More Shiney Variations

The BreyerFest leftovers now, too? Gah!

Okay Reeves, you can knock it off now. You’ve finally earned my last precious bit of walking around money.

Circumstances did not line up in my favor to even make into the Silver Anniversary Shop until Sunday, and everything of interest to me was long gone by then. So I was happy to see they had some of the Silver Filigree Misties in the leftovers sale somehow. I threw in the Sherman Morgan and the Bears onto my order, too. I wanted them anyway, so if either one turns out to be Silver, that’s just a bonus.

That means, of course, that I’ll have to redouble my efforts to get something up for sale in the next few weeks. One tough decision I’ll have to make is which one of my Production Run Smart and Shineys to keep. You see, I just happened to notice a few weeks back that the two I had left had more than a mere difference in shading:

The markings on the muzzles aren’t the same! Aside from the kissy spot, the masking on the lower lip is different, and the markings in the left nostril are neither the same size nor shape.

There’s always some variation with masked markings; it’s just about impossible to have masking be perfectly consistent in an item that runs in the thousands. But the difference here is enough to make me think that there were either two separate runs (like the Gooitzens) or two different production lines running simultaneously.

Significant variations within Celebration Model runs are not that unusual. The first one that springs to mind is 1996’s Tseminole Wind; some of them were made from leftover bodies from the Sham’s 1995 QVC rerelease, and have the "95" mold mark to show for it.

The second is the 2001 Atlantis Bey V: some have masked stockings, and some don’t. I received one of each, and I had such a hard time deciding between the two I ended up keeping both.

I don’t have that luxury with the Shineys, alas. Someone’s gotta go. Right now I’m leaning towards keeping the spotless one.