Vintage 1960s Mail-Order Catalog Ponies (and Burros)

Once again, researching the history of model horse figurines in the United States has led me down the trail of real horse history. 

We've talked in the past about the mid-twentieth century practice of ordering model horses through the mail, for holidays, birthdays, etc.  We saw ads for Breyers, Hartlands, and Hagen-Renakers in horse magazines as well as (forthe plastic models) catalogs for major retailers like Sears, Montgomery Ward, JC Penney, and Spiegel.

It was the heyday of the TV cowboy, after all, and scores of American youngsters received model horses as gifts -- or, if we could afford them, we bought them ourselves.  Some model horse collectors owned real horses; to the rest of us, the model horse took the much smaller, less expensive, low-maintenance place (temporarily or always) of a living, breathing equine.

While looking for examples of mail order catalog model horses, I came across the Spring-Summer 1960 Spiegel catalog, and in it the evidence of a small piece of real 1950s horse history. It was a time in our history when you could order live animals -- dogs, birds, monkeys, hamsters, coatimundis (yes), and more -- from mail order catalogs.

I was disappointed, but not really surprised, not to find model horses in this non-holiday issue of the catalog. In the back of this volume, though, I spotted that saddles and bridles for real horses could be ordered and shipped to customers....

...As well as real, live, Shetland Ponies and burros.  Adult ponies, without tack, were about $300 and Shetland colts up to a year old, $180.  A young burro cost about $80. And they took time payments.

These listings are placed towards the end of the catalog, after the farm and pet supplies and before the life-size chart that allows you to measure your foot size for shoes. 

I read through my research on the subject of buying ponies, burros, and other animals from catalogs with mixed feelings.  It's nothing new to have an animal shipped by rail or by truck from Point A to Point B.  Still, I imagined what the life of a mail-order pony or burro might have been if its new owners knew nothing about horse care -- to say nothing of its overland journey, shipped in a crate (which the owners had to return) to its excited new young masters or mistresses.

News stories from that era say that Spiegel had begun offering mail-order Shetlands and burros in 1954. This 1960 Spiegel ad shows the source of these Shetlands: the Fashion Club Pony Farm.  The Fashion Club was founded by Gene Harris of Chicago. Its branches in Leon, Iowa and Libertyville, Illinois sold thousands of ponies in person and to mail order vendors.  

Spiegel wasn't the only catalog selling small equines in the late 1950s-early 1960s.  The Chicago Tribune, June 30, 1956, announced that Sears and Montgomery Wards were offering Shetlands and burros as well.

The Des Moines Tribune had published an article on Harris the previous year.  In it, Harris was quoted as saying, "There'll be a pony in every suburban backyard someday."  Harris also said that a Shetland Pony "needs no care" would "grow fat" cropping its owners' lawn.    

 

I was able to trace one source of mail-order burros through articles in the Arizona Republic, April 3, 1955.  It and other stories described the mail order burro business of Dr. Fred Schmidt's Poverty Flat Ranch in Douglas, Arizona.

The article says a gift company in New Jersey was selling 40 burros a day. For his mail order house customers in the midwest and eastern US, Schmidt would order 50 to 100 burros, 3 to 6 months old, from sources in Mexico.

The Arizona Daily Star, April 1, 1956 told more about Schmidt's burro sales. He describes burros as "wonderful pets for youngsters," as loyal as dogs.

This news story says Schmidt foresaw the day when the burro supply from Mexico would start to dry up, so he planned ahead and had 200 jennies (female burros) at his ranch to ensure he would have an ample supply of young burros to sell.

Not all small equines from major retailers came through catalogs. Sears sold Shetland ponies from at least some of their bricks-and-mortar, as this May 31, 1959 ad in the Nashville Tennessean shows:

With advertising and news stories as persuasive as this, how was a parent to explain to a child that not all suburban zoning laws allowed livestock to be kept in a small backyard? How to counter the published claim that a Shetland pony was "no trouble," and the implication that it only needed to graze on the lawn to be fat and healthy? Some newspaper articles from that era describe anxious parents going so far as to remove the catalog pages showing the real ponies and burros while their children slept.

Eventually the fad of the mail order equine ran its course. The Arizona Republic, June 20, 1958 reported that more than 4,000 burros had been sold "back east" to date, and supplies were running low.

And a classified ad in the Des Moines Register, September 9, 1962, announced that the Fashion Club Pony Farm was having a Closing Out Farm Sale.

Hagen-Renaker "Brookside Stella" Hackney Pony

Hagen-Renaker Monrovia "Brookside Stella"
with replacement wooden base.

One of Maureen Love's earliest designs for Hagen-Renaker was the B-644 Hackney Pony "Brookside Stella," designed and named after a real show pony. The model was one of two Monrovia HR designs with a foil sticker on the bottom of a base giving information about the breed (the other was the Lipizzan). "Brookside Stella" was first issued in Fall 1956-Spring 1958, reissued Fall 1983-Spring 1985, and later reissued as a Special Run for BreyerFest in 2008.

Left, Monrovia (1950s) version; center and right, San Marcos (1980s) reissues.

Sticker on base of Monrovia model.

2008 BreyerFest Special Run models, black and charcoal.

We know the real Brookside Stella was a pony and not a horse because of book and newspaper records of horse shows during the post-World War II era. Brookside Stella was owned and driven in Hackney Pony harness classes, and later shown in halter, by the redoubtable Southern California socialite Mrs. J.A. Smith. She, along with her husband, owned dozens of Hackney ponies (many of whom had the prefix "Brookside") and Shetland ponies, which Mrs. Smith showed in harness and halter classes around the country, sometimes taking 16-18 ponies at at a time on the road to shows. Brookside Stella's name appears in the show results for Hackneys under 13 hands high.

Shreveport, Louisiana Times, June 1, 1949.

The earliest records I've been able to find of Mrs. Smith and Stella are from 1949, and the last mention of little Stella I've found was in a photo showing her standing next to her handler at the Smith's pony farm, in a 1955 issue of the Los Angeles Times. Brookside Stella's name also appears in a 1951 newspaper article on the Grand National Exposition, Horse Show and Rodeo at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, as having been "exhibited by Kenmore Stables," and also as being owned by Kenmore Stables at the 1951 Los Angeles International Horse Show. Kenmore Stables was in San Diego, so it appears that little Stella changed hands more than once. She was back at the Smith pony ranch by 1955, though, as we know from the LA Times article from the same year, and from the foil sticker on the base of the HR "Brookside Stella" from 1956.

Los Angeles Times, February 6, 1955. 

An interesting footnote to this story is that some of Mrs. Smith's other ponies competed against the Hackneys owned by the Owl Truck and Construction Company, which also owned the team of Belgian horses that included Sespe Violette, subject of another Maureen Love design for Hagen-Renaker, the B-567 Belgian mare of the same name.

My own Monrovia "Brookside Stella" lost her original base over the years, so she now has a new wooden one.

"Brookside Stella" group shots courtesy of the online Hagen-Renaker Museum.

Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Magazine, 1952-1953

Horse magazines are an important part of the education of the model horse collector, and indeed all horse lovers.  Magazines teach us about horse breeds, about famous horses and riders, stables and horse events.  And when I found some old horse magazines at an estate sale last year, they taught me a little more about the history of the horse in California in the mid-twentieth century.

The ad for the estate sale said the items had belonged to the widow of a man who had been a race horse trainer in Southern California, which of course piqued my interest.  It turned out that not only had Don Early trained Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses, he had also been the editor of more than one Southern California-based horse magazine in the post-World War II era.  

Apparently neither publication lasted long, but they did capture a snapshot in time, when the work of the horse had shifted from agriculture and transportation, to recreation and sport.

This blog post will focus on one of the magazines, Pacific Coast Quarter Horse.  I found issues dating from July 1952 to June 1953.

The cover of the premier issue featured the filly Sue's Joela. 

"ON THE COVER -- The intelligent-looking, well-conformed youngster gracing our first cover is the 1952 foal of an Illinois-owned mare shipped to California to the court of Joe Reed II.  The dam is Sue's Answer, by Question Mark out of the Joe Reed mare, Sue Reed."  

The  Table of Contents page listed the officers and directors of the PCQHA.

We can see editor Don Early, who saved copies of the magazine for decades, in the middle of the page.

The letter from the president of the Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Association, Richard Danielson, Jr., hoped that "this magazine will make new friends for the Quarter Horse."

Subsequent issues featured cover photos of some of the best-known Quarter Horses of that long-ago day, including who chestnut stallions, Harold Hutson's Buzzie Bell H (August 1952) (Daybreak x Lucky Strike Bell mare), and Joe Reed II (November 1952) (Joe Reed x Nellene).

The speedy stallion Senor Bill (Chicaro Bill x Do Good) was featured on the October 1952 cover.

Other covers featured racing filly Bardella (Three Bars x Della P) (January 1953)  and stallion Bart B.S. (Dee Dee x Mable Tet [TB]), affectionately known as the Grey Ghost (March 1953) .

The last issue of the publication at the estate sale, June 1953, featured the venerable stallion Texas Dandy (My Texas Dandy x Streak).  The letter from the president of the PCQHA said that the magazine was struggling due to lack of advertisers.  

The editor had also saved a small stack of PCQHA letterhead.

What impressed me more than the fact that Don Early had kept multiple copies of each magazine, was the fact that he had also kept some of the original art used in the magazine, inked onto white cardstock.  Many of the pieces were unsigned, but others had been created by noted Western artist and horse trainer Mac McHugh. You can see the printer's markings in pencil on the borders of the drawings.

Still others were cartoons by Pawnee Indian artist, illustrator and war hero Brummett Echohawk.

I've donated a set of the magazines, as well as all the original art, to the Special Collections Unit at Cal Poly Pomona University Library.  They specialize in Southern California history, and the collection from the estate of Don Early's widow will help researchers illuminate the history of the horse in Southern California and the United States, in the years following World War II. (Special Collections is also the home of the W.K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library, which holds information about many breeds of horses.) 

I'm sure that others who document the history of the Quarter Horse in the US will be able to provide better context for these copies of Pacific Coast Quarter Horse magazine.  In the meantime, it's a pleasure to show you what I found at this estate sale.  

The Flocked Breyer Model Horses of Diercks & Algyre

I'm always pleased when I see examples of the real horse world overlapping with the world of model horses.  When I was at BreyerFest last month, someone gave me two old Draft Horse Journal magazines for free. And in with the articles and ads and photos of Percherons, Belgians, Clydesdales, and Shires, were a couple of ads that really got my attention. They showed examples of flocked Breyer horses produced by Diercks and Alygyre.

Diercks and Algyre were three women -- Phyllis Algyre, Eileen Diercks, and Eileen's daughter Ruth P. Diercks, who lived in Iowa.  

This ad appeared in the November 1966 issue of The Draft Horse Journal magazine. It shows a team of four Breyer Belgians customized as "four splendid dapple grey Percherons" in "full scotch harness."  The wagon was extra.

And this ad was printed in in the May 1967 issue of Draft Horse Journal.  It shows a flocked Breyer Belgian in harness, as well as a pair of Breyer Quarter Horse geldings pulling a Prairie Schooner. 

I also found some newspaper articles on Diercks and Algyre.  This one is just a photo with a caption, from the October 19, 1969 issue of the Waterloo, Iowa Courier-Sun.  The caption says that the vehicles were made by Ed V. Ramsey of Waverly, Iowa.  

The January 26, 1975 issue of the Waterloo (Iowa) Courier calls the women of Diercks and Algyre "national authorities" on making model horse harnesses.  

A nearly full-page article appeared in the January 21, 1976 edition of the Greene (Iowa) Recorder, that provided a wealth of details about the company and its work.  

The article gives us some insight into how Diercks & Algyre customized Breyer horses and made harnesses for them.  I saved the narrative and the photos in sections to make it easier to read.

Headline

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Photos

A few different companies and individuals have produced flocked Breyer horses over the years.  You can read more about flocked model horses in the Model Horse Collectibility blog:

http://modelhorsecollectibility.blogspot.com/2016/04/collectibility-test-of-flockies-vs-cm.html