What's with the Serial Numbers?

First a little bit of history.

In the mid-2000s there were some problems with lead and other dangerous chemicals appearing in toys and other baby or children's products which lead to numerous consumer recalls. At the time there wasn't a great way to track which specific products were affected so the recalls had to be pretty wide. In response to that the US government implemented the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act which mandated that products manufactured overseas have an identification number on them so that production batches could be tracked.

In model horse land that meant that starting in 2009, Breyer horses (which are manufactured in China) started appearing with identification numbers on their hooves. These are affectionately known as VINs because the primary style reads VIN + date. With me being a Breyer history nerd and collectability junkie, I was very excited for this addition. It is great to know with this level of precision when certain models were made to track interesting variations and other production changes.

Most of the time these are very inconspicuous on the bottom of a hoof. This is also great for collectors and hobbyists who like to show their models because it does not detract from the rest of the model. You wouldn't even know it was there.

That is all great but here's the part I am still wondering about. What is going on with Tractor Supply Co special runs? Their models seem to have much longer serial numbers stamped on them and sometimes in much more intrusive places. Why? I've only noticed this in particular with TSC, but let me know in the comments if you've seen this elsewhere?

Some of the worst offenders... first the bay classic Mustang that I showed earlier in the week. I was so excited to get this one for my conga when they first premiered at TSC, but when I opened him I was disappointed that the VIN was so large and prominent on his underside. Normally also stamping on the belly is no big deal, but with a rearing model obviously that's more of a problem :/

RR on the left, TSC on the right

The subsequent RR does not have the same stamp, which is why I bought the duplicate. But that also raises the question, is it a duplicate or is the one with the VIN truly the Tractor Supply SR and the other is a RR? Breyer has a long history of special runs that are clones of regular runs or vice versa. For my entire collecting life I have always struggled with whether or not I need both versions for a complete conga when they are otherwise identical, save for some small detail like in this case the VIN and sticker.

Even worse though is on some of the stablemates. The belly VIN often is so big that it extends in to their side. But it's not on all of them. I sort of swore off getting the blind bags from TSC because of this. I'd prefer to wait for the regular release so I can get them without the massive serial numbers.

A TSC Bling Bag SM TWH with a big obvious number

While I had this year's SRs out I also took a look at each of their ID numbers. I don't really see a pattern as to why and where other than the 783632 factory seems to be the most likely to have a big visible stamp.

Big Blue has it with the FFA belly stamp. Interestingly Apres Ski also has it with the belly stamp. I haven't seen any others out of their box so I'm not sure if this is something all of them have or just the TSC ones. Lydia also has a belly stamp number

The others all have the usual hoof number. Luckily all of them are nicely, inconspicuously placed this year.