Featured JAH - 8/26/2023, Winter 1993

 Hello and welcome to another edition of Featured JAH! This week we're looking at Winter 1993, so let's get started! 

On the front cover, an Arabian stallion named The Heat Ison frolics with a mostly-cropped-out handler. On the back cover is a very familiar photo of Bey Shah+ from the American Horse Trust Library. As one might guess from the photos, there's a heavy focus on Arabians in this issue! 

What a shock - instead of the usual Editor's Desk in this issue, we instead have the Publisher's Desk and a message from Peter Stone, Breyer Man. Breyerfest 1993 was a big success and Megan Thilman's tenure as editor has come to an end. On the opposite page is various horse news and the Pen Pals column. 

Feast your eyes on the Breyerfest wrap-up article for 1993. It's always interesting to read about the Breyerfests of yore. Were you there in 1993? I'm not sure if I knew Breyerfest existed in 1993, but probably would have loved to be there. Like I said before, Breyerfest was only two days long in those days, and took place much later than it is now - July 30 and 31. That's really late! Anyway, I like how Peter Stone, Breyer Man is the only person quoted in the article. They couldn't find anyone else from Breyer to say something about it, I guess? 

On page 14 we have some times for vintage model buyers (continued on page 15), and on the next page we have Blast from the Past with the wheat-ear Sham! Long story short: the Sham mold used to have a "wheat ear" mark on the chest, as well as being painted with one white heel like in the King of the Wind book by Marguerite Henry. However, collectors and production workers both thought the wheat ear was a flaw in the mold (apparently no one informed the workers or read the book), and the wheat ear was eventually removed from the mold. I had a wheat ear Sham at one point in time, but eventually sold it in a collection purge.  Interestingly, some of the older Sham bodies must have been used later on, because some of the fleabitten gray Shams from 1988-1989 turned out to have wheat ears as well. 

In the centerfold of this issue we have the elusive, beautiful JAH special run for 1993, Steel Dust! Still sought after today. Whoever originally got this magazine didn't order her, because the order form is still intact. Those forms had to be returned ASAP if you wanted to get one of the models, because they tended to sell out very quickly. 

Here's the remainder of the JAH wrap-up article. The opposing page contained the rest of an article about the different Arabian strains. 

Lastly, we have this photo of the releases on the PAM up to this point in 1993, including a photo of the very first silver filigree model (though she's labeled as dapple gray, hah). The silver filigree PAM was a run of 30 and served as the Breyerfest volunteer model for 1993 (maybe the first volunteer model?). The article says two of them were auctioned off for the benefit of the Misty of Chincoteague Foundation for the prices of $1,025 (equivalent to $2,169 now) and $1,050 (equivalent to $2,222 now). Princely sums for the time, but still far less than they would sell for these days. 

Other things appearing in this issue: an article about Arabian native costumes by Melody D. Snow and varying strains of the Arabian by Margie Johnson.

That's all I have for today, and we've finished the year 1993 for JAH! Check back next week for Spring 1994.