Problems with Old Western Horses: Vinegar Syndrome Redux?

The subject of Breyers with vinegar syndrome (aka shrinkies/oozies) comes up regularly on social media, and my post here on the subject is the second most viewed post I've ever written. The TL;DR version of it is that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Breyer unknowingly used some bad plastic that is now spontaneously breaking down. It results in models that shrink, ooze, discolor, and slowly collapse. This problem seems to be akin to vinegar syndrome in old film. The vast majority of models affected by vinegar syndrome were made between about 1987 and 1992 although a handful of slightly earlier outliers have been found (from about 1984-1985, but they are very rare).

That said, Western Horse fans have been aware for a while now of some problematic models from the very beginning of Breyer's history. They are the early chalky plastic palomino and alabaster Western Horses with black hooves made from about 1950-1952. Thankfully, only a small percentage of these early models seem to be affected, but it's sad to see all the same. 

I first encountered one of these problematic Western Horses about 10 or 15 years ago when my mom discovered that one of our palominos mounted beside a Mastercrafters clock had strange filmy, discolored paint where his hind legs connected to his body. The damaged area was about an inch wide and had deep grooves etched into the plastic. The horse had looked completely normal when we bought the clock some 15 year earlier, and we wondered if it had been touched up by the somewhat unscrupulous dealer from whom we had purchased it. My mom had planned to just throw the horse away since fixing him would be more trouble than it was worth, but I rescued him and took him home with some thoughts of customizing him. I put him in my body box and forgot about him for a while.

At some point, while rooting around in the box looking for another body, I realized that the cracks in one of the Western Horse's hind legs had gotten so deep that his leg had completely separated and fallen off. A few years later, the other hind leg fell off as well. Since then, the horse has developed the same weird filmy deposits where his front legs meet the body. They will undoubtedly fall off at some point, too.

The current state of the Western Horse. My sister dubbed
him Pick Up Sticks.

This model has been out in the open since I brought him home years ago (the body box was not covered), so whatever ooze has leached from the plastic has evaporated quickly leaving behind the weird white-ish film. It's definitely become worse and more extensive over the years, but interestingly, the body, head, neck, and tail show no signs of shrinking or warping unlike the later shrinkies from the '80s and '90s. His lumpy back is (I think) partly a known mold flaw and partly the result of this horse having been intended to stand over a Mastercrafters clock when he was first made. He has the typical belly depression to accommodate the clock, but he must have been made just as Mastercrafters switched to horses standing beside clocks instead of over clocks. The depression on this one is deeper than on either of our Western Horses standing over clocks (which, knock on wood, do not seem to be vinegar syndrome victims). Interestingly, you can see the weird filmy dried ooze in his belly depression, too.

 

This photo shows the very opaque nature of chalky plastic.

For years, the hind legs showed no signs of disintegration except in the area between the rump and hocks where they ultimately split. Now, the detached hind legs feel powdery all over and have started developing pimples on the pasterns.

The front legs have warped inward as well as forward (see the first picture above for the latter). I imagine the front legs will fall apart at some point in the next few years. I'll be curious to see what if anything happens to the body.

When I was visiting my family a few weeks ago, while going through boxes of show horses to photograph and inventory, I sadly found a second vinegar syndrome Western Horse victim, this time an alabaster. Only a few years ago, this model was absolutely pristine. He looked practically new from the factory despite being almost 75 years old. He was stored in a clear plastic bag, and as soon as I pulled him from the box, I saw that his formerly bright gold bridle and breastcollar had turned green, and the reins were corroded and rusty-looking. I wondered briefly if we'd accidentally gotten the model wet at some point, resulting in the unsightly tarnished paint and damaged metal reins. As soon as I pulled the horse from the bag though, I caught the tell-tale whiff of vinegar. I also quickly realized that the model was actively oozing from the bottom of his hind feet. Yuck!

Ooze in the bottom of the storage bag

Ooze leaking from the bottom of the feet. (I'm not sure if
the seam split is new.)

You can see the hind legs starting to curl forward a bit and the
faint discoloration beginning between the rump and hocks.

As with the palomino, the legs
have warped together.

 

 

All of the gold paint has become badly tarnished.

 

 

The reins are now badly corroded.

 

 

The ooze from the horse has turned the old show tag into little
more than tissue paper, and all of the ink has been eaten away.

 

 The hind legs on this model are just starting to show signs of discoloration and pimpled plastic. It's harder to see the discoloration on a white model, but it's definitely there.

 

 

I'm pretty bummed this formerly lovely old Western Horse is doomed to disintegrate. Needless to say, my sister and I went through all of the rest of our early black-hooved Western Horses to check them, and thankfully they all seem to be fine. Fingers crossed they stay that way!

 

Sadly, early Breyers do not seem to be the only models affected. Collectors on Facebook have reported  two models by other manufacturers that seem to have suffered a similar fate. One was a brown Superior Plastics horse whose legs fell off but the rest of the body was otherwise apparently unaffected. And the other was an early palomino Hartland Champ with the peg hole saddle that shrunk as well as disintegrated. (The Hartland may be a separate aberration.) All of these models date to the early 1950s, and all three companies may have sourced their problematic plastic from the same manufacturer (quite possibly Tenite from Eastman Kodak). It was early days for the plastic toy industry, so it's not entirely surprising that some of the kinks had not been worked out.

The good news is that so far, these non-typical shrinkies (disintegraties?) are not common. I've only seen a few examples of black-hooved Western Horses that are falling apart; the vast majority of them seem to be unaffected. Sarah and I have about a dozen of them between us---on clocks, on lamps, and freestanding---and only the two shown in this post have become problematic. I'm hoping that if any of the rest of our early Western Horses were made of problematic plastic that they would be showing signs by now. Only time will tell.

Playing catch up, 2024 wrap up, and 2025 plans

Reentry into work and life in general after a long holiday break is always a challenge, especially when your break was more of a working vacation. But that work involved playing with our model horse collections, so at least it was very enjoyable! Over the holidays, I visited my family in Georgia, and my sister Sarah and I put in some long hours organizing our giant herd. Much of it is boxed up at the moment---you know that last scene from Raiders of the Last Ark? It's kind of like that. We worked hard to put together an accurate inventory and photograph a number of our models for this blog. It's an ongoing project, but a fun one! 

Taking stock of the collection has led to some interesting surprises and discoveries. We already knew we had duplicates of a number of models---Sarah and I both have our own distinct herds, and because we have similar taste in models (vintage and weird), we often both have examples of the same rare models in our collections.

These perfectly matched Woodgrain Belgians came from
the same estate sale. Somebody had good taste!

We discovered we have three (and sometimes four or even more) of a number of models as well, the result of purchasing upgrades or finding bargains in antique malls over the last 30+ years or being unable to resist fun color variations (looks askance at seven all very different woodgrain Fighting Stallions). Doh! These duplicate models will hopefully make for excellent trade fodder down the road. We generally think of ourselves as black hole collectors (things go in but never go out), but realistically, we will have to let some models go (if only to exchange them for new ones, mwahaha). 

Part of the goal of our inventory work over the last year has been to find a few cherished models to put back out on display. My sister's favorite Pacer, the stunning 1984 Riegsecker's special run in dapple grey, had disappeared after being stashed in a random box several years ago in the wake of a small leak that had compromised his original storage box. Happily, while working our way through boxes and adding or correcting the labels on them, we found him!

I was also delighted to find one of my favorite models, the 1979 mail order special run dapple grey Clydesdale Mare. Naturally, she was literally in the very last box in a big stack of 40+ boxes that we knew she had to be in. My girl came from Marney Walerius' collection, so not only is she lovely, she's a treasured part of my herd.

We did find a few new shrinkies in the process, one of whom is destined to be the subject of a post here eventually, but for the most part, I think we've managed to eradicate most of those poor sad models from the herd. We did also find a couple of stripped chalkies that have begun to crack and shatter. It's so sad because they were so very cool. (We bought them stripped before we knew what could happen.)

Even the plastic on her legs is cracking and crumbling away

Now that we finally have a pretty solid handle on our Breyer collection inventory, we'll tackle our much smaller Hartland, Stone, and china herds in the coming year. Which segues more or less well into discussing that fun end of old year/beginning of the new year topic---what we did and what we hope to do going forward. 

An enjoyable trend on Facebook and Instagram in recent years has been for collectors to share their favorite acquisitions of the previous year. For me, 2024 was a very lean year---my disposable income was  mostly non-existent---but I was happily able to add a few really cool models to my collection for pretty bargain prices.

I'm delighted to finally own Gladys Brown Edwards' large metal parade horse sculpture made by Dodge. His one hind leg needs a repair and he's missing his reins, but I couldn't pass him up for $40. This is very likely the piece that inspired Mastercrafters, Hartland, and Breyer back in the late 1940s.

My Breyer Money Manager was another thrilling $40 find. I'm so happy to finally have this goofy bit of Breyer history in my collection.

At the beginning of the year, I paid off a Hartland holy grail that had been on long time payments with an amazingly kind friend, and it's just too awesome to not include. I have wanted a Hartland Champ clock for at least 20 years, but they're so hard to find. Two slipped through my fingers over the years, so I'm elated to finally have this very rare piece in my collection at long last.

My only big expenditure of the year was my Young Ferseyn from Hagen-Renaker Tennessee. I socked away money for him for months beforehand knowing I would never be able to afford him on the secondary market, and he arrived just in time for my birthday which was a really nice treat.

In terms of less tangible things, though I haven't been able to blog every week as I would like, I've been better about posting a couple of times a month at least, and I'm hoping to keep that momentum going in 2025. I have so much I want to write about! I have now had the opportunity to take a bunch of the photos I've been needing for planned posts, and with our new inventory system, my darling sister can easily find things to photograph for me when she visits my parents every few weeks if I need more.

The weather here in Chicago is of course ugly cold---in the single digits or teens lately with subzero windchills---which means it's much too cold to paint, primer, or spray fixative. I am anxious to get back to work on customs, but for the next few weeks, I'm going to take advantage of the crappy weather and get some writing and website work done. I am also hoping to get started on organizing and culling some of my Chicago herd, both OFs as well as bodies I'm just never going to get around to painting.

I have some plans to do a spring sale of customs, probably more minis, very likely with Jane Austen and bad Regency-pun names because what is spring without a good thunderstorm and Northanger Abbey? Or a pond-soaked Mr. Darcy pining for Lizzie Bennet's fine eyes?

This little mare may be part of that sale---she is clamoring to be finished, but I'm not sure I'll be able to part with her. I just love this mold so much! 

And speaking of irresistible sculptures by Maggie Jenner-Bennett, I think my only real OF acquisition goal for the coming year is to buy a Stone mule. I'd love to get one of the fun stripey ones like The Squad or Charade eventually. In the meantime, I have a trad mule body I acquired at Stone Horses Country Fair, and I should really decide on a color to paint it! Stripes? Unicorn horn? Realistic? Too many choices!

So anyway, hopefully 2025 will be a year of productivity, writing, and more organization. Losing myself in creative outlets is also going to be important for a number of reasons, and my sister (who is also an artist) and I have challenged each other to do something frivolous and artistic every week. Paid work doesn't count, just fun art for ourselves, whether it's sketching, cross stitching, sculpting, or painting customs for our own collections. I may share some of that here depending on how rusty my drawing skills are!