Well, darn.
I recently acquired an old-but-new-to-me Breyer 103 Appaloosa Yearling. She's absolutely gorgeous.
I wanted a second one because mine, who I got in 1988, at the end of the run for that color, is not very pretty. She has a pale color and a sort of ashy finish. I always wondered about this but didn't think a lot of it because Breyer's paint jobs in the late 1980s and early 1990s were generally pretty bad.
I also recently acquired an old-but-new-to-me Indian pony that is MUCH darker than the one I've had since whenever. I think the dark ones were earlier models. Anyway, this got us started talking online about variants. I said I needed to post pictures of my two Yearlings because the one was so much nicer than the other.
I've always had this in the back of my mind but she's been OK all these years . . . until last night when I got her out to take a picture.
Y'all--my 103 is a shrinky.
(On the right.)
Certain batches of Breyer plastic from roughly 1988 to 1993 have been victims of vinegar syndrome as they age. There are some specific runs of models such as the Black Horse Ranch special run "Adios" in palomino and dappled gray (I have both), the dappled gray 5-Gaiter, and a few others, that are especially notorious, but it's not limited to those. I've seen Precipitado Sin Par/Cips, San Domingos, and at least one other Yearling.
As they age, the plastic degrades and they, well, shrink. And ooze. And smell like vinegar. This one is doing all of those. It moves faster if they're packed up--I think it took her this long because she's always been on an open-air shelf.
But she's visibly wasted:
The pale color and powdery finish:
A lot smaller than the normal Yearling:
There is no saving this. A few people make a point of collecting shrinkies so she's been listed to a couple of sales sites, but otherwise she'll have to go in the trash.
The small up side is that I work in an historical archive and we worry about vinegar syndrome, especially in our films. Also, my boss is mildly fascinated by this hobby. So I got to bring in a workplace-relevant example.
Model Horse Collectibility: Vinegar Syndrome
Breyer History Diva: The Incredible Shrinking Appaloosa
I recently acquired an old-but-new-to-me Breyer 103 Appaloosa Yearling. She's absolutely gorgeous.
I wanted a second one because mine, who I got in 1988, at the end of the run for that color, is not very pretty. She has a pale color and a sort of ashy finish. I always wondered about this but didn't think a lot of it because Breyer's paint jobs in the late 1980s and early 1990s were generally pretty bad.
I also recently acquired an old-but-new-to-me Indian pony that is MUCH darker than the one I've had since whenever. I think the dark ones were earlier models. Anyway, this got us started talking online about variants. I said I needed to post pictures of my two Yearlings because the one was so much nicer than the other.
I've always had this in the back of my mind but she's been OK all these years . . . until last night when I got her out to take a picture.
Y'all--my 103 is a shrinky.
Certain batches of Breyer plastic from roughly 1988 to 1993 have been victims of vinegar syndrome as they age. There are some specific runs of models such as the Black Horse Ranch special run "Adios" in palomino and dappled gray (I have both), the dappled gray 5-Gaiter, and a few others, that are especially notorious, but it's not limited to those. I've seen Precipitado Sin Par/Cips, San Domingos, and at least one other Yearling.
As they age, the plastic degrades and they, well, shrink. And ooze. And smell like vinegar. This one is doing all of those. It moves faster if they're packed up--I think it took her this long because she's always been on an open-air shelf.
But she's visibly wasted:
The pale color and powdery finish:
A lot smaller than the normal Yearling:
There is no saving this. A few people make a point of collecting shrinkies so she's been listed to a couple of sales sites, but otherwise she'll have to go in the trash.
The small up side is that I work in an historical archive and we worry about vinegar syndrome, especially in our films. Also, my boss is mildly fascinated by this hobby. So I got to bring in a workplace-relevant example.
Model Horse Collectibility: Vinegar Syndrome
Breyer History Diva: The Incredible Shrinking Appaloosa
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