Tuesday, September 10, 2019

Boundaries

It was a pretty good day at the flea market, all things considered:


This wasn’t all of it, just the most interesting bits. (Looks like I’ll be doing that Christmas-themed Western Horse custom after all!) The ceramic Dinosaur came out of a box lot of figurines that one of my regular vendors gave me a sweet deal on, and the MiniWhinnies were in a bag of Schleichs and other plastic/rubber toys.

In other words, it looks like I am well on my way towards restocking my Dollar Table for next year!

(Before you ask: that Dimetrodon is definitely staying.)

Normally I’d be way more excited about the two aquarium figurines I found, but I happened to watch a video of the auction I had to miss on Saturday, and there were dozens (dozens!) of vintage ones there sold in box lots. I hoped a few of them would have shown up at the flea market but alas, I had to content myself with just these two.

I am a cheapskate, so buying them piecemeal on eBay or at antique shows/malls is not my preferred option.

How much is too much? I won’t pay more than five dollars per piece usually, and it has to be pretty special to me to cough up a fiver (or more) for it.

In comparison, my model horse spending limit is $350 for a single item. Not counting the two “Exclusive Events” I’ve attended, and all of the associated costs of BreyerFest, I think I’ve come close to that limit maybe two or three times?

However, relatively speaking, it is really quite a low boundary – especially when you consider how my tastes run.

While I don’t begrudge hobbyists who have higher spending tolerances, I sometimes do find myself casting a slightly skeptical eye their way. I’ve been in this hobby (and a few others) long enough to be wary of folks who spend a lot of money in relatively short periods of time: I have sometimes seen it not… end well, not just for the person or persons involved, but the hobby as well.

One of the foundational aspects of the model horse hobby was that it was an affordable alternative to the “real” horse world, and I’d hate to see price escalation push people away.

But this is also one of the reasons why I got into researching Breyer History in the first place: while I will probably never be comfortable competing with money, competing with knowledge I can totally do. And one of the reasons this blog exists is so that you can, too. 

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Smells like price shaming.

timaru star ii said...

In the WV welcome center there's a Dimetrodon skeleton. I am fascinated.

Anonymous said...

And I wholeheartedly thank you for all the knowledge you put out there on this blog! I collected Breyers actively through my childhood, right up until college in the early 90s. College and marriage and small children put Breyers on hold, so I am only just now returning to them. I've enjoyed revisiting things I have forgotten and things I just plain never knew. Maybe I'm just nostalgic, but I do miss the old days! The new Breyers just don't "speak" to me like the old ones did, and I cannot afford most of the new ones anyway. Thankfully, there's ebay :). I find a lot of my old favorites there for reasonable prices. As a child, I would save my dimes and quarters for months to be able to buy a Traditional sized model, and at that time, prices of $15 seemed almost unattainable. I can hardly justify spending $50 for one now . . . . I'm a bit of a cheapskate like you though, and wish I lived in an area with thrift stores as good as yours! I've NEVER seen a Breyer here, which is odd, since we are only 9 hours drive from Chicago. You'd think some would have migrated this way. It is farm country though, so perhaps with all the real horses around, no one felt the need for toys.
Thanks for the work you put into educating us!

Anonymous said...

I so appreciate your posts and the knowledge that you share. The love of Breyer horses was passed to me by my grandmother in the 1960s, and I love the old molds, too, especially the older ones that hold special memories. Thank you for giving us information about this hobby.

Carrie said...

Nerd out for the day: Dimetrodons are more closely related to mammals than to reptiles or dinosaurs, phylogenetically!