First Post of the Day
Heads up, everyone! Hobbyist and Collector Kirsten Wellman has created a holiday photo activity for us all to do.
Based on quips from holiday movies, it looks like a lot of fun. No rules, interpret as you wish.
Will I do it? Maybe. I'm still getting the house back to normal from the Thanksgiving week we just had. But it's possible.
Another post to come - stay 'tooned!
I asked five hobby experts if they were willing to share information with me about Breyer's early palomino coloring, and four of the five agreed. I'll share what two of them said today, and then two tomorrow.
Kirsten Wellman (from a conversation 6/4/22)
Kirsten is a long time collector and hobbyist who writes the blog, Model Horse Collectibility. She is known for doing thorough research on any model horse topic she tackles and is well respected within the model horse hobby.
Hi, Lynn, That's an interesting subject to tackle! I personally have never heard of that theory. I kind of wonder if someone passed along a garbled version of the fact that some of the early palomino (and brown) Hartlands could fade or turn green.
In my experience of 40-ish years collecting, the vast majority of Breyer paint jobs have been stable and kept their true color if kept in a reasonable environment. Some colors may fade a bit if exposed to prolonged sun exposure (or heat) like the modern clearware models or the pinking on feet, ears, and noses. But I've never run into an issue with vintage palominos. I have about a dozen sets of palomino Family Arabs, and they're all different shades -- caramel, honey, medium, dark, light, etc -- and they've been unchanged colorwise in all the years I've had them. (30+)
With that in mind, I am rather skeptical of the theory. My observation over the years has been that the more orange palominos are late run variations, and I have really only observed it with some 5-Gaiters and pinto Shetlands. The brown pinto WH and WP get sort of close, but they're generally more chestnut than orange. Breyer's palominos were ALL over the place in terms of color in the 1960s -- the brown pinto Western Ponies for example varied from pale palomino to true chestnut.
But without some evidence of early, unchanged orange models that match that shade the late palomino 5-Gaiters come in, I'm inclined to think that the orange color was a deliberate choice at that time for Breyer, not that all previous palomino 5-Gaiters faded and for some reason a few from around 1971 did not.
Kelly Korber-Weimer (from a conversation 6/5/22)
Kelly's main focus in the hobby is collectibility. In 2007, she co-authored the Breyer Animal Collectors Guide, 5th edition and is a regular contributor to Vintage Point articles in JAH. Last year she co-hosted Archive Room segments during virtual BreyerFest.
Hi Lynn! I've heard conflicting things too (from the same sources you've cited above.) My own pally 5G is caramel with faded pinking, but he is caramel all over. My hunch is that they were released in color variations and that the caramel is not faded. My hunch also doesn't have great evidence other than the "bile green" palomino Hartlands did not fade evenly. Comparing two factories is bad data but I'd expect some uneven fading if that was the case. I'm team "color variation" until shown evidence of uneven fading.
Kelly Keracher has a bright orange 5G that came out of storage (from the Francis collection of models) with a minty blue ribbon sticker, so we can at least place the bright orange fellows around the time of sticker models.
I think about this quite often. Thanks for reaching out!
That's it for today - tomorrow we will hear from two more.
Was Breyer's original palomino color an orange shade that later shifted to a lighter yellow color? Or, was it originally a carmel tan that has remained mostly the same with the passage of time? What documentation can be found that supports one or the other position?
