The Toys of Yesteryear

"Return with us now to the thrilling days of yesteryear.  From out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of the great horse, Silver ..."
... And Scout, and Trigger, and Buttermilk, and ... well, the list goes on and on.

I'm a bit too young to have been one of those kids who faithfully listened to that introduction to The Lone Ranger's adventures on radio, and I only ever saw the television show in reruns.  In fact, by the time I began to really watch TV, most of the great TV westerns were gone.  My parents watched Gunsmoke, so I sort of watched that one, but it never really grabbed me (too many people and not enough horses, I felt).  The one TV western that remained for me to fall in love with was Bonanza, or Ponderosa, as it was called when it was in reruns.  

How I adored Bonanza!  I loved the horses (well, who didn't love Little Joe's paint Cochise?) and I even loved the comically mismatched characters.  I once heard Bonanza jokingly described as "a show about a man with three sons, two of whom were older than him and none of which looked even remotely alike".  It's not quite true.  Both Pernell Roberts (Adam) and Dan Blocker (Hoss) were younger than Lorne Greene (who played their Pa), but only by about 13 years or so.  It didn't matter; I was glued to the adventures that absurd family anyway.

But Bonanza debuted on television in 1959, four years after Gunsmoke's debut in 1955, making it one of the last of the great TV westerns.  As such, it stands out as one of the few popular "horse operas" of the '50s not immortalized by a Hartland horse and rider set.

The series that did make into into Hartland's hall of fame included The Lone Ranger (1949-57), The Roy Rogers Show (1951-57), Davy Crockett (1954-55), Annie Oakley (1954-57), Brave Eagle (1955-56), Sergeant Preston of the Yukon (1955-58), The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955-61), Cheyenne (1955-62), Gunsmoke (1955-1975),  Broken Arrow (1956-58), Trackdown (1957-59), Tales of Wells Fargo (1957-62), Wagon Train (1957-65), Maverick (1957-62), Have Gun - Will Travel (1957-63), Mackenzie's Raiders (1958-59), The Texan (1958-60), Wanted Dead or Alive (1958-61), The Rifleman (1958-63), The Rebel (1959-61), and Rawhide (1959-65) .  Of course, there were more horse and rider figures than this -- Hartland's line-up also included a selection of generic western riders and historical horsemen, and even one oddly out-of-place racing Thoroughbred with a jockey.

I love collecting the Hartland horse and rider sets, not just because of my childhood connection with them, but for the thrill of picking up mismatched pieces and sorting and assembling all the accessories to make up complete sets.  You can, if you want to spend a lot of money, buy complete sets easily enough on eBay, but as I mentioned before these sets draw big bucks because of their widespread appeal to fans of TV westerns, collectors of '50s television nostalgia, and model horse fanciers.  The horses come in a pleasing variety of colours and poses, many of the riders are remarkable likenesses of the actors who portrayed them, and even the box art is beautiful (although I don't think I'll ever be lucky enough to find an affordable Hartland in its original box).

My first set - Tonto and Scout

The first Hartland horse and rider set I bought was Tonto and Scout.  I bought them both at a huge multi-vendor flea market, but oddly enough not from the same vendor.  I had no accessories for them -- not even the horse's reins, but it was a start and it got me hooked.

The Lone Ranger and a Western Champ horse (standing in for Silver)

Other pieces I have purchased over the years have included a mismatched Lone Ranger with Cochise's horse and saddle, Chief Thunderbird's horse wearing Davy Crockett's saddle, Cochise and Chief Thunderbird as individual figures with some accessories, and a nearly complete set of Roy Rogers and Trigger with Dale Evans and Buttermilk (my best buy to date).  I also have the Wagon Train horse and two white Western Champ horses (one with a mismatched red saddle), General Custer's horse Bugler, an extra Tonto, and a Wyatt Earp and Tombstone set in very sad condition.

Wyatt Earp and Tombstone were actually given to me by a friend who couldn't sell them but couldn't bear to throw them away.  Before my friend acquired the set someone, for some reason, had decided to cut a hole almost entirely through the set.  Wyatt's head was neatly cut off around the browline, there was a hole in the seat of his pants matching a hole in his saddle, and beneath that a large jagged hole in Tombstone's back.

I collect these Hartlands for fun, and not for show, so I'm usually not very picky about condition.  Most of my horses have at least one chipped ear which I've attempted to patch up, and every once in a while I drag out the plastic lace and gift one with reproduced reins (some reins were cord and some were chain as well).  But Wyatt Earp and Tombstone had damage that I felt was beyond my capacity to repair.  However, like my friend, I found that I just couldn't throw them away.  So one day I bought some epoxy putty and some sandpaper, and tried to put some life back in this poor old cowboy.

Wyatt Earp with new hair on his beat-up horse Tombstone

I'm actually quite happy with the repairs I made to Wyatt and his saddle, but Tombstone is a horrific mess underneath them both.  I simply did not and do not have the skills, or even the tools, to make a seamless repair of a hole as large as the one in his back, so the results of my repair attempts are almost as ugly as the original hole.  However, once the saddle is on and Wyatt on top of that, you can't really see the horse's back anymore, and that helps a lot.

Cochise and his proper pinto pony from the TV show "Broken Arrow"

Anyway, with a little shopping and swopping I've managed to get a good start on my Roy and Dale and Lone Ranger and Tonto sets, the Chief Thunderbird set and the Cochise set.  Next I need to find a General Custer figure, a red Champ cowboy or cowgirl figure, and possibly a Seth Adams figure from Wagon Train (although this is one of the harder figures to come by).  I could also use a Davy Crockett horse and perhaps another Scout for the second Tonto, since Hartland released two versions of Scout.  So I'm always on the lookout for mismatched sets containing some combination of these figures.  The mismatched and incomplete sets are always cheaper anyway and I really do enjoy the challenge of spotting what I need in them and then sorting everybody out.

Chief Thunderbird reunited with his horse Northwind

Fortunately, there's a Facebook group, Vintage Horse and Rider Sets, that makes the job of matching a whole lot easier.  Gail Fitch's first book, Hartland Horsemen, is a great resource too, particularly for pictures of the original packaging.

No, I may not be able to return to the thrilling days of yesteryear, but I can still enjoy playing with yesteryear's toys.