Singles Blister Cards
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UNDER CONSTRUCTION
as a consequence, pictures and text on this page may, at this time, be misplaced, double or incomplete, specifally in between the triple yellow lines
The first Breyer Stablemates singles series 1975-1988 started out with the G1 Hagen Renaker models, on black blister cards.
The Cards of the foals have yellow and green letters where the adult's have yellow and red.
There was no barcode, series number or copyright year yet, but the 1975 dealer catalog mentions #5500 for with (1975-1988), and #5501 without cardboard counter display (1975-1980), #5800 with and #5801 without for the foals.
According to the catalogs, they were supposed to release a couple of the models in 1975, followed at the end of the year by the other models to complete the series for the coming year.
But they accidentally switched some of the molds, and started out releasing the Morgan Stallion in alabaster, bay and dapple as 'Arabian Stallion' and the Arabian Stallion mold in bay as 'Citation', while there was not one real Citation available yet, all of which was resolved somewhere during this first year.
The dapples were already discontinued before 1977, and now there are actually more dapple Morgan Stallions around than dapple Arabian Stallions. Along with the dapples, the chestnut morgans and all three foal sets from this series were also discontinued, so these are all quite rare.
At the start, the cards had round holes, which got replaced by wider cut-outs.
Looking at the pictures below, both the dapple and the allabaster 'Arabian' Morgan Stallions were only made in 1975 and possibly early 1976, one of them having a round hole, the other a wide cut-out. The 1976 only, chestnut Morgan Mare already has the wide cut-out, so the cut-out must have changed during 1976 or even at the end of 1975.
At first, the names of the 5 famous racehorses were between quotation marks, followed with (Famous race horse) but, some time after the changed cut-outs, this changed into the name followed by Famous Thoroughbred, without any marks at all, as shown in the 3 Native Dancer cards below.
In 1979, the backside got a make over, now advertising to sign up for the Just About Horses newsletter, instead of requesting for a collector's manual, and adding 1979 as a copyright year as well. Also the cut-out is slightly narrower.
Both black cards carry the address 'CHICAGO, ILLINOIS'
This new backside is almost identical to the one of the white card, which replaced the black card around 1983, as visible in the three Citation cards below. However, the copyright year still states 1979.
After Breyer became part of Reeves in 1984, the addresses on the cards changed, as shown on the two white Native Dancer cards below.
The 'one-liner' card on the left still has 'CHICAGO, ILLINOIS' down at the front, and an unchanged JAH address on the back, while the newer 'centered' two lined card on the right has 'PEQUANNOCK, NEW JERSEY' on the front with a matching JAH address on the back. And again, they didn't change the copyright year.
The Morgan Stallion's one-liner card, in the middle, also has a different address, but since it still has the old pointy black sticker from the black card, and the models carries the B-stamp, this has to be an early white card.
What confuses me is that both the black cards and white one-liner cards excist with both JAH addresses, so, apparently there were two different addresses used at the same time?
And then to simplify things, of course, there's also a 'lefty' white card, with the same two 'PEQUANNOCK, NEW JERSEY' lines as the one mentioned, but alined to the left and with a completely different JAH Wisconsin address on the back :D
This time they did change the copyright date to 1985, but oddly enough, this one is quite rare, and most of the later white cards seem to be of the centered ©1979 Pequannock type.
At the end of the first series, around '87 or '86, Breyer began to put stickers with a barcode on the backsides, adding the series numbers on them as well: #5500 for the old 1975-1988 series, #5600 for the new 1989-1994 series. The white card remained unchanged during the first #5600 year, before the yellow ©1990 card was introduced, so logically this should mean that a longer running 'Famous Thoroughbred', on a white card with a #5600 sticker, can only be from 1989.
From this point down, this page is best viewed on a wider screen. On smaller screens, left can mean above, and right can mean below...
Shortly after the #5600 introduction, the white cards were replaced by yellow ones, now with barcodes printed on the backside.
Most of these yellow cards say ©1990, but the early #5600 yellow cards had a 1989 copyright stamp, as can be seen in the #5019 card with the black sticker.
And of course, weighing several grams more than the newer one below, this 5019 definitely is old plastic :)
However, the 5019 is one of the 3 models that supposedly were introduced in 1991, since the 1990 catalog still shows the same 12 models that were on the white #5600 cards, while in the 1991 catalog four of them have been replaced by three others. So were they early with the ©1989 cards, or late with the new models in the 1990 catalog? Maybe they actually were introduced in 1990 instead? Since catalogs seldom cover their whole year, I always keep a one year margin in mind anyway, so I will stick to 1991.
In 1992, the new plastic was introduced, after production had moved to China in 1990.
Because of the model changes in '90/'91, it's not easy to keep track of which ones were produced in both, or either one of the plastics. However, you can check it out on my #5600 series 1989-1994 page!
light #5150 on white card with #5600 sticker
light #5150 on white card with #5600 sticker
Since there still was only old plastic used around the card switch, a #5600 from a white card, will always be old plastic, but a yellow card can contain either old or new plastic.
The colour of these 2 'identical' #5600/5150's could hardly be more different. The extreme light old plastic one on the white card has to be from 1989, while the darker one on the yellow card is new plastic and therefore should be from 1992-1994.
In 1995 the #5900 series was released. At this point, the Famous Thoroughbreds, in their original colours, also stopped along with the #5600 series, they seemed to have won the race of the first singles, with Citation, and Seabiscuit already stopped in 1990, Native Dancer, Silky Sullivan and Swaps had been produced all along the 1st and 2nd series.
The #5900 series 1995-1997 was very orderly; 12 models on a slightly renewed, yellow ©1994 card, that all neatly made it throughout their period.
The #5901 series starts out in 1998, with 3 G1's and 9 brand new G2's, on the same yellow 1994 cards as the previous series, with only numbers adjusted.
In 1999 the 3 G1's got replaced by G2's, which appears to have shed some confusion about the period of all the models in the series.
The complete overview, based on my check up on the Breyer catalogs, are on the chronological #5901/#5902 series 1998-2002 page: After the 1st year the three G1's at the top of the page were replaced by the three G2's most down the page, and only these 6 have a shorter time-span.
1999 also was the year that the straight cards got replaced by bigger, ribbon-shaped ones.
The ribbon shaped card on the right still contains a Thoroughbred with a ©1998 stamp on it's belly, indicating this most likely is an early 1999 edition, since all G2's had their ©1998 belly stamp replaced with a ©1999 belly stamp.
Note:
The copyright years included here in the pictures of the 5901/5902 ribbon cards, concern the 1998/1999 belly stamps, not the cards, which do carry the copyright sign, but without a year.
In 2000, there was a special run of the #5901 Standardbred, with a sticker on it's card, in honour of the 75th Hambletonian Stakes.
In 2001, the series number changed from #5901 to #5902, which was discontinued in 2002.
Note:
The different item numbers that are specifically used for the fifteen 1998-2003 singles around the internet, (including Identify Your Breyer), appear to be the item numbers used to refer to the model/mold itself, regardless of it's actual colour or item number, usually also used for (one of the) original first runs of that particular mold. (e.g. #5011 for the Arabian Mare)
In the 1998-2000 dealer catalogs, #5901 is used for this series, and #5902 in the 2001-2002 ones, but my cards seem to contradict this. Most of my #5901 ribbon cards, and all of my #5902's, contain a G2 with a ©1998 belly stamp, and the cards are very thin, almost like paper, while I also have a much thicker, and more plastified #5901 card, containing a ©1999 stamped Saddlebred, so while it should be older, it seems to have more recent features.
The 2003-2006 series was numbered #5904, and in 2006 Target, and possibly other retailers, were selling the identical series under number #720116, (same number as the 2009 Pony Gals series).
The word Stablemates on the #5904 card's front is red, while the #720116 series has blue letters in a different font, with the 'new' logo added. The backsides are a bit different too, although the picture is the same.
These two Saddlebreds on #720116/5904 cards look quite different. The plastic of the one on the left is translucent, while the one on the right is completely opaque. I've also seen printed #5904 cards with both of these varieties, so that appears to have no connection with either of the two series specifically. (Front and back pictures of the opaque one are from the seller, to be replaced ASAP)
The 2006-2008 #5906 started out with the same card as the 2006 #720116 SR series, only with adjusted numbers. In 2007 however, on the frontside, 'Authentic Model Horses' was printed much bigger, and in a different font, while the backside got a complete make-over, now in yellow, with a new colour picture of the stable set. Also the collector's cards were introduced, and some of the model discriptions on the frontside got adjusted: 'Jumper' was changed into 'Appaloosa Jumper', both 'Tennessee Walking Horse' and 'Paint' were changed into 'Paint Horse', and the typo 'Throughbred' was corrected on the Thoroughbred's card.
In 2008, the last year of the #5906 series, the red printed words 'Authentic Model Horses' on the frontside changed into 'Authentic Hand Painted'.
The backsides only changed a little, but they are always prone to have subtle differences anyway.
The 2008 SR #5906 series, much like the #720116 SR series, was only found at Target, TSC and possibly similar retailers. Unlike the other SR series, it consists of only 6 different horses, in exclusive colours.
The cards are identical to the #5906 2008 cards, and also have either Model Horses or Hand Painted printed on the frontside.
The Pony Gals series, on it's charactaristic pink cards, was only produced in 2009, along with quite some other pink-ish packed sets. It was sold by Target, but the Boot Barn sticker on the Saddlebred card shows it was not a Target exclusive.
The series number was #720116 (same as the 'Walmart' 2006 series), as you can see right under the barcode of the card, but Boot Barn (mistakenly) added number #5907 on it's sticker, the number of the regular singles series of that moment.
On the left a typical Breyer 'waste not, want not' card: it's from the previous series, and the model on it most likely is one of the first from the 2009-2011 #5907 series. On the right is a proper one, copyrighted 2009.
The shaded black Friesian was part of both the #5906 (2006-2008) and the #5907 series (2009-2011).
The #5907 on the right is a multilangual ©2011 version.
Shown again here on the left is the Special Run #5901 Standardbred in honour of the 75th Hambletonian Stakes from 2000, next to Foiled Again on a 'Genuine Breyer Collectible' card from 2015, a children's ticket give away, probably in honour of the 90th Hambletonian Stakes.
In the same year a Special Run Valegro and American Pharoah were released on similar 'Genuine Breyer Collectible' cards.
And in 2016, along with a complete house-style make-over, the ribbon-shaped cards were replaced by new D-shaped #5900 cards, which can be copyrighted either 2016 or 2017.
In 2017 Walmart offered a new Horse Crazy Collection singles series, on pink-ish D-shaped cards, numbered #97244, and concisting of six different models: Five identical to five of the #5900 singles cards. The sixth is a red dun Peruvian Paso, identical to the discontinued #5906 series or, a little more recent, from the 2010 TRU shadow box.
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