Hartlands Oddities: It's Not Easy Being Green

If you grew up watching the The Muppet Show and Sesame Street like me, you probably remember Kermit the Frog lamenting in his signature song that being green meant he "blend[ed] in with so many other ordinary things." While green is indeed a normal color for frogs and leaves, in the world of model horses, green stands out as pretty weird, especially when it's unintentional! Such is the case with certain early Hartland models made in the 1950s and 1960s.

Exactly why these models have turned green isn't entirely clear, especially since some, but not all, from a given run have shown a tendency to turn green. But the most likely explanation is that something in the paint was sensitive to UV radiation in sunlight. UV is well-known to have deleterious effects on paint and plastic, especially with prolonged exposure.

The earliest green Hartland horses I know of are the aptly nicknamed "bile green" Victors made from roughly late 1948/early 1949 to 1950.¹ (The Victor is the model Mastercrafters Clock and Radio Company commissioned for their clocks that was subsequently copied by Breyer for the same purpose.) Breyer historian Nancy Young dubbed the color thusly, and it is quite apropos. Originally, the horses were a sort of shaded chestnut or sorrel color with grey, dark brown, or even black shading. Their saddles were painted to match. Nearly all examples, whether over a clock or freestanding, have turned a rather bilious shade of yellowy-green.

Hartland Victor and Mastercrafters Clock

My own Victor over the clock pictured above retains some traces of his original color under the saddle. This lends strength to the idea that a reaction to light is the culprit for the green color everywhere else.  

Finding Hartland Victors that are still the original brown color is quite rare, but I was lucky enough to snag the freestanding model below on eBay a few years ago. He does have a faintly yellow cast to his plastic which is probably age-related, but the contrast against the now-green clock Victor behind him is pretty striking.

Interestingly, this odd color was dubbed "palomino" in this June 1950 spotlight in Toys and Novelties. I'm not sure if Hartland ever called the color that or if it was assumed by the non-horse savvy writers of the magazine.

In the early 1950s, Hartland replaced the Victor with the Large Champ mold. It was released in several colors including palomino, and the earliest palominos had an unfortunate tendency to turn green as well. Most are not quite so dramatically green as the Victors, but they still stand out when compared to their non-green brethren. The Champ on the left below is the earliest of the three, and both he and his saddle are faintly green. The chalky palomino in the middle shows no signs of paint discoloration, and neither does the second version palomino Champ on the right. I'm not sure if the saddle is original to that horse, but it has turned a greenish-grey color. These horses were all made sometime between about late 1953/early 1954 until about 1957.²

Other palomino models from the '50s and '60s have turned green as well, but unlike the Victors which have nearly all turned green, with these somewhat later models, green is the exception rather than the rule. The ones that have turned green are painted in a similar, thin yellowy palomino color, and even a few bays and chestnuts have been affected as well. The greenish ones tend to also look slightly faded in intensity compared to other examples of the same models that have not changed color.

Here are some other fun examples of green ponies. This little horse on the base dates to around 1950, and very few painted examples of this mold are known.³ His color is similar to that used on the sorrel-turned-green Victors.

Some of the palomino 800 series horses that were made as part of the horse and rider sets in the late 1950s and early 1960s have turned a semi-neon green color like this poor guy. The lighting is not great in these photos, but the horse is indisputably green. Note the thin, faded look of the paint.

Photo from Etsy

Photo from Etsy

Horses from the later 1960s were affected as well. The 6" palomino weanlings shown below were made from 1964-1968, and while most have retained their proper palomino color, a few are definitely green.

Photo on the left by Lois F; photo on the right from Etsy

As I mentioned above, a few non-palomino models have been known to turn rather green as well. My 7" Tennessee Walking Horse family (made 1965-1967) which includes a palomino stallion, a bay mare, and a flaxen chestnut foal, have all turned green, but only on one side. Presumably, they all stood in a window for a time and changed color on the light exposed side.

I couldn't resist picking up an extra TWH foal at BreyerFest this year. He is exquisitely green all over. 

Technically, the state of green-ness of these Hartlands is the result of damage, but I personally find them fascinating and quirky. My green Hartland Victor clock is one of my most favorite oddities in my collection. Even Kermit realized that being green is beautiful, and these neat old models are, too.



Sources:

1) Mike Jackson's Hartland Site, Mastercrafters Clock history: https://www.myhartlands.com/?page_id=276

2) Mike Jackson's Hartland Site, Champ History: https://www.myhartlands.com/?page_id=232

3) Fitch, Gail. Hartland Horses and Dogs. (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Limited, 2001), 169.