Mystery Horses Update Summer 2014

As much as I've dug up over the years, the Mystery Horse mine continues to turn up precious gems.

Giant 24" H-114

Model courtesy Heather Jackson-Lain.

The Giant molds seem to be the rarest survivors. I'm not sure why this is. Perhaps fewer were ordered from the potteries? The littler guys were probably much cheaper at wholesale. Maybe retailers ordered fewer of the big guys because the little guys were easier to display and sell? My gut tells me that the Giants were so big that moving them from household to household was cumbersome. Shipping them is a pain, so we seldom see them on eBay for anything besides "pick up only". 

What happens when a Giant breaks? Does it immediately go to the dump as over-sized broken junk? Nope. Somebody felt this Giant was worth saving, despite missing an entire leg. Maybe the Giant's size, in that antiques dealers sometimes associate size with value, is what saves them when they are damaged?

A-9 and H-114 in Black Pearl

Lusters are costly, and it seems the Giants get less than the small models.

Model on right courtesy Heather Jackson-Lain.

H-114 

Calif USA

Giant H-114 models demonstrating exactly why the mold was retooled with bent legs.

Black Smoke (known to be Lane Ceramics) and Black Pearl (possibly Marcia of California)

Model on right courtesy Heather Jackson-Lain.

Giant H-114 bent legs in Black Pearl

Lane or Marcia? I don't know.

Unknown photo source

The smaller open-bottom P-239 ("leg-out")

One of two P-239 open-bottom Pearls that appear to be OF.

I have a White Pearl photo on file that is owned by Worthpoint, so not shown here.

Photo courtesy Jayne Kubas.

In summary, I have now seen all the 239 Leg Outs including ring-neck (except the first version H-15 of '62), both leg styles of H-114, and A-9 in both White and Black Pearl.

I have no record of any of the small H-1 facing right rearing guys nor the Giant H-11 in a Pearl.

Seeing as H-1 v. 1 and H-15/'62 are what I think are the earliest molds, I'd hazard a guess that the Pearls were later colors. 


How about something else we've not seen here, before? What if they made the A-9 Naturals in a color similar to a bay? Don't get excited, no eyes, but it's quite different than the other Naturals!

Photo courtesy Joan Berkwitz.

Derivative molds abound, but the fact that some colourways matched the Lane/Marcia colors is quite charming. One could display a matching set, even with derived later mold versions. This so appealed to the average home decorator of the time. Picturing a living room with one of those old enormous cabinet TVs, topped with an entire set of gold-purple-whites, arranged on huge lace doilies, just tickles me.

This doesn't look right: someone forgot the Gold!

Both H-1 v.2

H-1 v.2 displayed with 1156 (a derived mold), close but not the same gold application.

Another 1156, different green, and still not the same in gold application.

Have you found a mold/color combination not previously recorded on this blog? Email me!


Thank you to Joan Berkwitz, Jayne Kubas, and Heather Jackson-Lain for some of the images in this post!

Fearless in Handling Ceramics

As a person who handles a lot of ceramics- in collecting, producing, and restoring them- I get asked how I got so comfortable with them. 

"Where did you get nerves of steel? And, can we borrow some?"

Practice, and developing a light yet secure grip, is key to reaching a certain comfort level. The other thing is, I know no experience I will face with ceramics, not even shipping them blind across the country or the oceans, will ever be as harrowing as the one that shaped me.

It was the summer of 1996, and I was about to experience my very first trip to BreyerFest in Lexington, KY. I had only been to one model horse event outside my home state of California, prior to this mega-convention. I had never flown with models before, and on top of that, I am not a big fan of air travel. Let's just say, it was a big commitment of finances, courage, and a general gamble. I was living at Pour Horse Pottery, at the time. Joan Berkwitz and I were convinced that we needed to vend at this ultimate model horse convention to properly promote the then-fledgling pottery.

While Joan produced a bunch of Bressay ceramic ponies to sell at the 'Fest to cover her expenses, I made some claybody customs to sell to cover my share of the hotel and my flight. When I did OFs and customs, I paid Joan to do the moldmaking, pouring, and airbrushing, and I did the rest. 

This was the 1990's. The only other claybody customs (ceramics resculpted in greenware) known at that time were the cold-painted (unglazed) works of Janice Brent Starr. There was no Custom Glaze division in shows. Glazed claybodies were so rare and new, people often asked, "What am I looking at? Will it last?" because the idea of changing a ceramic was not yet commonplace. Longevity was a question because customized Breyers, with their cracking putty and fillers, were the only analogs. With big dreams of funding my entire trip and keeping my dog in prescription food, I claybodied a Voltage into a trot, and an Owynn into a cantering pose. 

A claybody custom from a Voltage, named "Lyre".

Resculpt by author, airbrushed by Joan, detailed/glazed by author.

Photo by Joan Berkwitz.

What a normal OF Voltage looks like.

Photo by Joan.

A claybody custom from a Pour Horse Pottery Owynn, titled, "Coch Pistol".

Photo by Joan.

An OF gray Pour Horse Owynn.

Photo by author.

I was also filling Voltage orders at the time, as the 90-day ordering period had closed, and the claybodies were worked on in stolen moments. They were risky poses, had delicate facial details, and were generally the ultimate I had done in art, up to that time. They were each going to be sold for nearly 8 times what a Voltage earned me, after the dealers' cut. Hopes. Dreams. Ambitions. Eggs. One basket. 

Literally, one basket. I didn't own luggage (I had a backpack), but Joan loaned me the use of her small vintage ladies' cosmetic hard-side case. It was the right size to fit under a plane seat, and I fully intended to carry-on these horses. Frankly, if I could have had them installed surgically for the flight, I might have considered it. That is the only way I can summarize how seriously I needed these horses to survive their voyage to BreyerFest.

Note: this is long before 9/11. There was no aggressive TSA. In fact, flying was super mellow and easy, compared to today's security routine. You could go to the gates with your family to see them off or meet them. You could buy a ticket with cash at the counter. These were carefree times.

So, here we are, arriving at San Diego airport to fly to Lexington. It's July, and we even went out and got new summer clothes for the trip because we heard that Kentucky was really hot and muggy (men's shorts, no super-short shorts that are routinely marketed to young ladies). We resembled laid-back skaters or surfers with our loose T-shirts and long shorts, long hair, and very light luggage. I was one step up from carrying my clothes in a paper grocery sack. We weren't high-maintenance. I didn't even own any makeup.

Looking back on it, through the eyes of the airport staff, we didn't look like typical lady travelers heading anywhere overnight, let alone ladies heading across the country for nearly a week. We probably looked very, very odd. 

We dutifully placed our carry-on luggage on the X-ray conveyor belt, and quickly went to the other end to collect them. I was more than a little wide-eyed, no doubt, since so much money was riding on that bumpy conveyor and about to bang at the end of the metal slide. The X-ray tech stopped the conveyor, and I can't even remember how many airport staff entered the scene at this point. It may have just been the one tech, it may have been five people surrounding us. All I remember is the next few minutes were the most horrifying ceramics-related moments of my life.

We were told to immediately open the hard-side carry-on. I told them it had fragile ceramic horses, is there some place I can lay them down while I unwrap them? They were mummified with toilet paper, as there was no room for our stiff 1996 custom foam inserts in luggage. 

No, do it right here, completely unwrap the items. 

And, did you say, "ceramic horses"? 

We'll need to break them open.


*** Reader, I will give you a moment.***


To my credit, I did not have a nervous breakdown right there in the airport X-ray line. I felt like every bit of me was shaking with a spicy blend of financial-ruin-horror and anger. I had never had a brush with the law. I was always a good kid, always followed rules, worked at a stable, Honors classes, and perpetual A+ in Citizenship. The worst thing I did in high school: I painted the musical Phantom of the Opera poster on a friend's mortarboard, and a zebra on my own, to innocently celebrate graduation. No one had ever said we couldn't decorate them, and since we paid for them, we mistakenly thought they were our own to do with as we pleased. My high school saw this as threatening self-expression and a gateway to gang insignia. Yeah. Andrew Lloyd Webber always be gangbangin'. I was threatened with my diploma being withheld because of Art. (This, sadly, is not a joke.) I was never an actual troublemaker.

So, this whole scene was completely foreign to me. I was being singled out by authority for my perfectly innocuous, hand-made horses, and being told I will not be able to pay for the very trip I'm embarking on because the X-ray tech wants to break open my claybody customs.

Joan and I were completely shocked and, of course, asking why, and who do they think they are?

Another security dude comes over. They just asked us: "Are they hollow?" 
Our answer of "yes" was apparently the wrong answer.

After the concerned security people had roughly turned my horses over and over in their hands, and mumbled among themselves, they finally gave us part of their reason.

Recently, passengers had come through this airport with ceramic horses in their luggage. These hollow ceramic horses had been stuffed with drugs. The X-ray techs now have to break open any and all horses that they see on the screen, and check them for drugs.

Joan pointed out the tiny 1/16" stilt holes in their bellies, asking incredulously, "How could anyone put drugs in those holes?"

How we must have looked to the security staff: shady, shorts-wearing skaters, with way too little luggage to look like legit out-of-state travelers. Backpack. No makeup. An adult woman and a 15-year-old, whose driver's license "says" she's twenty. And the kid looks like she's about to lose her mind, watching every movement of the horses with crazy eyes, and quivering. She's wearing a very weird hat, looks like a drug thing. And they both are questioning the routine destruction of some cheap, crappy knickknacks! Suspicious.

The weird hat. Photo by Joan, from the same time as this adventure.

The author packing the first batch of Voltages on Joan's front lawn.

I have since had three-hour layovers in other airports, layovers that become frantic gate changes across the entire airport complex. I've had indirect cross-country flight schedules where I was awake for 24 hours straight. None of those experiences took as long as those minutes at the luggage X-ray. 

At last, the security staff decided that, indeed, there was no place on the horses' bellies to fit a plug for drug installation. The stilt holes were truly too small to stuff baggies of anything, and they certainly weren't plugged, nor dusting out coke like over-sized salt shakers. When we explained again that they weren't cheap tourist ceramics, that we made them by hand, and then quoted their value, the staff looked at each other. They handed them back, not without suspicious glances, and we were stuck TP-mummifying irreplaceable ceramics in a busy airport, with no soft or uncrowded place to wrap them. Strangers. Elbows. Jostling.

Every collector knows how horrid it feels to rush to pack a china, let alone under emotional duress, and with a now-impending flight departure. That was bad.

Despite the mad re-packing, these custom ceramics survived the security inspection and the flight, and were sold at BreyerFest. They remain in collector hands, to this day. 

The art of claybody customizing has changed so vividly in the past 18 years, it may seem odd that so much stress and value was rolled up in these two early pieces. But, at the time, for the time, a claybody custom was cutting edge and almost impossible to attain. All the claybody customs Joan & I had made by that time could be counted on one hand. They showed in Artist Resins divisions, if you ever even saw one. I can't even think of a good analogy for something like that phenomenon, today. 

This ceramic airport experience is why I am so mellow about layering my ceramics in plastic bins to go to shows. It's why I seem pretty unconcerned about the whole process of exhibiting, selling, and shipping. Nothing can be worse than having persons in authority tell you they are going to bust open the bodies of your artwork right in front of you, because they suspect you of a federal crime. If the post office breaks your horse, at least you don't have to witness it and simultaneously be excruciatingly aware of some ludicrous excuse for the destruction. This will never happen at a model horse show. 

Too bad the molds weren't long-ears. Drug mules. 

The Mane of Sun Cortez

This post does not reflect the opinions of Hagen-Renaker nor its employees. The following is my opinion and my interpretation of the submitted examples.

This disclaimer is necessary because the established stance is, HR's DW molds were never altered between Monrovia and San Dimas. 

The mold retooling that took place in the early 1980's for San Marcos is both acknowledged by collectors and by Jim Renaker, according to Nancy Kelly*.

Hagen-Renakers' Designer's Workshop mold, Sun Cortez, is a prime example of the observations I am (and other collectors are) making about mold differences between Monrovia and San Dimas factory eras. Of the molds that survived at least two factory eras, I have observed that quite a few went through an apparent resculpt and remolding. Some of us collectors summarize the entire multiple mold situation by citing "the mane of Sun Cortez" as the classic example of change.

Collectors are less likely to see the middle-era mold variant, because the San Dimas mold version is so rare. The main side-by-side comparison in this post is between Monrovia and San Marcos. Further on, the San Dimas will be shown. You read that correctly, I interpret three separate mold versions of Sun Cortez.

Left: San Dimas White matte photo and owned by author;

Right: Monrovia Palomino owned by Jayne Kubas

Why edit a mold's mane?

The mane flip of Monrovia Sun Cortez is prone to chipping. 

Maybe the resculpt reduced loss in shipping and retail?

If you are wondering why such an otherwise crisply detailed palomino 

has a smooth face, keep reading...

Huge difference in neck wrinkles and shoulder sculpture, too.

Different hindquarter muscle sculpts.

Different shoulder muscles.

Different chest muscles, throats.

The mane, however, is not the only difference. The entire x-y axes orientation of the heads are different, and it's in the mold. In fact, the above smoothed-out face isn't from a mismatched older mold piece (as evidenced by the neck and throat wrinkles) nor a sponge wipe. It was purposefully flooded of all undercuts because the head makes a 45 degree, when viewed from above.

Monrovia 45 degrees, San Marcos 90 degrees. 

The more open angle makes demolding easier and allows more face detail.

Monrovia head tilts slightly upwards.

Above, San Marcos has distinct points of buttock and differentiated tail.

Below, crispy Monrovia is boneless and has little detail in tail.

San Marcos analogous Achilles tendon goes all the way up to tail swish;

in the Monrovia mold, the tendon ends abruptly halfway up to tail.

Differences: cheekbone, lips, nostril, eye, curb, throat...

San Marcos has face veins.

Differences: cheekbones, nostrils, eye bulges, width between eyes, brow, width of muzzle...

So, the above comparison, showing retooling, is consistent with Jim's information.

San Marcos Cortez molds -King, Sun, and Don- in White (glossy and matte) are also interesting because unlike the Arabian family and DW Head-Up and -Down Ponies, their gray shading is like the old underglaze gray of the previous eras. Other than the Cortez trio, other San Marcos molds in white have a dark, cold tone to their gray shading, in both matte and gloss.

Note the dark, bluish gray shading on this San Marcos matte white Zara.

Compare to the matte and glossy white San Marcos Sun Cortez models below.

Zara photos by author.

San Marcos White matte left, glossy on right.

Photo courtesy Marcia Miner.

San Marcos White glossy, and now matte on right.

Photos courtesy Ed Alcorn.

San Marcos White matte. 

His hooves give away that he is not the bluish gray, despite photo contrast.

Photo courtesy Janis Whitcomb.

San Marcos White glossy, photos courtesy Nancy Falzone.

Look at that soft gray, even under the intensifier of gloss!

The San Dimas mold version, in the very rare bay color. The San Dimas also was released in palomino. As you can see, the San Dimas mold has an altered mane, like San Marcos. Unlike the later era, though, the face details are not as chiseled and hard. Neither are the facial features flooded like Monrovia. The San Dimas is, in my opinion, the in-between mold version. Speaking from my own experience as a moldmaker, it is challenging to mold and cast ceramic horses with such an extreme neck turn. I can understand why this horse was molded over and over, refining it for ease of production.

No mane flip, but retains Monrovia body muscle sculpts and short "Achilles".

The face is neither Monrovia nor San Marcos.

Photo courtesy Sue Thiessen.

Model owned by Nancy Falzone.

Top Row: Monrovia

Lower two: San Dimas

No mane flips on San Dimas.

Photo courtesy Ed Alcorn.

Here is what appears to be a Monrovia-San Dimas Transition model.

White on the altered San Dimas mold!

His eye decoration and sticker are similar to the transition model shown in this post.

Photos courtesy Marcia Miner.

Left: white "transition" with no mane flip

Right: Monrovia palomino

Unlike my usual portrait investigations, I came up dry on the real Sun Cortez. I have this photo to share, but of the two palominos standing behind King Cortez, I can't tell you which one he is. 

Far left: King Cortez, Ernest Specht up.

The other Cortez boys are ridden by Ernest's sisters.

The photo above, with Sun and Don in parade sets, indicated that the tack was made around 1960. My research has shown that some parts of King's set existed as far back as 1947, the date of the photo of him shown below.

King Cortez in 1947, with his early parade set. 

Source: The Visual Arts: Plastic and Graphic, by Justine M. Cordwell, Google Books.

Page 674. Photo originally from Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association archives.

King Cortez seems to be a bit older than Sun and Don, as he is in promotional photos in a simpler, earlier version of his famous Bohlin parade set that dates to 1947. The post-1960 group photo shows King with a grown-out mane.  In the references below, you can view a link to a King Cortez publicity photo dated to 1949. He was a famous parade horse, hence the multiple photos of him.

The three Cortez stallions premiered in Fall 1957 as HR Designer's Workshop models. The palomino matte of Monrovia and San Dimas is, obviously, the portrait color. 

More mold observation posts in the future!



Gratitude to Jayne Kubas for her help with the side-by-side photo shoot, and to everyone who sent photos: Ed Alcorn, Nancy Falzone, Marcia Miner, Cindy Neuhaus, Sue Thiessen, and Janis Whitcomb.


References:

* Kelly, Nancy. Pers. comm. 5/5/2012

Roller, Gayle. Hagen-Renaker: A Charlton Standard Catalogue. Third Edition. P. 80. The Charlton Press: Palm Harbor, FL, 2003.

1949 King Cortez old saddle set photo http://www.dancinghorses.com/king_cortez.htm

full color
http://circusnospin.blogspot.com/2008/06/specht-family-well-known-pasadena.html

Muddy Monday: Collector Stories, Volume One

Some of the best stories collectors tell are about amazing finds in small towns, coincidences, and random help from strangers. Being at BreyerFest reminded me of this, as I heard stories shared between china collectors. These were submitted by collectors online.

From Lynn Isenbarger:

I had an unusual experience finding my little HR Monrovia Sherif. It has won a champ or reserve at nearly every show I've taken it to, including Reserve Grand Champ of the Americanware Show at Breakables in 2012 and Reserve National Champion in Breed at this year's NAN.


Karen Beeson and I went to an auction in tiny Fairbury, Illinois on a whim back in the very early 1990s. Fairbury was about an hour away, but the listing had mentioned a few horses for sale so we decided to go check it out together. The auction building was small and full of stuff, and as we looked at the sales tables, there was a small box of HRs, mostly broken.


I brought home my stickered, beautifully shaded Sherif after paying $4. He had a clean and glued leg break, but I had that restored. Now he takes place of pride in my china hutch.


I still marvel that tiny Fairbury harbored HRs! 




From Tiffany Tran:

There is one horse in my collection, one of my most prized pieces, that I believe was destined to be mine.

I've always admired and coveted Kathi Bocuki's Showman in bone china by Horsing Around. While HA did a lovely job with the original finish colors, I always wanted to have a custom glazed Showman in elegant dapple bay with chrome. Alas, I couldn't afford to commission one from HA, so he remained a clinky dream. 

One day last year, after a day of errands, I logged online to check MH$P (as we all do) and noticed excitedly that someone had listed my dream horse: a CG Showman in dapple bay with chrome; at a price I could afford. To my great dismay, he was marked as 'ON HOLD'. Disappointed, but determined, I sent an email to the seller, explaining to her that this horse was the incarnation of a personal clinky grail and begged her to please let me know if the sale didn't go through for any reason. Although she agreed to keep me informed, I personally had my doubts that the buyer would back out, because it was such a gorgeous piece for a reasonable price.

Some time later, maybe a couple weeks, I received an email from the seller of the CG Showman. I held my breath as I opened the email. It turned out that the person who was going to buy the Showman had wanted to buy a few models from the seller, but could not afford all of them. As a result, the would-be buyer decided to back out on Showman. The seller asked if I was still interested in Showman...

HECK YES!

Three months and several time payments later, I was thrilled and grateful to welcome Showman into my collection. He was stunning; everything I imagined and more. In my excitement, I posted his photo to Blab and told the story of how he came to live with me - and to my surprise the hobbyist who originally commissioned him from HA came forth, and told me the identity of the real life racehorse whose markings were reproduced on my Showman. 

But the story doesn't end there. One day, maybe a couple months after acquiring the CG Showman, I was going through my model horse photos that I'd saved on my computer over the years and stumbled across two grainy old photographs from a long-gone MH$P listing. They were of a CG Showman... a CG Showman in dapple bay with chrome, and very familiar indeed. It seems that years ago I had seen the very same CG Showman for sale on MH$P, and could not afford the asking price, but saved the photos as inspiration. Apparently he changed hands, possibly multiple times, since that first encounter until the time he was offered to me.

Somehow, my dream Showman found me at last. He will stay with me forever. 

Photo courtesy Tiffany Tran.

From Lois Bennington:

How I found my Sespi....A girl I worked with told me that her neighbor was having an auction and she knew there was horse figurines in the house.  So I went to the auction and was disappointed to find NOT ONE horse.  

I'm basically an introvert but I summoned all of my courage and knocked on the lady's door.  'Lori told me you had horse figures.  Do you mind if I see your horses?' and she let me in the house.

There wasn't a lot of good stuff there but in the back of the cabinet was a Sespi.  I couldn't tell what shape it was in.  So I summoned some more courage and wrote my name and address down on a piece of paper and told her 'If you ever want to sell that horse, I would pay you a $100.00 plus 100.00 for each leg that was not broken.  I thought I insulted her by the look she gave me.  Disappointed, I left.

EIGHT years later...I got a letter from another lady.  Do you remember offering some money to a lady for a horse?  The horse's owner was going into a nursing home and was ready to sell.  I could not believe she had kept that piece of paper all that time.  

Plus, I had just gone through 1-1/2 years of unemployment while going back to school.  The unemployment ended 6 months before school did.  I was dead broke by the time I graduated.  Luckily, I was just starting my new job.  If she had called any time sooner, I would not have had the money that I offered her because the Sespi was perfect.

Photos courtesy Lois Bennington.

The horse is now named 'Whitehall Unbelievable' because of the unbelievable luck that the lady kept that piece of paper!  



From Maggie Barkovitz:

On April 2, 2006, one day after my 1 year anniversary of moving to Missouri, I got to encounter my first tornado.  I wasn't home when it hit, and I wasn't allowed in until the next day.  When we were allowed into town, I was greeted by a pine tree sticking out our front window, and a pecan tree that had smashed our second bedroom.  Where my china cabinet sat, the tree now sat.  The cabinet was on the ground.   We lived on the second floor of a two-story apartment complex.  Our apartment was the only one damaged.  

Photo courtesy Maggie Barkovitz.

To this day I still feel the numbness I felt that day, knowing that the most valuable objects I owned, the most valuable object in that apartment, were reduced to shards.  One horse, my Otto known as Spanker, remained mostly intact save a broken leg and a few huge chips to his mane and tail.  He was found still in the second floor bedroom.  One horse managed to survive the fall with only a few chips - my Bahkitt, known to collectors as Lemonzilla.  She had some minor chips, that was it.  The rest were reduced to parts.  Dave found most of them by carefully excavating them from underneath the ceiling, the insulation, and tree.

Photo courtesy Maggie Barkovitz.

They had stories, these horses.  Most of what I collect have stories.  My Hadrian, aka "Haddock the Hadrian", was as a result of a scheme between Joanie, Lesli and Pam.  Joanie had sent Pam a bisque by mistake.  She told Pam to hold on to the bisque.  My birthday was coming up so she asked Lesli if she could glaze it.  Imagine my surprise when he showed up!  All that is left of him is half a body and his nose.  Lemonzilla was a piece I saw Lynn have at the very first Breakables in 2002.  The following year when she was getting ready for BOYC so I asked if one of the horses she was selling was Lemonzilla.  She was and I was so excited to get her.  The Spinnaker I had just received from Addi not long before the tornado.  I entered the lottery for him on the last day at the last hour - next day he was mine.  Otto came to me after I lost out on Puzzle.  He was my second favorite, and was thrilled that Lesli offered him to me.  I loved the hand painting in his mane.  The genie was such a great prize.  She was my favorite of the original run of 20, and when she came up for sale again I was at the right place at the right time.  I received her one month before my next show.  I never got to show her - her name was Bagel.  Two weeks before Ozark Mountain Live, an F-3/4 came through Caruthersville and crushed her & her friends.  It crushed me too - now they look like ancient sculpture ruined by time and war. 

 

Photo courtesy Maggie Barkovitz.

Friends were so kind.  They sent me shiny pretty ponies to ease the pain.  The biggest surprise was genie's "twin".   What made her twin unique was she was slightly altered from the original, but not by much, so you have to put her up against one of the run of 20 to see it.  She was cast and glazed by Lynn herself to match the pattern of the original.  It was so touching.  I do have her for sale now, but if she never leaves I won't mind.  But to rebuild a collection on a salary less than what I was making in Philadelphia has been tough.  I was able to rebuild to the original quantity I have, but have never been able to grow it past what I had before.  It's been frustrating, but there will always be shiny ponies, and I'll just trade and sell towards what I want my collection to be.

Replacement Genie on left; original Genie remains on right.

Photo courtesy Maggie Barkovitz.

Lemonzilla was sold to another collector, Corrie McDermott, who lovingly restored her and had a great show career with her. Two years ago I was judging Stone Age Live and I had a chance to see Lemonzilla in person since selling her.  I cried, and surprised myself on how much she still affected me.  Last year Corrie was downsizing and contacted me about her.  My birthday present from Dave was being reunited with Lemonzilla.  I cried again - she was home.

You would think that a storm like that would have me shy away from collecting custom glaze china - not on your life.  I love the medium, always have.  Of course, they now reside in the tornado closet, aka the earthquake closet.  I live on the New Madrid fault line...we've had tremors...why did I think moving to Missouri was a good idea again?

From the blog author:

Some of my own stories have been shared on this blog. When you collect for a while, you tend to also collect adventures and spooky stories. I was looking through my collection record for a fresh one, and found that they tend to fall in themes.

A truly astonishing story deserved an entire blog post, the beautiful gift from Margo Potheau.

"The One That Got Away and Came Back"
In which a series of owners get the item from the very moment it was first made available, but through the help of one or more friends, it finds you, years later. The item is always a one-of-a-kind variation, or not an OF at all, which means the same identifiable piece can be traced throughout its course.

"If You Research It, It Will Come"
This never ceases to give me goosebumps. I will not say a word to anyone about a blog post draft I am researching online- digging through pedigrees, photos, files- but out of the blue, a rash of photos are mailed or emailed to me, or I am offered the exact item in trade.

"The Run"
A rapid series of unrelated events brings three or more of the same subject to me, in a very short time frame, like 90 days or less. The run is doubly improbable because the subject is seldom a common mold.

I would love to share your ceramic model horse stories that fit or expand the above categories. I am not looking for stories of cheap bargains, rather special purchases that are meaningful for other reasons. These will be posted in Volume Two. Carry on, Collectors.