Feeling My Oats

What do you do when someone offers you a basket of horses?

You buy the basket of horses, of course! Especially since the basket got thrown in for free! Sweet!

No actual Breyers or Hartlands, just some Hong Kong copies and a Barbie Dallas. There’s nothing here I intend on keeping, though I will be talking about the Classic Quarter Horse copies later in the week; there’s actually a really interesting story behind them. But today is definitely not the day for me to go rummaging through my reference files.

(If there’s anything here that’s interesting to you, by the way, most of these guys will be in my very well-stocked Dollar Table selection at BreyerFest this year. The Barbie Dallas won’t be, though - he’ll be a couple dollars more, and either be sitting on a shelf or in the body box, depending on the space situation.)

I also picked up a nice - though not mint - Adios, some cool minis, a couple of adorable handmade ceramic Bloodhounds from ca. 1971, another stack of old quilt blocks, and a vintage fluorescent pink floral muu muu. Apparently I'm going as my Grandma Jankowiak for Halloween this year. (Tillson Street, here I come!)

There were a few other horses I passed up. Most of them were a bit overpriced - 18 dollars for a slightly yellowed and bloated Bay Running Mare? No can do.

I also got into a slightly heated shouting match with one dealer whom I normally respect. He picks up Breyers from time to time, and they tend to be both decently priced and in good shape; I always try to give his booth a little extra attention when I happen by.

Yesterday, he had a Hartland Regal Saddlebred. You know, this guy:

(Link to recently ended eBay auction)

It was a little rough, with some dings and a few sloppy old paint touch ups - about average for the 11-inchers. The price was actually good for the mold and the condition it was in, but he insisted that it was a Breyer, and I must have been feeling my oats that day because I insisted on telling him that it wasn’t.

"It’s a Breyer."

"No, it’s not."

"Yes, it is."

There was about five minutes of that, followed by him walking away, and me just shaking my head and laughing, not believing the whole thing just happened.

I’ve been going to this flea market long enough that I like to think that I have earned the trust and respect of most of the regular vendors: they know I am not going to baldly lie to them when it comes to the horses. If they ask questions, I answer them honestly and truthfully, and I’ve even occasionally given some of them advice on pricing and marketing! So it came as quite a shock that this guy went almost immediately into "You want to rip me off" mode. 

I never got around to telling him that it was a Hartland. Didn’t buy it either, even though I could have made a nice profit from it. I had already bought my basket of horses, and my glorious you-can-see-it-from-space muu muu, so it’s not like the purchase was going to make or break my day anyway.