As of April of this year, I will have been writing this blog for 12
years (which is kind of hard to believe)! I thoroughly enjoy writing
about the hobby and model horse manufacturer history, and I have
absolutely no intention of stopping. I am also planning to reboot my Model Horse History
website and start adding more content this summer. Building websites and writing
posts for this blog however take a great deal of time, effort, and
research, and many of the historical archives and databases (not to
mention webhosting) I utilize are not free. With that in mind, I decided
to set-up a Kofi
page. Both the MHH page and this blog will always be free to everyone
to read, but donations or monthly support are very welcome. Thank you!
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Most travelers, myself included, enjoy bringing home souvenirs from trips, whether photos or tchotchkes or pretty rocks (especially pretty rocks). Souvenirs have been popular for centuries (millennia even), and they continue to remain popular today. Just about anything you can imagine is available as a souvenir---I personally like to buy fridge magnets depicting the new places I visit.
Travel today is relatively easy and convenient by air or by car (and to a lesser degree by train), but that hasn't always been the case. The vast interstate highway system that crisscrosses the United States really only began to take shape in the 1920s, and while car travel became more accessible, in the decades leading up to World War II, most vacationers tended to be well-to-do.
The end of World War II triggered an era of growth and prosperity in the
United States, and further work on the interstate highway system in the 1950s encouraged more middle class families to get out and explore the country. Roadside attractions with their requisite souvenirs, especially near tourist destinations, were already well-established. Interestingly, some of the souvenirs on offer included model horses, everything from metal models to plastic to ceramic. Given the popularity of Westerns at the time, this was a smart choice by retailers.
Most of the models horse souvenirs I'm aware of date to the 1950s or 1960s although some of the metal ones probably date to the late 1940s. Enterprising entrepreneurs personalized items to their locale by engraving them, adding stickers, and other means. These additions are all custom, aftermarket embellishments. They were not added by the manufacturers (i.e. Breyer, Hartland, etc) and are therefore not OF. But that said, these souvenir models are still fun to collect!
A variety of Breyers and Hartlands have been found with engraved city names and dates on them. A few are even personalized with their owner's name. Most of the ones I've seen are marked New York or New York City, but I've also seen some marked New Orleans, Niagara Falls, Seattle, and San Francisco. The majority have dates from the 1950s, but a few have dates from the early 1960s. The models were engraved by retailers at the request of their customers. On light-colored models, the engraved area was rubbed with something dark (perhaps ink?) to make the lettering standout. On darker models, the engraving stood out against the existing paint and needed no further embellishments. Collectors who received engraved models as children related visiting certain stores in New York or the World's Fair in Seattle where their parents' purchased the models for them. What fun memories!
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| A Hartland Victor engraved "San Francisco 1949" (Photo by Stormfront Stables/2004) |
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| A Shetland from the early 1960s (Photo by Lois F) |
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| Not just horses were engraved! (Photo by Lois F) |
Some horses made of materials that could not be etched were inscribed with ink instead.
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| A ceramic souvenir horse from New Orleans (Photo from eBay) |
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| A funny little metal horse from the Farmers' Market in Hollywood, California (Photo from eBay) |
Many other souvenir models were decorated with stickers listing the location where they were purchased. The stickers varied in color and design, but the majority seem to be gold or yellow in the shape of a fluttering ribbon. As expected, many plastic horses---Breyers, Hartlands, and knock offs---bear these stickers.
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| An early Western Horse (circa 1951-1952) with a Cleveland, Ohio, souvenir sticker (Photo by Lois F) |
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| (Photo by Lois F) |
A yellow ribbon with red ends is the most commonly seen style. They reference the names of towns, tourist attractions, stores, and even national parks.
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| A Hong Kong copy of the Breyer Western Prancer with a souvenir sticker for Grant's Farm (Photo from eBay) |
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| (Photo from eBay) |
These stickers show up on ceramic models as well, including Hagen-Renakers, both horses and animals. Here is my sister's Monrovia-era King Cortez with a souvenir sticker from the Libertyville Gifts and Lamps store in the Chicago suburbs.
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| (Photo by Sarah Wellman) |
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| Hagen-Renaker frog with HR sticker on his back... |
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| And a souvenir sticker from Colorado Springs, CO, on the bottom! |
And here's a bone china pair from Japan with a Detroit, Michigan, souvenir sticker.
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| (Photo from eBay) |
Metal horses also had fun stickers...
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| A souvenir of Delta, Colorado (Photo from eBay) |
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| Another Colorado souvenir (Photo from eBay) |
Because the engraving and stickers on these models are after market and not OF, I personally don't tend to seek them out for my collection unless I want the base model regardless of the souvenir add-ons. For example, I most definitely wanted the HR frog pictured above, and the Colorado sticker was a fun bonus, especially since it was on the underside of the piece. (I am crazy about Colorado and love to visit whenever I can.)
I did buy this Western Horse however, even though I already had several black pinto examples in my collection, because the souvenir sticker was for a tiny town just down the Mississippi River from where I spent most of my childhood. It's a reminder of home.
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| Souvenir of Homer, Minnesota |
When it comes to showing, the engraved pieces would definitely be considered customized and could not be shown as OFs. The models with stickers, on the other hand, could be shown, in my opinion, provided both the entrant and judge understand that the sticker should be ignored when judging.
While these pieces are no longer entirely OF, they are still very collectible and fun. More than a few collectors enjoy tracking them down as mementos of fondly remembered places they have visited or just for the sheer variety of locations represented. Do any of my readers collect souvenir models? Do you have a favorite piece? Please feel free to leave a comment or a story. And thanks as always for reading!
