My Elephant Trifecta

There are three Breyer elephants in my collection. (Four if I count the Corky & Bimbo who are still in their original box and tucked away in the closet.)

All three have something quirky about them, something that keeps me from selling them even though the elephant mold isn't one I actively collect.

This is the quirkiest elephant. Originally I bought him because he still had his blue ribbon, but when he arrived, I realized that he was not your run of the mill Breyer elephant.

He is a lot like the battleship grey color Breyer once produced on the donkey and on the hooves of early Man O'Wars. There is also a bit of a glow from under his paint.

The tusks have what seems to be a thin layer of white paint on them - you can see the plastic through it.

His mouth has the same light wash of paint.

Here he is compared to my other two elephants. See the difference?

The underside of his feet explain a lot - this piece is made of grey plastic, not the usual stark white plastic that Breyer uses. This indicates that he is from the oil crisis era in the 1970s when Breyer was having difficulty getting their usual plastic and so reground pieces and remolded them into new ones.

The bottoms of the feet are unpainted and you can see the color difference when you compare them to the tusks which have been.

He is definitely the most unusual of the three. Tomorrow, we will look at the chalky/not chalky one.

Stay 'tooned!