Stubborn about Mules

Ask any member of my family and they'll tell you that I'm mulishly stubborn.  I prefer to think of it as determined, but I guess it still amounts to the same thing.  I have been known to dig in my heels upon occasion (my family would say upon most occasions, but enough about them).

I like mules.  I like them a lot.  Whenever I watch old Westerns on TV I always pay attention to the mules -- those put-upon beasts of burden who never seem to get the respect I think they deserve.  As a little kid I coveted the Ideal Buckaroo! game and wept over the fate of Jumper the mule in Fred Gipson's Savage Sam.  I was too young when Francis the Talking Mule was in his hey-day, but I did rally 'round Walt Disney's Gus, and recently had occasion to smile at the direct-to-video kids flick Tommy and the Cool Mule.

Oddly enough, though, I have only three mules in my entire model horse collection, and one of those is for sale.

The reason is that I so seldom see mule figurines that I really like.  If you search eBay, you'll find that most mule figurines are comical caricatures of mules, and are often confused/conflated with similarly comical donkeys.  And among those available that attempt to accurately portray the mule, there are few that I actually like.

When I first started collecting Breyers I avidly desired an old Balking Mule, but there were none to be had at that time.  In 1999, when they reissued the mule in two colours, I grabbed up the spotted mule Molly, but over time I've become less enamoured with her.  The problem is that she really stands out on my shelves -- so much so that even non-model-horse-people pick her out in an instant when shown into the office where the bulk of my Breyers are kept.  She just doesn't look right there.

My Molly folly

I only ever had one example of the Breyer Stablemate mule, and I sold that one some time ago as I just don't particularly like that mold.  For some reason, they never seem to get the teeth right on that one -- they're either painted over or painted a blinding white, both so wrong.  Just as with Molly, it bugs me.  Brown Sunshine holds no appeal for me either, although I have liked some of the colours done on the mold, like the bay/brown pack mule.

That leaves me with two other tiny mules -- a miniature Hagen-Renaker and a Stone Chip.  The HR is a keeper, but some day I'm going to replace the Stone as the one I have is in that odd sort of rubber used for the Stone Schylling releases.  I'll probably do a Design-a-Chip (DAC) on the Stone mule as these usually end up cheaper than the pre-painted Chips and you have more control over the colours you get (all I'm looking for is standard mule bay/brown -- like Sheik, Cannonball, or Calvin).

My mini mules

Two mules that I do covet are the North Light and the Hagen-Renaker Designer's Workshop (DW) mules.  So far, however, I've never been in the right place at the right time to get either one.

As for the rest -- well, I'm stubborn about my mules.  I know there are some fantastic artist resins out there, but I'm not really into artist resins.  And as I've already indicated, decent Original Finish (OF) mules are hard to come by.

Somebody make me a good old Western saddle/pack mule in bay/brown with a mealy muzzle.  That's my mule -- and I'm prepared to dig in my heels until I find him.