Red Roan Scratching Foal

I have always loved the red roan color Breyer produced back in the day, and was lucky enough to recently find two pieces to add to my collection that were missing.

 Red Roan Scratching Foal, #170, 1970-1973, $25, MH$P/Arline Wulfekotter, Cincinnati, Ohio, 9/2013.

Scratching Foal

(From Breyer History Diva, 2010)


I've wanted a Solid Black Scratching Foal for a while - a really long while, actually. When I first entered the hobby back in the late 1970s, I read either a rumor or an ad that mentioned an all-black Scratching Foal, and I immediately wanted it with every fiber of my being. (You know, the way any 15 year old girl wants anything.)

I’m not sure why a Solid Black Scratching Foal tickled my fancy so back then. There were lots of rumors of lots of other "Solid Black" test colors - and some actual, genuine Solid Black special runs - but nope, the Scratching Foal was the one I really wanted. It was a foal, it was cute, and it was rare. That was enough to do it, I guess.

(I did buy the Solid Black Mustang and the Family Arabians, eventually. Our special run options were a little more limited back then.)

I’d occasionally run across an alleged one or two, but careful inspection would always reveal the truth: Fake. It was the splash spots on the Foal's butt that would be the tell: painted over, they’d leave a slight raised edge, visible in raking light.

I did get pretty close with one - a cull from the estate of a former Breyer employee I purchased on eBay a while back. Check out that cute roany butt:


I have at least three other Black Appaloosa Scratching Foals - the original one I got for Christmas in 1978, one with a Blue Ribbon Sticker, and one without the USA mark. The one without the USA mark is probably the rarest of the three; the mold debuted in 1970, the same year that the USA mark was added to most - but not all - existing Breyer molds.

The 1970 Dealer Catalog features a photo of a test Scratching Foal with four stockings. Here’s a scan of my not-so-great copy. I have a better copy somewhere, but it’s still lost in the chaos.


I’ve looked in vain for this variation. (How else do you think I ended up with four different Black Appaloosa Scratching Foals?) I don’t think it exists beyond the original test piece, or pieces. Many Appaloosa Scratching Foals have gray hooves; sometimes the gray shading extends up the leg a little, giving the illusion of socks. But that’s as close as most of us will get, barring the appearance of more culls or test colors.

Just one more note here: you might notice the clean edge to the Catalog Scratcher’s blanket. It’s not masked: it’s "neatly" airbrushed. The painter would paint the outline of the blanket first, then paint up to that outline. It's not just a catalog thing: I’ve noticed quite a few of the early Black Appaloosas - the Running Stallion, Lying Down Foal, and the Scratching Foal - came with very neatly airbrushed blankets.

I don’t know if it was a specified technique for a while, or a quirk of one painter or group of painters. A similar technique was used on early versions of Jasper, the Market Hog - but that was probably an instance where they were making do until the painting masks were ready.

The earliest Stud Spiders - the ones sold in the 1977 J. C. Penney’s Christmas Catalog, and into early 1978 - had very neatly airbrushed front socks, too, so I’m thinking that the outline trick was just another technique in the painter’s arsenal of tricks - being able to substitute skill, for stencil.

At least until the production quotas started catching up with you.