Breyer Quagga special run - update: arrived!

So no in hand photos yet because I won't have them for quite a few months . . . but I'm too excited, I wanted to share this super cool model they just announced. Unfortunately, it's a Breyerfest in-person only special run, which means the only way to get it is to attend Breyerfest and then have the correct ticket to purchase it while you are there. Or, like me, you can find someone who is going and willing to pick one up and ship it to you, for the cost of the ticket, the model, the shipping, and the pick up fee. Or wait for it to be on sale second hand! The prices of Breyerfest special runs range widely on the second hand market, but the other ones I want from past years are multiple hundreds of dollars now, so I am not taking the risk this year.

In any case, all that to say, they have released a quagga! Every Breyerfest year they have one animal special run and because it's such a limited run, they are quite well done with often elaborate paint work (sometimes "decorators" which are unrealistic/fantasy colors). Usually they are domestic animals like a dog, cow, or pig but sometimes they are wildlife. The quagga I consider one that cannot be missed for my collection and also seemed a little more relevant to collectors here than dogs and donkeys or blue elephants. :)

Since I'll be getting one if all goes according to plan, I will share photos of her in person once she arrives, but Breyerfest is not until July! I will be anxiously waiting!

She is not as dark as the examples we have today (taxidermy and surviving photos of the last example). However, she does resemble some of the artwork of the species as well as the current living members of the "Quagga Project." Those are not true quaggas, of course, but they likely represent some of the same genes that existed in the true quagga population, and so probably exhibit many of the same colors that would be possible in a quagga coat.

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Oh wow, that will be a neat figure! Too bad its a limited run...

That's what I call an excellent idea for a special run.
I don't know if the traditional Breyer collector favour fantasy colored horses over this kind of figures and obviously there's no criticism from me about it. Though, personally, it is a million times more interesting to me. I wanted to see the size and it is a traditional 1:9 scale, so a large one and I wanted also to see the original zebra mould which can be seen here. Thanks for sharing.

that's a nice quagga!
I had a look at the other zebra figures from this mould and I like the Lascaux version of it alot.

I hope you manage to get it smoothly and easily Jill :)

Saarlooswolfhound wrote:

Oh wow, that will be a neat figure! Too bad its a limited run...

Many of their best are the limited runs, sadly! I'm sure it makes sense, you want people to buy expensive tickets and models so you produce more interesting ones and you also only have to make it a few hundred times rather than thousands and thousands so you can have more detailed work. But it's still sad.  

Roger wrote:

That's what I call an excellent idea for a special run.
I don't know if the traditional Breyer collector favour fantasy colored horses over this kind of figures and obviously there's no criticism from me about it. Though, personally, it is a million times more interesting to me. I wanted to see the size and it is a traditional 1:9 scale, so a large one and I wanted also to see the original zebra mould which can be seen here. Thanks for sharing.

Oops, sorry for not including scale information! Though I don't have this mold yet, I believe it is a little smaller than your standard traditional Breyer, which tracks for a zebra.

sunny wrote:

that's a nice quagga!
I had a look at the other zebra figures from this mould and I like the Lascaux version of it alot.

I hope you manage to get it smoothly and easily Jill :)

Caves of Lascaux is my second place "Holy Grail", only displaced by this one when it was released (so she will go back to being first this summer, haha). She was also a Breyerfest special run! Very few realistic (or realistic with a mural on it like this one, ha) ones have been released, and only one as a regular run, which is a real shame because it is a cool mold. The live auction Grevy's model is absolutely beautiful.

Ahhh, I saw the quagga posted on one of the model horse blogs I read - never suspected I might actually know someone who's going to get one, and see real in-hand photos eventually too! Fingers crossed all goes well and this lovely quagga is well worth the long and worrying wait!

I wonder if everyone reading this knows how to pronounce 'quagga' the right way - those G's are actually a throaty H sound (a little bit like the 'ch' at the end of the Scottish 'loch', or the 'gh' at the end of Van Gogh), but even if you can't get the right sound, saying 'kwah-hah' is still closer than pronouncing a typical hard G in the middle there!

Wow what a great idea! Too bad it is a limited run, I hope you will be able to get one!

I suppose the narrator of this BBC trailer pronounces it correctly?
Curiously there are 3 different pronounciations on this video but I suppose the 2nd one is not from an English native speaking person.

A interesting Breyer figure

Wonderful model.Hope you manage to acquire.

Roger wrote:

I suppose the narrator of this BBC trailer pronounces it correctly?
Curiously there are 3 different pronounciations on this video but I suppose the 2nd one is not from an English native speaking person.

The second one is how I've heard it before (from a South African guide, who's bilingual in English and Afrikaans, and also speaks Xhosa and Shangaan), they tend to use local pronunciations rather than Anglicised ones. I'm siding with someone who lives where Quaggas came from and probably knows best on how to say their name, even if there's an alternate English-accented BBC version for people who can't tackle the G-which-is-an-H of South Africa!

Wow beautiful alas too expensive for me and completely inaccessible

Beautiful model!

It looks spectacular. Looking forward to seeing it! I wish that Breyer made more wild equids like zebras, Przewalskis, kiangs, wild asses, etc, ideally in Stablemate size. I'd think they are popular with collectors.

Yes, I believe in Afrikaans "g" is pronounced as the "ch" in the Scottish pronunciation of Loch.

George wrote:

The second one is how I've heard it before (from a South African guide, who's bilingual in English and Afrikaans, and also speaks Xhosa and Shangaan), they tend to use local pronunciations rather than Anglicised ones. I'm siding with someone who lives where Quaggas came from and probably knows best on how to say their name, even if there's an alternate English-accented BBC version for people who can't tackle the G-which-is-an-H of South Africa!

He probably knows best! I bet very few people in the US say it any way other than a hard G. It's kind of like the word leucistic. If you say it correctly, with a hard C, everyone thinks you've got it wrong.

rogerpgvg wrote:

It looks spectacular. Looking forward to seeing it! I wish that Breyer made more wild equids like zebras, Przewalskis, kiangs, wild asses, etc, ideally in Stablemate size. I'd think they are popular with collectors.

I would love to see non-domestic equids as stablemates!! An absolute slam dunk. They are already very sparse with this zebra mold (all of them but the first have been special runs or one of a kind auction models) so they haven't given collectors much a chance to respond positively to other species. I think part of the problem from Breyer's perspective is that once you have done a wild ass for instance, they only come in the one color, unlike horses where the possibilities (and thus uses for the mold) are endless. You could of course do a wild ass, a kiang, an onager, etc. all on the same mold (they aren't exactly the same, but they are as close as a przewalksi is to a zebra, and Breyer used those species on the same mold), but I don't think those have enough draw and difference for Breyer to seriously consider a unique mold for them. Honestly I've always been disappointed by this hole in the representation, which is why the quagga is SO exciting. But stablemate size would be even better because even special runs would be slightly more affordable.

You are probably right, Breyer can't sell zebras, Przewalskis, kiangs, etc in so many colour variations, so they may think they can't make so much money out of them. On the other hand, they may get customers who wouldn't buy domesticated horses.

If they asked me for advice, I would tell them one wild ass mold could also be used for several non-zebra species, AND could be used as a mule with a little imagination, and they don't have a mule stablemate.

They do have a mule, but it isn't a mould they use much. Given that they were happy to make the hardly-used mule mould, then they might as well make some wild horse moulds.

Oh right I forgot about him! They COULD use that for a wild equid, I would accept it, but a new mold that wasn't showing its teeth would be even more exciting.

She's finally here!   And she's just as excellent as I hoped. This is my first model on this mold, so it is the first time I am getting a look at it in person, and I like it more than I thought I did when it was first released in 2000. It helps that is has a much nicer paint job than the original zebra. I took a ton of photos, indoor and outdoor, so I won't ramble much. I wish I had both a better indoor set up and also better photography skills, but she is delightful no matter what. I also got the Przewalski horse plush that was also a Breyerfest special because even though the style is not my favorite, I couldn't pass up a P. horse!! (I got a few more models, too, coming through a different friend, but they aren't here yet.) The model's official name is I Will Survive, because the name theme this year for all the models was pop song lines, and this is in specific reference to the Quagga Project (since otherwise it's a very ironic name for an extinct species . . .).

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Beautiful quagga!! I don't collect Breyer so I don't usually pay attention to releases but this one is so beautiful! Congrats!

She's very pretty, congratulations on getting these two!
The plushie looks quite funny and adorable too.

Beautiful quagga §

Wonderful Quagga,congrats!!!!!