A bit of a shorter post today; I find myself with a dearth of mental energy due to how chaotic work has been. I’m a Clinical Data Analyst (aka Giant Data Nerd) and my organization started switching to a different instance of our Electronic Health Record in late September, which has made my job ... interesting. No mapping was done for some of the things that changed (like patient visit types and appointment scheduling modes), so the data between the systems doesn’t match, and figuring out how and why and then wrangling the new data around to match the old data has been nightmarish. I want to have enough brain left to keep up with these blog posts, but it’s a struggle at the moment.
For today’s Gift Horse post, I needed something both easy to write about and easy to photograph, so I’m visiting Christmas gifts from 2001 and 2003, when JCPenney produced several sets of models with “Great Spirit” in the name, symbolizing (according to the COAs) the “Great American West” and spirits of animals valued by Indigenous People of the Great Plains.
For today’s Gift Horse post, I needed something both easy to write about and easy to photograph, so I’m visiting Christmas gifts from 2001 and 2003, when JCPenney produced several sets of models with “Great Spirit” in the name, symbolizing (according to the COAs) the “Great American West” and spirits of animals valued by Indigenous People of the Great Plains.
#410201 Great Spirit Mare & Foal set was produced in 2001. No piece count was ever released for this set. They were just called "Breyer Paint Mare & Foal" in the catalog, but came with a COA with the Breyer-issued name above. The bright flaxen chestnut Marabella has a bear shape on her flank; if you squint, you can see it on mine. The masking went a little askew, so the bear's eye is up underneath its ear, and it also looks like it has a camel hump. The bear is much easier to perceive on other copies I've seen.
She was my second on the Marabella mold; the foal was my first on the Ashley mold. I got them for Christmas that year from my parents.
In 2002, JCPenney released the Great Spirit II set, called Legend of the Wolf. The molds were Buckshot and Phantom Wings, and the Buckshot had a wolf in the pattern on his side. I’m not a fan of those molds and don’t currently have any of either in my collection, so I didn’t ask for the set that year.
In 2002, JCPenney released the Great Spirit II set, called Legend of the Wolf. The molds were Buckshot and Phantom Wings, and the Buckshot had a wolf in the pattern on his side. I’m not a fan of those molds and don’t currently have any of either in my collection, so I didn’t ask for the set that year.
#410703 Great Spirit of the Mighty Eagle III was produced in 2003, again with no piece count released. I got them for Christmas that year from my parents. The set represented Mustangs with an eagle pattern on them. The eagle is easy to make out on the Running Stallion, though the foal's head is hiding a good bit of it here.
The COA doesn’t name them individually, but the JCPenney catalog called the Running Stallion “Kwahu” and the Action Stock Horse Foal “Alo.” Both were the second of each mold in my collection, with the #810 Action Appaloosa Foal preceding “Alo” and Rumbling Thunder preceding “Kwahu.”
I ended up with a second set of these guys when I bought a small lot of random models from a local Pittsburgher selling her collection through Craigslist. The duplicate set found a new home during BreyerFest 2012.
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