Brindles

I honestly wasn’t expecting the rather intense reaction to the latest Stablemates Club release Diesel – a Gambler’s Choice/Surprise on the G4 Reiner:

Guess that means I can cross off trying to complete the set – at a reasonable price! Ah well, it’s been a long time since my Stablemates collection was more or less complete, anyway. (Though I am thinking about remedying that situation somewhat next year.)

I’ll be happy with whatever one I end up with, but I think the Brindle is my favorite – it’s a rarely attempted color, especially on horses. The best known Breyer Brindles include the 1995 Boxer “Pug”, the Companion Series Great Dane, the 2008 Exclusive Event Bull Rodeo Drive, last year’s BreyerFest SR Le Taureau, and the Broken Horn Saddlery Bull “Charlie”:

We rarely see brindling attempted on horses, outside of Test and Auction pieces, like this year’s Man o’ War Lot:

(I liked him, but I could have done without that weird tail.)

And this lovely Smart Chic Olena from 2012:

http://www.identifyyourbreyer.com/BreyerFest/images/bf12smart.jpg

There’s probably a reason for that: Reeves is still trying to get “brindle” right, at least from a mass-production horse standpoint. It’s one thing to make a singular piece for auction, but it’s quite another to reproduce it consistently and well across several hundred or thousand pieces.

It’s been reserved largely for Nonhorse molds because aside from being a more commonly found pattern in dogs and cattle – and cats, if you count “tabby” as a type of brindling – collectors tend to be a bit more forgiving when it comes to paint jobs on Nonhorse molds.

If I am remembering right, I do believe the little Diesel is the first mass production attempt of a full-blown brindle paint job on a horse mold. Though in this case, it is only a Stablemate, and there will still only be a few hundred made, at best.

But it’s a start.

My Jet Run

With the Event now just a week away, it seemed like a good time to dig out my original Jet Run, so I did:

He was in storage for a while, so I had forgotten just how nice mine was – dark, pretty, with no significant flaws! Almost live show quality, if I were considering it (maybe next year).

Jet Runs tend to be a little bit lighter than mine, sometimes drifting into Olive Bay or even Buckskin territory, though I wouldn’t necessarily call the darker ones rarer or more desirable than any other variation. Jet Run – and his cohorts Might Tango and Keen – are rather lightly collected molds, even for Classics.

They don’t command much attention or money, unless they are exceptional or special in some way. I happen to think mine is, but he’s not going anywhere, so the point is moot.

Mine has a B mold mark, which I had also forgotten about. It makes sense that he has one: I did get the set for Christmas in 1981, during the “Propionate” era ca. 1979-1983. (When Breyer briefly switched from Cellulose Acetate to the Cellulose Acetate Propionate, with mixed results.)

The USET Set came out in late 1980, so examples with the mark are easily identifiable as earlier pieces.

If I recall correctly the other two members of my set are also pretty good, especially the Keen; manufacturing quality in the early 1980s could be a bit iffy – the contents of every box truly were a “surprise” – so I lucked out with my set.

Blue Box

The selection was still good when I visited “my” Tuesday Morning this afternoon – several Picassos (Bay Pinto Desatado), Foiled Agains, Pony Pouches, Don’t Look Twices (Roxy) and even a Jubilation Mule – but if there were any of the scarcer AQHA Horses present, they were long gone.

I had found some Stablemates on clearance at Meijer a couple of days prior, and a Hartland Morgan Family at a Salvation Army earlier today, so I didn’t need to buy anything to sate a “horse fix”, though that could change tomorrow, I suppose….

(That Chestnut AQHA Horse I found was an especially nice one…)

Since I’ve been on a bit of a knockoff kick, here’s another recent acquisition in that department – a NIB Blue Box Blue Ribbon Stables Thoroughbred!

I got so excited when I noticed him from a distance in my local Salvation Army – a NIB Breyer, here? – but a few more steps in the door and I saw what he really was.

But I bought him anyway, because I’ve been wanting to add a NIB Blue Box piece to my knockoff selection, and the price was right.

It would have been even better if it had been their Draft Horse – an appealing and mostly “correct” sculpt that customizes well – but the cantering Thoroughbred on its unique resting base is a very adequate substitute.

The Blue Box horses are little different from your standard knockoffs, in that it’s not the molds themselves that are being “knockoffed”, but the Breyer “brand” itself! The color scheme, the style of the box, even Blue Box logo are all very Breyer-like, as are the horses themselves…

All without actually being direct knockoffs, which I find kind of fascinating. It’s not difficult to see how that thrifty aunt or coworker who knows you like horses would pick them up for you whilst garage sailing.

(Which I always accepted with a smile, because free horses are always welcome at this house, no matter the make or model!)

Special Runs and Rarities at Tuesday Morning

I finally got to see both Garrett and Santana “in the wild” – and I liked the Santana more than I thought I would, but not quite enough to pull out the wallet.

I was more tempted by the “New Beginnings” Appaloosa Classics Set, but I think I can wait on that: it has a 700 series Special Run number, which means it’s probably not a TSC exclusive and will be a little easier to acquire down the road, if need be.

I did a lot of travel for work this week, so I managed to hit a couple of Tuesday Mornings, too. I bought the Pony Pouches, but I managed to resist the Smokin Doubledutch. I didn’t see any of the AQHA Horses, though if the weather is less-than-ideal for flea marketing on Sunday, I might head back to see if I can snag one of those Black ones that have reportedly been turning up in their next sale assortment. Especially if they’re only $19.99!

(The promo pic is from their sales flier on their web site at http://www.tuesdaymorning.com/)

This is not the first time that Reeves has unloaded scarce items at Tuesday Morning: some of the 2001 BreyerFest SR Classic Racehorse sets – the one that included a Palomino Kelso, Buckskin Man o’ War, and the Fleabitten/Roan Silky Sullivan – turned up there. As did the Toys R Us Special Run Pacer “Horse of a Different Color” and Five-Gaiter “Valiant”.

They made a ton of the Racehorse set, and they had a ton of them left when that BreyerFest was over. There were so many, in fact, that the rumor that most of them ended up as regrind became accepted knowledge – that I dismissed once I saw the sets at one of my local TMs. The Toys R Us SRs ended up there presumably due to some sort of contractual dispute.
 
Although they weren’t necessarily made specifically for them, the circumstances of their distribution makes these sets – and now presumably, the Black AQHA horses – de facto Tuesday Morning Special Runs.

Actually, I sort of figured that this was how the AQHA scenario was going to play out. Since the Black pieces didn’t come out until the end of the year, when most retailers still had a bunch of Bays and Chestnuts on their shelves, a big chunk of the stock containing the Black pieces never escaped the warehouse.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that the market is now going to be saturated with them; the aftermarket prices will drop somewhat as completists fill that gaping hole in their AQHA lineups, but the Black will still be the rarest of the six official retail releases of that run (excluding the Gloss online promotional pieces, of course!)

What it does mean is that the AQHA pieces in the assortments dropping next week will likely have a higher percentage of Blacks than the full-price retailers did, and shoppers will have a slightly better chance to acquire one than they did before.

Which is also why I’m seriously mulling over a return visit on Sunday.

Horse Crazy Knockoffs

A couple weeks ago at work were had a bit of unexpected down time, so for some strange reason we ended up amusing ourselves by looking up pictures of obscure dollar-store knock-off toys.

This inspired me to go to our local independent non-chain dollar store on the way home that day. I was not disappointed:

The new Horse Crazy knockoffs are here!

I actually really like these; they’re a little more reminiscent of opaque colored plastic BreyerFest Special Run Stablemates keychains like our little green and white swirly friend from the 2003 Mod Squad set:

http://www.identifyyourbreyer.com/images/711103.jpg

Since I have been unable to acquire many of the actual colored plastic keychains – the Mod Squad set has always hovered just outside of my price range, and I have not been fortunate enough to either win or be gifted one of those sweet swirly Test pieces – I will happily make do with these goofy little knockoffs.

I’m a little surprised that Reeves hasn’t considered reinstituting the opaque plastic for the Horse Crazy program; it seems like a technique that would be ideally suited for it. I’m guessing it’s mostly a technical issue: recycling flawed models as regrind would be problematic, to say the least.

Making some of them “swirly” might work, but it’s hard to get consistent and attractive looking swirls, which leads to more flawed models, and murkier and murkier multicolored plastic…

I wouldn’t have a problem with that – and the potential for future Basecoat Chalky Stablemates releases – but some hobbyists might, especially since Basecoats usually involve a slight loss of detail due to the nature of the paint involved. That slight loss of detail is not that noticeable on Classics and Traditionals, but on Stablemates, it could be an issue.

When Breyer Met Mego (no, the other Mego)

It was another weird and wonderful day at the flea market, the kind that makes me wish I had a booth at one of the local antique malls so I could justify buying stuff to stock it!

I passed by most of the horses – they were either overpriced, or simply not that interesting – but I did find one interesting bit of Breyer-related ephemera from the same vendor I purchased that photo album from:

Dinah-Mite paper dolls!

Dinah-Mite was Mego’s version of Barbie, whose biggest selling feature was that she was – as you can see from the cover of the book – far more posable and versatile.

She didn’t last long – she was discontinued ca. 1975, in favor of Mego’s better-selling Star Trek, Superhero, and Planet of the Apes lines. But not before she acquired some interesting accessories, including a horse “Golden Pal”, who was a motorized knock-off of our friend the Palomino Family Arabian Stallion:

http://www.megomuseum.com/dinah/v_horse.shtml

And a boyfriend “Don”:

http://www.megomuseum.com/catalog/1974/images/dinahmite2.jpg

Both of these accessories were not originally her own; Golden Pal was originally the Planet of the Apes “Action Stallion” and Don was simply a Mego Superman in civilian clothes. Mego was thrifty (and/or creative) that way.

So why am I going on about this obscure doll from the early 1970s? It’s because the original, elusive, rarely-seen Breyer Rider Doll from the 1976 Breyer Rider Gift Set was… a repurposed Dinah-Mite:

Or at least, the prototypes were.

There are all sorts of stories floating around about why the original Breyer Rider Gift Set never materialized; the original one I heard was that there was a safety or manufacturing issue involved. But if the plan was to just repurpose/reissue Dinah-Mites – and not merely hijack a few for the prototypes – something else might have been going on.

There are enough Mego resources online to solve that riddle, but like so many other things, I haven’t had the time to find out.

Treasures

I did not take advantage of the Collectors Club Gold Valegro offer; aside from the budgeting issue (tight right now) I’m lucky enough to live in an area where access is not going to be an issue, should the money and space arise come December.

This offer was clearly for people who don’t have that same level of access.

I’d dearly love to buy the new Halloween Special Crane – basically a Mini-Me of last year’s Halloween Horse Ichabod on the Rearing Stallion mold – but again, I gotta watch that budget. I do like that they’re limiting orders to one per account, which was not the case last year. Wasn’t the quantity limit some absurd amount, like 12? Yeah, that was not cool, especially with Foal molds.

Tuesday Mornings, for those of you near them, just got a fresh Breyer shipment in, too – lots of Classics, Accessories, and the pinto Cantering Welsh Pony Smokin’ Doubledutch. If I happen to find a particularly nice CWP there during my work travels, she might be coming home with me. Maybe some of those Pony Pouches too, since I am a bit obsessed with the fabric they are made out of.

(Reeves, if you’re reading, I’d totally make you a quilt for next year’s silent auction if you’d give me a bolt of either fabric, or both. Seriously not kidding.)

The flea market has been really interesting over the past few weeks; I’ve bought a couple of small collections, lots of vintage craft supplies, and some ephemera – specifically, a photo album full of horse pictures, and a batch of photos from someone who (I think) performed and/or participated in rodeos just before WWII.

First, a few of the “rodeo” pictures; I have enough pictures of the pinto to probably have a portrait model done – and possible even the tack, too! Documentation on these photos is pretty light, alas, so I don’t know this blue-eyed boy’s name:

The Photo Album is from roughly the same time period – 1939 through 1946 – but features a greater variety of pictures. There are photos from a trip “out West”, including a visit to the Cheyenne Frontier Days in 1946; several horseback riding photos, primarily of Saddlebreds; and a batch of photos from a day trip to the races – specifically, Lincoln Fields, that later became Balmoral Park:

The documentation on these photos is much better – in my rare bits of free time I’ve been able to do a little bit of research on them and the family. There was also a letter in the album discussing a horse the family purchased during his 1946 trip, with some mention of an article being published about him in the magazine The Bit and The Spur.

What was funny about this album was that, when I picked it up to look at it, the vendor touted the fact that it had a lot of World War II pictures in it – and it does! And one of those photos is interesting enough that I might have to send a scan to a baseball historian. (I’m generally pretty terrible at recognizing human faces, but maybe I might have picture of Yogi Berra during his time in the Navy?)

But it was the horse racing pictures that sealed the deal for me, of course. You just don’t find pictures of someone’s “day at the races” every day – especially in the northernmost Detroit suburbs. I do find harness racing memorabilia on occasion – there used to be a number of Standardbred farms active in the area in the 1950s and 1960s, and racing at the Imlay City Fairgrounds just up the road – but flat track stuff is a little scarcer to come by here.

I have no idea why I decided to pick up that album and go through it; there was no other horsey memorabilia on the table, and no indication that there would have been those kinds of pictures inside. I just opened it up, and there they were, and I knew I had to take that treasure home with me.