Plushie Goodness

The box of goodies from Reeves has been sitting in my office, unopened, since Friday. But it’s the pile of plush goodies I found at a couple local Salvation Army Stores over the weekend that has me most tickled:

Technically I guess this counts as my first local find, since one of them is the #10112 War Admiral plush from the Seabiscuit movie merchandising back in 2004-2005?  But I only happened to find him after spotting a couple other horse-shaped objects on top of the giant plushie pile, and decided to go digging.

Whenever I’ve brought plushes to BreyerFest, they’ve always sold well. So I always consider it worth the effort.

Plushes are a relatively new Breyer thing. The first official plushes in 2001 were Christmas-themed items, but in 2002 they unleashed a veritable herd of merchandise, both as Seasonal and as Regular Run items.

The first BreyerFest Plush Special Run was the “Spanish Bucky” – complete with a fringed sombrero and red rose – in 2004. He was listed in the program that year in the “Mid-Year Product” section, though I don’t recall seeing him for sale anywhere other than BreyerFest. I do recall purchasing one in the NPOD year or two later, at a significantly discounted price.

It wouldn’t be until 2012 that the Plushes would become an official BreyerFest Thing.

And of course this year, Reeves went into partnership with Aurora to launch a whole new batch of plushes.

Although I do have a few – a Pony Gone Wild who was included in a Grab Bag ages ago, and the Wind Dancer Bali because I thought it was particularly cute – I don’t make it a point to collect them, because I already have enough stuff and the dog will confiscate them anyway.

(Before I went all-in on the model horses, I will admit to fantasizing about buying a Shetland Pony-sized horse plush that dangled from the ceiling of Circus World but alas, he was far too pricey for my $2 a week allowance back then!)

So most of these goodies (I’m still undecided on the François Pompon Polar Bear) will go in the sales stash.