Knock, Knock

I don't know why, but I'm a big fan of knock-off model horses.  I'm sure I wouldn't be if I were a sculptor having my works stolen and copied for the profit of others, but as a collector I get a peculiar kind of thrill finding a knock-off of a familiar and beloved model.

I don't know of any major model horse manufacturer that doesn't have its knock-offs, except perhaps the most recent ones on the market.  All the old-timers -- like Beswick, Breyer, Hagen-Renaker, and Hartland -- have their imitators, some nearly as nice as the originals and others laughably far off the mark.  Somewhere in my collection I have knock-offs of each of these companies' wares.

Original creators are entirely within their rights to try to stop copies from being created.  Because copies are, almost by definition, lesser than the originals, creators can certainly be forgiven for fearing that the existence of shoddy copies in the marketplace might devalue the originals.  Such a fear may well have been behind Hagen-Renaker's initial demands that Breyer cease and desist production of their old mold Proud Arabian Mares and Foals, which were clearly copies of H-R's large DW Zara and Zilla (the Family Stallion was also a copy of the large H-R DW Amir, but not, apparently, one close enough to the original to warrant its recall).  When the H-R molds reappeared in the Breyer line, it was with H-R's permission and, presumably, some kind of payment arrangement. 

 

Safari Rearing Arabian                                                            Safari Standing Drafter           

   

Today, however, I want to focus on a couple of copies that surprised me when I first came in contact with them.  Back in 2005 I was looking for some cheap Horse-Shaped Objects (HSOs) to attach to the wrappings of some Christmas gifts I was exchanging with my model horse friends.  At a local craft store I found a Safari Horse Toob packed with 14 different HSOs that looked just about right for my purposes.  Most of these HSOs were original sculptures, but two of them I recognized as copies of Creata Winner's Choice Micro Minis by Candace Liddy -- specifically the Standing Drafter and the Rearing Arabian.  The Creata Micro Minis had debuted in 1997 and reappeared as Breyer's Mini Whinnies in 2005.  The Safari knock-offs dated from 2002, so they were created some time between the demise of the Creata horses and the debut of the Breyer ones.

When I met Candace Liddy at a live model horse show in 2011, I remember hearing her mention that she knew of a bunch of knock-offs of her designs that were out there, but that getting the various manufacturers to cease and desist was a next-to-impossible task.  I can't imagine how frustrating that must have been.  However delightful knock-offs are to consumers like me, we can never forget that they are still thefts.

I don't think Safari sells this particular Toob any more.  They seem to have revamped their Toobs around 2017-2018 and their current Horse Toob contains only 12 horses -- none of which I recognize.  They also have a Horses and Riders Toob that, like the new CollectA Boxes, feature miniaturized versions of some of their larger horses.

Creata Rearing Arabian                                                            Creata Standing Drafter 

My two knock-off Micro Minis/Mini Whinnies are built on a slightly larger scale than Candace Liddy's sculptures, and get their main body colour from the colour of their plastic rather than the colour of their paint.  They are somewhat coarser than the originals, particularly the Rearing Arab with his weirdly bell-shaped hooves, but for all that they have going against them, I do find them appealing in an odd sort of way.  Of all the model horses there are out there to copy, it seems so odd for Safari to have chosen to copy only two of the 32 designs released by Creata.  What was it about those two, I wonder, that made them irresistible to their copiers?

I'm not even sure what makes them irresistible to me -- I just know that it's so.  I'm bemused by them, and they bring me the same kind of joy you might experience spotting an old friend in an unexpected place.  Perhaps it's just knowing that someone else out there admired the original as much as I do, and felt compelled to copy it.  The admiration may have come from a eye focused on profit, but it must have been admiration all the same.

Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery.  It's just not, perhaps, the nicest form for flattery to take.