Fangirls

Providing that they produce sufficient quantities of everybody to meet the demands of everyone in line, I don’t think I’ll be disappointed with any of available selections in the Breyerfest Tent this year. Like most folks, the Blue Tortuga Five-Gaiter is pretty high up on my selection list, but Sprinkles and the Idocus aren’t far behind either. (Wow, what a surprise - buckskin really suits him!)

Just about the only one I’m not really interested in is the porcelain. I’m sure it’ll be lovely, I just uncomfortable spending $150+ on something that has a high likelihood of getting broken. I’m clumsy, and that’s a part of the reason I collect plastic in the first place. (There’s also a part of me that screams "Breyers that aren’t plastic aren’t Breyers!" But that’s the same part of me having issues with a local, very snooty toy store and its even snootier clientele. Long story!)

The most exciting announcement for me was the QH Gelding "Birthday Surprise" SR: the same model, three different colors, and he’s wrapped up so you can’t tell which one you’ve got until you open him up - after you’ve left the line. So basically, he’s a Gambler’s Choice model. Since the upper end for Line Specials lately has been around 1500, that’s around a 500 piece run for each color. A large piece count overall means a lot of people will have the opportunity to get him: regardless of the color you get, he’ll be one of the scarcer models available this year. Win-win!

What’s making me very, very happy about the idea is the fact that it was one I suggested in the "BreyerFest Special Run Suggestion Threads" on Model Horse Blab (right down to the "wrap it up so they can’t see it" part!) Reeves asked for suggestions, and the Gambler’s Choice idea was mine. They liked my idea - and implemented it! Yay for me!

It’s entirely possible that they had something like this planned all along, but my life hasn’t exactly been filled with happy surprises lately, so I’ll just set that notion aside for my own mental well-being.

Way back when (in the Chicago days - gack!) I used to write a yearly letter of my suggestions for future molds and colors. I’m sure the first letter I wrote was probably about Ruffian - along with at least a few hundred other little girls. (And of course, it just had to be my letter that finally convinced them to do it - right?)

The best part was that sometimes I’d get a letter back thanking me for my ideas, and that made me a very happy camper. They took the time to respond to my suggestions and questions - and sometimes implemented them! Not only did it encourage me to write more letters, it made me a complete, total Breyer fangirl. (Yes, I saved most of those letters. Duh!)

When you think about it, the entire hobby is based on that concept: we’re all "fangirls." The focus of our obsession just happens to be horses, not comic books, anime or online gaming. (Though there’s a rather large overlap - and speaking for myself, I could just as easily devote an entire blog to the Legion of Super-heroes. Seriously.) We know more about horses than most horse owners do: anatomy, breed standards, pedigrees, genetics. And not just about one specific breed - but all of them!

There was no better illustration of this than what happened at a BreyerFest a few years ago. Reeves managed to get Dr. Sponenburg to give a lecture about equine color genetics - and as I sat in the back, observing the crowd as much as the lecture itself, it struck me that it was probably better attended than a lot of the academic lectures or seminars he’s given!

Voluntarily attending an academic lecture on equine color genetics. At a "toy" convention. For fun. If that’s not the definition of nerdy, nothing is!

Writing a thrice-weekly column about obscure Breyer model trivia probably also qualifies.