After being as thorough in my research as I can, I'm ready to share my thoughts about the original question:
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?
~ Out of those four people who spoke with me, all believe that the color did not change and were able to back up their comments with personal observations. (As I was writing this series, I received several messages from additional long time hobbyists who had early palominos that they'd purchased new which had always been carmel and never orange.)
~ My own experience with palominos from the theoretical color shifting period is that they were carmel when purchased new off the shelf.
~ Numerous orange palominos from the supposed era of the color shifting time still have their orange color.
But having said that, Andrea Gurdon says that she saw a half carmel/half orange Fighting Stallion in her entry titled "Honey" that was posted July 29, 2013. She wrote,
"I'm not sure if it's completely due to exposure to sunlight, or if another environmental factor such as heat is necessary. Several years ago I saw a Gloss Palomino Fighter that had been kept in a window for some time; one side was Orange, and the other side was honey."
If that is true, and I have no reason to believe that it isn't, then that gives me pause. Why? Ever heard of the original Christmas decorators? For years rumors have swirled about that in the 1960s or so, red and green decorator models were briefly produced by Breyer. No photos have ever come to light and they have never moved beyond "hopeful rumor."
But, as Andrea wrote in a blog post dated October 3, 2009, "Yet absence of evidence is not evidence of absence: all it takes is one photograph, one document, or one model to move something from the realm of imaginary."
That's a really good point. One of our hobby mothers, Simone Smiljanic, insisted her entire life that she had seen those green and red decorators. She never recanted that, and I believe her. But we have no photos or documentation, just Simone's word and a few rumors from others that they existed.
So, while I am keeping an open mind, I agree with Kirsten Wellman, Kelly Korber-Weimer, Sande Schneider, and Nancy Kelly that Breyer's palomino color was not fugitive and never changed from orange to carmel.
But I'm also going to follow my own advice and "stay 'tooned," because, as Andrea said, it just takes one picture.
