Featured Model - 4/20/2019, Frankincense

Hello and welcome to another edition of Featured Model, the weekly blog event where I pick a model from my collection, give some stats on it and provide commentary about it. This week's model is...Frankincense!



This model was one of the three possible colors one could receive when ordering Breyer's Christmas Day special model back in 2016. He was a run of 350 on the Sherman Morgan mold sculpted by Jeanne Mellin Herrick. He's item #712207.

While the intent on this model was good (red/green/gold Christmas decorators for the second year in a row), I feel like the execution was a little lacking - his shade of green tends to look more like Army green than anything festive. However, all of his white areas are pearly, so that helps make up for the failing in the green department. The green wasn't the only production failure - something apparently went wrong when many of the tails were glued on in this run, because I remember seeing a ton of complaints that models had arrived with their tails broken off. Let's hope that was a one-off thing that doesn't persist in the future.

Sherman Morgan is the only mold in my collection that I prefer to see in decorator colors rather than realistic ones, probably because he's not the most realistic mold ever sculpted. What's he doing, anyway? As such, the only Shermies in my collection are decorators - the three Christmas horses, Carpe Diem and Celebration. I wouldn't mind getting my hands on the Joker's Wild Connoisseur releases, or Crescent City, but that seems unlikely - they rarely pop up for sale, and they tend to be expensive when they do. Maybe someday, though!

The Sherman Morgan mold isn't currently in production, and it's hard to say when he'll be used again. He's not the most popular mold - the original, old-tail version of the mold only had four releases before it was retired, and it's only had 8 (or 9 if you count the Connoisseurs) attainable releases since its reintroduction in 2000. I wouldn't be surprised to see it pop up in a Let's Go Riding set somewhere down the line, though - a lot of older molds have been used for that line.

That being said, if he gets a decorator release, I'll probably want to buy it - so I hope he gets released in a spectacular decorator color soon!