Allen Saxon

Nostalgia doesn’t just live in the past. With the advent of the Internet and ,in particular, EBay, people not only have the ability to find and replace long gone treasured items but they have the opportunity to share in a community of those who value the same relics.

That has been the case with the figures made by Hartland Plastics in the 1950’s and 60’s.

Achieving success with the sales of figures based on TV westerns, they branched out into making statues of prominent sports figures. Unlike Starting Line-up figures of recent years who are basically the same figures painted with different uniforms, Hartland strove for more accuracy. They hired a talented sculptor who created remarkably detailed works. He also applied his skills to their TV western figures. Consequently, Bret Maverick looked like the actor James Garner; the Rebel looked like Nick Adams.

One particularly well executed sculpture was that of the actor Eric Fleming who played the trail boss on the series Rawhide. Fleming’s co-star in that series was a young actor named Clint Eastwood who portrayed the second in command, the ramrod Rowdy Yates. When the series ended both actors moved on to films. Tragically Fleming drowned in the Amazon when a canoe capsized during filming. Eastwood went to Italy to make a western and, as they say, the rest is history.

Ironically Hartland only chose to make the Gil Favor figure. But as I said, EBay introduces us to people who value the same memories. When I learned of the man in California who sculpts custom Hartland figures the ten year old boy in me was awakened and now, in my display cabinet, Rowdy Yates rides the trail alongside his old friend, Gil Favor.