Test Color Bears and Other Dreams

Believe it or not, I’ve seen a surprising number of Test Color and Oddity Bears (including a lovely White one at BreyerFest this year!), so the latest Test Color offering isn’t that much of a shock. I’d love to have him, of course, but I am under no illusion that I will picked for it. I’ve got other things to pay for, anyway.

I had a few spare moments yesterday (work was… more stressful than I anticipated) so I thought I’d Google “Breyer”, “Science-Fiction” and “Worldcon”, and this is what I found:

https://file770.com/meet-the-2022-national-toy-hall-of-fame-finalists

A discussion about Breyer on a Science-Fiction Fandom news web site!?! If some of the names are not familiar to you, Cat Rambo was President of the SFWA from 2015-2019, and Cora Buhlert just won a Hugo for Best Fan Writer.

And proceeding to do a deeper dive, I found these obscure YouTube gems:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp42r0TKP0Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeyBUMvHN34

More proof that the model horse hobby is, indeed, fanac. 

So my childhood fantasy of someday being nominated for a Hugo Award is not completely out there? And the possibility of a Science-Fiction or Fantasy-themed BreyerFest is also not quite as crazy as some may think? 

Sweet. 

Real and True

Highlights of the show: my scheduling issue was resolved (so I didn’t have to leave early), I didn’t miss any classes, I got to pet a cat in the parking lot, and I finished piecing a quilt block. 

But I have no big winners to show you because I didn’t have any. 

I did walk away with seven NAN cards and about 25 ribbons, but a lot of them were lower placings in small classes. Not terrible, but not the experience I was hoping to have. 

We all end up having less-than-ideal showing experiences at some time or another, and this was one of mine, alas. I even tanked in the two Collectibility classes I entered: I think that was the point where I mentally checked out and went in whole hog on my sewing project. 

(I usually bring one anyway because I’m the kind of person who has to overprepare for everything, but I rarely have to break it out.)

I probably won’t be live showing again until early next year. Not because of this experience, but because I have too many other things I need to take care of in the next three months, including the health-related issues I’ve been alluding to. And I have to start planning my next great “adventure” later in the Fall (this is something completely different from next year’s Grand Wyoming Excursion. She says mysteriously...) 

I have also been informed that I “need to” show at BreyerFest Live next year, which means I have to ramp up my sales now, because there is no way I can fit both a show string and a ton of sales items in my car simultaneously. 

The selling part is something I’ve been planning on doing anyway; I wanted to get some of the prep done for that this weekend, but the weather and my slightly bummed disposition got in the way.

In the meantime, here’s a picture of a thing I bought a little while ago that’s not what you think it is:

Aside from the fact that the Clydesdale Stallion was not officially a part of the Presentation Collection, he also lacks the USA mold mark, which means he was manufactured no later than 1970, or a year before the official introduction of the program in 1971. 

The base is different, too: it’s beveled along one edge, not all four. 

I’ve seen a few other Breyers floating around with similar bases, and there’s always been a bit of a mystery about their origin and/or authenticity. Personally, I have come around to the idea that these oddly-based models may have been a part of the “Desk Trophies” program offered by Robbins Metal Craft:

http://breyerhistorydiva.blogspot.com/2010/04/charolais-specials-part-ii.html

Robbins was based in Missouri, and a sticker on the bottom of the base indicates that it was made by a company in St. Louis that (I assume) manufactured trophies and such. Hmm.

The only problem here is timeline. The weathervane brochure dates to the mid-1970s, but the Clydesdale itself is pre-1971. If the trophy program ran for five years (or so), these things should be… slightly more common than they actually are, right? Or at least as common as the official Breyer pieces.

Then there’s the possibility that the Clydesdale might have been a promo item relating to the Budweiser Clydesdales, also based in Missouri. Maybe the company that was tapped to do them was later contracted by Robbins? 

I could spend all day spinning crazy theories to explain his existence. But like most things, chances are that the real and true explanation of his existence is going to end up being a very simple and obvious one.   

Line and Form

Today was not a good day, and I would very much like to crawl under a rock. 

Aside from everything else that’s going on, I thought I’d take my live show paperwork to work to finish it during break and lunch. Not only did that not happen, I didn’t discover until I got home that had left it all at work, so now I won’t be able to work on it at all today at home, either. 

So now I can’t finish it until tomorrow, when I had planned on getting to bed early and catch a couple extra hours of sleep, since I am not going to get much on Saturday because of the scheduling conflict I mentioned before. 

That’s just awesome. And pretty much par for the course this week.

Since I never got around to my Chicago Worldcon report (those notes are also with the live show paperwork. Like I said, not a good day), I want to at least highlight one of the things I bought there: a tiny piece of art I bought from a dealer who had purchased the archives from the estate of Virgil Finlay. 

I wasn’t comfortable buying one of the dealer’s more expensive pieces, but I thought this item – a cover proof from his time illustrating astrology magazines – was both very affordable, and so very, very on point for me, as a horse person attending The Science Fiction Convention in Chicago. The spot colors were also a plus: a very Breyer-esque Blue and Yellow!

I may get it framed some time in the future, but for now it’s just going to reside in my ephemera archives.

Virgil Finlay has always been one of my favorite science-fiction illustrators, and the dream would be to own one of his originals. The dealer had some sketches of horses (not full-on, finished artwork) that were a temptation, but maybe another day, or another lifetime.  

Some of his artwork was on display in the Korshak Collection room at Worldcon – in addition to works by Frank R. Paul, Hannes Bok, Emsh, the Brothers Hildebrandt, and so many others – but the piece that really caught my eye there was Stanley Meltzoff’s cover illustration for the paperback edition of Robert Heinlein’s The Green Hills of Earth. It had a beautiful, painterly quality to it that reproduction just cannot capture. If there was one painting in that room I could have stolen, it would have been that!

(Just being in that room was one of the many highlights of Worldcon.)

Shape and Texture

Not a great weekend, but I did get most of the quilt batt stuff sorted out and a very preliminary showstring put together. Just a few additions, a few subtractions, and nothing fancy-fancy or exotic: as much fun as it is, I don’t have time for the documentation that would involve. 

Plus I found out last week that we’re all on mandatory overtime at work for the time being, which means it’s not even a matter of finding the time. There is no extra time to be had! 

I did have a few moments over the weekend to open up a few packages that have arrived over the past several weeks (don’t get me started!), including an extremely affordable Blue Christmas Zebra! 

I don’t have the complete set yet, because (as I hope you all know by now) I am a very patient cheapskate. Because the Coal is completely off the table for obvious reasons, all I need now are the Green and the Gold. (I know he is not perfect, but neither am I, so it all works out.)

(I’d like a Cave of Lascaux, too, but I’m not holding my breath on that one either.)

Another recent arrival was a little more pricey, but it was about that time of year for me to buy my one really expensive thing, and this was it: 

Although the #971 Horned Hereford Bull was manufactured in Woodgrain through 1964, he is not particularly easy to find. I suspect that his production run numbers were low because the rough texture of his coat made him difficult to paint; the only other Breyer model with a similarly bumpy surface that made it into Regular Run production was the Large Poodle, who ran – probably not coincidentally! – the same years as the Bull. 

Other models with textured surfaces that eventually came out in Woodgrain – including the Polled Hereford Bull, the Buffalo, the Elephant and the Donkey – were all likely Special Run items of extremely limited quantities.

(I’m not 100 percent sure on the Elephant, but let’s not get into that discussion today.)

The Poodle is slightly easier to find, and cheaper too, but that’s because there are fewer Breyer Dog collectors than there are Bull collectors. And those Bull collectors are why I’ll probably never be able to complete my Walking Horned Hereford collection: there ain’t no way I am ever paying $1500 for a Bunyan, full stop…

The Entropy of the Season

Not dead, but a rough week nonetheless.

Whatever was in my eye is no longer in it, but the eye doctor diagnosed me with something else that may require a second opinion.

(I’d rather not talk about it right now, except to say that I ended up having a panic attack in the examination room.)

But dealing with that potential problem will have to wait at least a week, as I have literally DONE NOTHING FOR NEXT WEEK’S LIVE SHOW YET. So my weekend will largely consist of me slapdashing my showstring together.

For funsies I might do some quilt prep too, because it’s that time of the year and I derive some small pleasure basting things together. (My small, valiant effort to battle the entropy inherent in the season, I guess.)

I did buy a Maelstrom from the Halloween Sale, because after the week I had, I deserved a Metallic Green Desatado that Glows in the Dark. I threw in a couple of Spooky Surprise Blind Bag Stablemates, even though I know there’s a high likelihood of me getting two identical ones and I’m in no mood to negotiate trades. I’ll just throw the inevitable duplicate in the sales pile and call it a day.

(Bleh.)

On a more cheerful note, I am oddly more optimistic about Breyer’s chances at the Toy Hall of Fame this year. It was pretty weird to have nonhobby people asking me if I had heard the news about Breyer being nominated!

I went online and saw that Breyer was actually called out by name – and even featured in the title! – of several stories about the nominees this week. We didn’t quite get the same treatment last year, which leads me to think that the news people and/or museum publicists think that we’re a stronger contender?

It’s interesting that the announcement of this year’s winners will occur on November 10th, the day before the Ponies & Palm Trees Exclusive Event in Florida. It’ll make for an interesting (and possibly more drunken?) weekend if it does happen…

(FYI: Stay away from the Absinthe, guys!)

The Inherent Danger of Shiny Objects

The past four days have been an absolute nightmare that ended with me in Urgent Care this morning with an eye problem. 

This is an entirely separate problem from the exhaustion thing, which had led to me spending most of my interrupted weekend in bed, which then led to my back giving out and even more time in bed because I couldn’t get out of it.

Everything seemed fine by Monday morning, I thought. 

Then I woke up with something in my eye Monday evening right before I went to work, and it’s still there.

I just woke up a couple hours ago and it’s quite apparent that whatever they tried to do at Urgent Care did not work, so even further medical intervention may be necessary on Wednesday or Thursday if the situation does not resolve itself on its own by then.

So needless to say, model horse stuff is on the backburner until this is fixed. It’s more irritating than painful, but I’ve had it with my week of sickness and anything involving my eyes makes me nervous and I don’t have the patience to deal with this anymore. 

I have a live show in a week and a half and I haven’t even printed out anything to start assembling my show string. I was just going to treat it as a “fun show” anyway, but it’s like the Universe is attempting to make even that low bar a challenge.

Why can’t I have just a little bit of fun without dire consequences? Must karma always bite me in the butt? 

Here’s a little bit of actual model horse content to keep you entertained while medical professionals prepare to drop more mysterious liquids into my eyes:

It’s the Stardust I had Peter Beagle sign! As far as I could tell, I was the only person who brought a Unicorn to be signed, which surprised me a bit because if you were at Worldcon itself, you would have noticed that it was very… unicorn-flavored. Reeves probably could have done well with a table full of Unicorns in the vendor area. 

 

(FYI: Unicorns taste like cake batter. I recommend the Kroger Unicorn Oreo Knockoffs!)

I chose the Stardust because he was the most readily available Breyer Unicorn that I had, and he’s one of my favorites anyway, with his darling little space pants. Photographs were taken of the occasion (not of, or by me.) I also told Mr. Beagle that he had many fans in the model horse community and that we’d love to see him someday if he’s willing and able. 

Burmese

So much for my grand plans for the week: my body completely crashed and burned on me Thursday morning after work, and I’m still not anywhere near functional. 

I mean, I knew it was coming – there’s no way I was going to party that hard without consequences! – but I was kind of hoping to put it off until the weekend, when I could afford the time.

In lieu of Worldcon bits and pieces today, I suppose it’s appropriate to say a little something to mark the passing of the world’s most famous hobbyist this week. 

I won’t bore you, again, about the time I met Queen Elizabeth’s lady-in-waiting at BreyerFest; you can use The Google Machine if you want to re-read it. I do want to say a little bit, though, about the first Breyer Special Run created specifically to honor one of her horses, Burmese:

You don’t see or hear much about this 1990 German Export Special Run nowadays because it’s a rather boring and unremarkable thing: a solid, unshaded Black paint job on a Traditional Secretariat, a mold few people love or collect. 

Only 500 pieces were made – which was pretty typical for a special run of that era – and for a brief moment after they were released there was a market for them. There weren’t a lot of special runs getting made around that time, and this one was initially available only through European dealers, which made it a hot commodity among U.S. collectors for a while.

You don’t see many of them for sale today. Some of it can be chalked up to the passage of time: it was released over 30 years ago, and there have only been a million or two special runs released since then. 

Burmese was also a product of its time: as a consequence of its shift in production from Chicago to New Jersey, they lost a lot of the talented employees that made Breyer what it was. Reeves was primarily a distributor, not a manufacturer, and they could ill-afford those losses.

While many of the models that were released during this time were (and are) beloved by the collectors who discovered the hobby during that era, those of us who came before (and after) are a little more sanguine about them. 

Everything and everybody goes through a rough patch or two in their lives, and if the models Reeves released during this time period were the worst of theirs, I think weathered it well.

(Let us not speak of Shrinkies.)

Will Burmese see a renaissance of interest now, in light of Her Majesty’s passing? Perhaps. Mine is not going anywhere: I am rather fond of the Secretariat mold for a variety of sentimental reasons, and I am not the kind of person who sees my collection purely in monetary terms.

A Very Brief Report From Your Ambassador to Another Planet

Here is the extremely condensed summary of my Chicon 8 report, in the style of Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman:

• Made friends.
• Forged alliances. 
• Plotted the destruction of my enemies.
• Partied like a rockstar. 

I had a wonderful time, and I wish (more of) you could have made it. A bigger and better report of the trip will be posted in a couple of days, after my ears stop ringing and the laundry gets washed.

(And also: I will neither confirm nor deny that there may be video of me dancing somewhere on the Internet.)

One Perfect Day

Even though I had publicly committed to the idea of attending Motor City Comic Con this year, in private I was still apprehensive. The live shows I was attending were private events with familiar folks, but Motor City was… huge. And unlike a live show, it would be utterly anonymous and (essentially) alone.

Not only did I feel unprepared, I could think of so many other things that were better uses of my time that weekend: my garden, working on a Diorama Contest entry, listing my mountain of unsold stuff on the Internet…

But then I got news of Liz Bouras’s passing a couple days before the convention, and that’s when I knew I had to go. Although it was purely a coincidence, it didn’t feel like one.

As many of you may have surmised by now, I have had an… interesting life, to say the least. And some of the more interesting stories have involved me in comic book fandom. One of those stories has me at a Motor City Comic Con in the early 1990s with my fandom friends Ken and Mercy. 

This might have been the first time we met in person; that I cannot remember. What I do remember was that one of the first things they told me when I met up with them was: Liz and Paula are here.

That would be Liz Bouras, and Paula O’Keefe. It’s a long story, but they had been friends for a while, but through the comic book side of things. It was something I only found out about after I “met” Ken and Mercy through the pages of the APA Interlac a short time before.

I never did get to see Liz or Paula that day, but it was strangely comforting to know that other model horse people were present.

You see, when I first entered the hobby in the late 1970s, I was concerned I wouldn’t fit in. I felt that I wasn’t your average horse girl: I like other, more nerdier stuff too, and most of the horse girls in my area balked when I started talking about comic books, old movies, cartoons and Star Wars.

But when I opened up my first issue of The Model Horse Shower’s Journal – the September 1978 issue, to be specific – I learned that I had nothing to worry about. There were lots of people in the hobby just like me. That I found this place was no coincidence: it is where I belonged. 

Although I wouldn’t consider Liz a close friend, our paths crossed many times, and we had several friends in common. I entered the hobby just as she was coming into her own in it, as the hobby was transitioning from its earliest, wildest days to something a little more formalized and organized. 

It wasn’t until early last year that I was able to acquire a custom of hers – a vintage piece from that very era – in a body box lot. She was able to confirm it was hers on [this very] blog, and needless to say, he will be with me always. 

Through a different mutual acquaintance, I also ended up becoming the caretaker of a portion of her hobby papers a while back. It was not long after I made a commitment to collecting not just the history of model horse manufacturers, but of the hobby in general. I had no idea that she had been doing much the same. After her passing, I felt I like I was now carrying a part of her katra.

But anyway, back to the Comic Con. I hesitated to buy tickets ahead of time, so I found myself standing in the shorter line to buy tickets at the opposite end of the building. I was minding my own business when someone who had just picked up their prepaid wristbands walked up to me.

“Would you like a free wristband? Someone in our party couldn’t make it, and we have an extra.” 

I was verklempt. Of course I would. In the not-very-short walk to the other side of the building, he asked me what brought me to the convention this year. I told him a little about Liz, and of course about the Breyer Lafayette I had stuffed in my messenger bag. William Shatner was one of the marquee guests this year, and I got the crazy notion several months earlier of having him sign it for me. 

When I got to the end of wristband line, I parted ways with my unknown benefactor. After a moment or two to compose myself, I struck up a casual conversation with the very talkative gentleman in front of me. (As one does at any convention, really.) 

After a few minutes of talking, I realized that… I knew who he was.

I won’t go into the details, because even though some of you are nerds of the highest order, I suspect most of you won’t know who Kim Metzger is or what he’s famous for. He actually apologized for it (he didn’t need to!) 

And again, it felt like kismet: I doubt anybody else in that line that day would have known who he was. At many comic book conventions nowadays comic books have become almost secondary, so the fact that two “old school” fans could find each other, and talk about comic book things at what was ostensibly a comic book convention was… all that I could ask for.

Even if the convention offered up no other delights, the experience had already been totally worth it. 

While I didn’t get to do everything I wanted to do that day (I didn’t get a signed copy of Danny Trejo’s cookbook, or meet Freddie Stroma), I did see what I wanted to see, and attend most of the panels I wanted to attend. And I did get Shatner to sign my Lafayette!

That was when I believe I reached Peak Nerd. There I was at my first Motor City Comic Con in years, wearing a Kingdom Come Superman shirt, waiting in line to have Shatner sign the Breyer Lafayette I had stuffed in my Hello Kitty messenger bag. The only thing that could possibly be missing was a lightsaber or sword. (Though to be honest, I did briefly shop for one!)

(He smiled and said “Thank you”, by the way. I’m pretty sure I was the only person who actually brought him a horse to sign that weekend. I wish I could have said something in return, but like always, I found myself speechless.)

I walked out of the building that day and marveled at how everything had fallen into place to make this experience a reality: I could not have asked for a more perfect day. I was so glad I said yes to what the Universe had in store for me.

People always tell me that I’m brave to do some of the things that I do, like traveling cross-country alone. I don’t necessarily see it as a matter of bravery, but necessity. Life is meant to lived, for as long as you have it: when an adventure offers itself, sometimes you have no choice but to take it.