Variations: Alabaster Semi-Rearing Mustangs

My favorite Breyer mold of all is the Semi-Rearing Mustang.I remember saving my babysitting money for a glossy charcoal one I'd seen in the local pet shop (you never know where you will find a Breyer!) and that particular model from my carpet herd is still my favorite out of my entire collection of 1,000+ pieces.

The Semi-Rearing Mustang was produced in alabaster 1961 - 1966. It came with red or black eyes, much like the alabaster 5-Gaiter did.

My red-eyed version.

He has lovely shading and lustrous, thick gloss.

There are odd hoof bottom markings which I think are partial drain board patterns. He also has pink and grey shaded "underparts," something that Breyer doesn't do much any more on any of its stallion models.

A lovely pink nose goes right along with those red eyes (which are very hard to catch on my phone camera)

and he has a hint of grey shading on his back. (That is not a seam split; the grey paint just settled oddly onto the seam like that. You can see the same thing on his tail, too.)

Most people assume that the red-eye version is the rarer of the two, but that is not true when it comes to the Semi-Rearing Mustang. (It is true with the alabaster 5 Gaiter.)

Actually, the black-eye version is rarest. Here's my black-eyed version.

He, too, has the same lovely shading and gloss

as well as the pink and grey "underparts. But notice the bottoms of his hooves - they are smooth and have no patterning.

The grey paint settled onto the tail seam but not on the back (aside from just a bit at the base of the tail.)

Side by side, you can see that their shading is pretty similar from this side

and better on this side of the red-eyed model.

When I show these two in collectibility classes, the red-eyed piece wins over the black-eyed time after time. I even have it on the documentation that the black-eyed version is rarer but that has not changed their placings. It may be that the judges think the black-eyed version is nicer overall than the red-eyed, and as you have seen, they are both really nice pieces. (Plus the red-eyed has that nice pink nose.)

Regardless of their show placings, I like them both and consider them some of the nicest vintage pieces in my collection.