The History Between Hagen-Renaker and Breyer, Part 2: The Classic Scale Families and Racehorses

In my last post, I wrote about how the relationship between Hagen-Renaker and Breyer began with Breyer's unauthorized copies of Hagen-Renaker's large Arabian family, Zara, Zilla, and Amir. After negotiating to re-release the Proud Arabian Mare and Foal in the early 1970s, Breyer also came to an arrangement with Hagen-Renaker to produce some of their smaller molds in plastic, what we now know as the Classic and Stablemate lines. This post will cover the Classic scale models. 

In the early 1970s, Hagen-Renaker sent Breyer a variety of bisque horses from their Designer's Workshop and Miniatures series to consider for inclusion as plastic models in the Breyer line. These models were all sculpted by Maureen Love and are often referred to as "Love molds" by collectors. Some of these bisque pieces survived and have happily made it into the hands of several collectors. The horses pictured below are owned by Liz Cory who received them from longtime Breyer retailer and company friend Stuart Bentley. Liz said that some of the bisques were "marked up for production but were never created in plastic. Instead, as Peter Stone told me, they were kept on a shelf in the 'executive men’s room' until the Breyer Chicago factory closed. Stu Bentley visited the factory when they were closing up and he saw these bisques about to go into the trash. He took these bisques home, where he and Mrs Bentley proudly displayed them in their Des Plaines living room for decades until the house was sold. This group then came to me, and they joined additional bisques that I got from Marney [Walerius]." [1]

Photo by Liz Cory

Breyer ultimately chose 14 Designer's Workshop Hagen-Renaker molds to produce in plastic for their Classic series, the first three being Sheba, Sherif, and Fersyn. Breyer issued them as the Classic Arabian family beginning in 1973. 

Unlike the Proud Arabian Mare and Foal before them, the Classic scale horses are exact copies of their Hagen-Renaker antecedents, but the Hagen-Renaker originals are a smidge larger than their Breyer counterpoints. The Classic Arabian Family was featured in a beautiful color photo on the cover of the Breyer dealer and box catalogs the following year (1974). 

HR Sheba (left) and Breyer Classic Arab Mare (right)

HR Ferseyn (left) and Breyer Classic Arab Stallion (right)

Breyer Classic Arab Foal (left) and HR Sherif (right)

 

In 1974, the second Classic scale family, the Quarter Horse Mare, Stallion, and Foal, was released based on Hagen-Renaker's Erin, Two Bits, and Shamrock models. And just like the Arabs, the Quarter Horse family got their color photo glamor shot on the cover of the following year's catalog in 1975.

I've always found the Breyer Classic Quarter Horse Mare to be a little wonky, especially for a Maureen Love sculpture. Her body and neck seem a bit too long and thin for her short legs. When we finally  acquired a Hagen-Renaker Erin a few years ago, I was fascinated to see the differences between the two pieces. It appears that the Breyer mold ended up slightly skewed proportionally from the HR original which is far more attractive in my opinion. 

Breyer Classic QH Mare (left) and HR Erin (right)

Happily Two Bits seems to have translated to plastic without any problems. Likewise for the foal, but unfortunately, we don't have a Hagen-Renaker Shamrock in our collection yet, so I don't have a comparison photo to share at the moment.

HR Two Bits (left) and Breyer Classic QH Stallion (right)

In 1975, Breyer released five new molds based on the exquisite Thoroughbred portrait models Maureen Love sculpted for Hagen-Renaker---Man O' War, Swaps, Terrang, Sillky Sullivan, and Kelso. 

HR Man O' War (left) and Breyer MOW (right)

 

HR Swaps (left) and Breyer Swaps (right)

 

HR Terrang (left) and Breyer Terrang (right)

HR Silky Sullivan (left) and Breyer Silky (right)

HR Kelso (left) and Breyer Kelso (right)

The last of the Hagen-Renaker molds to debut in plastic for the Classic series was the Mustang family in 1976 based on Daisy, Comanche, and Butch. (Apologies for not consistently keeping the HRs and Breyers on the same sides for the photos!)

Breyer Classic Mustang Stallion (left) and 
HR Comanche (right)

HR Daisy (left) and 
Breyer Classic Mustang Mare (right)

 

HR Butch (left) and 
Breyer Classic Mustang Foal (right)

As I wrote in my last post, these Hagen-Renaker derived molds remained in Breyer's line up for the next 30 years until a dispute over licensing royalties in 2005 brought the arrangement to a screeching halt. Though the companies "settled," whatever the terms were precluded Breyer from continuing to use their molds based on Hagen-Renaker's designs. By 2006, the Hagen-Renaker molds available the previous year had been swapped out for other molds sculpted by other artists. For example, the red roan Classic Arabian Mare and dark bay Classic Arabian Foal in the #62003 Arabian Mare and Foal set were switched out in favor of the Classic Johar mold sculpted by Chris Hess and the Classic American QH Foal sculpted by Kathleen Moody as seen in these photos from the 2005 and 2006 Breyer dealer catalogs.

And then in August of 2014, Breyer suddenly announced a new web special available only to Collector Club members on the Classic Arabian Mare mold, a lovely chestnut tobiano named Cosette. The following year, a matching stallion and foal were issued, also as web specials. In the 10+ years since then, the Classic scale Love molds have slowly reappeared as Breyer web exclusives and Vintage Club editions. They have all been limited releases until 2025 when the Classic Arabian Mare trailblazed her way back into brick and mortar stores just in time for Breyer's 75th anniversary. I was delighted to be able to pick one out over the holidays from the hobby shop my dad frequents.

As of this writing in early April 2026, all of the Classic scale Love molds have reappeared except for Kelso and Silky Sullivan. Perhaps we'll see them in a future Vintage Club release, a limited web special, or maybe even back in stores once more? I am definitely ready for some new Thoroughbreds for my congas! 

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Sources:

1) Online conversations with longtime collector and former Breyer employee Liz Cory in February 2023 and February 2026

The History Between Hagen-Renaker and Breyer, Part 1: The Large Arabian Family

The subject of the history between Hagen-Renaker and Breyer comes up fairly regularly on Facebook, and since it can be confusing for newer collectors, I thought this would be a fun topic to tackle. Breyer collectors discovering Hagen-Renakers for the first time are often surprised to find that some of their beloved plastic models bear a striking resemblance to ceramic models made by Hagen-Renaker. And they are further surprised to find out that the Hagen-Renaker models actually came first, not the Breyers. A little history of both companies is helpful to understand the sometimes contentious relationship between the two.

Hagen-Renaker was founded in 1945 in Culver City, CA, before later moving to sites in Monrovia, San Dimas, and San Marcos. They began by molding and selling cute functional ware like dishes, but they quickly realized that small animal figurines were far better sellers. Of particular interest to model horse collectors, Hagen-Renaker hired local artist Maureen Love in 1951, first as a decorator, and when her immense talent was recognized, as a designer and sculptor. Maureen's first horse sculptures for HR were issued in 1953.

A notation from the Hagen-Renaker mold book dated July 1953
next to the entries for Maureen's first DW horses, the Morgan family
(Heather, Thunder, Clover, Scamper, and Roughneck)

Breyer meanwhile began as a plastic molding company in Chicago in 1943. They made a variety of car, airplane, and radio parts for the government during World War II, and they then branched out to simple toys like checkers and money managers in the later 1940s. In 1950, Breyer began molding the Western Horse (and a clock base) for the Mastercrafters Clock and Radio Company, also in Chicago. They soon began to sell the horse free-standing as well before expanding their line to include other horses and animals. The majority of the models produced by Breyer before 1958 were copied from other manufacturers like Hartland, Boehm, Rosenthal, and Grand Wood Carving.

The sometimes fraught relationship between Hagen-Renaker and Breyer began in the mid-1950s. In Fall 1956, Hagen-Renaker began the roll-out of their large Arabian family, Zara, Zilla, and Amir. The foal Zilla was the first piece available in Fall 1956, Zara the mare followed in Spring 1957, and Amir the stallion came last in Fall 1957. 

Left to right: HR Amir, Zilla, and Zara

By late 1957 or for sure by 1958, Breyer had begun molding very close copies of Zara and Zilla that we now know as the Proud Arabian Mare and Foal. The most notable differences are that the Hagen-Renaker mare and foal have slightly turned heads while the Breyer pair face straight ahead. There are also other more subtle differences in positioning, size, and detail that I hope these pictures show. 

Breyer PAM on the left, HR Zara on the right

Differences in body and tail width, slight 
position changes, etc

Zara's whole body is slightly curved 

Just like the PAM and Zara, the PAF is essentially a simplified version of Zilla. 

Breyer PAF on the left, HR Zilla on the right

Just as with the mares, Zilla is more complex 
while the PAF is straight and simple

So similar and yet so many nuances

The matching stallion, now known as the Family Arabian Stallion, was not pictured in the 1958 Breyer catalog and probably was not released until late that year or in early 1959. Interestingly, the Family Arabian Stallion was much less closely copied from the Hagen-Renaker Amir than the PAM and PAF were from their Hagen-Renaker counterparts. (Which is honestly a shame because Amir is such a knock out, but I digress.) As you can see, the FAS is somewhat of a mirror image of Amir, at least in terms of his legs, and he is decidedly less finely detailed. He is much more a Chris Hess original and less a Maureen Love copy than the mare and foal are.

It does make you wonder why the FAS is so different. If I had to hazard a guess, it would be that Hess had an example of the Hagen-Renaker Large Zara and Zilla on hand to work from, so he was able to study them closely for the purpose of copying them. I would also surmise that Hess did not have access to a Large Amir and perhaps was working only from a photo of the piece.

HR Amir on the left, Breyer FAS on the right 
(notice the reversed raised legs)

Whatever the case, by 1959, Hagen-Renaker was fighting a growing tide of imported as well as domestic knock offs of their designs. Sometime in mid to late 1959, they unsurprisingly sued Breyer for copyright infringement over the unauthorized use of Zara. (Hobby lore has it that Zilla and Amir were included as well, but the only extant legal documents available to me are from 2005, and by that point, both parties had apparently forgotten the exact specifics of the original lawsuit.) The dispute was resolved, and Breyer discontinued production of the Proud Arabian Mare and Foal, but not the Family Arabian Stallion. (They then created the Family Arabian Mare and Foal (after the hiccup that was the In Between Mare) to replace the PAM and PAF in their line in 1960.)

The 1960s were initially a boom time for Breyer, and their plastic horse and animal line grew exponentially. With only a few exceptions, Breyer seemed to have learned their lesson, and most of their new models were original sculptures by Chris Hess, not copies of other companies' works.

Hagen-Renaker in contrast faced a serious sales slump that almost put the company out of business in 1960. Cheap imported copies of their figures made in Japan were flooding the market, and the company was forced to lay off all but a handful of employees. They limped along on a skeleton crew until business began to pick back up in the mid-1960s.

The Large Arabian family was issued sporadically in the late 1950s and into the 1960s, but production of all three molds ended for a number of years after Spring 1968. Around this same time, Sam Stone, the owner of Breyer and father of Peter Stone, was considering closing down their horse and animal molding division of Breyer as not profitable. Peter begged his dad to reconsider and began traveling the country to promote the line. [1] 

In 1971, Breyer heeded collector demand for a more modern Arabian stallion sculpture and released the instantly popular Proud Arabian Stallion mold. When collector and hobby consultant Marney Walerius reminded Peter Stone of the existence of the Proud Arabian Mare and Foal molds, Breyer opened negotiations to arrange a licensing agreement with Hagen-Renaker to reissue the molds as companions to their new stallion. [2] The PAM and PAF remained in steady production until about 2005 when a new dispute arose between Breyer and Hagen-Renaker. 

The root of the issue was a disagreement between the parties over the contours of the 1970s arrangement to re-release the Proud Arabian Mare. In 2005, Reeves (Breyer's parent company after a buy-out in 1984) sued Hagen-Renaker, asserting that Reeves owed no royalties for their Zara-derived model because Breyer had purchased her ownership rights from Hagen-Renaker years before. For its part, Hagen-Renaker countersued and alleged that due to the omission of Zara (the PAM) from a 1990s written licensing agreement, Breyer had relinquished any right to produce her.

The court record indicates that this 2005 dispute was "settled." We do not know the terms of the settlement, but we know as collectors that Breyer did cease production of the Proud Arabian Mare and all other Hagen-Renaker sculptures for about ten years thereafter. (The only exceptions were a handful of one of a kind models painted for BreyerFest auctions, the 2008 Velvet Rope Event micro run PAM "Celebrity," and a 2009 Fun Foals micro run palomino appaloosa PAF. (I assume these were produced on already molded ware, and therefore fell into some sort of loophole (or flew under the radar.))

Happily, the companies were apparently able to reach some manner of satisfactory arrangement again, and starting in 2014, Hagen-Renaker molds returned to the Breyer line. Interestingly, most have been fairly limited releases like BreyerFest special runs, web specials, and Vintage or Stablemate club releases. In fact, I think the 2025 silver dapple bay Classic Arabian Mare release "Ariana" is the first Love mold to be widely available in brick and mortar stores in about 20 years.

Most excitingly, a new chapter in the Hagen-Renaker and Breyer relationship opened in 2025 with the release of the Stablemate Club model "Madonna." She's a scaled down scan of Hagen-Renaker's Large Zara mold (not the Proud Arabian Mare!), making it the first new Maureen Love sculpture to be introduced to the Breyer line up in 50 years. How very fitting! I can hardly wait to see more colors on this mold!

Left to right: Breyer Proud Arabian Mare, Madonna, and 
Hagen-Renaker Large Zara

This new relationship between Hagen-Renaker and Breyer gives me hope that we might someday see new mini versions of other Hagen-Renaker molds issued in plastic. A matching mini Zilla and Amir would be so exciting! Maybe we can even dream of new Classic scale models based on Designer's Workshop molds Breyer rejected for leases in the 1970s. I would lose my mind for accessible, repaintable, plastic versions of Hagen-Renaker's Comella and Vanguard. But more on that in the next post!


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Works Cited:

1) Young, Nancy Atkinson. Breyer Molds and Models: Horses, Riders, and Animals 1950-1997. (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd, 1999), pg. 5.

2) Walerius, Marney J. Breyer Models: Reference and Insurance Guide. (Barrington, IL: Self published, 1991), pg. 5.

Loony for loons

I am a Minnesota girl born and raised. I haven't lived there for many years now, but I still consider it home. You can take the girl out of Minnesota after all, but you can never take Minnesota out of the girl. (Uffda!) Both sides of my family are from Minnesota, too, and have been for generations---since the early 1850s before Minnesota was even a state. I was born in Minneapolis and grew up in the suburbs in Chanhassen. (Yes, I did see Prince. His bodyguard was our next-door neighbor.) My family has mostly scattered to other parts of the country now, but my beautiful little corner of southeastern Minnesota will always be home to me, and I love it fiercely. 

Because of my abiding fondness for my home state and its many lakes (and because I love Maureen Love's birds as much as her horses), I have a small collection of Hagen-Renaker loons all sculpted by Maureen. Naturally, I had to have the #2006 Loon (Decoy) from the short-lived Miniature Stoneware line.* It was made from Spring 1988-1990, and it came in the matte finish typical of stoneware pieces. It measures 1.25 inches tall at the top of the head. Crisp early examples have the suggestion of carving marks, as if the piece really was a tiny wood-carved decoy. [1] 

#2006 Mini Stoneware Loon

Examples of the #2006 Loon were sold attached to little ceramic bases in Spring 1989 only. [2]

Stoneware is more time consuming to produce and more prone to losses than earthenware, so the line was discontinued at some point in 1990. The mold was then reissued in earthenware with a glossy finish as part of the Specialties line from Fall 1991-Fall 1993. Sold as "Loons on Golden Pond," the piece featured two loons, one with a baby on its back, serenely swimming across a rippling golden base, presumably one of Minnesota's 10,000 lakes at sunset. Or so I like to think anyway. This set was given the number #3034 in the mold book, and though the loon with the baby was never sold separately, it was assigned the number #3029. Both loons on the base have lovely green iridescent heads just like the real birds.

The Stoneware Loon sans base is still relatively easy to find, although prices on them have definitely crept upward in recent years. The Stoneware Loon on the ceramic base is quite a bit harder to find, and they come up for sale only rarely. The golden pond set has also become quite scarce, though they can be found with patience.

The rarest of the Hagen-Renaker loons, a Designer's Workshop scale piece, sadly never went into production. It dates to the 1980s, and while the mold was tested at San Marcos and slated for possible Fall 1986 production, the factory closed that same year at the end of the Spring season. [3] The DW Loon mold measures about 4.5 inches tall and was never assigned a number. One factory finished test is currently known, a glossy piece that was sold in 2015 from the Hagen-Renaker archive sale. My mom, sister, and I were determined to have it, and happily this gorgeous piece is now a treasured part of our collection. 

Unproduced DW Loon test

Unproduced DW Loon test

Models made at San Marcos were generally tested (and issued) in matte and glossy finishes, so more test loons, particularly a matte example, may exist. At least two custom glazed examples finished by Maureen Love are known as well as one by Laurilyn Burson. It is truly a spectacular work of sculpture and design, and I feel so very lucky to share this lovely loon with my mom and sister.

There is one more loon that bears mentioning, and while it's not a Hagen-Renaker piece, it was produced by a closely related pottery. Jim Renaker, son of Hagen-Renaker founders John and Maxine Renaker, owned the Loza Electrica pottery in Mexico that produced a variety of animal figurines, ornaments, and cartoon characters from about 1992-1998. While Jose Garcia was the sculptor of most of the Loza molds, the Loza Loon bears a striking resemblance to Maureen's unproduced DW design. It is suspected that she may in fact be the artist for this piece. Like both the Stoneware Loon and the DW piece, the Loza Loon has a subtly turned and slightly canted head. It measures about 2 inches tall, and is fairly difficult to find.

Loza Electrica Loon

Loza Electrica Loon

Size comparison between HR Stoneware Loon and Loza Loon

 

For anyone interested in learning more about the Hagen-Renaker San Marcos factory, please check out the latest video on the Hagen-Renaker Youtube channel. In it, Kristina Lucas of Hagen-Renaker Tennessee and longtime collector Heather Wells discuss Karen Grimm (of Black Horse Ranch) and her acquisition of the final inventory from San Marcos. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy-_zRjpMh0


For more in-depth information on the Miniature Stoneware line, "never mades" like the DW Loon, and more, I  highly recommend joining the Hagen-Renaker Collectors Club. The wealth of information contained in the newsletters alone is worth the annual cost---only $34! (Plus you also have the opportunity to order new HR models.)

I hope you have enjoyed this little descent into loon-acy with me. Stay salty, my friends!

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* Not to be confused with the unproduced A500 Stoneware line comprised of approximately DW sized pieces. I will probably cover that in an upcoming post. 

________________________________________________________________

Works Cited:

1) Hagen-Renaker Collectors Club newsletter, August 2022, HR Stoneware Series, Part 1: Begin With Birds, by Kristina Lucas

2) Ibid

3) As per a January 2026 text conversation with Kristina Lucas

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum

We're only just over two weeks into the new year, and as a podcaster I listen to said the other day, it feels more like a year than a scant fifteen days. The news cycle has been relentless and maddeningly full of gaslighting. I do try to keep this blog as upbeat as possible, so I'll save my rants for Facebook (or my sister), but suffice it to say, we are currently living through a strange and disturbing mix of Idiocracy, 1984, and The Handmaid's Tale. 

Highly relatable comic by Emily McGovern 

Ursula LeGuin wrote that "resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art---the art of words." Outside of voting and calling my representatives, I am but one woman with limited resources and power. But I can write, and even if I'm just writing about history and where model horses fall into that history, I will always do my best to share facts and the sources from which they came. Telling the truth and combating nonsense and conspiracy theories is just as important in our hobby as it is in the bigger world.  

So that said, the universe gave me a pretty solid shove over the holidays to get myself in gear and start devoting real time to all of the model horse history projects I want to do that have been languishing on mental back burners for too long. I already had vague plans of creative and self-improvement New Years resolutions for 2026, but a trip home to see my family a few weeks ago kick-started an exercise regimen and a serious Marie Kondo-style look at everything. A few days into my trip, a plumbing issue necessitated that we reevaluate the multitude of books in my parents' basement to make space for more important things (model horses) while the leak was addressed. My sister and I hauled 60 heavy paper-ream boxes of books out of the basement, sorted them, and donated the vast majority of them to local shelters and charities. We are determined to do the same with more stuff in the parental basement, but maybe at a less knee-wrecking pace. (Stairs + heavy boxes = sore for days.)

The surprise downsizing adventure while visiting my parents has inspired me reinforced my plans to declutter my own living space as well. Part of my reorganization plan involves new shelves (insert angelic choir noises here) where I can not only display more of my collection but also have some space to assess the models I plan to part with. (Do I really need 20 classic Kelso models? Probably not.) I also intend to devote a shelf or two to current custom projects so I can finally wrap up all of my commissions and take a break to paint some models for myself.

Bringing order to the material chaos will definitely help me bring some order to the mental chaos. I have a hard time doing creative things---writing, painting, coding websites, etc---when there is clutter distracting me from what I should be doing. Tidying up customizing bodies, books, reference materials, and knick knacks will be such a huge help. 

Which brings me to the aforementioned metaphysical kick in the pants. I am hoping to make this the year I finally get serious about updating my Model Horse History website. It's very HTML 1.0 at the moment, so that needs some aesthetic modernizing work, but more than anything, I really just want to create an encyclopedic database of model horses reference materials, both hobby published works and company produced ads, publications, etc, for everyone in the hobby to utilize. As I've said before, history should be shared, and I have a ridiculous amount of reference materials I've collected over the years that I need to digitize and upload. 

I'm also slowly working on an Identify Your Hartland site (with the blessings of the late Janice Cox, so that tells you how long I've been needing a cattle prod more encouragement to get a move-on.) I will definitely need to crowd source information and pictures for the site since my own Hartland collection is limited to a few specific interests. 

All of that will keep me quite busy without a doubt, but I also absolutely intend to spend time just doing creative things for my own peace of mind---painting models, messing around with water colors, and picking up long neglected cross stitch projects. Art and creativity are a source of self-care, of joy, and especially of a more zen mental space to combat the fear and despair. 

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.