How I Got That Pony

My latest plastic pony impulse buys came about because I needed a new mouse for my computer.

I started my online shopping at the place I usually go to for computers and their accessories, but all the mice they had of the sort I was looking for (mice with retractable cords) were shipped not by that retailer, but by some other company operating through them, which meant that I couldn't use any of my store credits.

So I backed out of that store and went instead to that great warehouse of worldly goods -- Amazon.  Amazon had the mouse I needed, but the cost of the mouse put it just under the price threshold for free shipping.  Normally when this sort of situation pops up I'll browse through the books and videos to find something extra to add to my box so that it all comes to me for free.  This time, however, I only needed a little bit more and so I went looking for small model horses.  More specifically, I went looking for Schleich model horses, since I know their foals are quite affordable and I feel that their foal sculptures are generally better than their adult ones.

I didn't have to scroll through many pages of Schleich before I found a set that really called to me -- the Dartmoor Mare and Foal set.  You see, I've been on edge for months now waiting for the time to come for me to purchase my first Premier models, Rhian and Cadell (this is my first year in the Breyer Premier Club).  When I saw this Schleich set there was something about the foal, and the way he was designed to fit under the mare's neck, that reminded me powerfully of the Premier Welshies.  I could not resist.  Into the cart with the mouse they went.

Schleich Dartmoor Mare and Foal

They're here now, and I still get a kind of warm fuzzy feeling whenever I look at them.  I'm not a major Schleich fan or collector, although I think if I had discovered them when I was a little kid I would have filled my toybox with them.  I was surprised to discover that I actually had seven Schleich models in my collection before I added these two -- all but one were also impulse buys, and that one was a gift. Three are foals, and four are adults, but most are ponies.

I do think Schleich is a wonderfully inventive toy company, and the range of accessories they offer to go with their horses would have overwhelmed me with desire when I was a child.  While I'm not certain that they are concerned with making all their figures in the same scale, they don't seem to have the wide range of sizes that you find with Breyers, Stones, CollectAs, and Safaris, to name a few.  Collecting a single scale makes for great shelf displays, and also allows you to compare and contrast the differences between a tall horse, like a Clydesdale, and a short one, like a Shetland.  Unfortunately, keeping everything in scale is not a priority for most model horse companies, even within a given size range.  Perhaps it requires too much research or measuring -- I just don't know.

Next month, I hope, I'll be getting the email that tells me Rhian and Cadell are ready to ship, but until then I have my wee Schleichs to play with.  They found their own shelf room very quickly and are very much at home here already.  From impulse to inclusion, in under one week -- that's what happens when I just can't wait anymore. 

Impulse Buying

As a model horse collector, I'm afraid I'm a little bit prone to impulse buying.  This is not always a good thing.

As such, I've tried to devise several ways to put the brakes on my impulse buying.  Realizing that every now and then I get overcome by an overwhelming desire to unbox a brand new model horse, I keep at least one new-in-box (NIB) Breyer on hand at all times to satisfy the craving.  And I've been doing pretty good -- my current NIB has been hiding in my cupboard since 2007.  Of course, from time to time that cupboard has been inaccessible to me due to a build-up of clutter in my office, so it's not been just willpower that has prevented me from popping open the box.  The fact that I still lack the shelf place to properly display my NIB model has also prevented me from unboxing her.  But when overcome with that new model craving, it helps to know that she's there.

My trials and tribulations with eBay have also helped me curb some of my impulse buys.  Every once in a while I like to wander around eBay looking for interesting deals and great bargains.  But one thing that prevents me from buying everything I see and want is my decision not to buy from sellers using the eBay Global Shipping feature.  I bought one or two models off eBay before I really understood this feature, but now I see how unfair it is, particularly to Canadian shoppers, to have to pay a third party in addition to the seller just to make shipping easier for the sellers.  The result is that I, as the buyer, end up paying about twice the amount I would have had to pay if the sellers had simply dealt with shipping themselves.

I do tend to use my computer for window shopping quite frequently, and can usual confine myself to the window portion of the shopping by browsing on sites where I know the prices are generally more than I like to pay.  Quite often this can simply be accomplished by checking out Facebook sales pages, as many sellers tend to value their goods higher than I, as a potential buyer, do.  Shopping on commercial sites is a little more dangerous as I generally accept their prices and, if I've known of the dealer for quite some time, I know I can trust in their service and packing prowess.  This is not to cast aspersions on my fellow collectors -- many are wonderful to deal with, flexible as to prices, and completely trustworthy when it comes to packaging and posting.  Probably the best buys in my collection have all come from fellow collectors.

One of my past impulse buys

A Breyer repaint by my favourite comic book artist, Donna Barr

But I also occasionally find a bar to impulse buying when dealing with my fellow collectors -- I prefer to deal via PayPal, which is unacceptable to some, and some refuse to ship outside of the U.S.A., which leaves me out.  However, if I do make the leap to contact a fellow collector about an item, I'm not really trying to avoid an impulse buy at that point -- I'm trying to buy.

Retailers all over know the power of the impulse purchase -- that's why you find all those small attractive items stocked next to the register in pretty much every store you ever go into.  Online retailers can't take advantage of such marketing tricks, but I have to admit I've been pulled into some impulse buys that some online retailers have programmed to appear as an option (of the "Would you like fries with that?" variety) once you choose a product and put it into your shopping cart.

Impulse buying is something I know I am prone to, and so something I have to watch out for, but just as I am aware that impulse buying is not always good for me, I would also hesitate to say that giving into an impulse has always been a bad thing.

My latest impulse buys should be arriving in the mail shortly.  I will tell you more about them when they arrive.

Compare and Contrast

Remember high school English class?  How many "compare and contrast" essays did you have to write?  They may have seemed tedious then, but the skills we learned by doing them can actually help us to make our model horse buying decisions today.

For example, pretend you were in the market for an approximately Little Bits scale shetland pony.  Lots of model horse companies offer them.  For the purposes of comparing and contrasting I chose a selection from five of the major solid plastic horse modelling companies -- CollectA, Schleich, Bullyland, Papo, and Mojo.  Ideally I'd also have a Safari pony in there as well, but Safari is not currently offering any Shetlands in this size, and I couldn't find an older one for a reasonable price.

(L-R) Papo, Bullyland, Schleich, Mojo, and CollectA Shetlands

However, we have enough to do comparing the others.  Let's see how they stack up:

First, the similarities: despite the fact that two of these models are standing squarely on all four feet, all of the models have carved hooves that are more or less detailed.  The CollectA has the most detailed hooves, while the Bullyland has added painted horseshoes.  The Schleich also has shoes, but they are not painted.

CollectA Shetland Pony II

All but the CollectA have a heavy mane falling on both sides of the neck -- the CollectA's mane is blown back in the breeze but it looks as if it might fall on both sides if the pony were standing still.

Price-wise, these ponies cost me between $10.50 and $6.99 Canadian, with the Bullyland being the most expensive and the CollectA the cheapest.

Papo Shetland Pony

The Papo is the largest of the quintet, and looks to be the fattest.  At first I found her eyes disturbingly human, but as I studied her I found that her look back over her shoulder suggested very strongly a saucy pony looking to see if her rider is being inattentive enough for her to indulge in some sort of bad behaviour, like nipping, rearing, or bolting.  Shetlands have a bad reputation for just such pranks.
 


 Schleich Shetland Pony Gelding

 Bullyland Shetland Pony

The Scheich and the Bullyland are much the same size and shape, but the Bullyland looks stockier with its heavily feathered fetlocks, while the Schleich has a slightly cleaner build.  The CollectA, by contrast, represents a very well-groomed pony -- the kind you might see at a youth horse show or a gymkhana.

Mojo Shetland Pony

Oddest of all is the Mojo, with her relatively skinny build, her long, stretched neck, and forelock completely obscuring one eye.  She reminds me a lot of Shaggy in the old Scooby-Doo cartoons.  What with her narrowness and her awkward stance, she is the least like the standard Shetland type of all the ponies, but I could see her following a bucket in a "bribe your pony" race at a county fair.

It's difficult to pick a favorite out of all of these -- I can't really decide between the well-groomed CollectA and the wild-looking Schleich -- but if forced to pick one I think I'd go for the CollectA as it has the best conformation despite falling short in the huggable hairiness category.  It is the smallest of the bunch, but it is also the cheapest, and for my money a darn good buy.

Now see how helpful that high school English class was?  If only I hadn't bought them all before I made my choice ...

A Little Bit about Little Bits

Getting that Little Bit drafter in trade the other day got me thinking about Breyer's Little Bits line.  Whatever happened to these sweet little horses?

Whatever it was, it happened almost a decade ago now.  From their introduction in 1983 until 2009, Little Bits strutted their stuff in the Breyer model horse line up, fitting in nicely between the Classics introduced in 1973 and the Stablemates introduced in 1975.  When the license for many of the Hagen-Renaker mold Classics and the first generation of Stablemates expired around 1998/99, Breyer had enough of the Chris Hess sculpted Classics, and commissioned a whole new generation of Stablemates, to enable it to carry on with these lines.

But the Breyer Little Bits faced no such license lap.  All seven of the basic molds were Chris Hess sculptures, completely owned by Breyer.  Despite being rebranded as Saddle Club Pals and Paddock Pals in the mid-90s, the Little Bits carried enough of their own weight to be released in several J.C. Penney special run Parade of Breeds variations and in plenty of gift sets with stables, riders, tack and other accessories.

But suddenly in 2009 the Little Bits line seemed to dry up.  Although some of the molds are still available unpainted in the Paint Your Own Horse activity sets, there haven't been any regular runs or special runs in the Little Bits line since that time.

In the meantime, however, horses that more or less fit into the Little Bits 1:24 inch scale have appeared in the Breyer line up.  The 1997 hairy Ponies released in Young Rider and Young Mare and Foal sets were approximately Little Bits size, as were the Wind Dancers (2005-2018), the Small Spirit Sets (2017-today), and the majority of the horses in the recently acquired Breyer by CollectA (Corral Pals) line (2017-today).

Breyer Small Chica Linda, Corral Pal British Spotted Pony, and Saddle Club Starlight

So with all these new additions, why has Breyer given Chris Hess's plucky little ponies the cold shoulder?  Is there a problem with the molds?  Were they not selling well?  Could Breyer just not find the right market for them?

What with the current craze in unicorns, the Little Bits line seems ripe for revival, particularly because it contains the only Breyer model actually intended to be a unicorn and nothing else -- the lovely Little Bits Unicorn with his curly hair, his goaty beard, fluffy fetlocks and cloven hooves.  This sculpture alone has many more uniquely unicorn characteristics than any of the simple horse-with-a-horn releases Breyer is coming out with now.

Wouldn't it be nice if the bonus "mini-me" horse for the Premier Club was painted on a Little Bits rather than a Stablemate (SM)?  It would certainly prevent the gnashing of teeth of the Stablemate Club collectors who year after year see new SM molds premiere with the Premiers, rather than in the Stablemate Club where they (arguably) belong?

Perhaps Little Bits are a little bit too large for blind bags, but wouldn't they make great blind box offerings?  Packed in little boxes, they wouldn't suffer the kind of manhandling that the Stablemate blind bag horses and unicorns go through.  And while 1983 is hardly vintage (at least from my point of view) wouldn't it be neat to see the Little Bits in the Vintage Club in vintage colours, or as affordable Decorators, whether in shades of blue and gold, or painted in Christmas colours and Halloween themes.  We've had clearware Traditionals, Classics, and Stablemates -- where are our clearware Little Bits?

Yes, there are only seven true Little Bit molds, but surely more sculptures could be commissioned.  If you ignore the Young Mares and Foals and the Wind Dancer foals, there are no foal molds in the Little Bits scale (Corral Pals don't count as Breyer is only the distributor, not the creator, of these critters).  There's only one drafter, and one each of America's most popular horse breeds (Arabian, Thoroughbred, Quarter Horse, Morgan, and American Saddlebred).  There are no ponies, no exotics, and no long-ears.

C'mon Breyer -- give a little bit, and bring the Little Bits back into the corral.

Horse Trading

Last weekend a bunch of us who live in more or less the same area (or at most a three and a half hour drive away) got together for an honest-to-goodness swap meet.

I've always wanted to do something like this.  The one year I went to Breyerfest I was afraid to attend the swap meet as I feared that it wouldn't really be about swapping but rather about selling.  I just couldn't see myself wandering from table to table with a bag of horses trying to make a deal -- especially if no one else was doing it.  So I didn't bother to bring any sales horses and while I did a lot of shopping at the room sales, I steered clear of the swap meet.

Funny thing is, this last weekend brought back memories of Breyerfest anyway.  I held the get-together at my place and after everybody there spread out their trade items my whole kitchen looked very much like a Breyerfest room sale -- minus the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds.

Everyone was making deals.  I traded away seven horses and a couple of props of various makes and sizes and ended up with a fleet of Stablemate wagons, some Stablemate accessories, a handful of Stablemate riders in English and Western garb, three Stablemate horses, one Suncatcher Paint & Play Stablemate, and one Little Bit drafter (as you can tell, I was looking for the small stuff).

My swap meet haul

There was some selling, but mostly trading, I think.  The best part was that everybody went home with something new. 

There's something about getting together with like-minded folk that just energizes you.  When you see what your fellow collectors are doing, it can inspire you to do more with your own collection.  You get to talk to people who really "get" you, and you get to talk about all the model horses you have happily cluttering up your home.  In the case of my little group, we started to make some new connections, heard about fellow collectors in the area who we might be able to reach out to, and talked about reviving a live model horse show in our area.

Buying and selling will always be part of collecting model horses, but I really enjoy horse trading because in order for a trade to be made each party has to walk away feeling like they got a good deal.  At a swap meet, you get to look over the horses on offer in person, and each party involved in a trade is saved the cost of postage.  This is quite an advantage when trading clinkies, or china horses, as shipping these comes with a boatload of stress on each side of the transaction.

If you ever get the chance to attend, or even host, a swap meet in your area, I highly recommend it.  It has many of the benefits of a live show, without the competition, and if you have the space or the time there's no reason why you can't combine it with a judging clinic, a performance showing Q & A, a painting party, or whatever else you might like to do with your model horses.

It used to be that the term "horse trading" conjured up visions of dishonest dealings and unethical business practices.  But when practiced by model horse collectors in a fun and friendly in-person atmosphere, horse trading sheds its shady history and shines forth in a whole new light.

Horse trading -- it's not for fraudsters, it's for friends.

History in the Making

Beswick horse figurines come complete with a load of history behind them.  I don't know if Beswick is the oldest still-operating model horse manufacturer out there, but it must certainly be one of the oldest.

But wait -- I just said "still-operating,"  didn't I?  And Beswick is definitely not still operating.  Or is it?

It all depends on what you want to call a Beswick.

For most of their history, Beswicks were manufactured in a pottery founded in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, England.  From 1939 to 1969  this is where the world's Beswick horses came from. 

An early Beswick horse

In 1969, the Beswick business was sold to Royal Doulton, who continued to produce a number of the old Beswick molds under the Beswick backstamp.  Prior to buying out Beswick, Royal Doulton had produced a few horse figurines from their own sculptors in the 1930s and 40s, but nothing like the range they offered after acquiring the Beswick molds.

A Royal Doulton pony

Then, between 1989 and 2002, Doulton started dropping the Beswick backstamp and substituting the Royal Doulton backstamp, while simultaneously replacing many of the older Beswick molds with new sculpts from new sculptors.  During this time the Beswick backstamp still appeared on special edition horses, like Collectors Club horses and horses commissioned by distributors such as Doug Middleweek and John Sinclair., As production of these horses wound down, and Beswick molds slowly dropped off the Royal Doulton catalogue pages, it looked like Beswick manufacturing had finally reached its end, particularly when the pottery where Beswicks had been made was sold to developers in 2003.

A Beswick Collectors Club horse (Beswick backstamp) from 1997

However, the Beswick name returned in 2005 with the John Beswick animal range.  John Beswick is Beswick in name but not, some would argue, in spirit.  Besides the fact that the John Beswick horses all come from entirely new molds, the greatest difference between John Beswicks and the older Beswicks is the fact that John Beswick horses are cast and finished overseas.

A John Beswick pony

But just as most Breyers are created by American artists even though they are produced in China, so the John Beswick horses are created in England even though they are produced in Malaysia.  John Beswick's primary sculptor, the one responsible for the look of the new John Beswick horses and for the painting of prototypes for the Malaysian workers to follow is a Brit named Richard Wawrzesta, who, I believe, was originally a sculptor of Border Fine Arts animals.

So are the Doultons, the Middleweeks, the Sinclairs, and the John Beswicks as collectable as the original Beswicks are?  Opinions differ about that.  Purists collect only the original Beswicks, and prefer the earliest examples from that factory for the delicacy of their paintwork.  Beswick brown is sort of the default colour of most Beswick horses, but the earliest browns were lightly applied, allowing more facial detailing and body shading than the later models that have nearly all of their delicate modelling obscured by a thick muddy coat of Beswick brown.

Collectors who are purists about their preferred sculptors may include Doultons in their collection as well as Beswicks, since even after the horses received the Royal Doulton backstamp, Doulton continued to offer a small range of the pieces originally sculpted by Arthur Gredington, Beswick's lead animal sculptor.  Doulton also produced a number of horses designed by Graham Tongue, Gredington's successor as Beswick's primary sculptor, and they employed a variety of the sculptors who worked under the Beswick label just prior to 1989 to design new, limited run horses specifically for the Royal Doulton line.

The John Beswicks, though, are quite unlike their predecessors, coming from a different sculpting hand and painted in a totally new style.

So are they collectible?  Well, much as we would all love to have the ability to predict what pieces, considered to be commonplace now, will become valuable collectibles in the future, only time will tell.  John Beswicks being produced now could be history in the making, or they could be tomorrow's second-hand shop junk.

For the record, I like 'em all -- the Beswicks, the Doultons, and the John Beswicks -- makes no difference to me.  If I like the horse, there's room somewhere on my shelf for it no matter whose backstamp it bears.  If I don't like it, it could come holding a great British pedigree or an exotic Malaysian passport -- it still won't get past my border.

Breyer Blankies (and other assorted tack)

I have to admit it:  I have a real soft spot for Breyer tack.

Oh, not the oversized monstrosities they first came out with in the 1970s, but the more modern, say post-1999 tack.

It's not what any experienced collector would call live show quality or LSQ, but given that it has been designed for playability -- meaning that it's easy to put on and take off -- it's remarkably good-looking.  And it certainly has come a long way from where it started out.

True, today's tackmakers create and sell such realistic-looking miniature saddlery that it leaves Breyer's best in its dust. When I was showing my models, each piece of LSQ tack I owned was precious, and I treated it with almost as much care as real horse owners would when cleaning their bits and soaping their saddles.

But did you know that Breyer has recently taken to commissioning hobbyist tack-makers to design their tack for them?  For example, the barrel racing set was designed by Rachel Fail and the pack saddle and polo set were designed by Jennifer Buxton.  I think that's very forward-thinking of Breyer, and the results speak for themselves.  A lot of Breyer's modern tack has an eye for realism that the Breyer tack of old did not.

The tack on the Breyer Christmas horses is a separate sort of thing.  Most of it is more decorative than realistic and really only works in a fantasy setting.  I don't have any Christmas horses other than Jingles, who comes "harnessed" to a sleigh with insufficient harness.  I imagine that if I had any other Christmas horses I would probably treat them the same way I do Jingles -- keeping them packed away with my Christmas decorations only to reappear at the appropriate season.

A random crew modelling my new Breyer blankets -- only one of which actually fits.

Much as I like Breyer's newest tack, I haven't really gone out of my way to purchase much of it up until now, mostly because the only use I had for tack was for tacking up horses at live shows.

Now that I no longer show, though, I find myself fondly looking at the best of Breyer's tack for display purposes.  However, I do try to choose less-than-precious models to tack up for display in case of the dreaded "tack bleed," or colour transfer from the leather dyes to the painted hide of the model horse, leaving tack-coloured stains on its body.

I recently bought a small bundle of Breyer blankets with the hope that they might help protect some of my models from the worst of the dust that constantly wafts around them. I don't think I have to worry too much about tack bleed when displaying my horses in their cozy Breyer blankets (fingers crossed).  At least, I haven't heard of model horses suffering from blanket stains, so I'm hoping it's not a thing.

Besides the blankets, I currently have one horse hitched to a Breyer country gig with Breyer harness and am trying to pick a horse to wear the Breyer parade saddle set I got recently in a grab bag.  Horses not currently wearing their Breyer tack and/or costumes are my First Competitor Gem Twist and my Trick or Treat Shetland Pony -- but these two may also find themselves back in their Breyer-wear soon.

First, though, I have to figure out which of my Breyers best suit those new blankies, because as I learned right away they may be the right size, but they are definitely not one-size-fits-all.

What's in a Name?

When I first discovered the model horse hobby the term that baffled me the most was the word "model."

You see, I grew up with a brother who was model-mad: his bedroom was full of plastic airplanes, ships, and tanks that he'd painstakingly glued together, painted and decorated with decals.  Those put-together plastic kits -- from makers like Revell, Aurora, and Testors -- were "models" to me.  I just couldn't wrap my head around the idea that a pre-assembled and pre-painted plastic horse could be called a model too, particularly since I knew that Revell and Aurora had model horses among their other, more motor-oriented offerings.

Where did the term come from, I wonder?  An early advertisement for Breyer's Western Horses and Ponies refer to these animals as "authentic reproductions," "toys," and "art objects."  The horses themselves were not called Breyer model horses, but rather Breyer Animal Creations.  

 

Which of these is a model horse?

(Aurora kit photo from The Vault of Comics)

A clue to the origin of the term just might be in some of the earliest collector's catalogues and dealer price lists we have access to.  In many of them each animal pictured is given a specific "model number" and some are given more than one model number to differentiate the colour options.  At the end of the 1968 catalogue, for example, Breyer still refers to "realistic reproductions," "toys," and "art objects," but each animal individually seems to be a "model."

Then, in its 1970 catalogue, Breyer offers to connect collectors to information about "model horse clubs" and the "hobby of photo model shows" while still using the phrase "animal creations" to describe its own works.  In 1972, Breyer begins to use the term itself, promoting its books and bolo ties as being "Beyond the Model Horse," using the word "model" to refer to Misty of Chincoteague and the offerings of The Tack Room, and referring to "horse models" in the paragraphs extolling Showcase Collection.  By the time the first Just About Horses came out in 1975, Breyer was printing poetry that referred to the company as the place to buy model horses.

So what happened between 1968 and 1970-72?  Well, for one thing Marney Walerius, sometimes called the "godmother of the model horse hobby," began consulting with Breyer.  Now, we know from Marney's book and writings, as well as from the model horse show she founded -- the Model Horse Congress -- that Marney consistently referred to Breyer animal creations as "models."  Possibly she lifted the term from those earlier catalogue numbers.  Wherever she got it from, it was certainly her term.

Now, I have no real proof that it was indeed Marney who actually decided to start calling these pre-assembled, pre-painted plastic ponies "models" -- just a coincidence peeping out of some admittedly incomplete documentation.  And in the end, it doesn't really matter where the term came from -- the point is that it stuck, and most collectors now apply it to any and all of the horse-shaped objects on their shelves, whether they're plastic, resin, ceramic or fine china.  We even apply it to Revell and Aurora kit horses if we happen to collect them.

Perhaps we should remember, though, that like any other "insider" term, the term "model" is collectors' jargon and as such may need to be explained to newbies and outsiders looking in on our hobby.  It's not as obvious a descriptor of our little collectibles as one might think.  I know that if I had told my parents when I was little that I wanted to get into model horses, they might well have bought me a box of Testors paints and glue.

My One and Only

One big difference between customized (CM) and original finish (OF) model horse collectors is the significance to them of the one-of-a-kind (OOAK) model horse.

If your primary collecting focus is in collecting CM horses or hand-painted resins, you can say with some justification that every horse on your shelves is a one-of-a-kind model.  Even if they're all painted by the same artist and in similar colours, it's a matter of fact that each hand-painted horse will be different from every other one.

Theoretically, the same could be said for any hand-painted factory-produced models.  In fact, some OF collectors love to acquire all the subtle variations in paint shades and markings that they can find in their favourite molds.  But factories are not really trying to create OOAK horses.  They're trying for consistency.  The fact that it's impossible to achieve just shows how many different uncontrollable factors go into the creation of a model horse.

Which is not to say that you cannot get true OOAK OF horses.  Both Beswick and North Light used to offer customized colours to those who requested them.  The collector would still be getting a horse done in the company's signature style and with its signature paints, but the colourway could be anything the collector fancied, from a portrait of her own horse to a representation of the horse she would love to own.  Breyer and Stone also offer this service today, though at a considerable cost.

Additionally, Breyer, Stone, and Lakeshore offer Test pieces for sale from time to time, and Stone has not only the Design-a-Horse (DAH) program but also offers OOAK models to collectors as an actual section of their website offerings.

My one and only OOAK?  (Photo from the Stone Company website)

Oddly, while I find myself reluctant to accept a Test piece as a OOAK, I sometimes wonder whether some of the Stone Design-a-Horse models might actually be OOAKs in disguise.  A Test, after all, may be part of a Test Run (involving more than one model) or it may be such a successful test that it bears no visible difference from the models produced in the regular run.  

With Design-a-Horse -- who knows?  There are enough choices of colours, patterns, bodies, and markings on offer each month that it seems to me highly probable that the horse one person designs will be unlike any horse designed by anyone else.  However, there's nothing stopping Stone from liking a certain DAH piece so much that they decide to use the design in a regular run.  The problem in both cases is that you'll never know.

My skepticism about the likelihood of any one horse being truly OOAK stems primarily from my dealings with Stone.  I currently own one Stone Test piece, four DAH horses, and one OOAK.  The Test, for the Midwest Horse Fair Weanling "Foolish Pride," looks for all the world like all the Weanlings from the actual run I have ever seen -- definitely not OOAK.  My four DAHs -- a grulla English Pony, a chocolate palomino Thoroughbred, a sorrel Mustang, and a silver bay Chips Warmblood -- all have no twins on the Stone Horse Reference database, so as far as I can tell they are all OOAK, at least for now.  And my only OOAK, a kind of champagne appaloosa Ideal Stock Horse released under the name "Wheatena," is OOAK -- so far.  Since she was marketed as OOAK by Stone I would not expect them to ever create another one on their own, but who knows if it might not be possible, some time in the future, for someone to design a mighty similar horse?

So how do you really know when you have a OOAK on your shelves?  Well, if the horse is actually marketed as OOAK, you can be pretty confident that it is just that -- and probably (but not certainly) will remain so.  Beyond that ... well, you pays your money and you takes your chances, and for some the risk definitely pales in significance compared to the reward.

Hairballs

In my last blog post about horses with customizable manes and tails, I focused exclusively on horses with plastic manes and tails.  But there are other model horses, the "real hair" mane and tail horses, with 'dos that are designed to be brushed, styled, clipped, braided, or curled as the owner sees fit.

For the most part, North American model horse collectors shun these sorts of models as simple toys with no real collectible value.  The term "Barbie horse" is often used as a sort of denigrating catch-all for everything from My Little Ponies to Grand Champions to Breyer's Dapples and Pony Gals.

Sunny's Mom: One of the first offerings in Breyer's Dapples line

In this way we are considerably different from our European counterparts who have a real soft spot for horsey hairballs.  In England, for example, Breyers were not readily available for many years and so the British focused on collecting such hairy beasts as the Julips and Magpie models that were marketed in their area.  Even today we have Helen Moore handcrafting Equorum horses for the European collector, and there's a feeding frenzy each time Donna Chaney releases a new horse in her RubberNedz line, which pays tribute to the Julips and Magpies of the past.

While "real hair" (usually mohair) manes and tails have played a huge role in non-factory or hobbyist customizations, they still play a relative small part in factory model output, unless that factory deals only or primarily in haired models (such as Grand Champions and Paradise Horses).  I can't think off-hand of any Hartlands, Stones, or even Marx horses that came with hair manes and tails.

The case of Breyer's haired models is interesting, though.  While the fantasy-coloured flockies and oddballs of the past like Kipper may have been aimed at a youth market, others like the flocked draft horses and the Classics horse and carriage sets were aimed at the higher end collector.  Today, the split is between the kids' horses (Wind Dancers, Pony Gals, and portions of the Spirit: Riding Free collection) and crafters (with horses like the My Dream Horse Customizing kit, the new Horse Painting kit, and the Spirit Paint kit.

A Spirit Paint Kit horse painted and trimmed

While most model horses are notorious dust magnets, the situation becomes even worse when the beast is haired and/or flocked as hair can't really be dusted -- it has to be groomed, and over-grooming can contribute to hair loss.  Tangles and knots can happen almost as easily as they do in real life, and maintaining a 'do will always be a struggle.  This is one reason why so few "real hair" horses fare well on the secondary market -- messy tresses are usually the norm among the hairy host.

All that being said, a nicely curated collection of Grand Champions or even Barbie horses can make an impressive display.  The secret is in taming those manes and tails and keeping them clean -- and that's a neat trick.