Factory Repaints - Black Bucking Broncos?

Breyer is well known for recycling a finished model that did not sell well and repainting it to sell again. Some lucky people have discovered that their ordinary sorrel 5 Gaiter was actually a wedgewood, or their bay Running Mare a copenhagen.

There is some speculation that some of Breyer's black Bucking Broncos may actually be repainted grey ones. The grey was only offered in 1966 and then disappeared. I have two blacks that are definitely odd and I have been doing research on them to see if perhaps they are factory repaints.

 This first Bronco is the one I strongly suspect is a factory repaint of a grey.

Look at his face - partially blacked over with plenty of the grey still showing. There's also a definite spot of black paint on his upper lip below his nostril OVER the grey color.

 And look at his shoulder and the grey that extends down his foreleg.

It is definitely grey and not the white of bare plastic. Compare the color to the bottom of his right front hoof or his left hind sock to see the difference.

My second black Bucking Bronco may also be a factory repaint. His bald face has black splatters which may or may not be an indication, but look at his lower lip. The near half is grey while the off half is black. You can see the sharply delineated line between the black on one half and the grey on the other.

The first Bronco has grey hooves, and you can see a darker grey on the other one. But, can you also see the black paint line around the edge of his off front hoof?

His hooves have been partially painted black, so that they're grey as well as black. 

The research that I have done says that these models only came with grey hooves, not black.

 A better view of the partial grey/partial black hooves which shows mostly grey from this side,

and mostly black from the other.

I have been chatting with a knowledgable hobby friend and she is looking at her Broncos and the information that she has on Breyer's painting jobs and will then get back to me. I'll post what she says when I hear back from her. In the meantime, I lean towards calling them both factory repaints.

Tomorrow I will show another piece, also black, that I suspect may be a factory repaint as well.