Featured JAH - 3/2/2024, July/Aug 1998

 Hello and welcome to another edition of Featured JAH! This week's issue is July/Aug 1998, bringing thoughts of summer warmth on this not-so-warm day. Let's dig in! 

On the (well-worn) front cover, an adorable piece of art features the Fighting Stallion and a horse. I loved this art when I was a kid, and it's great - no wonder it won the art contest, and was used on the cover! On the back cover is (presumably) another entry in the art contest, featuring the great Secretariat. 

On the inside cover is a momentous event for any Stablemates collector - the debut of the G2 molds! Twelve new Stablemate molds, the first new molds in that scale since the original G1 models! These molds were hinted at in a few past issues if you looked closely, though it apparently took a few years for them all to be sculpted (by Kathleen Moody, naturally). This particular issue was "customized" by a 12-year-old me writing in name ideas for each model, most of them inspired by books/movies, Traditional-size models or other horses featured in past JAH issues - see if you can figure out where they all came from! Foxy Durango Dude is an original, though. I believe a friend and I coined that one while trying to come up with the dumbest name possible. Of course, I did order this set, and still have seven of the models in it, along with the GIGANTIC box they came in. I had a lot of fun putting them into and taking them out of the foam cutouts in the box. But anyway... 

After skipping page 2-3 (nothing particularly interesting in the Editor's Desk or Breyerfest '98 schedule), we come to page 4-5, featuring the regular run debuts of the new Stablemates molds, complete with more "customizations" by myself. I really can't explain some of these names, except I must have run out of ideas. 

On page 6 is the Who Am I? featuring the Classic QH Mare (I think), and a photo of a customized Arabian named Rani appears below. Rani looks like she used to be a Touch of Class, but a quick jump to page 36 indicates Rani started out as a Halla. On page 7 is Dear JAH, which includes a very familiar-feeling letter complaining about the Breyer jr. section - apparently then, as now, it was just too hard to skip past the parts of the magazine they didn't want to read. 

On page 8-9 is an article from a rare male perspective in the hobby, Craftsman's Corner by Sam Croom. I wonder whatever happened to Mr. Croom's walls full of wagons? 

On page 10-11 is an article I found very informative back in the day - basically a warning not to leave models tacked up for long periods of time. Good to know! 

On page 12 is an article about Secretariat (perhaps to tie in with the Secretariat art on the back cover), and on page 13 is Blast from the Past (featuring Morganglanz) and Just About...Breyer Animals! featuring the Collie. 

After skipping a Know Your Breed article on page 14 and some more Breyerfest information on page 15, on page 16-17 is an article about a "Horseless Horse Show" (also known as a live show) that took place in Roanoke, Virginia. 

After skipping Horse of Hope, art contest winners, an article about photographic models outside and Horse Trader, we come to the end of this issue and the Vintage Point article, featuring the Tennessee Walking Horse mold. 

That brings us to the end of this week's issue - check back next week for Sept/Oct 1998!