Fantastic Finds: Glossy Palomino Fighting Stallion

I've made it to post #50! 

 

I had no idea how this blog would go or if I'd stick with it. This started as a "me" project, and mostly still is, but I've been pleasantly surprised at how much interest and interaction there's been, and that has kept me going even when my stress has been through the roof and I don't feel much like writing.

 

One of the ways I like to manage stress is to go out liberating, and one of my favorite antique stores in the greater Pittsburgh area to liberate from was Crown Antiques down in Washington. It’s where I found my birthday surprise chalky buckskin Mustang in 2014 and a bay Stock Horse Stallion autographed by Rich Rudish. The mall lost the majority of its tenants between 2016 and the end of the pandemic, and is currently being redeveloped as mixed retail and a business park. Crown Antiques closed in June 2019 and relocated to Uniontown.

 

In September 2015, before the downhill slide started, I found this guy.

 

 

In one of the booths, high up on a shelf, he was hanging out with a ton of Family Arabians. I had to pull said Family Arabians down to get to the Fighter tucked behind them, and their price tags made me cringe - $60 or more each. I thought, “Gosh, if they want that much for the Family Arabs, what outrageous amount will they want for the glossy palomino Fighter?”

The answer, happily, was $40.

 

 

I snapped this picture of him in the store because I couldn’t believe my luck. He’s in amazing shape and still has remnants of his foot pads, and he’s a gorgeous soft honey caramel color. #33 King, The Fighting Stallion was produced from 1961-1973 and had quite the color range during that time, from soft honey caramel like my guy, to pale orange, to bright orange, to darker tan.

He doesn’t come out to play much in the show ring because I have a gazillion stock horses, but when I do show him, his name is Crown Jewel.