Hagen Renaker Circus Ponies

I added two new Hagen Renaker circus ponies to my collection. I'm super excited to have found them.

Head Up Circus Pony with maroon harness, A-266, $40, 1980 - 1983, Nancy Salander, Columbus OH.

 I'd even call it magenta.

 Here it is compared to the lightest of my head-up ponies - quite a difference. This pony came in a pink and a maroon harness. I am pretty sure these are the pink and purple versions.

 You can see it even better in this photo.

Now it is on the left while the lightest one is on the right. (The lightest one is from Nancy Falzone's collection and has exceptional shading.)

 I also got a head-down pony with yellow harness.

Head Down Circus Pony with yellow harness,  A-267, $40, 1980 - 1983, Nancy Salander, Columbus, OH.

 His shading is pretty unremarkable when you compare him to the one I already have.

I am delighted to add both of these pieces to my collection. I now have eleven Hagen Renakers and eleven of the Hagen Renaker copies. And I'm still looking for more.

Kelvin Circus Ponies

Look what I just found - two new circus ponies to add to my collection!

They're bone china and made by Kelvin, a Japanese company that (clearly) did knockoffs of the Hagen Renaker circus ponies. I paid $19 ppd for the set, and found them on MH$P. The seller is April Powell from New York.

Hagen Renaker did not do a rearing one, but this copy has the harness (complete with heart), the white body color with the black mane and tail, and the red pipe cleaner plume of the Hagen Renaker Circus Ponies.

In this case, the plume is a pipe cleaner folded in half, not a single piece like Hagen Renaker's. There is a little crazing in their finish, too, not uncommon for older china pieces (including Hagen Renakers.)

This one mimics Hagen Renaker's Head Up Circus Pony.

On both ponies, the mane and tail have white in them, possibly for depth and detail or maybe just because of sloppy painting. I lean toward the latter because the hooves and harnesses also have white streaks in them.

Here is a comparison of the Kelvin to a Shiken (Japan) copy and the original Hagen Renaker Circus Pony. Note the Kelvin is larger in scale, too. Check out those hooves - all the copies in my collection have black hooves. Was it due to the cost of gold paint?

You can also tell that the copies are bone china (see that stark white color?) while the Hagen Renaker has a creamier color due to the slip that was used to make it.

As I said, Hagen Renaker did not make a rearing Circus Pony, but Shiken did. The Kelvin is on the left and the Shiken on the right.

I have eight various circus pony copies in my collection, and not one of them is a copy of Hagen Renaker's Head Down Circus Pony. I wonder if they're out there?

While I don't care much for the idea of one company taking another's product, making a few minor changes, and then marketing it as their own, it was (and remains) a common occurrence. But I have to admit, I find all the copies charming, and I really, really like these two.

New Circus Ponies!

You never know when you are going to find something to add to your collection. I was on Etsy looking for a banner for the Happy Trails show last weekend, and decided to type "circus pony" in the search box when I finished.

I am glad I did because these two popped up!

 They're 1/32 scale and the seller says she thinks they are from the 1970s.

Mini Circus Ponies, $9, 4/2018, Etsy, Linda Thornburg, 1243 Maple View Dr., Charlottesville, VA 22902.

Despite the chunky legs and hooves, I think they are pretty nice overall, especially their heads. The ponies are made from a plastic that is harder than Breyer's Mini Whinnies but with more flexibility than a Stablemate.

I need to do a little research and see if I can figure out who the manufacturer is, when they were made, and other details. In the meantime, I am glad to have them!

Freeman Leidy Circus Horses

Most model horse collectors have some elusive pieces that they hope to find and add to their collections some day. I am no exception to that - I may have a large collection, but that doesn't mean there aren't some things I have been looking for for a long time.

I have a real soft spot for circus ponies. I think it's because my father owned a circus pony, O'Boy, as a child. (Go here for a recent post about him.) My sister, Leslie, and I used to pretend we were bareback riders for the circus - we even had little cardboard suitcases we packed with our clothes and pretended to board the circus train to our next destination!

I have many of the Hagen-Renaker circus ponies, and a Donna Chaney mini circus pony resin custom painted as a leopard Appaloosa with red plumes. (I'd love to get a full sized china one, but that is way beyond what I can spend in good conscience.)

Several years ago, I discovered some obscure circus ponies on eBay - the Freeman Leidy ones. I fell in love instantly, but the cost - yikes! And the few that were available were damaged and missing pieces of their ribbons.

Finally I found one that had minor damage and a Make an Offer button. I took a deep breath and put in a very lowball one, expecting that there would be a counter offer. To my surprise, it was accepted without quibble, and I became the owner of my very first Freeman Leidy piece.

I was taken aback when it arrived, expecting a piece about the size of a Breyer classic model. I had no idea that the Freeman Leidys were 11-12 inches tall and very heavy!

But size didn't matter - I fell in love with the piece and crossed my fingers that I might find more.

I found pictures on eBay and other sites of these circus ponies in blue and in purple. There is also a circus coach that goes with them in pink, bue, and purple colors. But the prices were in the hundreds of dollars, and every piece had damage of some sort. (I have learned since that they are very, very fragile, and having been manufactured in the 1940s, fully intact pieces are rare.)

I've kept looking, but they don't come up for sale very often.

Then, two weeks ago, I did an Etsy search on a whim. And up popped two purple ponies and a coach. The seller wanted the same amount as an eBay seller who had two damaged ponies in blue and no coach. Aside from a tiny chip in one tail ribbon, all three of these pieces were mint.

 Head down circus pony in purple.

Figuring I had nothing to lose, I contacted the seller and offered him $175, a significantly lower price on the three pieces. He countered with $200, and I accepted and paid right away, pinching myself that I had finally attained one of my most wanted collecting goals.

The box arrived yesterday. Craig texted me at school with this picture:

"It's a major award!" he texted, tongue in cheek. (He really did think I had ordered a lamp.)

The seller did a fantastic packing job - the best I have ever seen, in fact. But still, the plume broke off the head up pony.

I could see why that happened, despite being so well wrapped and protected. The china inside the pony's head is crumbling - it did not take much to break that plume, and most likely the rest of this piece is just as delicate.

I am going to fix it this weekend and then handle it as little as possible.

The coach is hollow and open at the top - I think it may have been intended to be used as a planter.

I have the three pieces displayed in my dining room for the time being. After I fix that plume, I will tuck them into the china display case with my Hagen Renakers, Breyer porcelains, Goebels, Beswicks, and other china horses.

I am so thrilled to finally have these pieces!

HR Circus Ponies - Second Set

Long-time collector Barb Ness advertised these two vintage HRs for a very good price - $40 each! I bought them as possible upgrades/investment.

 Left: Hagen Renaker Head Down Circus Pony, HR A-267, 1956 - 1957, $40 eBay, Barb Ness, Camas, WA, 2/2015.

Right: Hagen Renaker Head Up Circus Pony, HD A-266, 1955 - 1957, $40 eBay, Barb Ness, Camas, WA, 2/2015.

Brinn-Bradley-Kelvin Circus Ponies

I just bought this pair of circus ponies from Gayle Roller off eBay. She calls them Brimm-Bradley-Kelvin pieces and scanned some pages in from a reference book that showed them.

 Circus Ponies, Brimm-Bradley-Kelvin, $20, 7/2013, Gayle Roller.

 Clearly, they are copies of the Hagen Renaker Circus Ponies, but there were only two of those and I have seen at least six different poses of these.

One of my new ones isn't pictured. The tail-up isn't shown. Below is a picture pulled from eBay of another auction, and the circus pony with the arched neck is not shown in the book either.

The auction has an arched neck prancing horse that is not shown in the book above. (I do not own these pieces.)

 My newly acquired pieces are in the back in this picture. 

And my new walking pony is taller than my older one, although the pose is identical.

That puts the tally at eight different pieces that I know of. Betcha there are more than that out there!!

HR Circus Ponies

I love the Hagen Renaker Circus Ponies, partly because I love models of circus ponies regardless, and partly because I find their molds charming. I have two of the very old originals in the gold harness with black manes and tails, and two from the 1980s (one with the yellow harness and the other with blue).

I just added these two from Lynn Lindren. I dickered her down from $57 to $50 for both with shipping included. (Photos by Lynn Lindgren.)

 Head up Circus Pony, $45 asking price.

Head Down Circus Pony, $12 asking price.