Molded On Tack

As I wrote yesterday's blog post, I began wondering just how the Old Timer mold came about. It's not your "usual" model horse, especially for an early Breyer. The tack and hat make it difficult to do anything with him besides use him as a harness horse, but then, at the time he was sculpted by Chris Hess (1966), the hobby was in its infancy. Any customizing or remaking was much less sophisticated than it is today, and live shows were just back yard or family room gatherings. Photo showing was in its beginnings, too. Breyer was not yet targeting specific groups within the hobby in their marketing. (In fact, they were not very aware of us for a while.)

So, who was the target sales audience? The Old Timer is not nearly as flashy, cute, or dashing as other early molds. Who wants a model of an old, tired horse? Knowing that Breyer later (1980s) produced him to use as advertising for McCormick Distilling Company, perhaps that's where this piece has its beginnings. I am speculating, but it could be possible that Breyer was in negotiations which fell through to produce a piece for an advertising campaign in the mid 1960s, and so Breyer went ahead and marketed the model in their regular run lineup to recoup the cost of sculpting and production. It was twenty years later that McCormick Distilling Company selected it to market their bourbon. (Remember, that is speculation on my part.)

A check of Nancy Young's final edition of Breyer Molds and Models 1950-1997 sheds no light on the "why" behind the mold other than a brief discussion of the 1980s special run done for McCormick. (p. 226)  Perhaps someone in the future will find some documentation that lets us know how he came to be.

I really do find the origins of this piece intriguing. When you look at the other molds Breyer was making at the time, this was when they made molded on tack almost as a matter of course. It was a normal practice of the company to have animals with tack.

Twelve traditional-sized molds with molded on tack were (and are) are in Breyer's lineup and of those (the Pacer, Balking Mule, Old Timer, Quarter Horse Gelding, Poodle, Fury Prancer, Western Horse, Western Pony, Western Prancing Horse, Man O'War, Race Horse and the Walking Black Angus) all were produced during the earliest days of Breyer. Only the Pacer (1967) and the Balking Mule (1968) came after the Old Timer mold was introduced.

So, why did Breyer discontinue the molded on tack for its new molds? Nancy Young suggests it was twofold - the labor involved in painting the tack was time consuming and costly, and then the burgeoning hobby was another factor. (p. 340)

I think Nancy is absolutely correct on both counts. Hobbyists preferred (and still prefer) tackless models for customizing and performance - we had begun making our own tack then. (I remember trying to photo show my Man O'War in a racing class and the oddness of having placed a bridle over his halter.) Hobbyists wanted realism in the late 60s/early 70s just as we do now!

And if you look at when the company stopped making new molds with molded on tack, the Balking Mule was the last in 1968, and that date coincides neatly with the rising of the early hobby - we had found each other across the country (and then the world) and were communicating via snail mail, holding get togethers and photo shows, and publishing "zines" and club newsletters.

As Breyer became more aware of the hobby, it responded to the early demand for models without tack. The only plastic model with tack since is Hands Down, a Stablemate which was originally a holiday ornament before becoming the lone Stablemate mold with tack in the regular lineup of molds for that scale. (I am not including the molded on tack of the porcelain and resin models here.)

Sometimes I hear hobbyists making remarks that Breyer "doesn't listen to us" or complaints about the quality of Breyer's paint jobs. Sometimes those are valid, other times I just bite my tongue and do not respond. But I think in the case of molded on tack, the correlation between what early hobbyists wanted and were buying points out that Breyer does listen to hobbyists. They are, after all, in the business of selling models, so it only makes sense to listen to the demands of the market.

A quick perusal of Identify Your Breyer or dealers' catalogs will show you just how well Breyer listened when it came to molded on tack.