Collections Within My Collection: My Raku in 2026

Finding my Lakeshore Raku piece yesterday was easier than I'd anticipated - he was on the bottom shelf of the antique display cabinet in my sewing room. Here is what he looks like today, 15 years after I purchased him.

I was pleased to not see the "muddy" color that can happen in any Raku piece.

When I bought this piece, Cindy Neuhaus had let me spend some time looking at all that were available so that I could get one with color that I liked.

Like his turquoise ears,

 foreleg, and eye, (the spot over the eye reminds me of the heart over Abby's eye),

and the way turquoise popped up throughout his body.

Even under his belly, he is such a pretty piece.

But has he been fading or changing color? Here is a comparison of the piece as he is now to the photos I took in 2020.

Off side, 2020 (top), 2026 (bottom)

The lighting was different from last time

Near side, 2020 (top), 2026 (bottom)

as was the location - my office photo shelf in 2020, the top of the minis curio cabinet in the sewing room in 2026.

Foreleg, 2020 (top), 2026 (bottom)

As I compared the photos to each other,

Ears and eye, 2020 (top), 2026 (bottom)

I did not feel like the Raku piece was changing color in any discernible way.

Belly, 2020 (top), 2026 (bottom)

This is the only photo I can find of the piece from when I bought him from Cindy in 2012.

It was early afternoon and the light was bright in her room at the Clarion. Plus, our hands are covering up a lot of detail! But I wasn't thinking of documenting his appearance back then; I just wanted a picture with a friend.

I may put a note on the calendar in my phone to photograph him again, maybe annually, in the same place, time, and light as much as possible. That would help me better track any changes that could be occurring.

Or, I could just leave him be and enjoy him for what he is - a beautiful and unusual model horse that was produced by a friend.

Either way, that's a win-win.

Collections Within My Collection: Lakeshores

China collector and model horse hobbyist Cindy Neuhaus founded The Lakeshore Collection, Ltd. in 2002.  Her goal was to provide affordable fine bisque porcelain horses for collectors. 

Using well known sculptors of the time, to date there are five molds in the Lakeshore Collection:

Marshall (Anne Harris), Miz Charisma and Status Symbol (Ed Gonzales), Touch of the Sky (Laurie Jo Jensen), and Houdini (D'arry Jone Frank.) All are traditional sized pieces.

Cindy and me at BreyerFest, 2012.

I have three Lakeshores in my collection. My favorite Lakeshore mold is Anne Harris' Marshall who was first released in a run of 1,000 in 2003, shortly after the company started up.

I named him Uppsala as a nod to daughter-in-love Emily's Swedish heritage and that she lived in Uppsala for a year while in college. 

My second piece was Houdini in bay pinto who was released in 2004. 

After that, I began concentrating on collecting Hagen Renakers and circus ponies for my collection, so I did not purchase any more Lakeshores until BreyerFest 2012 when I specifically sought out the Lakeshore room in the Clarion so I could buy a piece of Raku.

Cindy Neuhaus and me at the Clarion in 2012.

I really wanted a Marshall in Raku and I looked at several of them before I selected this one. He is beautiful and I am glad to have gotten a piece of Lakeshore Raku as Cindy discontinued producing them shortly after that.

I never asked her why so I don't know the reason she discontinued them. But, if I remember correctly, Raku is difficult and time consuming to produce.

A clue to Lakeshore's discontinuation of their Raku line may be in an online discussion that happened in 2020. There was some discussion that the Raku coloring changes over time, becoming a duller, muddy color. (Any Raku coloring on any porcelain or china piece, not just the Lakeshore Raku horses.)

Apparently there is some truth in that Raku coloring does change over time. Here is a link to an article about Raku colors and how they are unstable and do change. 

Speculation in that same discussion was that the Raku color could be brought back to life by using a soft cloth to polish it. I doubted that - there is a clear glaze over the Raku layer that I would think would prevent that. But, I gave it a try and polished my Raku Marshall with a soft cloth. The results I got were mixed.

After writing this post and revisiting the color change discussion, I am curious as to how my Raku Marshall looks now. If I can, I will pull him out, take a look, and share pictures tomorrow.

Curious? I sure am.

Stay 'tooned!

Color Changing Rakus

Yesterday someone posted a question in a china collectors Facebook group about her Lakeshore Raku "Art of Fire" Marshall, and her thoughts that its color was changing. I, too, have a Raku Marshall, so I was very interested in reading the comments as well as checking out a link to an article about how Raku colors are not stable and do change with time. 

Then I pulled out my Raku piece. He did look different to me - duller and with less variation in his color. A suggestion had been made in the group that polishing the finish with a jewelry polishing cloth might restore some of the lustre, so I pulled out a soft cloth and tried that.

 Off side before polishing.

 Off side after polishing. It did look somewhat shinier to me.

 Near side before polishing.

 Near side after polishing. Some of the green/turquoise seems brighter.

The Lakeshore Rakus are really beautiful pieces.

 I especially love the variation in the colors on mine.

I couldn't work on mine too long as I had something else to get to right away but it did look like I was getting some promising results.

I'm interested in continuing to follow the thread and seeing what results other people are getting as they try the polishing cloth on their own Rakus.

I may even start taking periodic photos of mine to document any future changes.

While I really hope my model does not end up some dull muddy color as time goes on, I also enjoy this part of being a collector. Every so often we discover changes or see something we had not noticed before, and it becomes researched and documented in the hobby. (For example, shrinkies, oozies, chalkies, and even unusual deterioration in Western Horses.)

A Raku model whose color is changing is another of those challenges to observe and figure out.