I found this picture a couple of weeks ago when I was looking for something else entirely (a photo of a certain well-known hobbyist at one of their very first live shows, looking both awkward and adorable). It’s my entire collection at the very beginning of my “hobby career”:
Most of the Traditionals and Classics were gifts – Christmas, Birthday, Easter, etc. – and most of the Stablemates were ones I purchased myself with my allowance money. I still have most of these models, though I did lose a couple shortly afterwards when I discovered the awesome but mostly terrible power of nail polish remover.
The Stablemates were the early ones and a couple of these models (Man o’ War and the Western Prancing Horse) were Chalkies, but for the most part most of these models were then (and are now) pretty average in terms of rarity and/or value.
My collection then was a good representation of what was available to a suburban, working-class kid in the Midwest in the 1970s. Okay, I probably had slightly more chances and places to buy Breyers: we were right on the edge of what was considered “the country”, so feed stores were a part of my personal horse-buying equation, too.
(Flea markets came much, much later.)
I buy and sell collections of this size, composition and vintage on a somewhat regular basis now; in my more pensive moments I’ll wonder what other passion – or lack thereof – made the person who amassed that collection stop.
And wonder what I could do to lure them back.
3 comments:
This is so cool. I still have my carpet herd, in incredibly passable condition, too. Almost all classics, 2 Traditionals, and 5 mini whinnies.
I still have all but one of my original Stablemates; the bay Arabian mare broke a leg and hand to be replaced.
My collection took a hit when I was in college--the combination of being isolated from the hobby (the Internet was less omniscient then), geographically isolated from just about everything, and broke, was hard. I sold a lot of horses for books, which I regret now but could not avoid at the time.
I have to split funds among several expensive hobbies: Model animals and sewing in particular. And music, which is not terribly expensive since I've been given or inherited most of my instruments, but sometimes you have to see that band live and that can cost, especially if you have to travel because they're not coming to your town. I joke that having to work keeps me on a regular schedule and forces me to sleep sometimes: If I could retire now I would run myself into the ground with hobbies.
It's always a treat to see photos like this! Thanks so much!
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