Test Color Teasing

Just to show you that I am not always a complete tease, here are a few of those Test Color photos I mentioned in passing last time:

These are all fairly typical of the kind of Test Colors available to hobbyists in the 1980s, in terms of both molds and colors. Neat, but there’s nothing to them that makes them stand out from the regular Breyer rabble, especially to newer hobbyists or those not particularly versed in Breyer minutiae.

I wouldn’t mind owning any of them, mind you, and I suspect a lot of you feel likewise. Yet I rather doubt most of them would be competitive outside of Collectibility today. (That is a pretty shade of bay on the Phar Lap, though!)

The term "Test Color" is an awfully generic one: at its broadest and least specific, it can refer to any model that was not made as part of a production run. This could even include items that were once in regular production, but were not when it/they were produced. (My NPOD Big Ben might fall into this category, for instance.)

A Test Color could be a Cull, a finished/touched-up Cull, a happy accident (i.e. a mistake) of the painting process, a lunchtime frolic, misinterpreted painting instructions, a gift for a friend or family member, something done to fill up some downtime…

Or it could be an "true" Test Color: an item painted to demonstrate/illustrate/test a new or potential production run item, either a Regular Run or Special Run.

Some newer hobbyists, who are most familiar with the term through the BreyerFest auctions, tend to think of Test Colors almost as Factory Customs, since many of the ones that are offered for auction nowadays have a higher degree of finish than most production items. (I am always amazed that some get a little indignant when the tested color actually, you know, gets used a short time later. What do they think the word Test in Test Color means?)

The models you’re seeing above are likely the kinds of Test Colors that originated via Marney Walerius, a hobbyist who had somewhat free rein at the factory in the 1970s and 1980s. Sometimes she rescued genuine Test Colors from the various nooks and crannies of the facilities. Sometimes she fished stuff out of trash barrels and finished/fixed them.

And sometimes she made them herself: to satisfy a notion, to propose an idea to the Powers That Were, for compensation, or for various promotional purposes (live shows, raffles, tours, prizes, etc.) So in a sense, many Chicago-era Test Colors were Factory Customs, too.

Sorting this all out after the fact, as you can imagine, is something of a headache. An item that’s classified as a Test Color could have been multiple things: it could have been something Marney did on a whim, AND later got used in production somewhere along the line. True Test Colors were often given away as gifts or tokens of appreciation (or compensation!)

In most cases, it’s been easier to refer to a nonstandard model - something that goes above and beyond being just a variation - as a "Test Color", because more often than not, we will never know the specifics of its creation.   

Potsherds

This is how my October is going: on Monday, I accidentally picked up a live spider with my bare hands, and it wasn’t even the worst thing that happened to me on that day. Just the worst I can mention in public. (I don’t mind spiders, as long as they don’t invade my personal space. Or pretend to be a piece of lint sitting on my desk.)

On a more pleasant note, I did get a chance to see a Tractor Supply Special Dillon in the wild this week. He did have a couple of smudged spots, which is why he was probably still there. He might still be there, since due to some unwelcome schedule changes (October, see above) I am still way behind in the herd culling process here. No new horses until then, if I can help it, and if Reeves can hold off on the surprises.

One thing that I have managed to make some headway on is in the scanning of a big batch of vintage hobby photos that I received a few months back. There’s nothing groundbreaking or historically significant in what I’ve seen so far, other than a nice smattering of old customs and Chicago-era Test Colors. Most of the photos are either old photo show pix, or from the live show scene in the 1980s, full of goofiness like this:

Top that, NAN!

Even though there doesn’t seem to be any "there" there, I still think it’s important to scan and document everything. Sometimes you need a lot of bits of data to reveal a larger truth, and sometimes we have no idea what that truth is until we step back and assemble the pieces.

Years ago, in college, I took an "Intro to Archaeology" class, partly out of personal interest, but also to fulfill a Social Sciences credit. The professor (Who was a collector, himself! Not horses, though.) related a story about how they were on a dig and recovering potsherds - broken bits of pottery. Pottery is one of the better ways to date archaeological sites: either by its increasing sophistication, or by an already established history taken from similar sites.

Anyway, they were rushed for time, and they made the decision to recover just the decorated potsherds, not the undecorated ones. They were all mixed together, and they figured that the more decorated ones were either more interesting, or more representative of the culture, something like that.

Several months later, as they were reconstructing the potsherds back into pots, they realized that the reason why the plain and fancy potsherds were mixed together was because they were from the same pots. All they could piece together were the decorative bands around the pots, not the pots themselves!

Hence my reasoning behind my "scan/save everything" philosophy. Some of the more humdrum stuff may be important too, and we’re just not seeing the bigger picture yet.

There was one photo did make me do a double take during my scanning yesterday, though. Can you tell why?

(Click to see the much bigger photo, for the details.)

No, it’s not the fact that an Original Finish Alabaster Proud Arabian Stallion won big; it was the 1980s, and our "Arabian Stallions of Traditional Size" options were rather limited.

No, check out who’s standing next to rather nice Alabaster Proud Arabian Mare, in the back: it’s the infamously rare Special Run Black Blanket Pony of the Americas, with the striped hooves! Not an everyday sight - now or then.

(In case you were wondering, he’s one of the few models on my short list that I might actually hurt someone for.)

The second thing I noticed in this picture: the POA didn’t win her class. That’s almost as inconceivable today as a PAS winning a Breed class, but Collectibility was not as big a thing back then.

Yes, it played a part, but we were still at the stage where we weren’t quite sure what was and wasn’t truly rare, and how much that mattered. This was an era where it was still possible to have your Test Colors get beat at a live show by a horse bought off the shelf in an enclosed cardboard box on Friday afternoon before. (Handpicking? Yeah, right!)

Things were a little wilder, woolier and unpredictable back then, and it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some of the photos that were left behind, on the other hand, are debatable.

Gift Policy

The weekend did not turn out as planned. This probably should not have been a surprise, since it is October, after all. I always have a problem with October.

Since I am still in the middle of several small projects that should have been finished by now, I think it’s a good time to reiterate and clarify my policy on gifts, gifting and other forms of compensation with regards to this blog, since it has become an issue lately.

I consider this blog to be one of my "contributions" to the hobby, so there is no expectation of compensation. I haven’t enrolled in any ad, banner or rewards programs, because I feel the amount of compensation would be far outweighed by the amount of visual (and moral) clutter they would bring.

While I am flattered by the offers of models I am sometimes given, please be aware that my collection is currently in a state where I need to remove items, not add more. The handful of items I would run through a busy intersection for are fairly obscure and not likely in your possession.

If you happen to point me in the direction of one, I’d be happy to venture there myself and negotiate. And if you yourself have it, I want to pay a fair market price for it, whenever possible.

I grew up in a family atmosphere where gifts were never really "gifts", either: there was a price attached to everything, literally or figuratively. This is not said to elicit an emotional response of any kind, I am just explaining that this is how I was raised and constitutes a part of my moral matrix. I have a hard time accepting gifts, plain and simple.

(If sometimes I forget to say "thank you" in response to a gift, it is because that’s not how it worked in my family, weird as it sounds. It’s not a learned reflex: it’s something I have to actively remember to do.)

Information is always welcome, though. As are gossip, history, insider information, ephemera, pictures, and stories of a salacious nature. (More ordinary ones, too!) You should know by now that these are the kinds of stuff I treasure more than physical objects, anyway.

I do provide a Paypal donation button somewhere on the sidebar if you ever are in a giving mood. It’s mostly there because when I did the initial research into starting this blog, all the sites I visited said having one was a good idea. I forget that it’s there most of the time.

I will accept compensation for other services rendered to the hobby, but my schedule at the moment precludes me from doing much beyond rendering opinions on photos or questions sent my way. (And as you may know from personal experience, even that might take a while.)

There are always exceptions, naturally, like providing the location of another Copenhagen Belgian, or being in dire need of assistance and within a not-horrible driving distance from my house. Offers to either visit, or be visited are also welcome and will be accommodated whenever possible, especially if your family and non-hobbyist friends are anything like mine. (Familiar with the "Not the horses, again!" eyeroll?) Because sometimes "talking horses" is an absolute necessity.

I think that covers anything. More actual horsey stuff in a couple of days, I’m hoping.

Looking at a Gift Horse

If all goes well, I will not be venturing beyond what I call the "pajama perimeter" for the next couple of days. (Pajama Perimeter = The places where I feel comfortable being in my pajamas. Generally extends outside to the mail box and back. And possibly anywhere while in my car, as long as I do not exit the vehicle.)

(Yes, I’ve given this concept lots of thought.)

No need for y’all to know why. Just seemed like a good idea when I came up with the notion at work the other day. ‘Nuff said.

I’ve featured this pretty boy in a couple of different places already, but I figured today would be a good day for his "public" debut:

Yep, he’s one of those Flaxen Chestnut "Mystery" Western Prancing Horses, whom I received a while back as a "gift for services rendered" thingie. (More on that another time.) We don’t know much of anything about these fellows, other than the presence of a "B" mold mark suggests a manufacture date of ca. 1979-1982.

And that they are very, very hard to come by. So much so that I, as dedicated a Western Prancing Horse aficionado as they come, never considered him a "grail" item. I don’t think I even put a watch notice on the one that did turn up on eBay a few years ago, because I knew one incontrovertible fact about him: that he wasn’t coming home with me on my budget. 

The previous owner mentioned something about Marney possibly being involved in his creation and/or distribution, which narrows down his possible origin stories, but not as much as you might think.

I have two equally plausible and competing theories about the origins of the Flaxen Chestnut WPH. I’m not saying either one is necessarily the truth, but they might be somewhere in the general vicinity.

The first is that it was some sort of gift/raffle/prize concept that Marney could have whipped up from cull/leftover Palomino Western Prancing Horse bodies at the factory. The color is close enough to the original Palomino that I could easily see this happening with just a little overpainting.

For whom, for what show, or what purpose, I have no clue. Sometimes she did things just because she had the opportunity to do so, and did so.

The second is that they might have been tests of some sort for the #1120 Brenda Western Gift Set that debuted in 1983. The production sets included a Chestnut Pinto Western Prancing Horse with a pattern nearly identical to the original #113 Black Pinto release, with a white mane and tail.

I could easily imagine them coming up with the Chestnut idea initially and painting up a few samples, only to decide later in the process that the set could use a little more "oomph" with some pinto markings. Somehow Marney could have found them knocking around the factory at some point, and took them home for "redistribution" purposes.

Regardless of the nature of his origin story, I love him and I am grateful for the opportunity to own him now.

Ceci n'est pas un Press Release

First, let’s get a few PSAs out of the way. The Mid-States Special is up on the Rural King web site, a pretty splash spot Appaloosa Indian Pony named Miigwan:

http://www.ruralking.com/dream-catcher-breyer-midstates.html

I think there’s another Mid-States Exclusive, a Classic, but I wasn’t able to find it on their web site.

And for those of you having access issues with Tractor Supply - either there ain’t one in your area, or the hordes have already descended and picked your stores clean, Dillon is also available on the TSC web site.

http://www.tractorsupply.com//ProductDisplay?cm_vc=-10005&urlRequestType=Base&productId=236119&catalogId=10051&categoryId=&errorViewName=ProductDisplayErrorView&urlLangId=&langId=-1&top_category=&parent_category_rn=&storeId=10151

This suggests that in spite of the seemingly more limited distribution (two per store?) that it might be an open-ended run - or that they reserved a portion of the run for online sales. Either/any way, there you go. (I’m still on the fence. Too much stuff, not enough time, boxes sitting around unopened, etc.)

I’ve also noticed a few newer America’s Mustang/Mesteno sets floating around the farm store circuit - some slightly repackaged older items, and some brand new things. (Note: work takes me to such places. I am not shopping.) I hear there’s a new one with a Bucking Bronco, which might be a must-get for me, since that mysterious set with the Bronco and White Wolf is still mostly MIA.

(Ooh boy, if Reeves ever dropped those en masse on the web site or in the Pit …)

Didn’t get picked for the Web Special Kimbia on the Smarty Jones mold. I thought I had a shot; I didn’t get a chance to review most of the commentary, but the brief skims I did catch were rather…unhappy and dismissive. In a way that suggested there’d be fewer entries than normal.

I haven’t seen too many up for sale in the usual places, last I looked, which (I hope) means that most of the hobbyists who won were ones that were intending on keeping them. Or it really, really tanked. If that’s the case, then it means I might get a chance to buy him after all, in November or December, perhaps?

I have tons to sell in the meantime. I’m hoping that I can finally get around to rounding up the sales herd next week, when work slows down (allegedly). It’s getting way too cramped around here, as you might have noticed from the setups for some of the recent photos. I’ve been on such a time crunch here that only just finished mopping up the last bits of debris from the garage sale, for Heaven’s sake.

(For the record, I haven’t won a single Web Special since I switched to my "one entry only" routine. I have also never been picked from the wait list for anything, ever, including all the Connoisseurs.)

My "grail" arrived yesterday, and it’s even cooler - and more mysterious - than I imagined. It’ll be a little while before you read about it here, since I need to do some follow-up research on it first. All I’ll say for the moment is that it’s something I guarantee that a good 99 percent of you haven’t seen before, either, outside of Breyer PR.

And that 99 percent of you probably wouldn’t want anyway, but you know I’m weird like that.

Next time, something that looks less like a press release from Reeves.

Kiowa

There was a last minute change to my schedule the other day that actually left me with (gasp!) a small window of time to myself. That I promptly used to open up my Kiowa, because I had heard rumors that they were Chalky. (And also because the box was dented in troubling ways, and I needed to know if I had to make time for the phone calls. Fortunately, no.)

Chalky, he is! I cackled with the glee of a comic book super-villain. If it’s one thing that drives Vintage collectors mad, it’s Chalkiness. I doubt it’ll persuade some of the bigger grumblers to change their opinion of him, but you have to gives Reeves a little credit for giving us a little bit more than we expected, right?

As others have pointed out, his paint job is probably the closest and most faithful reproduction of a "Vintage" color since the program began.

The Brown Pinto Indian Pony did come in a Chalky variation; it’s one of the scarcer and more desirable Chalkies, too. I lucked into a Chalky Brown Appaloosa a while back at BreyerFest, but the Pinto one continues to elude me, mostly for financial reasons. The only Chalkies that go for more money are the Proud Arabian/Old Mold Mares, Test Colors and a few Rarities/Oddities. Some of the Family Arabians, too, depending on the mood of the market. 

The Indian Pony Pinto colorway was a scarcely used one as it was - and most of the ones that were not the Indian Pony are extremely hard to come by, like the Ford Pinto Family Arabian Foal. (Another one that eludes me still, in spite of being in the Metro Detroit area and surrounded by auto industry retirees.)

I’ve always interpreted this color a little bit differently than other hobbyists: I don’t see it as an attempt at creating more realistic Pinto paint job. They were already doing that with the Yellow Mount who, with his elaborately masked markings, came out the same year the Indian Pony did (1970).

It wasn’t a case of "let’s try two new techniques and see what sells better", either, but two different artistic approaches. With Yellow Mount, they were attempting a realistic portrait. With the Indian Pony, they were going for something more painterly and impressionistic. The mold - and presumably, the initial colors - was based off the works of the artist Charles M. Russell, who is specifically called out by name in the earliest press release mentioning the Indian Pony.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, there should be room enough it the hobby for all lovers of equine art - not just those who favor the most strictly realistic ones.

Scaling the Mountain

We’re getting to that point in the flea market season where I’m now beginning to regard the models I’ve left behind as my touring collection; I've even named a few. All I bought this past weekend was some produce, a few china miniatures, and a clutch of empty and unused Testor’s 1/2 ounce paint bottles. Because they cost almost nothing, and reminded of the artist Joseph Cornell.

(In case you were wondering, they are just a tad too small to squeeze most MiniWhinnies in.)

I swung over to the nearest Tractor Supply on the way home, but it didn’t look like they had fully set up their Holiday Stuff yet. Even though some people are apparently already listing them at - and getting! - some crazy prices on eBay, I have no worries. I somehow managed, in the chaos of last week, to secure a Grail of mine so scarce that I had some years ago deemed it nonexistent.

To dampen that joy, I also discovered the whereabouts of a more recent Grail. That one will most definitely not be coming to live with me, now or probably ever.

The former item you’ll hear about in due time; the latter you will not. Not here. (All I will say? It’s not about the money involved.)

Now, onto the matter at hand - the Secret of the Reissues. It turns out that the bodies involved in creating them weren’t just leftovers from recent Regular Runs and Special Runs: based on their mold marks, they’re older than that. The Clydesdale Mare still has her original mold mark, for instance, and the Shires still have the U.S.A. imprint. So it’s possible that these bodies may be pre-China leftovers.

The problem is that Reeves hasn’t been real consistent with altering these mold marks, and with multi-year production gaps, it’s almost impossible to pinpoint the exact year when each mold was altered. The portion of the discussion on Blab where people were trying to determine the Clydesdale Mare’s mold mark change has since been deleted, due to the hacking incident; I think it was narrowed down to somewhere between 2003 (Lanark’s Rosebud) and 2007 (the Picture Perfect Black Pinto Spotted Draft).

(Don’t quote me on that, though. My memory of large portions of last week is extremely hazy.)

It’s been one of those topics that I’ve had on the back burner just a little too long; since late 2003, when I first noticed the alterations on some of the Early Releases for 2004. And some did not: I swear I saw examples of the Cantering Welsh Pony release Party Shoes - the one in Palomino with high whites - with the old mold mark as well as the new, sitting on the shelf together at a local toy store.

(Some of Reeves’ PR photos of Party Shoes show a model with a U.S.A. mark, for what that’s worth.)

The relatively low number of Clydesdale Mare Reissues compared to the others was also thus made explainable: it wasn’t just that they shipped/sold more at BreyerFest, they also used bodies from that same stash to make this year’s Volunteer Clydesdale SR. Same old mold mark!

I can’t recall if it was determined that the Betsy Ross (2007 BF Prize model) or Palisades (2012 Passage to the Pacific SR) were also pulled from the stash, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were.

The Del Mar - a 2009 SR release - definitely was not. It amuses me to think that while Reeves may have had a small mountain of Clydesdale Mare sitting in a warehouse in New Jersey, they were molding and manufacturing entirely new ones half a whole away.

What this all means is that I’m now seriously considering ordering the Reissue Clyde Mare. Dang it! Someone really needs to invent a 27 hour day.