Sunday Soapbox: Breyer production, USA vs. China

Here's a topic that come up over and over in hobby circles: the perceived quality differences before and after Breyer production moved from the United States to China. 

Despite abundant evidence to the contrary, there are still people who insist the old American made models were better. As someone who has collected Breyers more or less continuously since the later 1970's, I can assure you, this is absolutely, positively not true.

And here's the proof: In an article originally published on her Model Horse Collectibility blog, hobby historian, Kirsten Wellman, tackles this subject with her trademark thoroughness. Thank you, Kirsten, for allowing me to share your words here. I can not imagine a more thorough take on this particular topic.

Breyer Production: USA vs China

by Kirsten Wellman

Certain hobby topics seem to be cyclical on social media. Every time a new model is released, whether it's a web special or a Premier Club horse or some other collector exclusive, there will always be people lamenting tiny flaws and complaining that Breyers were better before production moved to China. There's honestly a lot to unpack in such a statement, not the least of which are the xenophobic undertones. I try to keep this blog upbeat and positive, but I am really tired of hearing this unfounded and frankly ugly invective.

I have been collecting for forty years now (holy crap), and my collection definitely trends very heavily to vintage models. I am a huge history nerd, so of course the old, rare, and weird models have great appeal for me. But I am also an artist and a horse color genetics geek, and while I am very selective about the new models I buy because I have limited disposable income, I am an enthusiastic collector of the fantastic new molds and intricate, realistic colors Breyer has been producing lately. 

But first, a brief history lesson. As most of us know, Breyer started making model horses in 1950 at their Chicago, IL, factory. In 1984, Breyer was acquired by Reeves International, and production moved to Pequannock, NJ, for a few years. Plastic injection molding is an expensive business---each steel mold costs more than $100,000 to tool---and by the early 1990s, Breyer, like so many other American companies, began to move some of their production overseas. The move happened gradually with the Stablemates starting production in China in 1992. The Little Bit/Paddock Pal and Classic scale molds followed a few years later in about 1997. And 2001 marked the last year that the Breyer dealer catalogs mentioned that any of their models were still made in the USA, meaning that all of the Traditional and Animal molds had been moved overseas by the following year.

So how do we judge what constitutes "better?" The quality and intricacy of the paint job? The anatomical correctness of the sculpture? The quality of the molding itself? Factory flaws? Value?

The quality of paint work seems to be the most common complaint when the subject of where models are made comes up, so I thought it would be interesting to compare Breyer appaloosas across the decades. The appaloosa pattern, in my opinion, is one of the most difficult colors to reproduce accurately in miniature. I still struggle with it despite having been a customizer for almost twenty five years. 

Let's have a look at the models in the photo below. The two appaloosa models on the left were made in the USA (1970s and 1996 respectively) and the two on the right were made in China (2023 and 2021). The appaloosa Quarter Horse Yearling on the far left is a typical example of how most appaloosa models were painted for decades with flicked-on spots over a vaguely defined white blanket. It gets the idea across, but it's not very realistic. Eventually, Breyer did begin to produce a few Appaloosa models with masked blankets and spots like Stud Spider, but because the masks did not fit snugly, the models all had varying levels of overspray. Cinnamon, second from the left below, is truthfully a weird outlier for Breyer, but she's definitely not the only questionable paint job from the USA years.

Adonis (rearing) and Danash's Northern Tempest (far right) are far more nuanced and correct. In terms of realism and intricacy, there's simply no contest. The models produced in China have carefully masked patterns that closely recreate real horse patterns. 

Breyer Appaloosas from various eras

In terms of anatomical and biomechanical correctness, most of Breyer's new molds made in the last 20 years have been better than those of the past. That is not meant to be a knock on Chris Hess, the artist who sculpted the majority of Breyer's models from 1950-1987. He was a serious artist in his own right having studied at the renowned Art Institute of Chicago. In addition to sculpting, he was also the craftsman and engineer who tooled all of the original Breyer molds. While many of his models do suffer from some common anatomical flaws---eyes set too high, incorrect musculature, etc---some of his pieces are still highly regarded by collectors for their timeless correctness, like Lady Phase.

But horses are incredibly complex anatomically, and as much as I love a number of Hess' sculptures, they simply can't compare to the dialed in accuracy of the models sculpted in the last twenty years by the hobby's premier artists. While none of these new sculptures are perfect, the artists creating them have been better able to specialize in equine anatomy. They have had better and easier access to reference materials, and molding technology has improved to allow finer details and more intricate poses.

Morgen Kilbourn's True North mold (left) and Chris Hess' Quarter Horse Yearling mold (right)
both lovely in their own way

When it comes to molding quality, once again, there's just no contest. Most older models have prominent seams pretty much all over---back, belly, up and down the legs, across the chest, and even on the face. Because I customize as well as collect OFs, I have become very well-acquainted with the seams on most molds, and I have found that prepping vintage models is usually a bit of a nightmare. The old mold Proud Arabian Mare pictured below was made in the late 1950s, but seams like this were typical on pretty much all models well into the 1980s and 1990s. 

photo by Lindsay Diamond

Molding models in dynamic poses is a challenge, and the technology was just not there yet for some models molded in the USA-years like this Scratching Foal from the 1970s.

photo by Jen Boss

In addition to prominent seams, many older models show evidence of careless seam cleaning and lax clean-up of the model in general. This can be seen in the form of chatter marks from dremels skipping over the surface of the model and sometimes extraneous bits of plastic that should have been sanded off but that were instead ignored and painted over.

dremel chatter on a Clydesdale stallion
photo by Jennifer Tirrell

excess plastic gunk on the belly of a Shetland pony
photo by Matt Hanson

excess plastic on the neck of a Clydesdale stallion
photo by Mel Grant

Many older models, especially some of the Classics, are also more likely to need details sculpted back in when prepping, especially on the heads and legs. For example, I love the Classic molds sculpted by Maureen Love, but they take much, much longer to prep because of the poorly cleaned seams, misshapen legs, hooves, and faces, and often crooked, blobby ears. This is frustrating to deal with as a customizer because it means many hours more work to make the model suitable for painting. But as an OF collector, too, it's sad to see careless prep work on otherwise exceptional sculptures. The Classic Arabian Stallion pictured below is not at all unusual in terms of how poorly the seam across the face was cleaned, the blobby ears, and the shallow, barely there nostrils. And as if this poor guy didn't have enough problems already, his star is completely off-center.

photo by Levi Kroll

In contrast, it's a breeze to prep modern, made in China molds because they hardly have any seams to clean. Most only need a little clean up on the manes and tails and behind the pasterns. These molds also have better sculptural detail such as well-shaped, concave ears and nostrils and realistic heel bulbs and frogs. Most older molds need to have those details carved or sculpted by the customizer, adding to prep time. In the OF show ring, most judges will excuse seams because that is just the nature of OF models, but cleaner seams and better detailing on an excellent sculpture is hard to beat.

no seams!

none here either!

Most older Breyers were made for many years, sometimes decades, so paint colors often varied over the course of the run. Collectors generally don't mind this kind of inconsistency because variation collecting can be a lot of fun.

three variations of #316 Mahogany Proud Arabian mare

However, one of the common complaints about models made in China is a lack of consistency in painting, and I personally just haven't seen it. I often buy multiple examples of models I plan to repaint---one to keep OF and the others to paint and sell. For at least the last 10-15 years, I've been finding it much harder to pick out the nicest model to keep because the shading and detailing is pretty consistent across the board. There are nuances, but they're much more subtle than they were twenty plus years ago.

I still can't decided which one to keep OF

Painting flaws like overspray, misaligned masking, or missed spots are another common complaint about models produced in China. And while those problems definitely occur, they were just as common on models produced in the USA. I would argue the mistakes made on new models are generally not as egregious or weird as some of the ones found on older models. For example, someone was having an off day when they painted the eyes on this Clydesdale Foal. Did they sneeze? Or have the hiccups?

photos by Beau Schenfelt

The buckskin Quarter Horse Gelding sometimes had a thin partial dorsal stripe, but this poor guy has a giant dorsal blorp. This kind of mistake would be relegated to the regrind bin these days.

photo by Kelly Weimer

Splatter dapples and appaloosa spots have a definite nostalgic charm, but I suspect most collectors would not find these streaks acceptable now. We give it a pass on vintage models because we know quality control was pretty lax for a long time, and there's nothing to be done about it now.

photo by Sarah Parr

Poor Cinnamon's ultra precise polka dots and pinking shears blanket go too far in the opposite direction. She's kind of cute in a "bless your heart" sort of way, but this too would never fly for modern collectors. (We definitely laughed about it in 1996 when she was released, too.)

Dani, the 2021 BreyerFest celebration model, meanwhile is perhaps the most ambitious, widely-available, mass-produced OF model horse ever made. For the price of a virtual BreyerFest ticket (early bird tickets were $72.50), collectors received this absolutely stunning model. That's hardly more than one would pay to buy a regular run model online or even in a store. It still blows my mind that Breyer offered a hugely complicated, BreyerFest auction model worthy paint job like this to thousands of collectors as a large, easily obtainable run. 

We have come so far, my friends. This model makes my heart sing. She is so lovely.

In terms of value, regular run and special run models made in the USA and China have been a mixed bag. Some continue to appreciate in value while others can be hard to sell even below cost. Mold, color, and rarity have much more bearing on value than which country the models were made in. Prices on rare models from both countries have been trending up significantly in recent years, and while they seem to have peaked during the pandemic, the market doesn't seem to have cooled much on true oddities. 

With all this in mind, I think it's fair to say that both nice models and flawed models have been produced in the USA and in China. That is simply the nature of mass-production. But that said, it would be disingenuous to suggest that Breyer horses are regressing in quality and have been for the last twenty to thirty years. It's very clear to me, both from an artistic standpoint and from a showing and judging perspective, that Breyer models have only been getting better every year, especially the last five or so years. The technology for molding, masking, and painting has improved markedly in the last twenty years. Sure, there have been bumps in the road here and there, but by and large, the product Breyer is putting out is phenomenal for a mass-produced, still hand-painted-by-actual-human-beings toy. The models coming out of China, whether regular run or special run, are straight-up amazing. And to deny that is a slap in the face to all of the artists in our community whose sculptures and design work for Breyer have driven this renaissance in OF quality.

One last thing to consider is that Breyer moved production to China for a very good reason---cost, both production cost and consumer cost. For fifty years, they were rightly proud to declare that their products were American made, but when the choice is to either go out of business due to high production and consumer costs or move production overseas and stay in business, there really is no choice at all. It was cheaper for Breyer to move all of their molds to China and then pay to import the finished products back to the USA to be able to offer consumers a reasonable price-point for purchasing rather than to keep production in the USA. Obviously, that speaks volumes about how broken the manufacturing laws and incentives are here in the USA and also, even worse, how poorly workers in China are paid. (I am not a student of economics, so I'll leave a deeper dive on those subjects to others.) But I do have to wonder how many collectors who complain about the quality of Breyers made in China would still buy them at five to ten times the price if manufacturing were returned to this country? I'm guessing not many.

So, with all that in mind, the argument that models made in China are not as good as those made in the USA is absolute bunk. As the photos in this post show, the models made in China are better in easily quantifiable ways. They're much better prepped before painting, and the paint jobs themselves are more complicated, more consistent, and more realistic. The sculptures are more correct, more dynamic, and more diverse in terms of represented breeds. It is of course absolutely fine to prefer older models stylistically; I too am nostalgic for the models I grew up with, and I thoroughly enjoy collecting older pieces and learning about their history. Who doesn't love a beautifully shaded old glossy after all? But declaring USA-made models "better" with no tangible examples as to why makes one wonder what these anti-made-in-China collectors are really complaining about. Why not just enjoy both for the positives they each possess?