Porcelain to Plastic

One of the things Breyer seems to like doing from time to time is debuting a mold in porcelain, resin or other material before eventually releasing it in plastic. Othello, Giselle and Gilen, and Tenacious/Sir Buckingham (among others) are all examples of this trend. In more recent examples, last year's Beautiful Breeds cob ornament is being released in plastic as one of the Breyerfest single-day Stablemates for this year.


However, there are some older porcelain sculptures that were released in the 1990s that never made it to being released in plastic, including the Shire Mare, Icelandic, Arabian Mare, Spanish Barb, Great Horse in Armor, the Circus Ponies, and others. One thing I've always wanted to ask Breyer is why these molds haven't ever been released in plastic. Not that I'm complaining about it - I'm just curious as to why.

I only have one Breyer porcelain, though I'd like to have more. I like my Adriano but I get nervous every time I have to touch or move him; I'm just too paranoid that he's going to end up broken!

There are a number of possible reasons for the porcelains never getting a plastic release; perhaps it's an issue of getting the rights to the sculptures, or Breyer doesn't think there would be much of a demand or market for releasing said sculptures in plastic, or there might be some technical issue preventing it. Rights-wise, though, I would think either Breyer already owns all rights to the sculptures, or would be able to buy said rights from Kathleen Moody if they somehow don't already own them. Which would bring us back to the demand argument - I doubt they'd put much effort into getting the plastic rights if they don't think there's a market for the sculptures (especially since most of them were released 20+ years ago, making them "old news," as it were). As for technical issues, most of those sculpts have been used multiple times, so I doubt that's the problem.

I would totally be in favor of seeing many of these molds finally released in plastic, though, even if they ended up being Classic-sized. The Classic line could definitely use more molds! The Spanish Barb is one of my favorite molds Breyer has ever released, and I'd love to see him in plastic. I'd really like to see the circus ponies in plastic, too (sans tack). I doubt they'd do anything with the Icelandic now that they have Falhofnir, although he'd probably make a nice Classic-sized Icelandic companion to Falhofnir and the Stablemate. I'd also like to see the resin Hambletonian released in plastic. And it would be interesting to see what the Arabian Mare and Great Horse in Armor look like without tack/armor.

So, I hope Breyer does focus groups at Breyerfest again soon - I participated in one at Breyerfest 2013 but stupidly didn't ask about the porcelains then. I'd love to have another opportunity to ask!