Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Calavera and Decals

It was too darn cold to go to the flea market Sunday morning, so I channeled that early morning energy into cleaning the office and reorganizing the storage boxes I ravaged my way through just before BreyerFest, searching for various pieces for assorted purposes.

And paperwork. There’s always paperwork to do!

While I didn’t get to see a Markus today, I did see a Calavera – the new Dia de los Muertos horse on the Ethereal mold. I was somewhat indifferent to the release initially – in terms of Decorator Ethereals, I don’t think much can top the BreyerFest Special Run Times Square – but the sample I saw at BreyerFest made me reconsider.


I had heard some horror stories about decal issues with the Calavera, but I didn’t see anything significantly wrong with the example I saw. There were the usual bits of overspray and rough edges you’d see on any of the more complex paint jobs, but the decaled areas looked clean and smooth to me.

I left him behind, for a couple of reasons. Aside from wanting to stick to my budget, future condition issues were weighing on my mind. Extensive decals are a relatively new decorating technique, Breyer-wise, and how well these models will age is unknown.

The earliest decaled Breyer, incidentally, was in the 1950s: some Breyer Canadian Mountie sets sport tiny Drewrys Beer decals on their saddle blankets. Whether it was a formal Special Run that was produced at the Breyer factory, or something that Drewrys cobbled together for their own promotional needs, I don’t know.

If Breyer did manufacture it, Drewrys would be one of a small handful of companies/licenses that have done/did business with both Breyer and Hartland. (Hartland did a lot of promotional beer signage, including Drewrys.) Another topic to add to the research list!

I don’t have the Drewrys Mountie, but I’d love to get one eventually: my step-grandfather was a delivery driver for Drewrys, way back when. You’d think our proximity to Canada would make finding Canadian Mountie memorabilia a little bit easier to find, but alas, this isn’t so.

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