Firsts of the Year

Getting thing off to a rapid start for the New Year: I’ve already had my first BreyerFest nightmare! Basically we were all kind of running around the KHP and the CHIN bumping into each other, because we’ve all forgotten how to behave in public.

In other words, kind of like being inside a grocery store any time in the past six months. 

Some of the Montanas have arrived, and they’re looking – unsurprisingly – better than expected. I’ve decided I am not going to pursue one unless I get picked from the waitlist, which (if you know my history with waitlists) is a roundabout way of saying I won’t be getting one. 

There’s always the chance there will be leftovers for sale on a first-come, first-served basis at some point, but that doesn’t mean anything in today’s market. And that’s fine, especially since I’m trying to keep my model purchases to a minimum for the next several months, to get caught up on paperwork and stuff. (The office is more of a mess than usual, and I am not liking it. At all.)

He does kind of remind me of the famous Mesopotamian “Ram in a Thicket” sculptures excavated by Leonard Woolley in Ur in the early 20th century. (Technically it’s supposed to be a goat, not a ram, but that’s mere details.) 

If Montana’s basecoat had actually been a deep Lapis Lazuli blue instead of black, that might have changed him from a “Yeah, sure, I’d take one” to a “Hecking YES” because I am kind of obsessed with ancient Mesopotamia: I have a copy of Woolley’s book on my shelves, and one of my favorite works of art at the DIA is the Dragon of Marduk from the Ishtar Gate.

I’m sure there will be something I love more between now and then that might actually break my heart. You know, like another Exclusive Event or Micro Run I won’t get picked for. 

The first Special Run for BreyerFest was announced, a Dappled Rose Gray on the Totilas, and he seems a little familiar: 

Oh yeah, the 2016 Volunteer Special Run Carrick Caipirinha:

I can attest that this color is beautiful in person, but I am not quite as enamored of Ländler as everyone else is. Some of it is “Do I need another tipsy Totilas?” and some of it is “This theme simply doesn’t connect with me on a personal level”. 

More the latter than the former, I think: I can buy a better base for my existing Totilases, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’m sure there’ll be at least one or two models in the lineup that will be must-haves for me, I’m just not predisposed to loving things German-flavored things, aside from Gummi Bears and pretzels. The releases this year will have to work for my love.

We’ve only got about 20-25 more Special Runs to go, right? No worries. 

(And the first Store Special, literally while I was napping! More on Montanara next time.)

Montana

My CCA Box is here! Even though I genuinely don’t care who’s hiding within, I’ll still wait until Christmas to open it. What’s a few more days, right? I’m almost more excited about the Omega Fahim I know is in there: there were a couple at the last toy store I visited a few moons back, but they were clearly the ones left behind after handpicking had been done.

Well, I certainly didn’t have THIS on my Breyer Bingo Card:

I had to do a double take and make sure that the e-mail was actually from Reeves, and not some spoof account, because I thought one of you wiseacres was having a little bit of fun with Photoshop filters or something.

You know I am all for the Outrageous Animal Special Runs - just a few days ago I suggested, completely unironically, a Rainbow Calico Unicorn Kitten – but a Black Florentine Bighorn Ram?

Dude, just… no. 

The color looks cute on the Stablemate Chase pieces it previously appeared on, but here it’s just weird. And not a good way: more like a person randomly poking a model with a metallic paint pen weird.

It’s funny because I was just thinking that the only Web Special Micro Run that I’m almost completely uninterested in is the Bighorn Ram Rodney. I entered for him and would have gladly taken one, sure, but seeing the odd one for sale doesn’t take me to the same dark place other Micro Runs do. 

Same thing will go with Montana. I won’t turn him down if I get one, but I will also not be terribly upset if I don’t, either. I’m pretty sure he’ll look better in person than his press photo, but with a release like this is almost doesn’t matter.

The piece run on this thing is also kind of crazy: 490 pieces? What a completely random (and large!) number. Methinks they’re cleaning out the warehouse and possibly repurposing older/unsellable merchandise. 

For a quantity that large I would have gone with a Gambler’s Choice of two different colors instead – Gloss Chalky Alabaster and Charcoal, or Red and Green Filigree – but that wasn’t my call to make. You know, he might have also been kind of interesting in a patinated color, too, like the old Smoky release Durango. 

Hmm. Any of the older Hess Wildlife molds would look great that way, come to think of it. But then again, we’d have to put up with hobbyists complaining about the eyes not being painted, and that’s not how patinated bronzes work, people…

I have a nice example of the original release of the Bighorn, and both the Gray and Tan horn variations of the Dall Sheep. I’d eventually like to upgrade them to ones with stickers, which aren’t necessarily scarce, but are still a little pricey, nonetheless.

Silver Linings and Gold Trims

Not that one either:

Even though I wasn’t as emotionally invested in Rodney as I had been the two previous Micro Run online Payment-Raffles – Marshall and Dugan – and I’m stretched rather thin financially at the moment, I still entered every day anyway.

I have the two variations of the Dall Sheep – Gray Horn and Tan Horn – and a nice early example of the original Bighorn Ram itself. But I do not have one of the later Reissues, from which the bodies of this Special Run were likely drawn.

I did at one point, but I must not have found the example I had to be particularly appealing enough to keep. (I didn’t find the “right one”, I guess.)

That makes me 0 for 3 since the switch to the online raffle system for Micro Runs, by the way. Y’all know my opinion on this new system, and since I seem to be in the minority about it, that's as far as I'll go.

In the meantime, on to happier things. Here’s another Traditional Man o’ War. There is something special about this guy – can you see it?

He doesn’t have any gold trim on his halter!

Generally hobbyists are quick to label something like this a Cull, but since this model is otherwise flawless (for a model from the early 1970s), I think he is better classified as an Oddity: the gold trim was the last, or one of the last steps in the decorating process, and it was obviously skipped.

A detail like that could have easily been overlooked, especially if it was the end of the day and/or they had to rush an order out. A lot of times even we don’t notice these subtle mistakes, unless it’s a mold we obsess about – like me with the Traditional Man o’ War, currently.

(Which may have been the reason why I got him so cheap!)

Since he has lighter gray (but not Battleship Gray) hooves, a USA mold mark, and warmer orange-brown tones to his body color, this example is probably dateable to the period from 1970-1973.

He also happened to be purchased from the same collection as that mighty fine Bay Proud Arabian Stallion I recently spotlighted, who also from that same time period.

All Dalled Up

I’ve decided that this month I’m going to devote a little time to shuffling and reorganizing the collection, a shelf or a box a day. It seems a less intimidating task that way, plus it gives me the opportunity to stockpile some photos for future posts and topics.

First up are a couple of "office buddies" who are going back into storage; a pair of Bell-bottomed Shires are taking their place in the desktop rotation:

The #85 Dall Sheep was probably released in 1970, shortly after the Bighorn Ram mold it was based on was introduced; the ephemera of that era is, to be charitable, less than clear on the subject. While the original release of the Bighorn Ram continued in production through 1980, the Dall Sheep was discontinued in 1973.

As you can see, in spite of his relatively short production run, he came in two distinct color variations: Gray, and Tan. The Gray ones seem to be more common than the Tan, but I don’t know to what degree. I’m not even sure which variation came first. There are, supposedly, a few pieces out there that have a mix of gray and tan shading, but I can’t recall seeing one personally.

Even though the Gray one may be the more common of the two, I prefer him to the Tan, if only because blue-gray color of the paint contrasts nicely with his pretty brown eyes, an unusual feature for any Breyer release from the 1970s. It’d be decades before see brown eyes again on any Breyer production piece, Horse or Nonhorse.

Although it’s a relatively uncommon Nonhorse release, Dall Sheep aren’t too expensive or too difficult to find. The only exception to that would be if you’re looking for one with a Blue Ribbon Sticker: the few I’ve seen always ended up a little bit beyond my financial comfort zone.