Breyer Boxer Clock

My lucky find!

 Breyer Boxer Clock, # unknown, $38, Sell It Here, Lafayette, Indiana, October 22, 2014.

I have been corresponding with Sande Schneider, and she found a picture of a Boxer clock in Nancy Atkinson Young's files. It is owned by Jo Kulwicki.

The clockworks are different, but other than that, they look the same.

The clock workings are labeled "Lanshire, Chicago" and I have found several of the metal horse clocks with Lanshire workings on eBay as I research this find.

These are the only two Breyer Boxer clocks known in the hobby. Needless to say, I am thrilled to have made such a find! And very, very grateful.

The Find of a Lifetime

Since I have been collecting so long, I have had the opportunity to buy pieces new that are now quite collectible or to find others on the secondary market (antique shops, bartering with another hobbyist, etc.) It is a medium sized collection, but it is high quality. I love my collection and sure hope there is collecting in the next life!!

My biggest hope over the years has been to score a decorator. Decorators were produced in the 1950s/early 1960s and did not sell well. Who wanted a blue or gold horse? Now they're VERY valuable.

I did find a decorator once. Kathy Bateman, a lady living in the low-income apartments where I delivered newspapers in the 1990s, had one that I spied one day while delivering her newspaper. I knew she could get more than the $75 I had to spend, so I put her in touch with a collector with deeper pockets than mine. She got $1500 for that piece! (I may have lost the model, but I made a life long friend - Kathy and I are still in touch.)

I've kept my eyes peeled for a decorator for decades and never found one. I always thought a decorator would be the most exciting thing I could find and add to my collection. 

Until Tuesday when I made the biggest collecting find of my life.

Tuesday I popped into Sell It Here, a place I have found some nice pieces at good prices in the past. As I poked around, across an aisle and past two booths I spied a Breyer Boxer - a dog that the company has produced since its earliest days and is fairly easy to find. (I have two.)

It had the original studded vinyl collar, marking it as from the earliest days of production. Mine don't have the collars, so I walked over to take a look. But there was more to this dog than first appeared.

 It was attached to a wooden plinth and had a clock.

I paused. Breyer made clocks in their earliest days in conjunction with Mastercraft. They, too, are highly collectible. This looked a lot like the clocks I had seen in pictures.

A Breyer Davy Crocket clock. (Picture by Sande Schneider.)

But never, ever had I heard of a Boxer clock. I'd not seen any at shows where Breyer clocks were featured or in any of the reference books I have. And at $45, I hesitated to take something home I strongly suspected might be a fake.

I left it at the shop. 

I went home and emailed my friend, Sande Schneider, about it. Sande is also a long time collector, and she has file cabinet upon file cabinet of Breyer history documentation. If anyone could tell me if the Boxer clock was real or a fake, it was Sande. (Breyer has even come to her to get documentation as they did not keep good records in the early days of the company.)

Sande said that she did not know of any Breyer Boxer clocks, but would do some research. In her archives is the material Nancy Atkinson Young collected when she wrote the definitive collectors book on the company.

And in going through Nancy's archives, Sande found this:

A picture of a Breyer Boxer clock. Same studded vinyl collar, same wooden plinth, same clock housing, but a different clock face.

The only other Breyer Boxer clock known. (No wonder I'd never seen any at shows!)

Wow. I had just come across quite a valuable piece - and I'd left it behind! 

The next day I left Hershey as soon as school was over, hoping against hope that the clock would still be at Sell It Here.

It was. And it was on sake for $38, a nice plus!

Now there are TWO Breyer Boxer clocks in the hands of hobbyists.

(Sande put me in touch with the owner of that clock, Jo Kulwicki. I am looking forward to hearing about her clock, where she found it, and any history she can shed on it.)

More on the Clock

I have been corresponding with Gail Fitch, author of several books on Hartland Collectibles. In fact, in her new book just coming out, there is a picture of one of my pieces. Years ago I won a drawing that the company was holding and received a piece of which only 5 had been made. She contacted me and asked for photos and if she could include it in her book.

To my surprise, she wrote that she had never found a Hartland clock at an antique shop or flea market. I knew I'd found something special, but the more I know, the more I realize just how lucky I was! I asked her for her take on the differences between the Breyer and the Hartland clocks. Our email correspondence follows.

Lynn,

The white horse standing OVER the clock is a Hartland whether the mane is on the left or right. Breyer horses stand with the clock under their nose.

There are other differences, but that is the simplest point.

After my 2000 book came out, a small clique took the brand-mark information I had published, found Hartland’s Diamond-I mark on the clock bases, and started writing on the Internet. I was accused of lying. They were saying that Breyer made the clock horses first.

In my books since 1983, I only said what the several elderly Hartland executives told me: That Hartland made the clock horses first, and Breyer made clock horses second, and that Hartland horses stood OVER the clock.

What had happened, but didn’t come out until 2004, was that someone – not anyone you mentioned – had, about 1999, found a 1949 clock horse ad. They did not share that with me, but shared it with the small clique. The person believed it was a Breyer, and that if Breyer had made the clock horses in 1949, they believed Breyer had made the clocks before Hartland. The clique was saying that on a web site.

Then, in 2004, an article from a 1950 vintage toy magazine appeared on eBay. I saw it. The horse pictured was labeled Hartland in the caption, and it matched the horse in the 1949 clock ad.  Members of the clique compared the two items, but did not include me in the deliberations. Then, they trumpeted their finding, which reversed their previous position, which had been that Breyer made the horses first.

Well, bless their hearts! The two pieces of documentation they found, put together, supported what I’d been publishing all along: That Hartland made clock horses in the 1940s (and before Breyer). I never got an apology from any of them.

A detail I didn’t know was that Hartland had made both right-mane and left-mane Champs on clocks. Hartland apparently never sold the left-mane Champs off the clock, and they never appeared in a Hartland catalog. It’s another Hartland mold, not a Breyer! Hooray!

Marney had claimed the left-mane Champs on clocks as Breyers, at least as early as the 1980s, and everyone just went along with that, including all of the Breyer authors, for decades until the clique’s mid-2004 announcement. When Breyer collectors gave me their clock pictures, I included them in my 1995 newsletter and in my 1999 book. I knew that clocks under the chin of the horse were Breyers. It should have been obvious that any horse OVER the clock was by Hartland, regardless.

I printed a “correction” (for the caption in my 1999 book) in one of my newsletters (about 2005), but I realize not everyone gets my newsletter. I’ll have a lot of new research in my next book on vintage Hartlands.

****

What you paid for your clock is about what I would expect.

I would love to include its picture(s) in a future book. Do you have pictures that are 4” by 6” proportions and at least 1,500 x 2,000 (or more) pixels?

Thanks,

Gail Fitch

From: Lynn Isenbarger [mailto:lisenbarger8@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2012 2:34 PM
To: Gail Fitch
Subject: Re: Hartland Clock

I don't mind you asking at all. It was marked $95 and they gave me a 10% discount when I asked. Add in Indiana taxes, and I paid $91.49.

I am thrilled to have found it, although at first I thought it was a Breyer. I did some online research on Breyer clocks and came across Mike Jackson's website. He, Sande Schneider, Sheryl Leisure, and some other hobbyists took some time to see if they could figure out how to tell the difference between a Breyer and a Hartland clock. I read their account and how they say to tell the difference, and that's when I realized I had a Hartland and not a Breyer.

Although, I am curious if you agree that it is the diamond conchos and the flat angle front hooves that are the clues that this is a Hartland clock. Do you mind sharing your opinion?

Lynn,

I have my own way of describing the differences between the Hartlands and Breyers.  

People get off on tangents sometimes.
Gail

From: Gail Fitch <gfitch@tds.net>
To: 'Lynn Isenbarger' <lisenbarger8@yahoo.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 5, 2012 3:07 PM
Subject: RE: Hartland Clock

Hi Lynn,

These clocks are lovely to see.
I have never found one at a flea market or antique mall either. It is almost strange.

If I may ask, what did you pay for it?

Gail

From: Lynn Isenbarger [mailto:lisenbarger8@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2012 12:18 PM
To: Gail Fitch
Subject: Re: Hartland Clock

Here are the pictures! I consider myself so lucky - I've been collecting since 1963, but this is the first one I have ever found at a flea market or antique shop. :)

Thanks for the values!

Lynn

  ~o
_'\<,_
(*)/ (*) I'd rather be biking!

---

From: Gail Fitch <gfitch@tds.net>
To: 'Lynn Isenbarger' <lisenbarger8@yahoo.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 4, 2012 1:36 PM
Subject: RE: Hartland Clock

Hi Lynn,

How neat that you found a Hartland clock!

My 1999 book says $100-$150, depending on condition.

Values on most collectibles, including Hartlands and Breyers have dropped since 1999, but for the clocks, I still recommend those numbers.

I’d love to see pictures!

Gail

From: Lynn Isenbarger [mailto:lisenbarger8@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2012 10:01 AM
To: gfitch@tds.net
Subject: Hartland Clock

Hi, Gail,

I found a Hartland clock this week at an antique shop. (I am certain it is a Hartland and not a Breyer due to the diamond shaped conchos on the bridle and the straight hooves.) I was wondering if you could help me put a value on it? I have no plans to sell it, but I do want to know for possible insurance. If so, I will send some pictures of it.

So thrilled to have found one!

Thanks!
Lynn Isenbarger

  ~o
_'\<,_
(*)/ (*) I'd rather be biking!

Breyer Clock

I got my clock!! Including tax, I paid $91.49 for it. $100 was my limit on it. (I always have an idea of how much I will pay for a model before I look at its price tag.) It was priced at $95 but they took 10% off when I asked if they could do better, so they came down to $85.

 The clock still works, at least some of the time. Not that I plan to plug it in - the wiring is too old and unsafe.

There is a lot of discussion on identifying the Mastercraft Horse Clocks since Hartland and Breyer both made them. I clipped the following from Mike Jackson's website of information about Hartland horses. After reading through it (I include it for reference), I think I have a Hartland, not a Breyer. It's the diamond conchos on the bridle and the flatter hoof profile that are the determining factors.

Mastercrafters Horse Clocks

There are two topics regarding Hartland Plastics history that were either not well documented or incorrectly represented in some of the current literature and books on the subject. With a lot of help from other collectors, I wrote two important pages on my old site that need to be preserved for collectors. The other topic was about the Hartland Champs.

Possibly the most interesting and most controversial topic on collecting Hartland Horse and Riders revolves around the clocks Hartland Plastics made for Mastercrafters Clock and Radio. Numerous stories have been told on how and when everything happened. After several years of research, a small group of Hartland and Breyer collectors now believe to have cleaned up all the mess.

Actually, the story line is a simple one. Here's my version: Sometime in 1949, or possibly a little before, Hartland Plastics, Inc. contracted with Mastercrafters Clock and Radio for a production run of a distinctive horse clock. The horse straddled over a Sessions clock, as seen above. Hartland produced the decorative mantle base, plus a horse designed to face left on the base along with a saddle. The deal with Mastercrafters was not an extended one. Before the end of their production run, Hartland also created a new style of horse which would face right, with the mane on the right side. Some of those style clocks show up, though much less common than their first version. Besides the dark brown bases, Hartland also produced some light marble colored bases. Information on this topic is quite limited. There is a possibility Hartland produced and sold their horse as an individual element before and during their contract with Mastercrafters. When the contract was completed, Hartland used their horse molds to sell individual stand alone horses. Sometime in late 1953, they began producing riders to accompany the large horse.

Until Recently, collectors were told the horse with the mane on the left was a Breyer horse, while the horses with the mane on the right were Hartlands. As of early 2005, it appears this is still the prevailing train of thought, especially within the Breyer community. Our research concludes the story line has been incorrect all along and will probably take a few years to filter throughout both groups of collectors.

The rest of this page explains how our little research group came to make those conclusions, plus explain how to really tell a Breyer Western Horse from a Hartland Large Early "Champ".

Supporting Documentation and Clues

It has taken several years to locate solid information about this topic. Most of what we have had to work with in the past has been very sketchy...often recalled and passed on by people that didn't actually witness the steps.

Victor Horse: This is the first solid piece of documentation I was able to find back in February of 2002. It is from a Summer/Fall 1949 "counter book", sometimes found in jewelry stores of the time. When I first found the ad, most Breyer collectors were perplexed knowing Breyer didn't begin making horses until 1950. The base shown is a walnut base with a light colored horse with dark shading in the mane and tail. A similar ad appeared in Bennett Brother, Inc.'s 1950 Blue Book of Quality Merchandise catalog, however the manufacturer's suggested retail price was listed as $14.95

This ad appeared in the same counter book the following year. The copy is basically the same, however they moved the larger text down and made it smaller. The ads appeared in the 1949 and 1950 editions of this counter book, but was not in the 1948 or 1951 editions. (I had help finding these ads from a catalog dealer, however he would not tell me the name of the catalog. He was still trying to find additional years and did not want to bid against me. Still, I trust the source.)

Based on the Victor Horse ads we were able to positively state that the clock was available in 1949 and at least part of 1950.

The ads confused our little study group. It appeared to us at the time that Breyer horses were on the bases. Interestingly, Sheryl Leisure noticed the Diamond I imprint on the underside of a "Hartland" style clock base. Then, to our amazement, Sande Schneider took the cover off her "Breyer" style base to discover it also had the Diamond I mold mark! Others checked the underside of their bases. All the bases we were able to get inspected at that time did have the imprinted mold marking. How and why would a Breyer horse be on a Hartland base?...and who made the saddles?

The Missing Link finally appeared! The close up of the ad below appeared in Novelties and Toys in June of 1950. As the section states, this was Hartland's offering for "New Toys on Parade". Again, we were offered a knuckle ball. The horse shown in the ad had the mane on the left!

It took us a while to understand what we were seeing. Surely, Hartland wouldn't use a photo of a Breyer horse in their own ad? Nancy Young identified it as one of the horses with the diamond conchos and distinctive tail. That horse matched the horse in the Victor Clock ads. Pieces of the puzzle started making sense.

It became clear the horse was a Hartland piece and it had been standing on a Hartland base all along. Later it became apparent the saddle was also a Hartland piece when compared to other positively identified Hartland saddles.

The key to identifying Hartland and Breyer horses can be seen in the photo above. Notice the shape of the conchos on the bridles of the two horses above. Nancy Young, the quintessential Breyer expert, labels the style on the right as "diamond conchos". Well, they aren't exactly perfect diamonds, but they aren't round. A Breyer Western Horse is shown on the left. We are now confident that all large horses with the diamond conchos were actually Hartland pieces, regardless of the side the mane is on! (There may be a few knockoff versions out there that are similar).

Breyer and Hartland Hooves: In 2004 Kaia Denham pointed out another important distinction in the two company's horses. Breyer hooves are slightly rounded across the front of the hooves, while Hartland hooves are almost perfectly straight.

The last loose end we had to explain was the occasional occurrence of the new style "Hartland" horse on the clock base. The ad above probably supplies a few clues. By press time of 1950, Hartland was announcing their intentions of entering the toy market. While we may never know all the reasons for the new style horse, I suspect they were preparing for the upcoming demand on the mold.

Once the clock deal was completed with Mastercrafters, Hartland did not renew relations with them. Mastercrafters then went to Breyer Animal Creations to make a new "Horse Beside the Clock". Breyer created a new horse with perfectly round conchos, a base, and a saddle for their offering. Using limited documentation, I suggest Hartland's relations with Mastercrafters all happened in early 1949 to early 1950. Hartland's second horse was apparently in production at some point near the end of the clock production run. At least a few of the new style horses made it onto the bases. No one really knows if any of the later style clocks were actually sold through Mastercrafters, or if they were just remnants and prototypes kept by Hartland officials and employees. Only a few have survived.

The Alabaster, or light marble base is another variation. It was also produced by Hartland Plastics for Mastercrafters Clock and Radio. So far, I have not been able to find an ad showing this configuration, but it has to exist somewhere. The horse shown in the photo on the right is what Nancy Young calls the "sorrel version". Many of the horses in this color scheme have turned to a "bile" green. The left image is white horse on the same style base.

Nancy Young, author of Breyer Molds and Models, also uses this horse to help confirm this is a Hartland offering and not a Breyer horse....."And consider, too, the fact that Hartland sorrel color (painted on other Hartland molds) is known to turn green. Sheryl owns an example or two and told me that this is a known tragedy among Hartlands. Breyer sorrels and palominos, on the other hand, retain their lovely realistic colors to this day (though their plastic can yellow, of course). Breyers don't turn green. So the very greenness of the diamond-conchos greenies implicates them as Hartlands."

Photos couresty Shanna Hughes: The San Francisco Horse: In July of 2004, Shanna Hughes notified me of a horse she owned. The horse is of the early style, with off white plastic and brown stained mane and tail, including the diamond conchos. The hooves show no evidence of having holes drilled in it for pegs or screws from being fastened to a base. On the flank of the horse, someone had burned in San Francisco 1949. It looks professionally done in a calligraphic style.Assuming the date is correct, the horse at least suggests Hartland was selling the freestanding horse either before or during their Mastercrafters Clocks. When I say "before", I introduce the option that Hartland may have already had the horse manufactured and didn't know how to market it or get it on the streets. Possibly Hartland contacted Mastercrafters to see if they were interested in making a clock. This might explain a few other mini-mysteries. Hartland may have discovered they could sell the horse easily enough on their own, and make more money in the process, than just getting a small slice of the pie with Mastercrafters. The next logical progression would be an ad in a toy catalog.

Saddles: While I might have a bit of experience holding a lot of the Horse and Rider sets, my hands-on experience with the clocks has been extremely limited. For many years, I was only trying to find one of the clocks with the horse facing right, with the mane on the right. The rest were Breyers. Right? So, when it comes to a few related details, I must glean information from others with more experience and more examples to examine.Sande Schneider has kept me on track throughout all this, so I will fall back on her expertise on the saddles. Sande sent this information to me in a recent E-Mail:

"In my observations, I have determined that old Breyer saddles always have the donut-hole style rivets/grommets attaching the cinch to the saddle. Earlier saddles have the grommet high up on the fender, and later ones have the grommet noticeably lower on the fender. Works that way with Breyer's Western Pony and Prancer saddles too. Both of those size saddles with cinches have snap-on cinches.Whereas some, only some, early Hartland saddles have cinches. Those cinches are attached to their saddles with a nail-head style grommet, and those cinches fasten with slip-thru buckles, NOT snaps. From what I've seen, original saddles from Hartland horses *over* clocks were also brown with whitewashed skirting. Some of those saddles were cinchless and others had the buckle-on cinches. I'm not sure which style came first, but I've had only two of the buckle-on ones, and only two of the cinchless ones. But, then I can only remember ever owning five Western Horses that were the Hartland ones with mane on the left side. Two of those were still over clocks and the other three were free-standing, but may have been over-clocks at one time."

Bridles: Once again, I will have to rely on other people for this one, though I do have a few examples to photograph. In the early horses, there were two basic types.

Unlike the beaded chain reins most Hartland Horse and Rider collectors are familiar with, the early Large Horses often had O-Link style chains fastened either with a ring or a clasp at the two holes in the horse's mouth. The three photos here show the O-Link style chain connected at the bit with a clasp. Any Hartland collector will also identify the tag seen below as a Hartland style tag. Also of note, the tag labels this lot 57, probably assigned by Mastercrafters.

The address on the tag exactly matches the address for Mastercrafters Clock and Radio. I don't know if this horse had holes in the hooves from previously being attached to a base? With the Ceramic Clock Co. tag, it would seem to be the case.

The horses in the photo on the right are owned by Sande Schneider. The horse on the right lacks the drilled out holes for any sort of reins. She points out the same scenario in the 1950 toy ad. She reports seeing another gray one at a show.

It is hard to say whether the toy ad was "artistic license" or the intended direction of the toy line, but a few examples exist. Still, it is easy to put the 1950 toy ad photo after the1949 showings of Victor Horse on the clock. Those ads clearly show a set of reins. We have not seen a Horse Over the Clock lacking holes for the reins, however, I show them here to help confirm Hartland as the manufacturer.

Even though the reins with the horse in the back are on a Breyer horse, the photo above illustrates the other style connector often associated with the early horses. Of the four examples I have here right now, three have clasps. The "diamond" concho is clearly visible at the top of the closest bridle. It is a Hartland piece, while the distant version shows the round conchos.

Look What I Found!

I went down to Crawfordsville today to check out the antique shop, Cabbages and Kings. To my surprise, I found this:

A Breyer Mastercraft clock! It was made in 1949 and I have never, ever seen one despite the fact that I have been collecting since 1963!

The vendor wants $95 but is willing to take $85 for it. I left it at the shop because I wanted to come home, go through my books, and verify that yes, I had found what I thought I had found.

The Model Trading Post's Value Guide values the piece at $450.

Gulp.

I am going to drive back down there tomorrow and purchase it.

Wow. I can hardly believe my good fortune!

Mastercraft Clocks

(from Breyer History Diva, 2009)

Let's begin with this beautiful little wreck I found at the flea market last week: a MasterCrafters Swinger!


(Photo lightened somewhat to show the detail - the clock doesn't actually look like it's molded out of chocolate, in person.)

They’re known as "Swinger" clocks because they have a figurine attached to a pendulum mechanism that would swing back and forth. Most of them - including this one - had a girl on a swing, but some have both a boy and a girl, or a bird on a perch. Someone swiped the figurine from this particular example, which partly explains why I was able to snag it for a mere 5 bucks. (It was also dirty, greasy, cracked, and covered in duct tape.)

Most collectors know that Breyer’s first horse was designed as a component for a clock manufactured by the MasterCrafters Clock Company. Mike Jackson, at his Hartland History web site Hartland Westerns, goes into the history of the MasterCrafters Horse Clocks, and there’s no need to duplicate the effort here. (I have a few quibbles with it, but I’m in no mood to start a catfight over tone or details.)

Lesser known is the fact that Breyer made more than just the horse for MasterCrafters. It’s been difficult to track down which parts, and for which clocks precisely: the records (as always) are virtually nonexistent. So far only one clock - one that I discussed in one of my first posts - bears what appears to be an early Breyer mold mark. The clock in question:


It’s possible that the plastic components of the Swinger Clock were also manufactured by Breyer. Nancy Young notes in Breyer Molds & Modelsthat Steve Ryan, during his brief tenure at Reeves in the early 1990s, claimed that Breyer molded those components, but in a footnote comments that Hartland expert Gail Fitch believes Hartland did. I took the opportunity of having a trashed and partially disassembled Swinger Clock to see if I could find any physical evidence one way or another.

Nothing. I found neither Hartland’s Iolite mark nor Breyer’s wavy-ribbon mark. The clock had been messed with before, so it’s possible something was lost or somewhere along the way. It’s also possible that I’m not looking in the right places, that my eyesight is shot, or that it never received any recognizable mold stamps in the first place.

It didn’t hurt to look; it was only a five dollar investment, and I had a fun afternoon disassembling, cleaning and repairing it, at least. (It’s my favorite part of the flea market process!) Once I’m finished repairing and rewiring it, I’ll probably stick something in the empty space left by the missing Swinger. But should it be a Stablemate, or a Tinymite? Decisions, decisions…