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.