There's an online offshoot of Freecycle here, called Kwikswap, sort of an online yard sale. I scored a deal last week: the large Breyer truck and trailer, a vintage black tobiano Stock Horse Stallion, and the SR Stud Spider that came with the truck & trailer set a few years back. Plus a Ben and Brenda Breyer, with most of their clothes. And all for $35.00. The truck set went for $90 when it was in the stores, and that may have been the sale price.
Spider, though, has seen better days. Lots of black marks in the white areas, some rubs in the black areas, pink stains on his back legs, and an odd-looking blue-ish patch on his shoulder. However, he's unbroken, and he's black and white, so I figure he's a good start for learning to do small bits of restoration work.
So far, he's been cleaned up with soap and water to get any random grunge off. I tried the old toothpaste method on the black marks, with a little success. Then someone shared a tip on Haynet about using rubbing alcohol - on the white areas only - so I gave it a shot. It did a pretty good job, most of the black marks came off. Still have the pink stains, though, and that weird blue-looking spot. I may try a bit of bleach on those, I'm not sure what else to try.
After that, it'll be time to dig out the black acrylics and see if I can manage to cover the rubs without being glaringly obvious.
After seeing Spider next to the vintage 1980s Stock Horse Stallion, though, I wonder about Breyer's black & white paint jobs. For some reason, the work on Spider looks really flat. Maybe it's the contrast between the colors - Spider's white is very white, while the SHS is from the glossy-white-areas years (different paint? no paint?) and has yellowed a bit. He seems to have more shading than Spider, though.
