Retail Resins

Artist resins are, of course, not the only resins out there.  There are also what the North American Model Horse Showers Association (NAMHSA) calls "factory resins" and I call "commerical resins." Another appropriate term might be "retail resins."

NAMHSA defines the factory resin as "a mass-produced model in its original state as released by the manufacturer."  NAMHSA defines an artist resin as "a casting of a unique work. Artist resins may be finished by the original artist or by another artist; may be altered from the original casting; may have sculpted or hair manes and tails."  

For me, the primary difference between an artist resin and a commercial resin is that commercial resins are always sold painted and ready to show, while artist resins are more often sold as blanks, to be painted by somebody else.

There are some exceptions.  Both the Trail of Painted Ponies and the Horse of a Different Color offer blank resins for their fans to customize and both Copperfox and Stone have been known to sell blank resins to customers as well as releasing the molds in finished plastic.  But on the whole, the commercial = finished / artist = unfinished rule applies.

Now, while I only have five artist resins, I have many more commercial resins in my collection.  I have a Trail of Painted Ponies horse and a Horse Whispers foal.  I have four Breyer resins, a Castagna mare and foal, a Stone Critters pony, and eight North Lights.

North Light horses have their fans and their detractors.  They are probably an acquired taste, but once you acquire it you'll never shake it -- which can be a bit of a problem, since North Light is no longer in business.

When I was younger it was actually possible to buy North Lights at a book store here in town, but these were early North Lights and while I admired them, I didn't initially love them.  I was very into attending live shows then, and they just didn't seem to have the stuff to stand up in the show ring -- the lighter horses had very weedy-looking legs, and the heavy horses had prominent eyes that seemed to pop out of their heads.

My first North Light, a Shetland Pony

The first North Light I bought I got from a dealer (Laura Pervier of Lone Wolf Star) at a live show -- a Shetland pony whose cute factor outweighed any conformational flaws he might have had.  He actually didn't have much in the way of flaws anyway.  Over time, the North Light sculptors honed their craft, toning down the pop eyes and beefing up the structure of their horses and ponies.  All North Lights still do, to some extent, have very broad brows, but now it looks good on them.

North Light Nursing Mare and Suckling Foal

So what happened to North Light?  I'm not exactly sure.  As giftware, their animals always seemed to be in competition with similar Border Fine Arts sculptures, but the Border Fine Arts sculptors specialized in creating scenes -- pairing their horses with riders, drivers, dogs, cats, hens and what-have-you.  North Light specialized in stand-alone horses.

Whatever happened, the company ended up being sold to Wade Ceramics in 2005 and the horses moved from being crafted in the British potteries district to being mass-produced in China.  Perks that the older company offered -- like customized colours and special collectors' issues -- dried up, and the variety of molds on offer was drastically cut.  Then Wade ceased production of the North Lights altogether in 2009.

North Light Arabian made in China

There is some evidence that a couple of foal molds were also released as United Design Stone Critters, but Stone Critters were sold to a company called Encore sometime around 2010, and no North Light designs have surfaced since then.

Like the first generation (G1) Breyer Stablemates that have the date 1975 stamped on them, the dates that appear on many North Light horses indicate only when the mold debuted and not when a particular model was produced.  Some, if not all, of the molds that were later produced in China have an additional "Made in China" sticker, and while that doesn't indicate a precise date of creation, it does help you narrow it down to a few years.

Although North Light may have gone the way of the dodo, there are still plenty of other commercial resins out there for collectors to acquire, both new in gift shops and through mail order, and second-hand through all the usual sources.

For those who aren't artistically inclined, or don't have the budget to afford an artist resin, commercial resins can offer a nice alternative.  You just have to be selective in your shopping, and buy only what speaks to you.  If it's an acquired taste and no one else seems to have acquired it -- so what?  As long as you love it, it's a bargain at any price.