Dark Mustang

(from Breyer History Diva, 2010)

There’s nothing overtly special about the next horse, except that he’s gorgeous. Behold my very dark buckskin #87 Rearing Mustang:


I paid a pretty penny for him - more than I thought I would have to pay, anyway - but some models just have to be had, y’know?

Added bonus: he has painted eyewhites, too. (A little hard to see, but trust me, they're there.) That’s a rare feature on early Buckskin Mustangs. It was my primary motivation in buying him; the fact that his color was so dark and rich was just a nice bonus.

Painted eyewhites were not a universal feature of all early Breyer paint jobs. Some models and some colors never had them, and some models rarely came without them, like the Brown Charcoal version of the Mustang. Beyond the Alabaster exceptions (they weren’t necessary!) there doesn’t appear to be much rhyme, reason or rule to early eyewhites.

At first glance, my dark Mustang could probably pass for Bay. There have been rumors of Bay Mustangs floating about for years, presumably based on the fact that the color was a part of Breyer’s limited color repertoire in the early 1960s. Surely they must have at least considered the idea, right?

I don’t doubt that there may be a few authentic, vintage test color bays - either gloss, or matte - out there somewhere. But I highly doubt that there was ever a regular run or special run of them, however brief, as I’ve speculated might be the case with the Gray Appaloosa Shetland Pony. At least with the Shetland Pony, there do appear to be a handful of authentic pieces out there. All of the "bay" Mustangs I’ve seen in person were either later tests or, like this boy, exceptionally dark buckskins.

Donkey

(from Breyer History Diva, 2010)




It’s a little hard to tell from this picture, but this little Donkey is a test color. He’s the same color as the #376 Brighty, the 1991 re-release in that quirky gray-brown dun color with the white belly and muzzle, and shoulder striping. Being that it is an undatable "newtoymens" piece with no real provenance, I don’t know if he was a test color for Brighty, a rejected test for the 1992 Election Donkey with the Brighty paint job, or even a test for another release entirely.

Some molds have lots of test colors floating around, and some have almost none, and the old Donkey mold is one of the latter. I’ve seen more test pieces on the Brighty mold - and even the Kitten - than the old Donkey. Part of the reason is that there haven’t been that many Donkey bodies lying around to experiment with: aside from his brief return in 1992, he’s basically been out of production since the mid-1970s.

Why the Donkey mold has been missing for so long is a matter of debate. I think a lot of collectors just assume that, like the Fury or the old Racehorse, he’s an old, dated mold that has been superseded by newer, more popular donkeys. We have the Brighty, the Companion Series Miniature Donkey, and now the cutie-pie Stablemates Donkey to fill in the gaps of the donkey-loving collector’s heart.

There may have been some damage to the mold that prevented or limited his return, too. According to former Breyer employee Steve Ryan, the Donkey mold was allegedly damaged in the aborted attempt to move production to Mexico in the 1970s. I don’t know how much truth there is to it; my interactions with Mr. Ryan did not inspire confidence in his grasp of Breyer History.

While real-life donkeys don’t come in quite the same color range as their cousins do, they certainly come in more colors than the old Breyer Donkey has: gray, gray, gray … and gray. There’s a lot of variation in that boring gray paint job, though, and one could amass a nice-sized collection of its many variations, from pale gray to near-black.

There are a few bay and Five-Gaiter Sorrel Donkeys from the 1960s floating around, too, but their color is sometimes so dark and muted that they are sometimes mistaken for just another shade of gray. And they may well be, as we have no documentation of it being a separate release or special run item.

There have also been rumors of Woodgrain Donkeys. I’m willing to entertain the notion of their existence, possibly as another Special Run item for the Ranchcraft Lamp line, but so far I haven’t seen one that passes historical muster. Red Mill - a company that manufactured figurines out of a crushed pecan-shell composite material - did make a fairly good copy of the Breyer Donkey, and that might be fueling the rumor.

Old Timer Cull

(from Breyer History Diva, 2010)

Let’s spotlight another treasure from my collection: the Old Timer cull!


Culls, for the otherwise uninformed, are unfinished or partially painted models that somehow escape the factory. Somewhat more "finished" culls - like this fella - were reportedly donated to orphanages and other child welfare organizations.

This one is pretty old: he has no USA mark, and he has tons of shading, typical of early alabaster Old Timers. (Some of them have so much gray shading, in fact, that you could almost classify them as "light smoke" or slate gray.) Another feature that gives away his age is the lack of "infill" in the upper corners of his headstall: just the straps are painted, not the area inside them. I don’t know when this detailing changed, but it happened very, very early in the original run. (A handy visual tip to keep in mind, if all you’ve got to judge an Old Timer by is a not-so-great photograph.)

There are several things wrong with this old boy. First - and most obvious - is that his blinkers are missing. In this case, they weren’t broken off, they were never added in the first place. The slots where the blinkers were to be inserted are free of any traces of glue or broken blinker bits.


The blinkers were molded separately and attached late in the production process, after most of the painting had been completed. There are two reasons why it was done that way. One, making them integral to the mold would have been problematic, because thin and projecting pieces of plastic like blinkers would have been prone to warping and breakage during the molding process. Second, it made painting the eyes a lot less challenging for the painter!

He’s missing his hat, too, an occurrence so common that Reeves could probably make a tidy profit in selling spares. (Hint, hint.) Being a cull, it’s just as likely he never had one to begin with. The gold detailing is missing too - all of the rings, buckles, keepers and chains are unpainted.

As you may have guessed by now, the Old Timer is an extremely complex, and expensive, mold to produce. There’s so much work that goes into an Old Timer that rumor had it that Breyer/Reeves was losing money on every one they made. However, customer demand was so great that they felt obliged to continue production even after it ceased to be profitable.

This brings up an interesting point: the models that collectors might see as being the most popular aren’t necessarily the most popular among the general, non-hobbyist public - and vice versa. We see it happen from time to time online (remember the bizarre run on the Khemosabi mold on eBay a while back?) And it happens in the physical world, too, especially with Old Timer. Some of the antiquers I deal with will slap a premium price on an Old Timer - and they know they’ll get it, eventually. The "serious" collectors will walk away, but the casual collectors? They’ll consider it.

The same dynamic explains the inexplicable prices found in your average antique shop. They’re catering to dilettantes and interior decorators, not the serious hobbyists. Occasional trips to your local antique malls are a lot less stressful, once you keep that in mind.

Red Roans

(from Breyer History Diva, 2010)

Different day, same chaos. Had to spend most of yesterday reassembling the china cabinet. (No fatalities, but lots of stress nonetheless.)

It appears I slightly dissed the old-style "freckle" Red Roans in my previous post on the Buckshot. Didn’t mean to give that impression, as I’m very fond of the color. I think I have every regular run release of it, and most of the special runs. (Yes, including the uber-rare Running Foal and the ultra-desirable G1 Draft Horse.)

Breyer’s original Red Roans were a relatively short-lived phenomenon. The first regular run release of this peculiar color appeared in 1968, on the Running Stallion. It was followed by the Lying Down Foal in 1969, the Scratching Foal in 1970, and the Running Mare in 1971.

The Mare and two Foals were gone by the end of 1973, but the Running Stallion lasted through 1974. He’s relatively "common" for a Breyer of that era; a nice one with attractive roaning will set you back a little bit, but not as much as a Gloss Charcoal. The Lying Down Foal isn’t too difficult to find, either.

The Mare, surprisingly, is the scarcest of the bunch, with just a three-year production run. That may seem like an eternity today, but for a model of that era, it’s a little unusual. It took me a while to find one myself:


I found her - along with the Stallion, the Lying Down Foal, and a few other beauties - at my fabled local flea market several years ago. In fact, they were the very first things I saw as I walked up to the entrance!

All of us who have had some modest flea marketing experience have had a few of these rare and wonderful moments. For an instant you freeze and pretend that you didn’t just see what you’re seeing. You scope out the immediate territory to make sure no one else has zeroed in on your target. Your heart begins to pound, and then you immediately break into your brisk, practiced, pretending-not-to-be-too-interested kind of walk …

(Can you tell I miss the flea market? Darn you infernal groundhog!)

You may notice that this Mare has an unusual feature: a Blue Ribbon Sticker. It’s unusual because Blue Ribbon Stickers were discontinued by the end of 1970, and the Red Roan Mare wasn’t introduced until 1971. It appears to be original, or at least contemporary; the Stallion, the Foal, and a couple other models in that collection had stickers, too.

It’s possible that the Mare may have been released in late 1970, in time for the Holiday shopping season - as I’ve discussed before, a not-uncommon practice. Since Breyer was on the verge of discontinuing the sticker program, it would have made sense to substitute another Running Mare sticker, instead of printing up a fresh batch of correctly numbered ones. Her sticker is actually for the #121 Smoke, who had been discontinued by the end of 1970 anyway.

I have no actual evidence of an early release for the Roan Running Mare, though. The simplest explanation probably is the best one, here: Breyer (or the retailer) was just using up their old sticker stock.

Spelling Errors

(From Breyer History Diva, 2010)

Breyer has committed many a serious - and sometimes amusing - spelling faux pas in the recent and not-so-recent past. For many years, they had trouble with the word Lipizzan:



They corrected it the catalog the following year, to the equally wrong "Lippizan." Not surprisingly, when they released the Classic Lipizzan in 1975, they managed to finally get it right on the box - but still spelled it wrong everywhere else!

You might have noticed that this is a twofer: notice "Palamino?" Palomino is consistently misspelled throughout this 1968 catalog, which is a bit of a mystery since Breyer didn’t have much problem spelling it before - or after. (Was there no time for proofreading, or was a rookie typesetter to blame?)

And then there’s my personal favorite, the Charcoal G2 Morgan BreyerFest "Kay Chain."

That one - and most of the more recent spelling errors - are probably translation or transcription errors. Amusing, but not offensive, except to remind us of the uncomfortable fact of overseas production.

And then there’s the term "Wedgewood Blue:"


Any pottery or antique collector worth their weight in Jasperware knows the correct spelling is "Wedgwood." (Type up both spelling variations in MS Word and see for yourself!)

The Wedgewood error is a very common and persistent one, especially among people with only a passing familiarity with collectible pottery. Some companies add the "e" intentionally when they use that word as an adjective or in a description to indicate they’re not officially affiliated with the actual pottery.

I’m not sure the higher-ups at Breyer were thinking that far in advance; I think it was just a simple spelling error. However, they did just have a run-in with Hagen-Renaker a couple of years earlier, so it’s possible that one of their lawyers may have advised them to add the extra "e" to cover their hindquarters, just in case another "nasty lawyer letter" arrived on their doorstep.

Dapple Grey History, Part 1

(From Breyer History Diva, 2010)


So, did you hear about the 2010 Mid-States Horse? Yeah, I know, the 2009 was just out a few months ago - apparently someone’s boss on Blab took a pic of the 2010 model at the Mid-States Hardware show; here’s a link to the discussion if you missed it:

http://www.modelhorseblab.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100312

If you don’t want to click for whatever reason - it’s in an open access section of the forum, BTW - it’s a Gray Appaloosa Foundation Stallion named Thunderbolt.

He isn’t like the Gray Appaloosa Foundation Stallion I wrote about a few weeks ago. (Just another creepy coincidence; if I were shilling for Reeves, I think I'd have seen a check, or boxes of horses by now. And I haven't.) This guy is gussied up with splash spots, extra shading, Indian markings and resist underdappling.

"Underdappling" is a term I use to describe dappling that’s underneath another layer of paint. "Resist" is the term generally used hobby-wide to describe the earlier, pre-airbrush style of dappling, where a type of grease was splashed on the model before painting. The dapples were created when the grease was washed off.

Thunderbolt is very appealing, but whether or not I’m actually getting him will depend on how my space situation finally plays out. And it doesn’t look like that extra space I had hoped for will be materializing. The remodel is about 75% done, and most of my stuff is back to where it should be. Except where it doesn’t fit. And what doesn’t fit includes about 50 models.

Major culling will be necessary. I am not looking forward to it.

Did you know that the full-body resist Dapple Gray paint job (aka "Wild Dapple Gray") was a relative latecomer in the Breyer world? It wasn’t until 1964 that we see the appearance of the true Dapple Gray paint job. That’s right, the dappled Decorator colors of Florentine (gold) and Copenhagen (blue) actually premiered before the more "realistic" Dapple Gray. While the Decorator experiment might not have been a success, initially, it did apparently lead to something that was.

Yes, I know, Running Mare and Foal came out in a color called "Dark Dapple Gray" ca. 1962. But it appears that Breyer considered that particular colorway separate and distinct from the "Dapple Gray" of the Belgian and his descendants. Except for the occasional color variation, and some pieces from very late in their run, the Mare and Foal retained their dappling pattern - and their unique color appellation - until they were discontinued in 1973. (I don’t quite know how to classify the Nebraska SRs in all this; they’re definitely "Wild" Dapple Grays, but I don’t know the precise color description they were sold under.)

The Dapple Gray Belgian was discontinued rather quickly - by the end of 1966 - but his color was carried forward on Old Timer, who also debuted in 1966. The color was scarce until the early 1970s, when yet another variation of the Dapple Gray paint job debuted.

That discussion I will leave for my next post. But here’s a sneak preview of the model at the center of that discussion: Marney Walerius’s "In-A-Tiff."

Dapple Grey History, Part 2

(From Breyer History Diva, 2010)


Of course, the morning after I published the last post, I came to the realization that I completely forgot about the Dapple Gray Clydesdale. (I was a bit under the weather at that time; must have been the cough syrup.) Fortunately, I still think most of my observations hold, and that the Decorators were a greater influence on the style of Dapple Gray paint jobs that came to dominate the rest of the decade.

The early Dapple Gray Clydesdales tended to be more roany, and more sedate - two terms that could rarely be applied to the Dapple Gray Belgian or Old Timer. And when hobbyists describe their favorite old-fashioned colors, the Gloss Dapple Grays of their dreams tend to be the ones on the wild side. And Reeves seems to agree:


(Yes, the photo is dreadful. Still working from scans here, folks.)

As promised, here’s the story of In-A-Tiff, in Marney’s own words (mostly.) From an article in the August 5, 1979 Chicago Tribune, "Model horses are center ring as a hobby," written by Mary Daniels:

Still another favorite in her "barn" is a very dark dapple gray Arab, In-A-Tiff. "He’s special because I made a suggestion to Breyer Moulding, and they did something about it. In 1970 I wrote Breyer and complained about the models being made." She felt they were not as authentic or as exciting as they could be.

Peter Stone himself says the earlier Breyer models were "not very emotional at all. They had four legs, were very straight, were a Western-type ho[r]se. There’s been a great deal of sophistication since then."

"They asked me to come down," continues Walerius, "I went into the factories and talked to the designers and the artists. In-A-Tiff came out of that visit, and he became the forerunner for the current dapple gray Arab they use."

(Neat, eh? Lots of good information in this article, especially about the early days; I’ll have to shoot a copy of it over to the folks at the Hobby History web site sometime soon.)

There were a couple of things that made In-A-Tiff’s dappled paint job different from the ones that came before. First, he was matte; with a few notable exceptions - including the Dapple Grey Old Timer, and "Dark Dapple Gray" Running Mare and Foal - most of the Breyer line had already made the switch to the Matte Finish. Second, he had additional shading: dorsal striping, facial detailing, and dark shoulders and hindquarters.

While not as realistic as today’s Dapple Grays, In-A-Tiff’s paint job was a significant step forward. And a popular one, too. In the 1970s, it seemed like Breyer dappled everything: the Proud Arabian Family, the bell-bottom Shire, the SR Clydesdale Family, the SR Belgian, the Classic Andalusian Family Mare, the Stablemate Saddlebred and Arabians …

There was no consistency to these paint jobs, however. Some of the earliest of the new Dapple Grays came with the full complement of new features, and others didn’t. Some had fine lacy dappling, while others had the infamous giant "cornflake" spots. Others had conservative patterns with minimal dappling on their heads and necks, and other had dappling on every square inch of their bodies - including their manes, tails and eyeballs!

I guess it all depended on the mood of the painting department that day. By the end of the 1970s, though, most Dapple Grays had reverted to a slightly toned down, matte to semi-gloss version of the wilder Dapple Grays of yore.

After that, it’s hard for me to make generalizations, because I haven’t done the research yet. And you can see what happens when I get a little lazy with the research. So my history of the Dapple Gray paint job will have to end here, for now.