The Replacements
- Sara Roche
- Jan 19
- 2 min read
Since I wrote about them yesterday I thought I'd share a few of my last minute classics replacements. I love this kind of under the radar thing when it happens. No announcement, someone just finds one at a store that is not the norm. The 2000s era was a heyday for this - random glossies, weird variations, and mold swaps would pop up all the time. The retailer H&H Winners Circle had an entire business of offering handpicked models to customers for an added fee - ostensibly to ensure great color and shading and no box rubs, but they would also send out the unusual glossies or variations as handpicked models too. It was a great time for collecting - Great Recession notwithstanding.
In 2006 the classic Andalusian Mare mold finally wore out (more about this in a future post) and the remainder of her run as the Golden Chestnut Lusitano was finished out by Johar. She was produced from 2001-2006 but it was at the very end of production that these golden chestnut Johars appeared in stores.
Also in 2006 there was a special run Buckskin Lusitano on the Andalusian Mare in Target stores. Similarly to the RR golden chestnut, the very tail end of this release saw Johar in buckskin.
I always thought Johar was a pretty funny switch to be a Lusitano when she is quite Arabian. I can only imagine it was the body for which they had the most extras lying around. I have a small Johar collection so I was able to track both of these down at the time although I wasn't lucky enough to find one at a retail store myself. That would have been fun! The paint jobs on both are very nice for the era.
To this day they remain a pretty obscure piece of Breyer history
The other better known swap was the Sedona and Tucson set where Ginger, whose mold similarly wore out in 2008, was replaced by the Mesteno's Mother mold. This was a special run set for Walmart and many people collect the Walmart mustangs so she was a welcome replacement for the Mesteno congas out there - or maybe not because she ended up being quite scarce. This version of the set was only out at the very tail end of the run. It took me several years to find her.
She is a fun one to keep an eye out for in your tag sale and antiquing stops.
Oh this is an interesting tidbit! I didn't realize the mold replacements of that era (aside from the Love swap outs in 2005) were due to molding issues. I'm curious now if that's the same reason for a number of other mold changes mid-run in the 2010's and later - such as the more recent Jet Run replacement to the Standing TB/Amelia. Might be interesting to take a look at all the Hess molds and see when they were last used, and if their last use ended in a swap to a different mold!