Toy Fair 2020

I have a not-inconsequential headache today (trying to kick my caffeine habit again, ahead of Lent. Not going well!) So just a little bit here about Toy Fair 2020. Reeves’s big product push for Toy Fair is…

… Mane Beauty Style Heads. This is basically the equine variation of the Barbie Styling Heads that some of us were subjected to as children when our requests for Breyer Horses (and only Breyer Horses!) were met with skeptical eyebrows. Here’s part of the formal press release:

The Breyer Mane Beauty Styling Heads are sculpted and decorated with long, no-tangle manes. Each comes with a styling booklet; a mane comb; and mane clips, spirals, and elastics for hairstyling possibilities. The heads are available in three styles: Blaze (black mane), Daybreak (white mane), and Sunset (blonde mane). The styling heads will be available this July. 

Press Release

Toy Fair web site page, with various links

I could easily have seen my nine-year-old self getting a Styling Head for Christmas, especially since Mom was kind of obsessed with styling my hair back then and clearly wanted me to follow suit. (Some of my grammar school “picture day” pictures are memorable for all the wrong reasons!)

While it certainly wasn’t exactly what I would have wanted, I would not have been completely displeased with it, either. Even today I’m pretty terrible at braiding and weaving, so I this product definitely would have reduced the amount of yelling involved when I was trying to teach myself basketweaving a few years ago, or this past week when I was trying to teach myself how to braid rope.

(Also not going well, but managing.)

The 70th Anniversary products do get a shoutout in the press release:

Breyer’s 70th Anniversary Assortment features five hand-decorated models, each commemorating a different decade. The models feature an anniversary logo and come in special packaging. There is also a limited-edition, rare chase figure in the collection. These figures are available now at specialty toy stores.

You can spot the Gambler’s Choice collection display in photos of their booth at Toy Fair on Twitter, too. But the focus is clearly on the Styling Heads, rather than the figurines we fret and obsess about.

If hobbyists have an issue with this (I don’t, but I’ve met my share who have), it might be worth revisiting how Reeves now defines Breyer itself: not as just a model horse manufacturer, but as a brand. Also from the press release:

Breyer, celebrating its 70th anniversary in 2020, is the world’s leading brand of horse-inspired toys, gifts, collectibles and live events.

This is part of their long-term strategy to reshape themselves into a lifestyle brand. It has been for me, for at least the past (yeesh!) forty-something years, so you know I’m okay with that. In fact, I’ve kind of been wondering why it’s taken them this long, but whatever…

A Tale of Two Doggies

This was supposed to publish on July 12th - it was scheduled to anyway, but apparently blogspot thought otherwise, and the hotel wifi was spotty and I did not have time to check. See you all tomorrow.

Back in the old days of Breyer History Research, we didn’t have enough information to pinpoint the precise year many models debuted.

The original Breyer Master List that they sent out to collectors who asked for it listed two different dates 1958, and 1963 – as the starting date for the majority of early Breyer models: basically, all those seen in either the 1958 Price List, or the 1963 Dealer’s Catalog.

Those were the only two pieces of reference material we had back then that had any actual dates ascribed to them.

We’ve since made significant progress, and significant corrections. But the bad data of the past still crops up from time to time: the two that rub me the wrong way especially are the 1956 date ascribed to the Old Mold Mare and Foal (nope, 1958!), and 1958 for the Boxer (actually, 1953!)

Although we still have significant gaps in our knowledge base, we’re getting to the point where we can not just pinpoint the year a mold was released, but the month! Like the Davy Crockett: it’s listed as one of the “New Toys on parade” in the August 1955 issue of Toys and Novelties magazine:

(A month before Hartland’s version, by the way…)

Both Lassie and Rin Tin Tin made their “official” debuts at the 1956 Toy Fair, but I don’t think they were released simultaneously: I think Lassie was ready to go at least a couple of months before Rinty was.

The announcement of Breyer acquiring the license for Lassie was announced in the August 1955 issue of Toys and Novelties magazine, and a picture of the Lassie appears in the January 1956 issue.

Breyer is not listed as a licensee of Rin Tin Tin in the August 1955 issue, and his first official announcement as a Breyer product at all is in the March 1956 issue, in an ad placed by Krenzien, Krenzien & Dunlap, Breyer’s Midwest Sales Representatives.

In addition to all that, a few years ago someone in the Chicago area found a Lassie at an estate sale painted just like Rin Tin Tin – along with several other unusual pieces in a collection of someone who obviously had a professional connection to Breyer in the mid to late 1950s.

Exactly when the Rinty was available I still don’t know yet; my files may be good, but not that good. Yet.

Toy Fair and Spirit: Riding Free

One of the things on my personal “bucket list” is attending Toy Fair. It’s not just about the horses (in general) or Breyers (in particular); if you know me at all, my toy nerdery is both wide and deep.

Access isn’t the problem, but time and cost is: I am in Michigan, and Toy Fair is in New York City. So I have to content myself with living vicariously:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WmFPVAWqHM

http://legionofleia.com/2017/02/toy-fair-universal-previews-a-range-of-new-fall-toys/

http://www.northjersey.com/story/money/shopping/2017/02/20/state-play-toy-fair-new-jerseys-got-game/98145012/

The only big news to come out of Toy Fair was the official announcement of the Spirit: Riding Free line, which was just about the worst kept “secret” in the model horse hobby ever. But it’s nice to see pictures of the actual, live pieces now and not just the catalog promo shots.

That being said, this line is not designed with someone like me in mind, though I will undoubtedly end up buying at least a few of the Blind Bag Stablemates and possibly the boxed Traditionals. (The Rain mold looks great in Matte Palomino!) It’ll be interesting to see if the third Traditional scale mold in the line, Boomerang, will eventually get incorporated into the regular line as the Spirit and Rain molds were.

There also didn’t appear to be any Toy Fair-specific giveaways, like the Gloss Highland Pony keychain or the Little Bits Chestnut Saddlebred, but my online shopping has been limited to targeted searches on eBay for box lots and specific (and oddly rather scarce) bodies, so I may well have missed it.

Incidentally, Breyer has been represented at the Toy Fair literally since the beginning of Breyer, as this article from the March 1951 issue of Playthings makes clear:

Affording to Wait

I was going to write a little more about the Classic Hobo - the recent archive acquisition has quite a bit of material relating to him - but apparently a good portion of model horse land has lost their minds over the goodies Reeves was handing out at Toy Fair this week.

In case you missed the hubbub, among the usual goodies they handed out - magnets, pens, catalogs, pins and all that - there was also a "very limited" G3 Highland Pony keychain. An attendee to the Toy Fair got a hold of a rather substantial number of these trinkets: over 20 have been listed so far, thus explaining my rather pointed use of scare quotes.

The more keychains that have come out, the higher the prices have become. They started out around $15.00 - in a lot that included all the other goodies mentioned above - and the last few have been going for $59.99 - for just the keychain alone.

There’s really no other way to get around the fact that this entire situation is nuts. And not in the cutesy-adorable way.

For Pete’s sake, people, it only takes a few seconds to (a) do a teeny-tiny bit of research and (b) apply a small portion of logic to this situation. If some one person was able to get a couple dozen of these items, they simply cannot be all that rare. (And shipped in bubble mailers, too? I don’t think so.)

Remember the "cash cow" incident a few years back? Lots and lots of hobbyists flew into a rage over a situation where we may have been referred to as "cash cows": in other words, easily milked for money.

The whole situation struck me as ridiculous - not because of the incident itself, but because many hobbyists were basing their opinions of it on third-, fourth-, and fifth-hand knowledge of the situation, wildly different versions of the story, and opinions that were mistaken for facts.

(Sound depressingly familiar?)

I think the main reason it got as much traction as it did was because it hit a nerve: way too many people in the hobby really are "cash cows" - especially when it comes to things like Gloss Finishes. We all know - or at some point, been - that person.

(I can think of several situations where I did not acquit myself in the most dignified of fashions.)

I’m not expecting people to be entirely rational when it comes to anything they are passionate about, but you’d think some would learn from experience, eventually.

Do I want one of those keychains? Of course I do. But I also know how these things go: I think I can afford to wait.