Brishen and Friends

And the winners are – a Buttermilk Buckskin Brishen Sampson, a Buckskin Blanket Appaloosa Smarty Jones Hakan and (not pictured on the web site as of my posting) a Black Pinto Bluegrass Bandit Stella.

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/search/breyer

Again, the standard disclaimer applies: nope, I really did not know ahead of time. 

(Incidentally, I went back and looked at the Stablemates bin tag UPCs: it’s the 6217 Mystery Unicorns Assortment – the one with the Navy Blue Alborozo. Adjust your expectations accordingly. Or not!)

I’ll have to see them in person, of course, before I make my final decisions – there are a few other models I’m considering adding to the herd in the meantime, besides – though the Bluegrass Bandit intrigues me the most. I know some hobbyists aren’t too fond of the mold, but I am hoping that translates into making it the easiest of the three to find/choose from.

While I like the color on the Brishen – it is very reminiscent of the color on the 2017 Bollywood Surprise Harley, who was very well-received generally and I liked very much also – I am a little bit disappointed that they went with the “standard” version of the mold.

The Brishen mold has two different versions of the mane (up and down), two different versions of the tail (up and swished), and even two different versions of the legs (feathered and unfeathered). Of the 11 previous Special Runs or Regular Runs of this mold (excluding gloss variants or Tests), six of them have been the same combo as the original Premier Club Brishen release: the “up” mane, the “up” tail, and the “feathered” legs.

I get it, the “fluffy” version the most popular variation of the mold, but of the eight different possible mold combos, four remain completely unexplored, and two – the Dag Dia version, and the Novelisto D version – have only been used once.

I have a sneaking suspicion we’ll be seeing more of this mold again soon, possibly/probably as a Special Run for next year’s “Celtic Fling”-themed BreyerFest. Reeves certainly hasn’t been timid about using different mane and tail combos before, either with Surprise models, or with 50/50 Splits like this year’s Roxy release Diana.

At this point I am on the fence about whether or not they’ll use the Brishen mold as the Surprise model, though; while the mold is still just a bit too popular for that sort of thing, but he’s still had a relatively limited number of releases and all those mold options to explore.

And speaking of that, since Sampson will undoubtedly be popular – with some hobbyists exploiting the pre-order option on the TSC web site to essentially put a chunk of the initial store stock on hold – those of us initially left out in the cold may need to take a deep breath and either wait for second shipments to arrive, or get some sort of confirmation on production numbers before paying a premium.