Tractor Supply Time

Another good day at the flea market: a #327 German Shepherd, some vintage Classic bodies, and a Tractor Supply Nevada Joe Sterling from 2002 – who isn’t minty-mint, but he has nice shading and was a relatively low number (74/5500), so I couldn’t pass him by.

Low numbers on hand-numbered Special Runs don’t really mean anything, per se; metal molds don’t deteriorate over time like ceramic molds do, and they don’t keep track of them that way regardless. (The 74th piece numbered is not necessarily the 74th piece out of the mold, or the 74th painted.)

A low number is just a nice little plus, like a cherry on your sundae. 

I already have a mint, low-number Nevada Joe Sterling (97/5500) that I bought locally; I can’t recall if any of the other Smokies were of similarly low numbers, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case. It’s been my experience that most models bought locally tend to stay local, though this has been gradually changing over time, with the Internet et al.

I was at my local TSC yesterday, incidentally, and they were just setting out the stocking stuffer bins, which (I’ve found) go up a few weeks before the rest of their holiday merchandise. I was able to sneak a peek at some of the shelf labels for potential Stablemates, and found them: the Paint and Play Unicorn Assortment, the Surprise Paint Kits, and the Mystery Unicorn Blind Bags.

But which Unicorn Blind Bags? The Walmart ones with the Black and Gold Florentine Magnolia, or the standard Regular Run assortment with the Navy Blue Alborozo?

This is important because of what happened last year, with an unusually high number of Copper Florentine Chase Piece Djangos turning up in the TSC assortment.

I’m fine with either – the local hordes cleaned out most of my local stores of both Unicorn assortments. (Though I did have a chance at a Magnolia, walking away from a full and unopened box in a rare moment of clarity.)

The speculation about the Traditional pieces is focusing on more recent molds – from the past 15 years, that is – with my cohort coming to the conclusion that the Smarty Jones and the Brishen are two of the most likely candidates; with Flash, the Marwari, and the Andalusian also being in the running, though slightly less likely.

Personally, I’m also keen on the Giselle, Bluegrass Bandit, and Bouncer – but that’s not intuition or deduction talking, that’s me just liking those molds and wanting to see them in new and attainable colors. (Especially Bouncer: he is about due for a new release!)

Iris

Let’s talk about Iris:

This name is quite appropriate for this particular Gambler’s Choice because the Iris flower comes in a multitude of colors, and is itself named for the Greek goddess of the rainbow.

Though someone got pretty heavy handed with the Photoshop filters, because the irises in this photo look nothing like the irises that populate my garden:

“Iris” is also the name of a Goo Goo Dolls song, written for the 1998 film City of Angels, which was a loose remake of Wim Wenders’ film Wings of Desire.

(City of Angels was better than it deserved to be – especially for a film audacious enough to redo a masterpiece.)

Iris is the name of The Flash’s sensible and level-headed wife, too. (And holy cats, how did I only find out today that Kevin Conroy is playing Batman in the gigantic DC Crisis on Infinite Earth TV Event thingie? Mind. Blown.)

I’ll be happy with whatever shows up at my door – she looks great in all four colors – but my favorite of the four is definitely the Cremello Appaloosa. It reminds me so much of the 2017 BreyerFest Auction piece Newsworthy, in Cremello Tobiano Pinto, one of my all-time favorites:

From my (very) cursory overview of the Model Horse Internet, it appears I am in the minority with that opinion, and I am totally fine with that. Double-dilute Pintos and Appaloosas are one of those weird hobby biases that carry over from the real-horse world (along with Pintaloosas) that I just don’t get.

Which you would think would work to my advantage financially, but it doesn’t always translate into cheaper prices on the secondary.

That’s Entertainment

It’s amazing how much you can get done when your allergies leave you largely housebound.

(I did make an exception for the flea market this morning: my sales list has been a mere shadow of its former self since BreyerFest, and the pickings have been pretty good there lately.)

I even started a custom, but I’ll talk about that later: I started with a Family Arabian Mare missing three legs and an ear and covered in brown enamel spray paint. It’s going to be a while before I have something worth showing.

Here’s one bit of older news I’ve been meaning to cover for a few weeks, about Breyer’s upcoming horse-themed TV show and other projects:

https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/breyer-horse-toy-imagine-tv-series-1203262655/

This link provides a little bit more info beyond the press release:

http://kidscreen.com/2019/07/18/breyer-saddles-up-with-imagine-for-its-first-series/

It’s also mentioned in passing in a New York Times article about Imagine Entertainment from a few days ago:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/business/media/imagine-entertainment-brian-grazer-ron-howard.html 

The news initially dropped during BreyerFest week – which makes sense, since it’s referenced in the press release – and it did not surprise me in the least. In fact, I made the assumption that a TV show would happen sooner rather than later when they added Rick Rekedal (formerly of DreamWorks Animation) to the team in late 2017.

I thought they’d go with an animated show first (for obvious reasons!) And also because, as some of you may know, I am not a fan of most fictional live-action equine-themed entertainment: it tends to be formulaic and overly sentimental. Though this quote from the Kidscreen article gives me some hope it won’t be the Hallmark Horses Channel:

For example, while humans will play an obviously important role in the upcoming show, horses will be at the foreground, with an emphasis placed on their own social relationships, trials and challenges, and an element of magic will also help bring the animals to life, she adds. This insight comes straight from Breyer, who found that, among fans, the animals’ interactions and dramas are just as interesting as that of their owners and riders.

Though this part of the original press release is what made me go Wait, wait, what?

Along with the series, Imagine Kids and Family and Breyer are working on several other development prospects including a documentary about the history of Breyer.

(Looks at my giant wall of historical materials.)

That sounds... interesting.

My Own My Own Money Manager

I sometimes joke – only slightly – that I’m allergic to the month of August.

Judging from the way I’ve felt for the past three or four days, it looks like it’s going to be an especially rough August this year. Time to stock up on the Benadryl…

Anyway, now seems a good time to show you a picture of this, a birthday present from good friends Larry and Ellen:

It’s a Flag Red version of the infamous My Own Money Manager – aka Breyer’s first, modestly successful attempt at breaking into the children’s toy market, in its pre-equine days.

Our best guess now – based on the documentation we have, an examination of existing pieces, and a confab* with fellow Early Breyer History Nerds – is that the Money Manager predates the Cigarette Host.

The Money Managers merely have a “Pat. Pending” mold mark, while the Cigarette Host has a more detailed one; I still haven’t located the Patent yet, though that’s mostly because it’s been relegated to my “TBD” file, along with “find the original Hagen-Renaker lawsuit paperwork”, “finish your Playthings Magazine research”, and “locate any actual company wholesale price lists from 1959-1962”.

Based on a short article featured in a 1952 issue of Playthings, it is mentioned that the Money Manager had been on the market for “three years”, which would mean a debut date of 1949; the Cigarette Host first appears a year later, in the 1950 Sears Wishbook – right next to the Money Manager.

So even before they got started with the horses, Breyer was already repurposing molds!

All I need now is a “Forest Green” version of the Money Manager, and the alleged 6-Drawer version (that still remains unfound) to complete the most obscure Breyer Collector’s Class entry ever.

(*It has been pointed out to me by a couple of different people now that I might have to start arranging meetups at BreyerFest like the YouTubers and Instagrammers do. I will have to give it some thought.)

Hall of Fame Effort

You can skip this part if you’re bored or annoyed by the comic book talk already, but I could not let this slip by uncommented: a YouTube clip that from Late Night with Seth Meyer last Thursday, featuring the comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis, who puts in a strong plug for his reboot of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Comic book nerds talking about the Legion of Super-Heroes on network TV? Be still my heart! See, see? I told you I am not crazy.

(Okay, maybe a little: I have been writing a blog about Breyer History for the past ten years.)

I’m deep in the middle of finishing some old business here – all those odds and ends that got dropped in the run up to BreyerFest – but I figured you’d probably want to hear a bit from me about Reeves’s latest attempt to get Breyer nominated to The National Toy Hall of Fame, at the National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.

First, the link:

https://www.breyerhorses.com/pages/breyer-nomination-for-the-strong-museum-national-toy-hall-of-fame

Second: my opinion on the matter.

As someone who’s been writing a blog about Breyer History, it should be fairly obvious that I am all in favor of this campaign. One of the many reasons for the existence of this blog is to proselytize for the historical and cultural significance of models horses in general and Breyer Horses specifically.

If you want to utilize this blog as a part of your application effort, please feel free!

And also let me say that if this campaign is ultimately successful, I’d also consider donating my model horse archives to The Strong whenever the time comes for me to be parted from it.

(But to be clear: that would not be for a very, very long time. Versta?)

However…

This is not the first attempt at getting Breyer into the Toy Hall of Fame. While I believe and agree that Breyer models meet all of the criteria listed on the web site, they also have the burden of being seen as primarily a girl’s toy.

While there are some toys in the Hall of Fame that are/were marketed primarily to girls – like Barbie, and the Easy Bake Oven – the majority of toys now included skew towards basic, timeless items (my personal favorite: the Cardboard Box!) or products that were considered appropriate for all children (LEGO).

Reeves has made great strides in expanding their fanbase – I met several young boys this year at BreyerFest who were pretty stoked to be there, and not just because of the CollectA dinosaurs – and historically, there have been male collectors and hobbyists within the model horse hobby since the beginning.

But the perception that toy horses are a niche product designed for horse crazy little girls still remains, to a degree. The public at large puts us (the hobby, and the horses) in a box and kicks that box in a corner. And that attitude works against us.

I hope the effort works this time. If not, we’ll get there, eventually. You all should know by now that I am trying my darndest!

Unsurprisingly

The Hero’s Surprise numbers are out, and of course, OF COURSE, my favorite is again the rare one – not the Rare-Rare 30-piece Anniversary one, but the one that would be rare in any other given year:

Dark Dapple Grey: 1000 Matte, 200 Glossy
Chestnut Pinto: 850 Matte, 200 Glossy
Dappled Pearl: 650 Matte, 200 Glossy
Rose Grey: 520 Matte, 200 Glossy
Decorator: 400 Glossy
Pearly Black Leopard Appaloosa: 30 Matte

How do they manage to do that? How do I manage to do that?

I really do want to get that Lime Green one eventually. But since I’m still having a few, uh, inventory issues here, I’ll just wait it out and then maybe do some strategic trades and sales or something in the meantime to build up the war chest.

I don’t care which subvariation – the mostly silver or the mostly green – just whoever happens to be available at the right time and the right price.

I am also considering the same with the Saint Bernard Blue Bucky variation, who just had to appear when I thought maybe my Traditional Dog collection was within spitting distance of being complete!

Since my options were rather limited in my second go-round in the Special Run Line – I took a gamble on the number draw, and naturally lost – I went with a second Bucky (in addition to a Pepper), who was pretty much the same as the first.

Knew I should have gone for a Natasha instead! She was much nicer in person compared to her pictures (not unexpectedly), and to be honest I think of all the variations they came out with this year, she was straight-up the prettiest. I am such a sucker for a nicely executed liver chestnut…

I’d like to think that maybe I’d still have a shot at her with the Leftovers Sale, but I don’t know what the situation is going to be there – what’s going to be available, and when – so I am just taking the extremely reasonable assumption that it’s going to happen when I am not online to partake, anyway.

And if I am, just be happy when I inevitably open up the Bay Pinto.

My LaFitte

The first concrete details of this year’s variations and finish splits are up:

https://www.breyerhorses.com/blogs/breyerfest-blog/2019-special-run-breakdowns

Originally I was going to write this next post about the variations and some other issues – and possible solutions – I had with BreyerFest this year, but my thoughts are still a little too disorganized, so I’ll go with my backup plan and show you my LaFitte instead:

He literally arrived the very moment I stepped out the door on my way to Kentucky: the mail carrier handed the box to me then said “Do you know your car door is open?”

(Uh, yeah?)

Until a couple of days ago, my LaFitte remained unopened, because BreyerFest got in the way, as it does.

I wasn’t lucky enough to get the blinkerless version, but I am okay with that – I have a pair of blinkerless Chicago-era Culls that I am pretty chuffed to own. If an affordable one crosses my path someday though, I will consider it.

Old Timer is one of those molds that I’ve always wanted to actively collect, but space and circumstances have worked against it. Whenever/if ever that time comes, I already have most of the “harder” to get ones, like the Reissues, the Montgomery Ward’s Alabaster, and of course the Vintage Club Gus.

(I love Gus!)

Only real rarities I don’t have are the McCormick Decanter set – which isn’t really hard to find, so much as it is expensive – and the 2002 BreyerFest Hat Contest Jake, who I’ve just accepted is never going to live at my house.

Test Colors on the Old Timer – especially from the Chicago (pre-1985) era – are somewhat uncommon, presumably because they either never saw a need to test new colors on him back then, or because that would also involve painting all of his fiddly bits, and they just did not have time for that.

But anyways, I love my LaFitte: the paint job is beautiful, intricate and completely suits both the mold and the theme – though I wish they could have somehow made the purple a little more obvious, for the King Cake reference.

It’s also worth noting that they appear to be experimenting with a new/different dappling technique with LaFitte – it looks more like a mask than hand airbrushing, but a little more subtle.

Personally I am fine with the hand-airbrushed dappling technique (I grew up with resist dappling, yo) but if this somehow leads to me seeing the words “fish scale” and “crapples” less often, then I would consider the change a net positive.