Singles Bar: The Letter E

There are no Classics, Paddock Pals, Stablemates, or Mini Whinnie molds starting with E, and there are only five Traditional Breyer molds: horse molds El Pastor, Esprit, and Ethereal, and animal molds Elephant and Elk. I don’t collect any animal molds except the Cow, and I have more than one El Pastor and Ethereal, so my lone Esprit gets the spotlight this month all by himself.

 

 

This is #760520 Lionheart, a Brick-and-Mortar/Flagship store special run in 2012. He is one of only two hobby trades I’ve done outside of my immediate friend group. A fellow hobbyist with whom I had done a transaction in the past posted an ISO ad on Model Horse Sales Pages in early December 2012, looking for a matte Sixes and Sevens from BreyerFest and offering a Lionheart in trade. I got both a matte and a glossy Sixes and Sevens from the tent line that year, so I was immediately interested. Sixes and Sevens was much more limited in quantity, but Lionheart was an extremely popular release (so popular that I was unable to secure one from any of my local dealers; all had already been reserved) so I didn’t feel the trade was lopsided. I love his color and am super happy to have worked out the trade for him.

I have a few Esprits on my wish list. The glossy dun pinto Samba Surprise (149 made) and Steppin’ Out (200 made) will be the easiest and cheapest to obtain. Faded Love (96 made) will be a lot more expensive. Unobtainiums include the chestnut WEG SR (250 made but not all were released to hobbyists so they can be hard to find) and the glossy silver bay from the WEG Diorama contest (25 made). A friend of mine has the WEG glossy silver bay and he is insanely gorgeous. I will never be able to afford one, but he’s by far my favorite release on the mold.

Though I’ve never wanted one - ever - I do have a fun Prince of Chintz story. Prince of Chintz was the BreyerFest 2012 decorator model on the Esprit mold, and he looks like this (photo courtesy of Identify Your Breyer):

 

 

I was asked to volunteer with the BreyerFest Children & Youth Show for the first time in 2016 as the results person. I’ve got a crazy-ass spreadsheet that I’ve customized to there and back, complete with nested IF formulas to populate entrant names based on their entrant number and conditional formatting and VLOOKUPs across sheets to highlight models shown in multiple classes (which is prohibited at the BreyerFest shows). It’s a thing of beauty and it allows me to get the results done for both shows by the end of the day (and sometimes, as long as I don’t get stupid and add rows incorrectly and screw up the VLOOKUPs, I have them done by the end of the show).

In addition to getting to nerd out with Excel, one of my favorite parts of the C&Y Show is getting to see all the fun names kids come up with for their models. There have been some really great ones over the years, but in the 2019 Youth show, in the Unrealistic Colors & Patterns class, the 10th place horse was a Prince of Chintz, who had the best name out of any I’ve seen before or since:

Grandma’s Wallpaper.

I laughed out loud, loudly.

Full Spectrum: Stablemate Keychains

A couple weeks ago, when I handed Chris the decision-making reins for March’s extra blog post, one of the models he picked was a silver G2 Rearing Arab keychain. I figured why not continue the theme and finish out the rest of the unrealistic keychains for this month’s Full Spectrum post.

 

 

These four are from the #710200 BreyerFest Stablemate Keychain set, a run of 2000 pieces produced for BreyerFest 2000. I conga all four of these G2 molds and acquired all four pieces separately.

• I bought the copper G2 ASB at the April 2012 Southwest PA Classic model horse show.
• The gold G2 Appaloosa was acquired during room sales at the CHIN during BreyerFest 2013.
• The pearlescent G2 Warmblood was purchased via a Facebook ad in July 2021. He unfortunately suffered a leg break during shipping, and the Post Office refused to honor the insurance claim. I had asked for a partial refund, just the quote I received for the repair, but they said my choices were to either accept the full $50 claim (since he was shipped Priority) and surrender the model, or keep the model but get nothing on the insurance claim. I find it entertaining (and I mean that as bitterly as possible) that they were willing to hand over $50 with no questions, but wouldn't give me $15 for just the repair. It was an infuriating experience. I didn't want to surrender him to be destroyed, so I kept him and paid my friend to fix him. He looks good as new.
• The G2 Arabian was a room sales find during BreyerFest 2023.

 

This bright swirly guy is from the #711103 Mod Squad set from BreyerFest 2023. There were 1000 sets made.

I honestly have no idea where I got him. He’s a recent acquisition, probably in the last 2-3 years, but I can’t find him in any of my records. I’m 95% sure Heather B was involved again, though.

The only Stablemates keychain on my wish list at the moment is the swirly green and white G2 Appaloosa from the Mod Squad set. I hope someday to have a complete conga of the G2 Appaloosa (I’ve got 32 of the guys already) so he’s a must-find.

Fantastic Finds: Oddball Shire Mare

We’re going to interpret the word “Fantastic” a little differently today. Instead of using it to mean “great, wonderful, awesome, excellent,” we’re gonna shift toward the “strange, different, odd, outlandish, weird” end of the definition spectrum.

At the end of April in 2014, I went to a local large weekend flea market to poke around. I hadn’t had any great finds there (up til then or since!) so I wasn’t expecting much. Then I came across this weirdo #95 Shire Mare, produced from 1972-1976, for only $5 and had to bring her home with me.

 

 

Your first thought was probably, “Oh, she’s chalky!” That was my first thought, too. But she’s not chalky in the truest definition of the word (either having a white basecoat beneath the paint or being made from a more-opaque-than-usual blend of white plastic). Instead, she has a weird chalky-like finish overtop of her OF paint from head to toe, including her belly and underneath her tail.

 

I posted her on Blab the day I rescued her, trying to tap into the hive mind to see if anyone knew what could be going on with her. A lot of theories were thrown around:

• She was left outside in the elements and that damaged her finish
• She was washed in too-hot water and clouded up (like woodgrains tend to do)
• She was originally glossy and the gloss went bad
• There was a reaction between the paint and the sealer
• Someone forgot to clean off the "mold release" at the factory before painting her and it caused a weird reaction with the sealer
• The cloudy finish was caused by active mold/mildew
• She was sprayed with a light layer of primer or white gesso

We (happily) ruled out mold/mildew - she looked exactly the same after a thorough Dawn dish soap bath and a test with a Lysol wipe underneath her tail. We also ruled out a primer or gesso coat overtop of her OF paint, as she looks like a normal, non-glossed dapple gray Shire Mare when she’s wet (see photos below, where I swiped her with a wet paper towel). The hazy, chalky-like finish only appears when she’s dry.

 

 

 

The theory with the most credence for me is weather-damage or heat-damage to the sealer. You can see it on her face the best, but it is over the entirety of her body.

 

 

 

 

The craziest part for me is that her eyes are completely normal. I wonder if the eyes are painted on after the sealer and that's why her eyes are immune to the cloudiness? Does anyone know?

I thought about Lestoiling her, but I was advised against that by most of the Blabbers who responded to the thread, even though I had an entire bottle of the old (safe) Lestoil back then. Dapple gray paint jobs are notoriously fragile and it didn’t seem worth the risk of damaging the OF paint underneath the weird chalkyish film. 

She’s an odd bird, but I have a soft spot in my collection for odd birds, so she’s got a forever home here.