More on the POA

I was going to follow up with more thoughts on the QH Gelding Surprises today, but I think I need a couple more days to ruminate on them; I'm not entirely happy with what I've written so far. (This will involve more weeding and quilting, I'm sure.)

I'll talk a little bit more about the Pony of the Americas mold, instead.

I still stand by my estimate of 750 pieces for the Toby: I saw the cases they came in and they were labeled “x of 125.” I saw no other boxes marked otherwise that would indicate an additional 1000 pieces that might have been a second shipment, unless they have plans for those additional pieces down the road. (Perhaps as Mattes?) That “1750” quantity doesn't even make sense: 750 pieces is a sensible and conservative 50% increase over the previous Traditional Store Special Magnifico. 1500 pieces I could have understood, too (that's a pretty standard JAH SR piece run) if a little overly optimistic.

I think we're being thrown off by this year's slightly lackluster sales: just because there were a significant number of leftovers doesn't necessarily mean that the piece run was high. It just means that hobbyists put their money elsewhere – in the Stablemates Sets, most likely, which even at a mere 500 pieces took until Saturday afternoon to sell out. At a significantly higher price, true, but with a bigger potential return on one's investment. (As many hobbyists probably realized, $100 for twenty SR Stablemates is practically a money-making machine in a box.)

The fact that they were boxed, and not bagged and wrapped, may have played a factor, too. Some hobbyists may have assumed from the visual evidence that he was a larger or open-ended run, not taking into account that a boxed model takes up more table space than a bagged model. I suspect if Reeves had labeled them – either on the box, or in a sign – with the piece count, we might have seen brisker sales.

I attempted to find my photographic evidence of the existence of the elusive SR Black Blanket Pony of the Americas I mentioned in passing on Monday, but it's still lost in my archives somewhere. It's probably for the best, though, since it wouldn't have been terribly impressive: it was dark, out of focus and kinda small. In other words, it was about as convincing as your average photo of Bigfoot.

I do remember what he looked like, more or less: he was painted just like the Bay Blanket POA, except in black. He had a small, splash-spotted hip blanket, and no other markings; I believe he had striped hooves also, but since I can't find That Darn Photograph, I can't be 100% sure of that.


(Just illustrative: nothing special about this particular guy, other than being a particularly nice example of a Bay Blanket POA from my herd. No stripey hooves, extra details or any of that. I'd love a stripey-hoof version, too, but I'm not holding my breath.)

Oh, how I wanted him so – and I still do. He was one of those mysterious late 1970s or early 1980s special runs that drove us all absolutely mad. Small special runs of every variety were popping up all over the country back then – and tantalizing rumors of others – but we often didn't know about them until a lucky collector happened to run across one at a tack shop or in a horse show vendor's booth. And by then, the original run would have been long sold out, usually into the general (nonhobbyist) population.

I still occasionally prowl around the usual web sites, looking for him. Even though he's actually quite easy to distinguish from the regular run POA Pantomime – who had an extensive blanket, blaze, stockings and tan hooves – I still hold out hope that (just maybe) enough collectors won't know about him, or won't notice the differences. I've lucked out before.

But so far ...