Stablemate Sunday: #5013 Variations

 The past Stablemate Sundays have been focusing on a collection of Stablemates released at the same time - a year of Stablemates Club models and BreyerFest Single Days. This month, we're doing something a little different, and looking at the variations that span a single release - #5013 Arabian Stallion. A bay done on the G1 Arabian Stallion mold (sculpted by Maureen Love), this guy was released from 1975-1988, so there is plenty of room for variations in the run. 

There's something about G1s that compels me to buy them like I eat potato chips, so I've acquired seven of this run - including one at BreyerFest this year! I've been working on my collection catalog recently, and this seemed like a nice feature for Stablemate Sunday.

This is the first bay G1 Arabian I ever purchased - it has to have been at least a decade ago, since I photo showed him at one point. His show name was In Style. He's got brown front legs, a more semi-gloss finish, and some fantastic shading on his face and neck. He's also lighter than most of his brothers. Honestly, if his condition was a bit better, I wouldn't hesitate to stick this guy on a show table. In the group photo he's in the middle row, and he stands out compared to the rest of them. 

This guy is a pretty typical, run of the mill example of the run. He's a nice flat brown bay, with four socks, black on the front legs, and a matte finish. 

This guy is the darkest variation of #5013 I own. He is a very dark and matte bay, with one clearly defined sock on his back left leg. His back right sock is quite fuzzy but present, and he has no evidence of front socks at all. 

On the other end of the spectrum, we have this extremely light variation. While his color has the somewhat faded appearance of a shrinky, he is the same size as the rest of his brothers and doesn't exhibit the same signs as my other shrinky Stablemates, such as the warped limbs and dimpled plastic. He's just a particularly light variation. If I had to guess, I'd assume he's probably from the later end of the run. 

This example is my show copy of #5013. His shading is a little flatter compared to others I own, but he by far has the best condition out of all of them. I don't think he's placed with me yet, but he usually gets knocked out of the string by my Stablemate Club Sultan. 

This copy is special, as he is a variation of #5013 with no belly stamp. He's very matte compared to the others, and like the first variation his front legs are brown.  I'm quite fond of this guy - he came in a lot of six horses, and five of them were missing belly stamps. It's likely he could have been one of the mislabeled Citation Arabian Stallions, but without the provenance of the box there's no way of knowing. 

This is the most recent addition to the collection - I picked this guy up at BreyerFest this year. He's got a lovely semi-gloss finish like my first example, but he has black on his front legs. He also has weird lighter shading along his topline.