Friday Featurette: the Rare Red Saddle Blanket

I have been up to my eyeballs working on a couple of major writing projects for the last several months, and unfortunately, that means I have been neglecting this blog. (I have actually been doing a bit of writing here and there on several different posts, but all of them are proving to be more convoluted and research-heavy that I anticipated.) I am hoping June will be a bit more chill for me (hahaha), and I am going to try to get a couple of posts finished up before BreyerFest. Fingers crossed!

Anyway, on to the subject of today's post! When it comes to vintage Breyer rarities, sometimes it's a piece of ephemera like a box or a hang tag or an accessory that is the truly rare feature of a model rather than the actual horse (or animal) itself. Such is the case with the very hard to find red plastic saddle blankets that are occasionally found with Fury Prancers. 

A few years ago, I was surfing eBay and stumbled across an auction lot of about a dozen miscellaneous Hartland and Breyer horses, riders, and accessories from the 1950s and 1960s. I had been keeping an eye out for some time for the aforementioned elusive red saddle blanket, and lo and behold, I finally spotted one in that lot. I won the auction for a very reasonable price and was thrilled when my lucky find arrived. 

As you can see, the red plastic saddle blanket is meant to be paired with the English saddle that was also used on the old #36 Racehorse mold and the #P440 Canadian Mountie set. The blanket is identical to the one that came with the Mountie except that it is red instead of the usual blue. The red saddle blanket also has gold trim around the edge while the Mountie's blanket has yellow trim. 

This set also has the rare Drewry Beer stickers 
on the saddle blanket.

Not many of these red saddle blanket sets have turned up, and to the best of my knowledge, it seems they were likely only available for a year or so. The only evidence I know of for them is a partial Breyer dealer catalog that probably dates to 1956. The catalog describes the white Fury Prancer as wearing a "gay red saddle blanket" although weirdly the picture appears to show a horse with a dark colored blanket. (ETA: Fellow Fury fiend Robin R let me know that the IDYB page is just a dark scan. Her copy of the page does show a red saddle blanket.)

Image from Identify Your Breyer

The price list from the same catalog indicates that retailers could order riderless Fury Prancers in a variety of colors and could specify either Western or English saddles for the models. Given the scarcity of the red saddle blankets that came with the English saddles and the text on the price list, it would seem that Western saddles were shipped by default if the retailer didn't specifically ask for a particular style of saddle. Perhaps few retailers asked for English saddles since TV and movie Westerns were hugely popular at the time, and they thought the Western saddles would be more appealing to their customers..

Image from Identify Your Breyer

Whatever the reason, the option for English saddles was no longer listed in the 1958 dealer catalog or price list. (If a 1957 catalog exists, it has not yet come to light.) At least one collector has found a white Fury Prancer with the red saddle blanket and English saddle paired with a Canadian Mountie rider. Perhaps leftover red saddle blankets from the riderless offerings were occasionally sold with Mounties instead of the usual blue? 

Which brings me to the mysterious white Fury Prancer music box. As I wrote in my blog post about music boxes, at least one example of this most elusive of Fury Prancers was spotted in an online auction sporting a red saddle blanket and English saddle combo. Based on extant catalogs and what we know about the palomino and pinto Fury music boxes, the white one was possibly made in 1955 or 1956 for Simpsons-Sears in Canada, and it may have had a Canadian Mountie rider. Until a collector finds another one and can identify the tune it plays, this may remain a mystery.

The red saddle blankets can therefore only date to late 1955 at the earliest as that's when the Fury Prancer models first became available just in time for holiday catalog orders. The one known Breyer dealer catalog that lists them is probably from 1956 based on the models listed in it, and they could have been available as late as 1957. Until a catalog or price list from that year turns up, we can't say for sure. But given how very scarce these little blankets are, I would guess they were only available for a short time in 1956 and were probably discontinued partway through the year due to lack of orders. We may never know the exact details of their production, but the red saddle blankets continue to be very desirable to vintage collectors. 

I hope you all have great weekends! Thanks for reading!