Rescue Me

For a model horse collector there are few greater thrills than finding a much-desired piece "out in the wild."  By this we mean that the horse is not on a sales list, or from an estate sale of someone's collection, from a retailer, at an antique dealer's shop, or in a high-end auction house.

Model horses found "in the wild" are usually found by accident -- in garage sales, at flea markets, in thrift shops, or even in someone's trash.  Yes, we may frequent local flea markets and garage sales hoping to find a desirable horse-shaped object (HSO), but we don't ever really expect to find one -- it's the thrill of the hunt that drives us on.

Usually, the kind of equines that turn up in such locations are HSOs indeed -- shapes that are vaguely equine, but certainly no show stoppers.

Usually, but not always.  I've heard the stories and I've seen the "finds" -- DW Hagen-Renakers, decorator Breyers and chestnut Beswicks -- all found in the most unlikely of places and going for a song.

This happens often enough that there is even a Facebook group, the Model Horse Liberation Front, dedicated to the stories of model horses found in unlikely places.

I've had my share of "finds" -- some pricier than others.  The pricier ones have always come from flea markets.  There are professional flea marketeers out there who make their living buying desirable items and then flipping them for profit at flea markets.  Sometimes they have great stuff, but they usually know what they have.

I have searched garage sales in my area in vain, and although I've never actually gone through a trash dump in search of a model, I have had a hand in saving a model from the trash (as I explained in my Toys of Yesteryear post).

But my best finds have always been from thrift shops.  They're all small pieces, but they're all clinkies, and being a clinky collector at heart they mean a lot to me.

Rescue #1

My earliest thrift shop find was a Japanese copy of a Beswick small stretching foal with a broken leg.  I was under no illusion that I'd found a Beswick when I bought him -- he is clearly nowhere near the same quality.  But he looked so lonely sitting on his dusty little shelf with no other HSOs to keep him company that my heart went out to him and my hand went to my wallet.  He cost me all of a dollar.

Rescue #2

The next wild-caught HSO to come home with me was also a very unskilled copy of a Beswick horse, this one wildly out of scale with the original.  Maybe the little Kelsboro Ware grazing drafter was not actually meant to copy the large Beswick grazing Shire, but I have my doubts.  At any rate, I took one look at her tiny head and comically oversized feet and I had to have her.  She cost me $5, but she was worth it.

Rescues #3, #4, and #5

I don't get to do a lot of thrift shopping these days, but my last outing brought me a bonanza of three tiny Made in Japan foals.  One is a sweet little palomino running foal stamped "Giftcraft."  The other two look like they might have been copies of H-R miniature foals, a standing white one and a lying chestnut.  Together, the three cost me $7.  Compared to my previous finds they're much more like horses than horse-shaped objects, which doesn't necessarily mean that I would now pass by a homely HSO that seemed to need a home.  It just means that this particular thrift shop had a nicer selection than most (although it didn't when I left it as I bought all the HSOs they had).

There's just something satisfying about performing a "rescue" and giving a model horse that's close to being tossed away a new home.  People who do restorations must get an even bigger thrill out of their rescues, as their horses usually come to them in pieces and leave (if they do leave) in a state that is often better than their original one.

I haven't joined the Model Horse Liberation Front as I don't have a story about finding something rare or desirable going dirt cheap out on the wild, but like so many other model horse collectors I'm always dreaming of that "someday" when something precious falls into my lap.

Until that day, my little rescues are good enough for me.