Collections Within My Collection: Vintage Customs

This is a small collection within my collection since I am only looking at my vintage customs. Non vintage customs will be coming next in the series. 

Pace's Hi Hopes

Meet Pace's Hi Hopes, who I got in 1971.  My very first custom and done by Sherry Cook, he cleaned up again and again at photo shows in the 1970s and has multiple championships, reserves, and even a grand championship or two to his name. I was fourteen when I got him and had saved my babysitting money (at 50 cents an hour) to purchase him for a whopping $12 (about $97 now.)

I never, ever regretted spending 24 hours babysitting for this model!

He came with a bunch of show photos, 

and a record of his winnings prior to purchase.

I showed him constantly throughout the 1970s and that show record is extensive.

I bring him out occasionally as an example of early customs, but Paces Hi Hopes hasn't been competitive for decades except in collectibility classes.

Still, he is one of my favorite models, and represents the photo showing era of my life back in the earliest days of the hobby. He is now displayed proudly in my china cabinet along with my Hagen Renakers. 

I came across this photo online several years ago of a gorgeous Appaloosa. A gasp worthy moment as the similarities were so strong.

His name is The Secret Pardon and he was a 2009 National ApHC champion. 

I was struck by his pose and color and their similarity to my model. I had to save that picture in Pace's Hi Hopes' file.

An interesting note about him - Sherry Cook (later known as Sherry McDonald) was known to cut the hair of her Cocker Spaniels and use them on the models she was customizing. This piece has a mane and tail that are from her dogs and it is still silky smooth.

Midwest Tumbleweed

After Pace's Hi Hopes, I acquired Midwest Tumbleweed. (Creative name, I know. Hey, I was fourteen!)

My second custom by Sherry Cook, I got her in 1971 or 1972. We did not call them customs back then; instead, we used the term "r/r/h" which meant, "repaint/remade/haired."

This mare also used to win a lot for me in photo shows. Later, Beth Dickinson bought the showing rights to her and continued her successful photo show career well into the 1980s.

She has a USA stamp and the undersides of her hooves are not painted. Nor are they the white that her "sisters" on the shelf have. The 1970s were a time when Breyer was experimenting with plastics due to the oil crisis, and she reflects that.

 

The mane and tail are mohair and clearly showing their age - no Cocker Spaniel hair for this model!

Remakers today would have fixed that curled eartip, but back then, most remakers just painted the pieces as they were.

Like Pace's Hi Hopes, Midwest Tumbleweed is a never-sell for me. Besides her historical value as a very early custom done by a well known 1970s artist, she represents my own early days in the hobby when my collection was expanding and I was making new and lifelong hobby friends.

My favorite photo of her and one that won a lot of ribbons for me.

Sycamore Scoj

It didn't take long before Midwest Tumbleweed was joined by another Sherry Cook custom, Sycamore Scoj.

She was named after the two horses down the road from our home that I cared for all through high school - Sycamore Lass and Scojeadon.

Like Midwest Tumbleweed and Pace's High Hopes, she is showing her age, and of the three, she has the most damage to her finish. I've thought about having her touched up, but I always hesitate - those scuffs and marks are a part of her 55 year history. 

I am intrigued by the bottoms of her hooves - they too are unpainted and a dark grey.  I got her in 1972 or 1973, she has no USA mark or B stamps, and is also from the oil crisis era. My guess is that, were I to strip the paint off, I would find a grey plastic body.

But then, I look at that sweet face, the face of early hobby photo showing, new friends, and fun, and I just cannot do it. Not only is she a historical piece, she's also a piece of my heart. 

Sycamore Scoj stays just as she is.

Writing about my vintage customs brought back so many memories and feelings from my earliest days in the hobby, way back before the internet and when live shows were rare and photo showing was how most of us connected to the hobby. They were fun days and I enjoyed them.

Next up? My modern customs.

Collections within My Collection: Flockies (Part 1)

When I was in elementary school, my friend Bobbie Sue and I would hold model horse shows at each other's homes. I remember putting my plastic models into a large paper grocery bag, slinging it over the handles of my bike, and pedaling  several miles to her home.

There we'd set up a ring using Lincoln Logs, grab a timer for the barrel racing class, and make paper ribbons for the winners.

What a wonderful memory! (And I still say to kids who get a model horse, "Play with it! Enjoy it! Don't just set it on a shelf and never touch it again!")

Bobbie Sue had this gorgeous white flocked horse with a "real" mane and tail that she named Ross.

Not the actual Ross, but a photo of one like him from online.

A gift from her grandparents, Ross was the penultimate model horse to me - but I never found one like him. (This was before the internet.)

Until I did.

Even better, I found him in my favorite horse color, black. (This may be the seller's photo.)

Decades had passed and eBay was a thing. I didn't know about the German company Steha Leha that had manufactured these or anything else at the time. I was just looking for circus horses to add to my collection.

Boy howdy, did I find a doozy! 

I'd forgotten that Ross had wheels in his hooves, and even now I have been known to happily roll this boy around on the shelf or my desk.

After finding the black piece, I started actively looking for more Steha Leha circus horses. I have found a lot of Rosses and several more circus horses, but that flocking on the body is fragile and easily damaged. Manes get messy and even pulled out, and tack disappears. And the price for a Steha Leha even in poor condition is high.

I kept searching and in 2021 I found another one, one in good enough condition to justify the seller's asking price.

Unlike the black Steha, he has some flaws and someone had pulled all the green feathers off his saddle pad.

But for a white flocked piece this old, I think he looks remarkably good for his age

and I am happy to have him in my collection.

There is another flocky that I keep on the shelf next to the two Steha Lehas.

Vintage Club Gawain.

Released in 2022 as a flocked unicorn on the Shannondell mold,

he is quite the model horse! I unwrapped him, looked at that mane and tail curled and spilling everywhere, and decided that I would not move or adjust anything. 

Like all my flockies, I carefully slipped him into a plastic bag, making sure the bag wasn't pressing down on him, and slipped him onto the shelf beside the two Stehas. (Those bags extend beyond the backs of the models and are left open to allow for some air circulation.)

More flockies coming - stay 'tooned!