Stablemates Speculation

First – before you get any ideas – I’ve already secured one, so if you’ve managed to have a few extra, feel free to distribute them to other needy Stablemate collectors elsewhere. I’m good!

I am talking about the Foiled Again Special Run Stablemate that is selling like … a rare Special Run Stablemate on eBay. I would have thought that the enthusiasm for them would be leveling off a bit by now, but they’re still selling at a good clip in the fifty-dollar range, and sometimes better.

This is, by the way, the upper range of what cheapskate me would spend for a limited edition Stablemate. This is also why I don’t own a Silver G1 Saddlebred, the Poop Paperweight, or any of the super-rare German Special Runs. Among many others. (Swirly Exclusive Event Trivia Contest Stablemates, I’m thinking of you.)

The piece run on the Foiled Again appears to be in the range of 3000, give or take a few hundred. While this may seem low, it’s about double the piece run for last year’s BreyerFest One-Day Stablemates (1750, I think?) This is why it seems a little odd to me that they’re going for twice what an average One Day SM goes for, this early in the game.

I’ve seen some rationalization that that’s because the Foiled Again was a publicly distributed item: many of them will be ending up in the hands of nonhobbyists, therefore reducing the number of pieces circulating within the hobby proper.

There is some truth to that, yes: low-number items vanish rather quickly when they are distributed to the general population. Take the fabled Pink and Blue Elephants of the 1950s, for instance: at least a few hundred of each had to have been produced and distributed, but where are most of them now? Not in hobbyist hands!

On the other hand, Reeves went out of their way to let us know when and where it was being distributed.  I suspect that a higher-than-average percentage of racetrack regulars also know what Breyers are and have an inkling that maybe it might be something they don’t just hand off to the kids or grandkids (unless they’re collectors already).

In short, I don’t think the attrition rate on these Stablemates will be as high as other Stablemate Rarities, most of which were very low piece runs, and barely advertised.

But I also don’t think the prices, at the level they seem to be at now (fifty-ish) are too unreasonable.

Not a bargain, but I don’t think you’d be losing a significant amount of money in the long term. Stablemate collectors are a dedicated bunch, and the prices on them seem way more stable (pardon the pun) than they are for other scales.

Allegedly there’s going to be another Foiled Again promotion in the near future, but I haven’t spent much time looking into that, due to work.