Breyer Horses, part one of two

I thought I'd do a post about one of my hobbies, model horse showing.  But I realized things would make a lot more sense if I explained just what these plastic horses are that I collect, customize and show.  So...here's a brief history of Breyer, the company that produces them:

In 1950 the F.W. Woolworth company contacted a Chicago, Illinois based company called Breyer Molding Company, with a request for a horse sculpture to adorn one of their mantle clocks.

The piece, Western Horse #57, proved so popular that people wrote Breyer asking if they could purchase just the horse.  From then on, Breyer Molding Company shifted its focus to making high-quality, realistic model horses from cellulose acetate, and a new hobby was born.

In 1984, Breyer was acquired by Reeves, International, a company based in Pequannock, New Jersey.  Now known as Breyer Animal Creations, it became Reeves, International’s largest line, producing plastic, resin and porcelain model horses for collectors, hobbyists, and horse enthusiasts of all ages.

The most popular line of model horses is their Traditional scale models; sculpted in 1:9 scale, they average 12” L x 9” H.  The other three scales are Classics (1:12 scale, 9” x 6”), Paddock Pals (formerly Little Bits; 1:24 scale, 6” x 5”) and the tiniest, the Stablemates (1:32 scale, 4” x 3”.)

Breyer doesn’t only produce beautiful realistic horses; they also have “unrealistic colors,” such as glossy charcoal and woodgrain, and true fantasy colors, known as decorators, such as Wedgewood (a pale blue with white mane, tail and socks) and Florentine (speckled gold), as well as a line of farm animals, wildlife and “companion animals” such as dogs, cats and goats.

Woodgrain Five-Gaiter, shown as Nautical Wheeler

Glossy charcoal Semi-rearing Mustang and Fighting Stallion, shown as Wahotkonk ("black eagle") and Dusk Shroud, respectively

A good reference site for the different models produced by Breyer is Identify Your Breyer, which lists all the molds (the shape of the horse) in each scale, and has pictures and information on each model (the color/pattern) produced on those molds.