mysterymansion asked:
Heyyy, I’m sorry to ask but I scrolled your horfposting tag a while a couldn’t find it: What is the name of those plastic(?) horse figurines that people customize?
I’m obsessed with the idea of them, but cannot remember what the heck they’re called! I feel like it starts with a B, maybe??? And that they’re just very horse-shaped, but maybe not a specific, uh, breed?
Idk anything about horses, clearly…
elodieunderglass answered:
Breyer, pronounced “Briar”! They’re super horse-shaped.
They’re nice-quality, anatomically accurate, handpainted model animals made from a nice type of resin. They’re slightly heavy, satiny smooth to the touch - and you can get even quite good large ones for under $20 if you’re patient and clever. Quite pleasant items. A nice meeting-point of mass-produced but also artistic and handpainted; a collector’s item that’s still accessible to a fanbase of little kids; something that people are still happy to admire on the shelf, even if they aren’t aware of its Significance.
There’s a decent community that’s decades old; and several related hobbies, like showing, photography, customising, painting, miniatures, and so on.
The ways to Win at Breyer are quite different from other collecting hobbies. Hoarding is possible but not the point. The most collectible ones that make peers ravingly jealous are often, charmingly, very high-quality customs that have won prizes at shows - meaning that to Win at collecting, people pay (or become!) skilled human artists who participate in community activities. I think that’s nice. Your sculpture/collectible/decoration/status symbol being a Real Guy, with a name, who was once a beloved child’s toy that got bashed up and was later remade by a talented artist, and he specifically got a ribbon in a horsegirl show. You’re supposed to look at him and imagine things. It feels quite human to me.
So you really don’t have to be interested in horses, or even in the models, to notice that they’re just kinda neat. Kind of like the Star Trek fandom, you know? They’ve got so much stuff. so much history and material that it’s quite easy to wander about as a tourist, appreciating what they’re doing, and never needing to be a fan yourself.
You can just appreciate how something that was decent-quality to begin with, that’s been well-loved for a long time, acquires its own patina. I really love that. It isn’t about horses REALLY. It’s about a kind of dreaming.
Resources:
Breyer blog archives with intense little articles about history.
Website for identifying models.
Wait when did they start being resin? They used to nearly all be plastic.
Don’t worry, they’re not made from (epoxy) resin. They’re made from a strange old material called cellulose acetate. Confusingly, this can be referred to as a resin or a plastic. The Breyer manufacturer refers to it as “a high-quality resin” in their website and the community refer to the material as a resin, but plastic would be accurate too.
I suppose the thing is that when we think of “plastic toys” today, we think about that ubiquitous material that’s made from petroleum products. cellulose acetate is an older material than petroleum-based plastic, and is made from treated plant fibres. It used to be in a lot more stuff, but petroleum products became more popular.
There was a bit in history where people were trying to find lots of other uses for petroleum and its byproducts, partly because they were using so much of the main product as vehicle fuel. The new materials were marketed aggressively at first, and uses for them invented outright. Thus, the “plastic world” came about, with plastics made from fossil fuels descending on every aspect of life, and replacing previous materials.
Today, Breyer horses feel distinctive and a bit different to other materials. We’re just not used to handling cellulose acetate. I think that’s why it often gets called a resin instead. Maybe there’s some snobbery as well.
But there’s no clear definition in play between “resin” and “plastic.” It might be slightly more accurate to call it a plastic, but it would be most accurate of all to call it “cellulose acetate.”
WAIT IS THAT THE STUFF OVERHEAD PROJECTOR SLIDES ARE MADE OF???
I have visceral memories of being in my grandparents' church's basement helping go through piles of printed clear sheets of what felt like weirdly warm and inviting plastic, and the deacon called them 'acetates'.
Old ones were! You might have heard of “exploding film” - celluloid, or cellulose nitrate - which was used in applications like photography and billiard balls, giving me material (ha) to joke about.
Cellulose acetate was partially developed as a safer alternative, and were referred to as “safety film” or acetate. It was almost certainly cellulose acetate that you remember. And it’s really interesting that you describe them as feeling “natural.”
Other interesting things about the material are that it would still be manufacturable from renewable resources in the event of the total cessation of fossil fuel extraction. And many people comment on it feeling “natural” to the touch.
An antiquarian with an interest in plastics writes:
CA plastics are tough with deep gloss and high transparency. They possess a ‘feel’ which is different to other plastics and which is often described as more ‘natural’. This may explain why CA has retained its popularity for making items which are handled frequently such as spectacle frames and tool handles, many transparent tool handles are still made from cellulose acetate and its sister material cellulose butyrate. Other items made from CA included combs, fashion accessories, pen barrels and toys, but these are now more likely to be moulded from more modern thermoplastics.
At any rate, the horses feel distinctive and a bit different to the touch.
