Mirado, et al

Since I’m still feeling a little out of sorts today over last week’s matters, I’ve been trying to work off some of the frustration by starting my Spring Cleaning a couple months early.

I packed away some sales items, sorted out my shipping boxes, and now I’m attempting to get caught up on my more recent Stablemates arrivals, like the Mirado I only just recently unwrapped…

Generally I like him – his carved out ears and raised hoof are adorbs – though he has just a tad bit too much mane for my tastes. (I have the same issue with the Tushar.) Some people are a bit put off by his blue eye, but it doesn’t bother me.

Incidentally, I have so far managed to avoid the Stablemates (and the Squishy Mare) I saw at Tuesday Morning, and since I won’t be on that side of town again for another week, I think I have managed to successfully avoid the temptation.

While I wouldn’t mind picking up some of new Regular Run Blind Bag Mystery Stablemates, I’m getting the impression that my search for them – at least, for the next few weeks or months – will probably be as fruitless as my recent Walmart quests.

At first I thought that making the “chase piece” the same mold as another item in the assortment was a great idea – until I realized that meant it would make the more common example hard to come by as well.

Especially when you use a newer and more desirable mold like Django, and use a brand new Decorator color like Copper Florentine for the “rare” one.

I understand the marketing strategy behind it, but I do miss the old days of Stablemates collecting, when you had multiple simultaneous releases that were produced in roughly the same quantities. Any variances were because of desirability (some colors being more popular than others) or production issues.

On the other hand, that was largely because we only had a handful of molds to work with for over 20 years – 16, technically – until the Kathleen Moody “G2” molds came out in 1998 and blew up the world of Stablemates collectors.

At one point, I had an almost complete collection of Stablemates. I was just missing the Silver Saddlebred, the Poop Paperweight, and a complete Stablemates Stable Set. I’ve since improved upon that original collection – I’ve since found a factory sealed Stablemates Stable Set, and the Wooden Stable, an item so rare I didn’t even think it made it out of the prototype stage.

But the newer stuff? I am so far behind. I lost my Stablemates mojo sometime in the early 2000s: all those new molds and colors tapped me out, then wore me out.

My purchases have been a bit spotty since then, but I’ve made up a bit of ground recently with the web site special offers and such. When I do finally get back into the swing of buying again, I might just stick with Stablemates for a while.

But just the slightly older stuff. Part of the appeal of Stablemates collecting for me is the affordability thing: $100 Copper Florentine Djangos are definitely not in my budget.