A Tale of Two Ranas

I’ve been wanting to add a Desatado to my herd for a while now, but none of the more widely available releases have really clicked with me. The closest I’ve come is with the Web Special Orion in that lovely pearlescent Perlino Dun – one of my favorite colors – but what they’ve been going for is a little bit beyond what my budget allows.

There was an insanely cheap one on eBay about a month ago, but as April was shaping up to be a rough month for me financially (taxes, dentist appointment, a new radio for the car) I had to walk away from it.

Then Reeves surprises us with this beauty earlier this week:

Normally I’ve been skipping the disappointment of the Saturday Raffle to participate in the disappointment of the Costume Contest: effecting a costume change and getting from the Covered Arena to the Alltech Arena in less than an hour is challenging, and my odds of winning the Costume Contest are fractionally better than the Raffle anyway.

But, oh my goodness, this is the Desatado that I’ve been waiting for. In fact, it’s been a while since I’ve wanted a BreyerFest Raffle model as much as I want Rana.

The costume is already well underway, and buying Rana in the aftermarket will not happen, so I don’t quite know what to do.

The funny thing is that another horse named Rana is currently on my want list: the original Breyer #863 Rana, on the Sham mold.

This Rana also features an unusual color on a moderately popular mold: it’s the Traditional Sham, in what’s been described as “Blue Chocolate.” More precisely, it’s Reeves’ early 1990s interpretation of an unusual form of Black Silver that used to occur in Friesians.

(This was roughly the same era that gave us Clayton and the Majestic Arabian: obscure colors on inappropriate molds were a thing then.)

I’ve been wanting one ever since I saw friend’s example that was more Blue than Black. It was very similar, in fact, to the early Stone Horses “Turquoise” color.

The problem I have in acquiring that Rana hasn’t been a matter of cost, but degree: most of the ones I’ve found are more Charcoal Gray than Blue. While they are not unattractive, they are also not the models I want.

Even though I’ve set myself a rather unusual hurdle, it’s still more likely I’ll come home with the Sham rather than the Desatado. But after what happened last year, who knows?