Clydesdale Foal Variations & Chalky Plastics

The Clydesdale Foal is one of my most favorite Breyer models. Really the whole original family. I've always loved draft horses and Satin Star was one of my first Breyers and has always been a favorite. On top of that, my very first chalky model was the Clydesdale Foal and the one that got me excited about collecting them. That is not surprising since I would say she is in the top 3 most common chalkies out there and makes a great start model for anyone looking to collect them.

Even though I conga the mold, I never thought I would end up collecting variations of the original No. 84. She was made from 1969-1989 and that 20 year run made for a lot of variation from dark baby bay to bright chestnut and her run right through the chalky era made for a variety of plastic oddities as well. Besides chalky plastic I have seen some with grey plastic and even one with clearware underneath, so for sure there was some experimentation there.

A big part of my chalky hunting usually involved buying lots from the 1970s and this girl is almost always in there too. So a side effect is that I've ended up keeping some of the more interesting ones especially since they were "Girl Math" free (or maybe Breyer Collector Math?) because I typically bought the lot for something else. So besides the ones I have bought on purpose, I've ended up with a bunch of these gals.

First up it's the chalkies! I wasn't planning to have more than one of these either. My original and very first chalky is on the left. She's a really pretty semi-gloss and has been an amazing show model for me, also being one of my first national champions at NAN. The one in the middle has a much more typical chalky look and was one I bought to flip, but she was just too nice and different enough that I kept her. You saw the latest one a few months ago that I restored - I really love the dark shading on this one's face so now I guess I have three!

Some recently said to me "but I thought chalkies didn't have a shine" and while most of the time that is true I have found that some chalky plastic models in particular (which all three of these are) also get a bit of a shine to them. The plastic itself seems a bit shinier and slipperier than the regular plastic.

The large sticker model is my earlier example, likely dating to 1969 given the sticker and the lack of a USA stamp on her Breyer mold mark.

A couple of my favorite variations, these two show the darker more bay looking color and the brighter more chestnut color.

Then there is this interesting one. I liked the masked looking left hind sock which isn't typical for this run. But she is also that sort of in-between almost-chalky plastic that also crops up on 70s models and often confuses people. Some will say it's just that it is white and looks chalky-ish because it is not yellowed. To my eye however, they do actually look distinct and more chalky than not when compared to normal plastic. I used to also dismiss them as "normal" but now that a bunch of these have passed through my collection over the years I've come to appreciate them as their own category.

Here's a photo of my true chalky (left), sorta-chalky (middle), and normal not chalky (right) so you can see what you think.

I'm trying not to fall down the rabbit hole of actively collecting these, but of course now when I see interesting ones on eBay I am tempted. Like look at this cute one - it looks like they missed adding the darker shading to her mane:

I like this one too - also looks more like a bright chestnut than a bay

And this set is also really cool - this box for the set with blankets is surprisingly rare as it was made only during the very end of their run in the late 80s.

You can buy them so I don't have to XD