Cliff Diving 2: Sparky and Jules

Still trying to process this….

Yep, I bought two carousel horses, including the screamy guy I kind of fell in love with. His legs are a mess, but dat face! 

Technically, it’s more like pieces of two carousel horses, but the better and fancier horses went for better and fancier money, and the prices for these guys were in the “moderately desirable Web Special Run” range.

I still can’t believe I did that, though. It feels like I just bought two real rescue horses and now I have to make arrangements to get them taken care of, ahhh….

No, actually, feels more like last year when I took that chance on the Chasing the Chesapeake Event. I was mildly to moderately terrified at the enormity of the task ahead of me, but it turned out wonderful in the end.

This will too.

If this does anything, it will motivate me to do that serious herd thinning I’ve been putting off. Partly because I’ll need the money to get Sparky and Jules all fixed up, and also to make a place for them in the house.

(Can you guess who is who?)

I’ll also probably be abandoning a lot of my customizing and craft projects because cripes almighty, I just took on the two biggest craft projects ever…

(Not the quilts, though. Quilt projects are carpool-friendly.)

Breathe girl, breathe.

Are You Serious?

I thought my budget was safe.

The flea market has been relatively uneventful, the pickings slim on the thrift store circuit, nothing’s out at my local Tractor Supply yet, the Tuesday Mornings were mostly cleaned out by the time I got to them, and even Craigslist has been quiet…

And then my brother shows me this ad, and my world gets turned upside down:

http://rowleyauctions.com/community-event/outstanding-45-year-collection-auction/

Are you kidding me?

A live auction with real, honest-to-goodness Vintage Carousel Horses that’s literally a twenty-minute walk from the house?

Gee, thanks again, Universe.

To give you some evidence of the seriousness of my desire to own the “ultimate” model horse, behold the cover art of the second (!) issue of my MGR Sampler, from 1995:

Now I find myself doing the math to figure out if buying one of the fixer-uppers is actually feasible. As long as I stay away from the Dentzel or the Greyhound I might be fine, right? (I have been eyeing the tragic, screaming pinto on top of page two. I think he needs me.)

Yeah, right. It’ll probably devolve into me taking lots of notes and pictures while I mutter cuss words to myself the moment every piece soars past my teeny budget. (They just bid HOW MUCH on that pile of horse parts? Are you ******* kidding me?)

I might not be able to afford one, but can’t not go, either. Carousel parts do turn up at the flea market and local antique malls from time to time, as there used to be a considerable number of amusement parks in this area.

It has been a while since I have seen a genuine carousel animal, though. (I think that one that did turn up around here ended up being spotlighted on an episode of Antiques Roadshow?) I cannot pass up the opportunity to see over a dozen for auction, so close to me.

It’s just more proof that I pretty much do live in the best model horse shopping zone in the U.S., outside of the Reeves Warehouse.

Ooh, Shiny!

Sorry about the unannounced mini-holiday. I recently restarted serious job-hunting, and I had forgotten how enervating the whole process was; I guess it finally caught up with me this week. I know I shouldn’t be reading too much into the initial lack of responses, but it does mess with your head regardless.

As a result, I haven’t been able to work up much enthusiasm over this week’s spate of announcements and new releases. The Walkabout Farms Rolex SR Strapless is nice, but I liked the subtler dapples of the 2007 FEI SR Dapple Gray better. The Porcelain Esprit is pretty, but it’s a Breakable. I love the Big Ben mold, but I despise LeRoy Neiman, so the Deco Big Ben leaves me …conflicted. The newest BreyerFest SRs just annoyed me: another Silver? Really?

The one model that did catch my eye was the 2010 Christmas Horse: a light bay, loose-mane Show Jumping Warmblood named Jewel. This surprises me, since it is not a series I have a lot of emotional or monetary investment in. I have Snowball and Snowflake; I liked the Snow Princess Rejoice and Noelle Goffert too, but not enough to buy either one.

But Jewel really strikes a chord. I think it’s his resemblance to a Carousel Horse that’s doing it: just like a real Carousel Horse, he sports a fanciful but not entirely implausible saddle, encrusted with rhinestones and beads.

I’ve always loved Carousel Horses; I sketched them obsessively in high school, fantasizing that I’d someday have the time and talent to create a Traditional-scale Carousel, complete with mirrors, motors and lights. That never happened; I’ve created a couple of Stablemate-scale ones, and I may cobble one or two Traditional ones yet out of my Body Box of Nightmares, but an entire Carousel? Not likely.


Original Carousel Horses were painted realistically, more or less; some of them came with gilded manes and tails, and pintos weren’t necessarily based on real pinto patterns, but the intent was obvious. It was the costuming that made them otherworldly: tigerskin saddle blankets, wreaths of roses, cherubim, ribbons, tassels, swags, chains, feathers, flags, armor, scimitars - sometimes all on the same horse!

You could say I was more than a little bit disappointed by Breyer’s first attempt at replicating a Carousel Horse: the "Merry-Go-Round Horse" from the 1985 J.C. Penney’s Christmas Catalog. He’s a Little Bit Morgan, painted mauve and bubblegum pink …with a boring little hot pink English saddle. Yawn:


The Carousel he was supposed to fit into never materialized; it and the Carousel Unicorn that were advertised in the 1985 Montgomery Ward's Christmas Catalog were never sold as far as I know, at least through Ward's. Some of the Unicorns eventually turned up for sale in the early 1990s, untacked and unmounted, via the Riegseckers, who were contracted to do the finish work on them. (They also had some leftover Morgans, similarly undressed.)

Reeves finally did the research, and got the Carousel aesthetic right in 2000 with the release of the 50th Anniversary Carousel Musicbox, and the Carousel Ornament series. I have a few of the ornaments, but not the Musicbox - it’s beautiful, but a bit too pricey (and fragile) for my tastes.

Jewel might be more my speed, and price. Like everything else, I’ll have to wait and see.