Understanding the histories of the companies that make model horses and other animal figurines can give us valuable insight into the times and places they were first produced.
The other day, I came across a tiny piece of Hagen-Renaker history that I had never seen before. It was in an article in the Monrovia News-Post, dated September 29, 1947.
The weather was nice that week; highs in the low to mid 70s, overnight lows in the low 60s, with a few night and morning low clouds and fog (as are often seen in Los Angeles County). The Hagen-Renaker company was just getting started, and -- for whatever reason -- Maxine Renaker had set 700 unfinished duck figurines in her front yard.
That was the entire story.
This news begs at least two questions. One: Which Hagen-Renaker ducks? They could have been the Model No. A-8 and A-9 miniature ducks. We know from the company's hand-written Mold Book that a Baby Duck (about 1 1/4" tall) and a Mama Duck (about 2" tall) were among the first little animals produced by Hagen-Renaker. These were only issued in 1948-1949.
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| Detail from the Hagen-Renaker Mold Book showing the Duck Baby and Duck Mama. |
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| Two A-8 Duck Babies and their A-9 Duck Mama, issued 1948-1949. |
The mass-produced ducks are more rounded, less streamlined than the piece collectors sometimes call "THE Duck" -- the one-of-a-kind first small ceramic animal Maxine herself had first designed.
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| Maxine Renaker's original ceramic duck figurine, on display a few years ago at the W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library at Cal Poly Pomona in the "Miniature Menageries" exhibit. |
The second, and more perplexing, question: How did someone have time to steal
Seven.
Hundred.
Tiny.
Ducks.
from the Renakers' front yard, without being seen? Perhaps the little figurines had been set on a flat surface like a piece of plywood and it had been stolen as well?
Neighborhood kids used to raid the trash bins at the various Hagen-Renaker production locations around town, taking home a discarded figurine or two. I know this from interviewing several people who were children in Monrovia during the late 1940s. Hagen-Renaker was truly a family business, and back then Monrovia was the kind of small town where everyone seemed to know everyone else.
But who would steal seven hundred little duck figurines? We'll probably never know who took them, how they managed to carry so many small figurines away at once, or what happened to them. The newspaper did not publish a follow-up article.
An article in the November 11, 1947 edition of the Monrovia News-Post says Hagen-Renaker was established in May 1946.
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By September 1947, the company was selling factory seconds from its location on one of Monrovia's main streets, Myrtle Avenue.
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Reportedly, the early dishware was not really all that popular with consumers. But once the company showed its earliest Miniature animals at trade shows, the business took off. And Hagen-Renaker, a family-owned Southern California business, continued to produce animal figurines right up until the close of 2021. That's quite a legacy, and countless numbers of collectors around the world are grateful for having their lives made better by Hagen-Renaker's management and employees, and by the figurines themselves.
(This story also reminds me to keep an eye on yard sale and estate sale ads in the Monrovia area advertising small ceramic animals. Just in case the 700 ducks ever turn up!)
Here's another picture of the examples in my collection of the A-8 Duck Baby (Style One) and A-9 Duck Mama (Style One) when they were on display in the "Miniature Menageries" exhibit on Hagen-Renaker, Inc. at the W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library a few years ago.
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