And today, despite the snow coming up to her chest, Vita decided to take off after some deer in the yard. (Apparently she now thinks she’s the world’s smallest Deerhound.) Thankfully, the people who finally managed to catch her called the vet’s number on her microchip tag, and the little sociopath is now back home. (The people who caught her thought she was "just the sweetest thing." Ha!)
I’m also sulking about my work situation: basically I’m getting fewer hours (and less money) because I’m doing such a good job at what I’m doing. It’s not manager double-talk - the way the assignments get set up, it’s in the company’s best interest to put the better-skilled people on the shorter assignments, and the less-skilled people on the longer ones. What that means is that in exceptionally busy weeks, less-skilled people get way more hours. Making more per hour doesn’t mean much, when you’re working 10-15 fewer of those hours.
So yeah, not a whole lot of happy in my corner of the world at the moment.
One thing that is making me happy: a big heaping pile of vintage photos I purchased recently. Test colors, live show photos, old photo show pics - all sorts of awesome here, including these:
Yes, those are photographs of the original clay sculpts for the Classic Sagr, Shetan and Johar. Just, wow. I almost feel like I’m touching history!
The bulk of photographs in this archive aren’t quite as impressive. Most of them are reference photos of what we considered the pinnacle of rare and desirable things in the pre-Reeves era: Decorators, Glosses, Horse and Rider sets, early Special Runs, that sort of thing. (Many of these things are still rare, of course, but considerably less desirable in this era of micro runs.)
Back then, information on older models was much, much harder to come by. We didn’t have any books to go by, and early Collector’s Manuals and Dealer Catalogs were almost impossible to find. It was not unusual for those of us with older or more rarely seen pieces to buy, sell and trade photographs of these models to each other for reference.
Even though many of these photographs are no longer technically useful, they’re still valuable - as a document of our efforts of documentation.
Behold, I have finally crossed that final threshold: I’m now collecting research materials about research materials. It’s not just research, it’s metadata!
(Is it time for me to go to bed now? Yes, yes it is.)
1 comment:
Wow - awesome photos -- love seeing these original clay sculptures!! Thanks for sharing the wonderful goodies you just acquired - hope you'll share more soon! Very glad that you are working to preserve Breyer history. I have often worried that the history would be forgotten due to lack of interest and lack of active preservation efforts. I sure would *love* to see someone do a book on Breyer history with more photos and info on vintage items like clock horses, etc.
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