Collectibility Spotlight - Modern Chalkies

In November's Collectibility Spotlight, I featured the vintage chalky models in my collection. Today, I'll show some of my modern chalkies.
 
Unlike most vintage chalkies, which were basecoated out of necessity due to the different colors of plastic used for molding during the oil crisis years, modern chalkies are often a choice. Sometimes that’s a deliberate design for the entire run, like the regular run Sshameless or the BreyerFest 2020 special run Ash.

Other times, it can be a way for the company to save money by repurposing stock that didn't sell. Instead of regrinding that plastic down, reinjecting it into a new mold, and going through all the steps of cleaning and prepping prior to paint, they just toss a white basecoat over the existing paint job and paint over it. Voila! New model that skips all the expensive injection molding steps. It’s been a pretty common practice with Breyer over the years.

It’s extra fun when only part of a run ends up being chalky. Many of the TSC special runs over the past few years have had a subset of chalky models - Jesse, Hwin, and Gibson, to name a few. Partial-run modern chalkies tend to play out in the secondary market just like vintage chalkies do: they’re harder to find, more desirable, and command higher prices.

 

 

Oh look, we’re starting with a Sham again! This glossy bay is from the 1990 Sears Wishbook #497510 Race Horse Set. The color on this guy varied from a nice, deep red bay all the way to a garish Halloween orange - the latter occurring in particular on any models made from the bad batches of plastic that cause shrinkies and oozies. None of the Halloween orange ones I’ve seen from this run have been chalky; all of the darker red, non-shrinky ones have been. I’ve got both; you’ll see shrinky Halloween Sears Sham in a future post.

The paint on this guy is super thick, which is the first indication that he's got a chalky basecoat. The dead giveaway, though, is in the small rubs on his left ear. They have a white halo around them.

 

 

 

In 2019, Breyer used the Moody Andalusian mold for that year’s BreyerFest as #711343 Hero’s Welcome Surprise. It was issued in six colors: dark dapple gray, pearl, chestnut pinto, rose gray, clearware green decorator, and an ultra-rare black leopard appaloosa. Once I got back from Kentucky and caught up on social media, I found out that a portion of two of the colors were modern chalkies - the dark dapple gray and the pearl. Their colors tended to be lighter and had a glow to them; their facial details were much sharper; and their dapples were more pronounced. As soon as I saw pictures of them, I had to have them, and the search began.

I didn’t have to hunt for long. I found the chalky pearl on MH$P just four days after I got home from BreyerFest.

 

I purchased the chalky dark dapple gray from a seller on eBay only five days after I found the chalky pearl. I made a Buy It Now offer slightly higher than the starting bid and was thrilled when the seller accepted.  

 

 

 

Unlike most of the other dark dapple gray chalky models, which have non-basecoated, pearly plastic tails, my guy has a fully basecoated tail. I’ve only seen two others with full chalky tails in the years since.

Based on the data collection I did immediately after that year’s BreyerFest, looking at sales on eBay, Facebook, and MH$P, I estimate that around 10% of each of the two colors came in chalky.

Both colors were also issued with a gloss finish, but I haven’t heard of any chalkies that were glossed. God help me if I do!