Valiant

My Valiant finally arrived! (After a millennium-long wait. That's what I get for paying with a check!) I don't see anything significantly wrong with him – I've had pretty decent luck with my Connoisseurs so far – but the slightly scaly look to his dapples was a little off-putting at first.

Then I got over it.

I was going with a superhero/comic book character naming theme for my Idocuses, and his shimmery scales actually inspired my choice: I'm calling him Namor (aka The Prince of Atlantis, The Sub-Mariner, etc.) I like how he even seems to have that slightly skeptical of surface-dwellers look in his eye.

My Buttercream Idocus is named Lemon, which was the anagramic pseudonym for the character of Mon-el, from an early Silver Age Legion of Super-heroes story. (How's that for obscure?) The name for my Bay Idocus in my future remains unnamed; it will have to wait until I actually purchase him.


(Apropos of nothing, there was also short-lived comic book company called Valiant. One of the founders of the company? Jim Shooter, who began his career in comics by scripting stories for … wait for it … the Legion of Super-heroes! Also interesting: one of Valiant's titles was XO Manowar. It had nothing to do with horse racing. Prince Valiant has horses in it, though. But back to the story.)

Buttercream was another victim of “bad photography:” he looked so much better in person than his photographs let on. A high piece count, combined with a slightly higher than average price, a very diverse group of line specials, and budget-minded shoppers all conspired against him.

Maybe they'll end up glossing a batch up and dumping them somewhere, like the Tent, Grab Bags or on Shopatron. The Gloss Bay Show Prize Idocuses are stunning, and I think Glossy Buttercreams would be likewise. Actually, with the current craze for glosses, it might make good economic sense for Reeves to gloss up all their unsold matte-finished SR leftovers. It might go a ways towards solving the issue of what to do with some of those contentious “exclusives,” even if it is veering awfully close to Peter Stone variation territory.

(Glossy Burbanks? The mind reels!)

Actually, I kind of thought that that was what they were going to do with Buttercream in the first place – the price and the piece count suggested to me that they might have something else cooked up for him. Nope, just a little poor planning and bad photography on Reeves's part, nothing new.

Idocus and the Replacement Theory

Wow. I won a Valiant - third Connoisseur in the last six tries, and with just one subscription, too! Wish that kind of luck would rub off on the rest of my life.

I wasn’t all that impressed with the Idocus resin I saw at BreyerFest last year - he was pleasant enough, but seemed a little stiff looking. I finally got a look at a plastic one in person a few months ago, and changed my mind: being molded in plastic actually improved him. (Though I know some sculptors will never, ever admit that’s the case.)

He’s like the Trakehner mold’s sexier brother with a better haircut. Mon-el to Superboy, in comic book geek-speak. (With Smallville renewed for two seasons, there better darn well be at least one Mon-el episode in the works. But I digress…)

With the Idocus, though, I am reminded of something I call my "Replacement Theory": every so often, Breyer either consciously or unconsciously "upgrades" a model with an entirely new, but strikingly similar one.

The first "replacement" mold was the Western Prancing Horse: he "replaced" the Fury-Prancer. The Fury-Prancers were discontinued in 1961, and the WPH came out in 1962. They’re similarly posed, have molded on tack and removable saddles - and even their names are similar!

The second "replacement" mold was Man o’ War: he "replaced" the Race Horse. The Race Horse was discontinued in 1966, and the Man o’ War debuted in 1967. They’re both standing chestnut Thoroughbreds with molded on halters, neatly groomed manes and long tails. And the Man o’ War’s original name: Race Horse ("Man o’ War"). Here's a scan from the 1968 Collector's Manual:


Cue the spooky music!

See where I’m going with this? Is Idocus the "replacement" mold for the Trakehner?

Probably not, only because I don’t think the original Trakehner mold is going to disappear down the memory hole like the Fury and Race Horse mold did when they were replaced. (The Fury mold did continue on its own for a few years after - but only as the Fury, and that may have been a contractual thing.)

The original Trakehner mold, as far as I know, is just fine - physically, and aesthetically. What’s going on here is that Reeves is just adding another standing Warmblood to their repertoire - something in a sleeker, more modern style, much like the Rejoice was sort of an updated and more modern looking Saddlebred-like horse to complement the Five-Gaiter, who certainly hasn’t disappeared. (Hello, Gala!)

(No nattering about how neither one is a good representative of a Saddlebred - work with me here, people! We’re talking a matter of type, not quality!)

This isn’t my only silly Breyer theory. Most aren’t worth talking about, though, or even have much relevance to discussions of history. Though I might get around to discussing the "15 Year Rule" eventually, since the flea market season is in full swing…