooves, black hooves, missing stars, and oh goodness, the socks.

Right fore sock, left fore sock, four actual socks, no socks at all? Seen them all before, and own most of them. And now, another! As with the Morgan, an alarming number of Stud Spiders variations have turned up on my doorstep over the years. Few are turned away.

Most variations from the right front sock “norm” were incidental, occurring randomly within day-to-day production. (The four-sock version was allegedly a one-day production error.) They show up in the market with varying frequency; the left front sock variation seems to be the least difficult among them to find.

This two stocking combo is something I haven’t seen – or even had heard of – before. That’s saying something, coming from me.

It’s possible that he was some sort of Chicago factory employee “Take-Home” model. I have good reason to suspect it: it’s from the same Chicago-area seller on eBay who recently sold that oddball Palomino Family Arabian Mare with the Black mane and tail for over $1000.

That particular kind of oddball is actually semi-common: it seems to have been a thing back for employees back then to touch up botched Palominos Culls into quasi-Buckskins. Or even as production salvage jobs: every once and a great while I see a “Bay” Grazing Mare or Foal that suspect started life as a Palomino.

(“If we put black points on this we can totally pass this off as a Bay, right?”)

Some Early Speculation on 2018

According to a flier now circulating the Internet, next year’s BreyerFest Celebration Horse is going to be Brass Hat, on the Carrick mold: http://www.brasshat.us

That’s pretty much what I expected the Celebration Horse to be: a former racing Thoroughbred now living a very active retirement. On the Carrick mold!

While it feels a little unusual to get a picture of the prototype this early – nearly two months before tickets even go on sale – it shouldn’t. When you think about all the Special Runs they have to crank out in time for BreyerFest (lately they’ve been averaging about 30 distinct releases, not including the Gloss Prize Models), it only makes sense that they’d get the ball rolling as soon as possible.

Other than thinking about non-Thoroughbred racing breeds – Arabians, Standardbreds, Appaloosas, Quarter Horses, Orlov Trotters, Finnhorses et al – I hadn’t given much other thought to what we’ll be seeing in Kentucky next year, until now.

What would I like?

A Pacer, of course: preferably in a Roan or Tobiano Pinto. Gloss Dappled Black would be pretty sweet too, but I’d take that paint job on almost anything.

I’d also accept a new release of Sarah Rose’s popular resin Hambletonian.

I really, really want an Orlov Trotter of some sort: twelve-year-old me found them so exotic and pretty, and even now I still pine for one. I don’t know what currently existing mold would be most suitable however, and this is one release where I would definitely have to go picky on the execution of the dappling.

While we’re likely to see an Appaloosa in the Surprise SR mix, something that honors or commemorates Stud Spider in some way would be awesome: not only was the real horse a racing Appaloosa, it’s the mold’s official 40th anniversary next year. (Well, technically: the Gift Set was available in the 1977 JC Penney Christmas Catalog.)

A Reissue of the Sham would be fun too, especially if it comes with a Grimalkin on a Companion Animal cat. Sham is popular, the Companion Animals are popular, and the Dally and Spanky set was a big hit this year. And if the Sham comes in the correct shade of Golden Bay, even better.

Alternatively, they could just give us a Grimalkin release on the Kitten mold as the Nonhorse release! Or maybe a “Barn Buddies” Store Special Gift Set featuring one of the cats, one of the dogs, and the Goat.

I don’t know what they’d do for a Quarter Horse release. The first thought that entered my head was a Smarty Jones, since I believe the mold was planned as a racing Quarter Horse in the first place. Put him in a pretty Dilute or Dun, and I would totally be on board.

On the other hand, I could go on forever about potential Thoroughbred releases. Some of the releases I’ve fantasized about include a 12-piece Stablemates set featuring all the Triple Crown Winners, an Ageless Bronze Traditional Man o’ War to commemorate the statue at the KHP, or something honoring the famous Hungarian racehorse Kinscem.

Oh, and I want to see a return of the #36 Racehorse: in almost any color, I don’t care. They could use up whatever bodies they have left knocking around the warehouse, and that should cover the 12 to 15 of us who’d actually want one. (Gold Charm/Gold Chestnut would be great. Just putting that out there.)

The last larger-scale production BreyerFest Special Run on the Ruffian was 2007’s very popular Gloss Appaloosa Heartland. She would be my first choice as the Surprise Special, with either Giselle or Strapless as my second choice.

We’ll also likely see at least one SR on a recent Premier Club release, so I hope that’s True North. I’m not too fussy on the color or finish: I find him adorable and all of the existing releases are utterly unaffordable.

So that’s what I’d release, if I were in charge. Maybe add in a racetrack/companion pony into the mix, and another hunter/jumper for the OTTBs.

Whether or not we get any of this is another matter entirely. My prediction track record (no pun intended) has not been so great lately.

Getting It All Done

I am just having the hardest time finding the time and motivation for this year’s NaNoWriMo novel. Even though I technically have what most people would consider to be an ungodly amount of free time on my hands (because of the slow work season), it isn’t, actually.

It’s all nonfrivolous work, none of that "alphabetizing canned vegetables in the pantry" stuff that desperate writers turn to when the words don’t work. It includes, among other things, taking care of a high-maintenance dog, helping a coworker build a web site, helping with the Copenhagen Belgian auction, trying to get my own auctions listed, last minute work assignments, fighting the crowds at the last big rummage sale of the season, sorting and inventorying that paperwork…

Even so, I’m not that far behind - maybe half a day’s quota off. And I really don’t even have to leave the house the next couple of days if I don’t have to, so catching up - or getting ahead of myself - is theoretically possible.

A picture’s worth a thousand words, as the old saw goes, so I offer to everyone a photograph from the archives that truly lives up to it - and which is providing me with some unexpected motivation, as well:

It’s a photo from May 1977, of Chris Hess working in the shop. It’s probably partially "staged" - it was part of a group of photographs taken for the Spring 1977 issue of Just About Horses - but still, take a closer look at everything going on here.

The lumpy blob in his hands is that of the Benji, being prepared for the moldmaking process; on the table and off to the side is a Charolais Bull, possibly being used as a reference point for the Standing Black Angus Bull, which would come out the following year. Multiple photographs and other reference materials cover the table - some for the Black Angus, obviously, but also for the Stud Spider, another late 1977/early 1978 release.

Other photographs in the set show him fiddling around with the molded halves of Stud Spider, and of another project he was working on at the time, which was apparently repairing a crack in the Longhorn Bull mold. Other molds that were making their debut around this time - but not seen in this set of photos - included Tiffany, San Domingo, the Galiceno, and the Rough Coat Stock Horse Foal.

And he had the nearly completely sculpts of the Legionario and the Andalusian Family ready for approvals by January 1978.

"Get" the picture now? The man was busy!

You can understand, then, when it raises my hackles just a tad to see hobbyists dismiss Chris Hess’s work as lightly as they do. In the space of a year and a half, he casted or sculpted nearly a dozen molds, largely by himself, many of which are still staples in the Breyer line today.

Every time I’ve found myself getting discouraged by my work load over the past several days, I look at that picture and think: Get it done, get it done. Find the time, and just get it done.

Making a Fashion Statement

The past few days have been remarkably pleasant.

The weather finally broke, making the daily doggie duties a little less frightful; I even saw a pair of bluebirds during our walk yesterday afternoon. I also sold a few horses (yay, money!), finished those two malingering sewing projects, baked those scones, caught up on my sleep, and bought a few packets of flower seeds, just because.

(Nothing fancy or exotic: Zinnia, Columbine, Coleus and Hare’s Tail.)

I finished up the last crunchy bits of my 2010 paperwork, too; I thought I was done with it, but there was still a little bit of printing, hole punching and collating to be done. And now it is.

Today’s model horsey thoughts turn to my favorite Stud Spider variation, the one with four stockings:


There are a lot of different variations of the Stud Spider - left sock, right sock, no socks, differences in the blanket masking - but the four stocking version is probably the most distinctive. More casual collectors sometimes fail to appreciate the charms of the more subtle variations of this release, but this fellow is a little harder to overlook. Isn’t it something that the simple addition of three more stockings can make him look like another release, entirely?

But he’s not - rumor has it that he was the result of a little mix up in the factory, way back when. Exactly when, I do not know: mine came with his original brown picture box from the early 1980s, so if I had to hazard a guess, it’d be a little bit earlier in his modestly long run (late 1977 through 1989) than later.

I bought mine on eBay a few years back - I paid a little bit more for him than I wanted to, but I had missed out on a couple of them prior, and by then I had become a little obsessed with it. The price wasn’t really all that much - a little more than retail, I think - but I’m someone who does most of her horse shopping at the dirt mall. Anything more than "body price" feels like a rip off!

(Which makes that disturbingly popular "$1000 horse" thread on Blab right now completely alien to me. I had no idea that conspicuous consumption had become acceptable again.)

I’ve seen a few more since then, including one I bought for a friend at BreyerFest last year, but he’s definitely on the uncommon side. He’s more uncommon than many better known variations on more popular models. I’m sure he’ll catch on eventually; I’m just glad I got mine before he’s become fashionable.

Stud Spider's Wraps

Hey, look what I found in the rubble - my Stud Spider leg wraps!


These wraps came with a nice old Stud Spider I bought on eBay a few years ago. I’m pretty sure he was actually one of the original 1977 Gift Set releases from the J.C. Penney’s catalog; the model has all the hallmarks of an early piece - the more intricate blanket masking, and a neatly airbrushed short sock. (The original release of the Stud Spider has quite a complex series of subtle and not so subtle paint and masking changes - intricate enough that I’ll have to cover them another day.)

Here’s the picture of "Stud Spider" in his rocking red wraps, from the 1977 catalog. Note that the model isn’t actually Stud Spider, but an Appaloosa Performance Horse test piece stand-in. I’m guessing that the mold still wasn’t ready when the catalog photo shoot took place earlier that year.


The 1977 Christmas release was the only set where the leg wraps were actually included as a part of the Gift Set. They had been planned all along; they were specifically mentioned in the Spring 1977 issue of JAH, in an article discussing Stud Spider’s imminent release:

The sculpture of "Stud Spider" has been completed and will be available in a Breyer gift set. The set will include an informative booklet on Appaloosas and leg wraps for "Stud Spider". Look for "James Brolin’s Stud Spider" this Fall.

But they were not included in the subsequent mass market version of the #3080 Stud Spider Gift Set in 1978.

Why were they canceled? Was it a quality control issue, a safety issue, or simply one of cost? I have no idea. They’re pretty cheesy looking, so quality control is my bet.

Whatever the reason, it was obviously a last minute decision, because the leg wraps did make their debut later in that year - separately, as a special offer through the Spring 1978 Just About Horses. (The very first issue I received as a subscriber!) They were subsequently available through the Bentley Sales Company, and possibly other mail-order firms. I remember them being available for a number of years afterwards, so they obviously had a ton of them.


Yes, I was a dork and ordered a set, though I’m not entirely sure where they are now. Probably in that big box of miscellaneous Breyer tack lurking in my closet.

I don’t hold out a lot of hope of finding them in salvageable condition, if they’re still in there. I had to put the ones I received with my eBay Spider in a plastic sleeve with archival cardboard backing because they’re slowly and rather messily distintegrating. (Those black flecks in the background? Not dirt!) They were backed with foam rubber, and anyone whose had any experience with older Fighting Stallions knows that foam rubber doesn’t age well, even in the most archival of conditions.

There’s a chance that the leg wraps were bought separately and included in the auction by sheer coincidence, but the physical clues seem to point towards my early Stud Spider being a true 1977 release, thus making the leg wraps plausibly original. He didn’t come with his box or any other documentation, so I can’t be 100% sure.

Masking

I see there was a little bit of confusion about the whole issue of masking, so I will clarify.

Until recently, Breyer masks (also called templates, stencils, or some combination thereof) were made out of metal. They were physically clamped to the model prior to painting. The base coat would be spray painted over this mask. The model would then be unclamped from the mask once the paint was dry (which, believe it or not, reputedly took less than ten seconds to dry.) Additional details and colors would then be applied, to finish.

Here’s a nice photo of a paint mask being used on Stud Spider. This is from page 11 Marney Walerius’s book, Breyer Models. (I wanted to show off and tell you which one of the Stud Spider masks it was - there’s more than one version - but the angle of the photograph isn’t helping.)


Since models would vary slightly in size and shape as a result of the molding process, the fit on these masks was always a problem. You’d get paint under the mask wherever the mask didn’t fit snugly: that’s what we call overspray. Sometimes you’d get lucky and get someone with clean masking - either the fit was good, or the painter was. But more often than not, you’d find yourself rationalizing the overspray on an otherwise showable model as mapping or haloes.

The laser-cut adhesive stencils used today are a relatively new phenomenon - brought to us via the increasing affordability of this technology, collector demand for more and better detail, and from the competition (Peter Stone) implementing it first, to good effect.

Breyer and Reeves did experiment with adhesive masking before, but it tended to be limited either to test colors, preproduction models, or early orders on new releases where the metal masking wasn’t ready yet (like the Polled Hereford Bull.) And they used plain old masking tape and (if we were lucky!) an X-acto blade.

The laser-cut masks are not foolproof. They are still subject to painter error, especially if they are very intricate, hastily applied, or designed for a model who is not as sedately or smoothly sculpted as a Stud Spider. All of those problems probably contributed to the painting problems on the Traditional Hidalgo Silvers.

I’m not one of those anal-retentive types who’ll freak out over every flaw. I grew up in the era of fuzzy gray stockings and overspray: back then, a cleanly marked model was a privilege, not a right. I’ll forgive a small flaw or two. Especially when the effect - such as my semi-Decorator Connoisseur Kennebec Count - is so darn amazing. We've come a long way since the era of Stud Spider.

(But I love my Spiders, too.)