Someone Drops A Shoe

To work off the drama of the past several days, I spent a good chunk of my weekend either customizing or gardening. 

I didn’t get quite as far with the garden as I hoped: it was hotter than the bottom of a skillet outside, and it hasn’t rained in a while so the ground was the consistency of concrete. It’s definitely looking better, though.

I thought I was doing pretty well with a few of the customs I was playing around with, and maybe even close to done. Then I hit them with a little primer to check my progress, and discovered I seriously overestimated my customizing skills. 

Oof. 

But here’s a bit of good news: the vintage Black Stallion custom is finally finished! Just look at this beautiful boy:

I decided to go with a retro, poofy ‘80s-style hairdo. I am also inordinately proud of the base I made for him: most custom bases in the 1980s were rather crude (compared to the horse, anyway) and he deserved something classy to stand on. 

I am heartened by the support I received in the comments over the Performance Horse Affair. I was initially hesitant to come forward with the story, expecting that it might generate some negative feedback. 

But I thought it was important to put it out there, because (a) it was already a topic of discussion (b) it was something I was personally involved in, and (c) it did not have the happy ending people were imagining it did.

I have a feeling the model itself is now radioactive; I rather doubt we’ll be seeing it again anytime soon. If it does turn up again, it’s going to be awkward for everyone. 

Regardless, the best case scenario is that maybe this will lead to the hobby having a more open and thorough discussion about the etiquette and ethics of selling and reselling, instead of it disintegrating into insinuations that we’re price-shaming people by even mentioning money.

At this point there are between 500 to 750 BreyerFest Benefit Auction models floating around out there. One of them will be mine someday, I know it. There were a lot of weird, homely and unshowable things in those early auctions: Rugged Larks and Khemosabis and all manner of Classics, to name a few. 

This one would have been the best, most perfect ending of my quest. It was one of my favorite molds (Performance Horse), in one of my favorite colors (Red Roan), from one of the few BreyerFest Auctions I personally attended (1993), at an insanely good price.

Alas, no. But there’s an interesting postscript to the story. 

Here’s the other misidentified model I bought from the same seller the same day for the same price, and (fortunately) the sale wasn’t canceled several hours after the fact:

A nice consolation prize, I suppose, even though I already have another Classic Black Stallion Test Color in the stable. (I know, who gets to say stuff like that? Someone who’s not particularly particular about the Test Colors she buys!)

He feels a bit like a Marney Test to me, but his origins are unknown. The less flashy parts of Marney’s collection were being dispersed by sellers at BreyerFest in 1993 – including boring, solid-colored Test Color Classics, Hess Stock Horses and the like – so it’s entirely possible he was purchased around the same time as the APH. 

Not the happy ending I was hoping for, but I’ll take it. 

Core Fandom

Some of you know that I can play “Six Degrees of Separation” game like a champ; it should come as no surprise that I need considerably less than six to get to Stan Lee.

Now is not the time or place to explain in great detail; I only bring it up because it’ll help explain my shocked, but not shocked reaction to the reports of the attempted theft of a centerpiece model at the Scottsdale Stampede.

Comic Book Fandom and the Model Horse Hobby have a lot in common; not only are the social dynamics fairly similar, but there is also a perception among casual participants of each activity that the “core” of it – people, places, activities – is much larger, distant and anonymous than it actually is.

I had been a casual participant in Comic Book Fandom for years. One day I decided to get more involved – by responding to an open invitation to join an APA in a letter column.

What seemed inaccessible – hanging out with the movers and shakers, artists and writers, and all the BNPs – suddenly wasn’t. It was both exhilarating and disorienting to find my new friends gleefully teasing Jim Shooter, making idle conversation with George Perez, and overhearing industry insider gossip both salacious and mundane….

My experience with Comic Book Fandom came with the revelation that the actual dedicated “core” of most hobby communities isn’t that large, and isn’t that remote. It just takes a very modest bit of effort to step it up to the next level.

So anyway, back to this incident. The fact that some hobbyists exhibited bad behavior at a hobbyist-oriented event is not unusual. I have been in the hobby now for over 40 (ulp!) years, and I have seen many things, some of them quite bad.

If you’ve been to BreyerFest even once, you’ve seen or heard similar things.

While there’s some degree of anonymity at an event like BreyerFest (that allows bad things to happen with little in the way of consequences), there is not much room for error at an Exclusive Event (with only 200 participants, many of them repeat customers).

Who are broken into groups of fifty people each.

Where you have to provide proof of your identity when you show up to pick up your models (yes, even me).

And where almost everyone is taking multiple pictures of everyone and everything.

So while I am not shocked that an attempt was made, I am shocked that it was attempted at what is essentially a “core fandom” event: this is the last place on Earth you should try to pull a stunt like that.

You might think you’re anonymous, but trust me: for better or for worse, you’re not.

(FYI: mostly for the better. But you knew that already.)

Sticker Restoration

The schedule changed again, so the little bit of time I thought I had to compose my thoughts tomorrow is gone. Levi will have to stay in his box until Thursday, which is (thinking optimistically!) my next day off.

In the meantime, here is a picture of something that I will, eventually, have for sale once the work schedule returns to something more normal:

There’s nothing particularly special about this Matte Gray Appaloosa Family Arabian Stallion, other than his sticker. He was part of a box lot I bought a little while ago that I hoped would result in some upgrades. That didn’t happen: this guy is in about the same condition - maybe a shade less - than the one I already have in my collection. Good, though not great.

Stickered models - even the mere Family Arabians - are not a hard sell, so I’m not foreseeing a difficult time of it when time makes itself available.

I show him to you because there appears to be a discussion going on - one generated in the Blab "Let’s Generate a Controversy" thread - about the ethics of sticker restoration.

I take the middle ground in this debate: I see no problem restoring or replacing a sticker on a model that has previous evidence of a sticker: either a fragment, or the yellowed residue.

If there is no evidence to be found, there is no sticker to be replaced. In fact, replacing it would be somewhat unethical, because you are adding something to it that it didn’t have before that could also substantially affect its value for the better. A situation not unlike Glossing.

In situations where restoration is a viable option, the issues surrounding it are twofold.

The first is the source of replacement stickers. One could take a sticker off of a far more damaged model. The problem is finding a suitable match; it might be difficult to find another Albino Five-Gaiter with a sticker to swipe, for instance.

And if you do, there’s the issue of removal: even under the most ideal conditions, a 40+ year old sticker is going to be difficult to transfer over without any damage at all.

There’s always the possibility of reproducing the sticker, but that’s where the second issue comes in: which sticker? There were two styles - Large and Small - and some models came with either. Sometimes the sticker fragment or residue is small enough that it’s not possible to determine which one of these stickers it came with.

Also, while I have been able to track the sticker data with a higher degree of accuracy than I thought possible, 100 percent accuracy is an impossibility, outside of some rare documentation showing up. (Oh yes, I have fantasized about old sticker sheets of Blue Ribbon Stickers showing up on eBay. I do not doubt that there is at least one sheet out there, even a partial one, somewhere.)

I’ve done some sticker restoration on some of my models, but it’s been more of the "reconstructing what’s been left behind" type. I’ve uncurled, uncrinkled, reglued, and reattached pieces. I can’t recall if I’ve ever touched up any of them with paint, though I wouldn’t object to it personally, as long as it was discreetly done.

The same would go with the replacement of missing portions of stickers, though I think replacing more than half of it might be wandering into ethically dubious territory, especially if it's the top half with the identifying information.

The Trouble with Midnight Sun

Sort of took the day off yesterday; I even did a little bit of real-world shopping, mostly for necessities, but some Black Friday coupons were involved. Camping out in the Michigan cold? Definitely not!

I’ve been meaning to tackle the issue of Midnight Sun and other Big Lick models for a while, but I didn’t start to collect my thoughts on the subject until the latest long and complicated discussion on Blab.

I lost track of that discussion for a while, so other than bringing up a few points as to why the mold could still be viable in collectibility, I stayed out. Been dealing with a lot of family drama, and I’ve been trying to minimize my contact with it within the model horse world, too.

(Hence my slight shortness on the subject last time. Mom’s been obsessing over a neighbor’s antics to the point where I wonder why she even has cable.)

A brief history of the mold is in order: Midnight Sun really isn’t Midnight Sun: it was originally sculpted as a generic Tennessee Walker, and his identity was assigned later. There’s a possibility that Chris Hess may have partially based the original sculpt on the Grand Wood Carving sculpture of Talk of the Town, the son of Midnight Sun whose exaggerated action gave birth to the Big Lick phenomenon.

Midnight Sun molds can be competitive in collectibility. I know of at least one early 1970s Marney SR in Red Chestnut (a run of five), and the 1984 Congress SR in Flaxen Chestnut, which is a very pretty shade of chestnut, all issues of the mold aside. And Test Colors, of course.

The original Black release of the Midnight Sun does have at least two significant variations that could also be competitive.

The Chalky version is one, naturally. I don’t think I need to explain that.

The earliest (nonChalky) Midnight Sun releases have very distinctive and "clean" (no overspray) gray hooves. It’s quite different from the gray-brown hooves you see on some of the Chalkies and other early examples. It is relatively uncommon; I have one, but he’s in storage right now.

So, if I were judging collectibility, I would not rule the mold out automatically, as long as the model was properly documented/curated as such. In collectibility, we are looking at the model more as an art historical object than as a true representation of a horse. It can be both, but theoretically the anatomical and ethical issues shouldn’t necessarily play a big part in collectibility judging.

Nevertheless, the situation in the Walker world is unique and serious enough that an acknowledgement of the real world issues in the documentation would be necessary, to make it clear that it is being shown as an art historical object only.

As to whether or not I would place it would depend on what’s on the table; in most cases, I think, the mold’s probability of success is relatively low, because desirability does play a part in evaluating collectibility, and the mold has been declining in desirability for some time. This is why I think banning the mold outright is unnecessary: declining desirability will remove it from the showring with less commotion than a ban.

We cannot obliterate the Midnight Sun mold from our history. Aside from the practicality of doing so, they can - and need to - serve as reminders of what has happened before. Erasing things doesn’t necessarily prevent it from happening again, and in fact might make it worse should it reappear. Because for too many people, the absence of evidence does equal evidence of absence.

This is also why I am fine with the Midnight Sun in collectibility - but only as an historical curiosity that should still be studied, not as something that needs to be promoted or perpetuated.

I can understand if some judges want to take swifter action, and take a hardline stand against the mold in all contexts and all situations. I don’t have a lot of Midnight Suns in my collection, outside of the Congress Special Run and the various Black variations, and I doubt I’d ever show any of them in collectibility anyway. I have so many more models that would be more suitable in such classes.

Midnight Sun is at the heart of the discussion that’s raged in the model horse hobby for years: should it strive for absolute realism or idealization? Depict the real horse world as accurately as possible in miniature - warts and all - or "perfect" it with the most idealized/correct representations of breeds or breed standards? (What Does Exist vs. What Should Exist)

While many hobbyists say they are striving for "absolute realism", what they’re actually going for is closer to idealization. If idealization becomes the default standard (which I tend to think it will, eventually) then I believe it is imperative that we strive to promote more humane training methods and natural gaits, and discourage those that are not.

(Note: I don’t necessarily have a problem with either judging philosophy - realism or idealism - as long as the judge or showholder makes it clear which philosophy they subscribe to ahead of time and I can adjust my showstring accordingly.)

Shifting Priority

I was distracted yesterday by a non-model-horsey project out in the garage that took longer than anticipated, so I decided not to rush myself on the blogging. I have most of next week off, so I figured there would be plenty of time to play catch up.

Speaking of, I will definitely be taking a break from the NaNoWriMo thing this year. It’s not for a lack of ideas or inspiration; it’s more a matter of changing priorities. While cleaning out my craft supply stash for the garage sale a few weeks back, I was mildly horrified by the number of unfinished projects I found, and how emotionally attached I was to them still.

So I’ve decided to spend November finishing as many of those things as I can, instead of starting another novel that will just become another project in my already considerable queue.

I suppose most - or at least, many - of you have heard about or seen the pair of Connoisseur Swirling Sky samples that turned up on eBay this past week - in China. One finished, one unfinished.

I have no doubt that they are "authentic" - in the sense that they were factory-made, and not faux-finished. I’m rather surprised, actually, that it took this long for listings from China to show up on eBay, considering that production has been going on there, more or less, for over a decade now.

I briefly considered bidding/buying, but two things held me back.

First, of course, was the price: another Swirling Sky Sample surfaced in the Sales Tent/Pit this year, and was resold on eBay for a price less than the Chinese seller’s initial listing prices. In spite of all the drama surrounding the "Friday Morning Festivities", the resell prices on most of the Samples and Oddities found within are not outrageous.

There are always a few real gems in the mix, yes, but the value of most is in the eye of the beholder. The Swirling Sky Andalusian is not one of the higher-demand Connoisseurs, also: I found him to be an interesting concept that didn’t completely work. I wouldn’t have tossed him out of the keep box if I had found him, but his absence doesn’t sting as much as the Sample Clydesdale Mare Palisades.

(I’ve been halfheartedly shopping around for the Picture Perfect Black Pinto Clydesdale Mare as a suitable substitute, but dang, I didn’t realize she was so popular, too!)

The second point of hesitation was that it was directly from China.

We all engage in rationalizing behaviors when it comes to pretty ponies of questionable provenance. I bought a number of pieces from the eBay vendor "newtoymens", for instance, and there have been times when I have been guilty of the sin of omission whilst negotiating at the flea market. Then there’s the issue of me being privy to information that many of you are not, and whether that rises to the level of "insider trading", though I like to think that I’ve given almost as much as I’ve gotten, on the blog anyway.

Everyone has different comfort zones, and they don’t necessarily overlap: what I’m comfortable with you might not be, and vice versa. Buying something directly from China, I’ve discovered, is out of my comfort zone. (More precisely, the answers to the questions such items raise.)

Which is fine for me, because I need to sell more, not buy more. Anything that keeps me from clicking the "Buy It Now" button.

Minority Report

It looks like the there was a particularly vituperative "airing of grievances" on the NAMHSA Yahoo list over the weekend; I won’t call it entertaining, because it’s becoming such a regular and unwelcome thing this time of year. (Like an even less tasty version of fruitcake.)

My opinion on the whys and wherefors probably counts for diddly-squat, since I’m neither a voting member, nor do I attend many shows nowadays.

However, as someone accustomed to being on the outside looking in and someone who is (all too frequently) the voice of the minority on topics in both the real and unreal world (of model horses, silly), I can speak with some authority on that.

There’s a difference between being disagreeable, and "trying to shake things up". One does not need to become the former in order to enact the latter. Sometimes you do - especially when your opponent is being unreasonable or unresponsive - but most of the time you really don’t.

Alas, all too many people in the hobby either do not know the difference, or do not care. Which would not bother me so much, if there were not also hobbyists exploiting that lack of distinction.

Since I am in no mood to talk about it any further, here is a picture that is more in keeping with the more pleasing parts of the season - a French-beaded Christmas Tree!

I made the ornaments and the garland, too; almost everything that went into making it came from my craft stash, except for the wooden base, and a couple extra ounces of seed beads. (FYI: You’ll need at least a half a pound!)

French-beaded plants and flowers aren’t necessarily hard to make, but they are extremely time-consuming. So if you’re contemplating giving them as gifts, whatever you have to pay for them pre-made is probably worth it. Unless you’re daft, cheap, or have a lot of time on your hands in the month of December, like me.

Back to Reality

No worries: I took a couple days "off" this week to decompress from the Belgian business. One of those days was pressed upon me unwillingly, due to another particularly unpleasant migraine, that I am going to assume was brought on by the crazy week that preceded it.

(All better now. Well, mostly better. Still not caught up on the danged novel.)

I will admit that, at several points during the process, I was sorely tempted to do some sort of back door deal for the Belgian. I imagined building a fancy shrine or pedestal to put him on, like some spectacular ancient artifact in a history museum. Then, if anybody deigned come to my house to view my collection, the highlight of the tour would be me drawing the curtain back to behold this mystery that they dare not speak of…

Mine, mine, all mine. My precious.

Then reality slapped me in the face and brought me out of my Decorator-induced stupor. They had some small inkling that it was worth something. Not only that, this was no ordinary storage locker or Grandma’s Attic find: the history still clung to it, like cobwebs.

No, this was too big a thing to never share. As much as I wanted it (I’m the Breyer History Diva, not the Breyer History Nun) there was no way I could take advantage of this situation. It wasn’t about me feeling guilty (mostly), but of me valuing the story more than the model itself.

If I took advantage of the situation, I would not have been able to share the story - or even have gotten as much of the story that I have. The stories are so much more important to me.

I mean, I love the horses, I really do. But if it comes down to it, I am always going to choose the history over the horse, the knowing over the owning. (Which explains some of the more peculiar things in my collection. Three-legged Test Color FAMs, cigarette humidors, jewelry trays, some spectacularly ill-conceived clocks….)

I made that choice years and years ago, when I first entered the hobby, and stumbled around, trying to find my niche in it.

I couldn’t have them all, I couldn’t afford them all, I couldn’t know it all (as much as I tried) or do it all. Then I decided to follow my natural inclination - histories, and stories - and my niche found me.

Sound so corny, but it’s true. There are nearly 500 blog posts here, it must be so.

Are there more big finds out there, with even bigger stories attached to them?

To put it as simply an succinctly as possible: Yes.

I couldn't tell you when or where, though. And even if I could, sometimes I can't. For now.

Dropping the Other Shoe

The Copenhagen Belgian is only half of the story. The other half?

The ephemera.

How significant is the estate’s stash? Well, it’s taken me a couple of weeks so far to clean, sort, separate and inventory (so far!) what amounts to a filing cabinet’s worth of papers. I am not exaggerating when I say that I’m seeing things I’ve never seen before, like this backer card for Tiffany:

I always wondered if they were going to sell Tiffany separately, like they did with Benji. Looks like they were planning to!

Most of these papers are from the 1970s and 1980s, and the stuff that’s here is just amazing. Like this photograph from Bob Koberg and Chris Hess’s trip to the Garrison Ranch in January 1978, to get the final approvals for Legionario and the Andalusian Family:

(You all should know who Chris Hess is. Bob Koberg was Breyer’s Sales Manager back then.)

There are fliers, photographs, negatives, transparencies, original artwork, ad slicks, comps…and more. It’s like a dream come true for a history nut like me. Considering the extremely ephemeral nature of some of this ephemera, I’m amazed that it even survived at all.

As of this writing, the dispensation of it is still being worked out. Naturally, I’d like to keep as much of this archive as intact as possible, for the sake of research - and hobby history.

However, while there is a great deal of unique material here, there’s also quite a bit of duplication. I know that there will definitely be some significant interest among my fellow Breyer historians and ephemera dorks in acquiring some of these items for their own personal archives.

But like I said, that’s still being worked out. Selling paper is a slightly different game than selling models. Do we sell them in lots, or on an individual basis? On MH$P, or via eBay?

And if the decision is made to sell them, rather than auction them off, how do we determine value of things that literally have no market history to go by? These are the issues that have been keeping me up nights.

To clarify on the monetary issues: I am not making any money off of this "deal", other than having first dibs on the archive materials, which will all end up in a university archive anyway (eventually).

To make this extra clear: all money from the auctions and/or sales of the models and duplicate ephemera will be going to the estate, not to me.

Let’s be open and honest here: there have been some similar situations in the past (i.e. estates of exceeding interest and value to hobbyists) that were not necessarily handled in the most transparent or equitable way.

In light of the historical significance of the items in this estate, I’ve tried my darndest to make sure everyone involved - both the estate, and hobbyists/buyers - are treated fairly as possible. I made the seller aware of the standards of packaging hobbyists expect - and warned him of the behaviors he was likely to be on the receiving end of.

While I’m fairly certain my conduct was not perfect, I’m hoping that dispersals of future estates are handled more fairly, by example. Just because life’s not fair doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive to make hobby life more so.

I will also be up front and say that I did confide in two fellow hobbyists about the contents of the estate from the get-go, and also swore them to the highest secrecy. Neither one of them has received any compensation or favors, other than serving as an outlet for my screamy, exclamation-point-riddled e-mails. If they want to purchase anything from the estate, they’ll have to go through the same channels as everyone else (and me! Darn tooting I’ll be bidding!)

It’s their decision whether or not to out themselves.

Some of my coworkers also heard about all this as it was going down, but the vast majority of them had no idea what I was talking about in the first place. Some of them are vaguely aware of Breyers as a product, but all they know of the hobby is that I go to "my convention" every year and dress up in crazy outfits.

This, That and The Future

Another dry, dull day at the flea market. Box day at the book sale wasn’t a whole lot better: I’ll probably break even, at best. I did pick up some good reading material, though, and upgrade a few old favorites to hardcover status. (Fevre Dream, woot!)

All is not lost on the horse front: I do have a rather large box that’s currently sitting in my office, mostly unpacked. At the price I got it at, it’ll probably be mostly bodies. I don’t care, because the body box is looking pretty bare, too.

(BTW, I am having way too much fun with my pathetic leftover bodies. They’re still pathetic, just in more interesting ways.)

Since I’m a wee bit short on time again today, I’d like to direct you to a Very Important Discussion going on over at the Blab that you should be paying attention to, or at least driving by:

http://www.modelhorseblab.com/forums/showthread.php?138901-The-future-of-playing-with-imaginary-horses

It was a spin off of a discussion involving the Peter Stone Company’s business practices. (To which I can only say: he’s not going to change anything if you keep throwing gobs of money at him. It’s that simple, people.)

The thread’s title is self-explanatory: The future of playing with imaginary horses. It began as a discussion about the YouTube kids, and whether or not they can - or will - integrate into the greater hobby community. It’s turned into a little bit more than that: a bit of history, a bit of philosophy, some grandstanding, and (perhaps a few too many) personal anecdotes.

I know some of you have an aversion to the place, but honestly, it’s the only place where hobbyists can actually have some serious public discussion about topics like this. Facebook makes people dumb, and is populated by people who are either physically, or mentally, about 12 years old. The Breyer web site forums suffer from the same problem as the Facebook page does, and are barely moderated. The Yahoo Groups are moribund little echo chambers, and the format of blogs simply isn’t designed for it.

I try to stay away from politics here, mostly because it’s irrelevant, but the same point I make whenever I discuss politics also applies to all matters relating to the hobby: if you choose not to participate, you have little right to complain. It’s the people who participate in the process who get to make - or change - the rules.

I’ve pretty much stated my piece over there already (I’m AMG there, if that’s not immediately obvious) though I might throw a few more logs on the fire yet, if and when I can.

And Now, Back to the Show

Okay, I must confess, I have been taking just a tiny bit of amusement over the fact that the Passage to the Pacific event still hasn’t sold out yet, in spite of all the breathless speculation beforehand that it’d sell out in "hours".

Get a grip, people. The fact that it hasn’t sold out (yet) has very little to do with the state of the national economy, and much more to do with personal economies. Just because we’re all in the same hobby together doesn’t mean we all share the same socioeconomic class.

To those of you who can spend the money, good for you. Just realize that there is a goodly number of us in the hobby that have to prioritize a little more rigorously, and get a little annoyed that you have to be reminded of that.

Anyway, back to the CheaterFest thing.

One of the videos featuring the model in question has surfaced; I don’t know if it’s the one that had been referred to in online discussions of the model before, but I have been assured that it is the model in question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqwrc1v_0Qg&list=UUyyFXBAnA0bARJEJyX0xYQQ&index=6&feature=plcp

(Warning: the video itself is extremely typical of the kind of youth-originated videos I was ranting about a week ago. Also, the artist in question is dyslexic, so if you have a low tolerance for spelling errors, you may want to take a deep breath first before diving in.)

And more details, too. (My apologies for any repetition. Just doing it for clarity's sake.)

The child in question was not the only entrant suspected of cheating, but the only one who got away with it, however briefly. There were questions raised prior to judging. Attempts to locate the videos in question were made, but proved unsuccessful initially. Since the evidence could not be found within a reasonable amount of time, and the answers provided by the entrant seemed otherwise convincing, the entry was not disallowed. The judge was not made aware of the specific nature of the controversy, so it would not affect her decisions.

When the (very clear!) evidence of cheating was found afterwards, it was forwarded to Reeves. Reeves requested that the entrant return the prize model awarded to her, a Regular Run Pokerjoe. (There were not enough of the original prize model supplied, so other Regular Run models were substituted.) A UPS call tag was provided to her, and the model will be awarded to the second place entry once it is returned.

The show staff is currently reviewing the rules and regulations for the show to make changes that would discourage this sort of thing from happening again, though the efficacy of those changes, like all the changes before, will probably be limited. Because cheaters gotta cheat.

(In spite of the repeated clarifications on the Yahoo-Groups list, and in the show packet, some of the entrants were still unaware of the change in the awards program. So maybe now they’ll read the rules a little more carefully, at least.)

The suggestion was made to disqualify the entrant from entering any Breyer-sponsored shows for a year, but Reeves decided against that. Reeves is also aware of the shenanigans going on in all of the BreyerFest shows, and that the existence of the award model program may be partly to blame, but do not appear to be willing to pull the plug on the award models.

I suppose if the show staff/volunteers were able to come up with a solution that would mitigate the cheating, Reeves would, at least, consider it. They have done so before.

There were a few other details made available to me, but that’s the extent I am comfortable revealing for the time being. I’ve included everything here I think is relevant, anyway.

Up next: another treasure from the Pit.

Unfinished Business

As you might have guessed, I am blissfully uninterested in the Passage to the Pacific. It is an event that’s clearly designed for a very, very small subset of hobbyists, a subset that can drop a month’s income on a trip on a moment’s notice. And I am not a member of said group.

(It is true that this week's one and only Powerball winner bought his/her ticket less than 30 miles from my house, but it wasn’t any one in this actual house.)

I suppose it’s nice that it’s on the West Coast, as sort of a consolation prize for there not being a BreyerWest this year, but all in all, these VIP events feel like subsidized vacays for the Reeves Staff. No thankies.

The event also ties in to the topic of privilege within the hobby, but I’m not quite ready to get into another extended philosophical discussion just yet.

Speaking of: in light of the new information that was posted on Blab, and some that I have received privately, I should have a follow up on the CheaterFest post in another day or two. I still need a little more time to collect my thoughts and clarify my opinions. (The super-short version, for those not in the know: steps are being taken to remedy the live show incident.)

Now, back to the actual horses…

One of the things that I failed to pick up in the Ninja Pit - and should have - were the two assortments of unpainted models (aka "whiteware"). They were dirt cheap - twenty bucks per assortment, with six models per box. Better yet, not all of them were weird unsellable things, either: Gem Twist, the Clydesdale Mare, the Clock Saddlebred and even Sucesion and LeFire (yes, you read that right - two of the hottest molds on the planet right now.)

My stack was already almost as tall as I was, so there wasn’t any way I could throw those boxes on the pile without losing something else. I really, really wanted to: even if I sold everything in each of the boxes for five dollars apiece, I could have made my money back, and then some.

By the time I was able to get back in the Sales tent, though, they were gone. It wasn’t a huge deal for me, since I still had plenty of bodies to sell at that point. What’s bugging me now is that I forgot to write down the numbers they assigned to each assortment.

I’ve been able to track down what was in these assortments from their rather conspicuous appearances on eBay. But naturally, the sellers haven’t exactly been eager to show the tag on the box with the assortment number in their listing, since the twenty dollar price the tag would also reveal would probably put a bit of a kibosh on their sales.  

It’s not a super-important bit of data, but dang it, you know I’m kinda anal about this sort of thing.

What’s interesting about the molds in these assortments is that so many of them had been made into Web Specials: Clock Saddlebred (Spring has Sprung), the Belgian (Red Rocket), Family Arabian Stallion (50th Anniversary FAS), Sucesion and LeFire (A Mother’s Love), and the Stock Horse Stallion (Summer Solstice).

Throw in the fact that the Clydesdale Mare and the Ranch Horse/Cody have also had a few low-piece Special Runs not all that long ago (Del Mar for the Mare; Chico and Opening Night for Cody) and you’ll see why they’ve piqued my interest.

In case you were wondering, the models in the assortments that haven’t come out as limited SRs (yet) include the Western Prancing Horse, Shetland Pony, Gem Twist, and Midnight Sun.

FYI: there hasn’t been a regular - or special - run of the WPH since 2004. Or of the Midnight Sun since 2002. While the Midnight Sun is probably out of the question, the Western Prancer? The model whose vintage Black Pinto paint job was recently repurposed for the Vintage Club Salt and Pepper release?

Hmm. 

CheaterFest, Pt. II

There’s a gap between what’s legal - what is allowed within the law, and what is ethical - what is allowed within a person’s or society’s moral system. Law is basically an attempt to codify a generally accepted set of morals that can, and should, apply to everyone equally.

We get the sense that the legal system has failed us when what is allowed within the law does not match up with our moral system.

Most of the cheater-y type stuff that happened at BreyerFest this year - outside of the funny business at the Children/Youth Show - fell into that gray area. What some of these people did was technically legal, but ethically - to most of us, I presume - not quite right.

First up was some shenanigans that occurred at the Silent Auction, in regards to the "Vendor Pack" lot. A "Vendor Pack" is the lot of tent specials - one of each of the eight items - that is offered to vendors in the Covered Arena, who may not otherwise be able to leave their booths to stand in line for them.

The lot went for a relatively low amount - only $560, not much above the combined retail price for all eight pieces - and that seemed a little unusual. The prices for the auctions were lower than last year, true, but something definitely seemed off about the bid price for that particular item, since the Stoneleigh Surprises were already going for double their issue price.

Until it came out that the "last" bidder on the lot ‘ran out the clock’ by retracing over her name. Legal? Probably. Ethical? Not by my standards.

Another instance - that I haven’t been able to confirm, but that I got from a source I have always considered reliable in the past - involved the Best of British diorama contest. According to my source, one of the entries that won in the Adult division had won before - two years previously. Legal? According to the published rules, yes. Ethical? Why I can certainly see retooling an old entry that hadn’t won before, doing the same with an entry that already had? Not something I would do.

Then there was the Costume Contest, where both Reeves - and Hobbyists - made some questionable decisions. Instead of awarding prizes to each entry - be it a single person, or a group entry - as they had in the past three years, Reeves decided to award prices to each member of each winning entry. Within their right to do so? Yes. Ethical? Well, it depends on whether or not you consider the "omission" of that particular change in the rules to rise to the level of deception. I know if I had known about it, I would have drastically changed my entry (and dragged my friends and roommates into it!)

Hobbyists were not without sin in this contest, either. Last year, a baby - dressed in a Humpty Dumpty costume - was given a prize in the Costume Contest. Sure, he was cute, but a dangerous precedent was set: it should have been no surprise to anyone that the same tactic was used again, this year. With the same end result.

Look, there’s a reason why costume contests generally separate out between kids and adults: adults can’t compete against little kids, or babies. They always win. And when the prizes involved in winning include models that can sell for $500 or more, it’s going to continue to happen.

I think it’s telling that the first three people I told about this incident - none of whom knew each other, by the way - all came to the same conclusion, almost word-for-word: "Next year, you’ll have to rent a baby."

We do not need to see Toddlers & Tiaras: the BreyerFest Edition. But with next year’s theme being "Denim & Diamonds’, I’m afraid that’s exactly where it’s going to go. (I wasn’t too keen on the theme to begin with, but if it means gluing sequins and rhinestones to the dog …)

I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

Look, I am myself not without my own ethical issues. I suppose, on some level, that the kind - and quality - of information I receive as a result of this blog gives me an unfair advantage. I guess you could call it a form of insider trading: I rarely get a "Hey, look for such and such model in the NPOD" but some of the tips I get do point me in the correct direction, and sometimes that’s more than enough. 

I’d like to think that all the information I have given out over the years - here, there and elsewhere - compensates for whatever sins I have committed in the name of pretty plastic ponies, at least a little bit.

I can’t even name all the horses I’ve lost out on because of that. If even one other person knows what I know about a model on eBay, I am pretty much out of contention. Information is the only currency I have an abundance of. Yet I give this currency away anyway, because it’s the right thing to do.

CheaterFest, Pt. I

You may or may not have heard about the latest cheating scandal at Breyerfest, which in itself is also sort of the problem. But first, the scandal itself.

Apparently an entrant at the Children/Youth Show - with the complicity/assistance of her mother - entered a horse painted by another person in the  ‘Breyer Model Customized by entrant’ class. And won.

They managed to get away with it by convincing the Head Steward that the initials on the model were actually their ‘stable initials’, and not those of another artist. They were only undone when a video was found on Youtube of the horse in question - in the process of being painted by someone who was most definitely not the entrant.

(An instance where a Youtube video has actually proven useful for documentation. Points to you, Youtubers.)

The irony of the situation is that this was one of those classes where Reeves had withdrawn from awarding the Glossies, and awarded Regular Run models instead. (Little Texases, I think?) All in an effort to cut down on this sort of behavior.

Lordy. I don’t even know where to begin on this.

Cheating has been in the hobby since forever, even when the prizes were little more than flats, rosettes, and the esteem of our peers.

Wherever there’s been a rule to be broken or bent, people will do it, regardless of the quality of the prize. Especially if the rules are vaguely thought out, or are only weakly enforced.

The biggest problem in the pre-Breyerfest days was the use and abuse of the Novice division. You see, there was no set definition of what a Novice was - some shows or regions went by a "years in the hobby and/or showing" rule (two years, more or less, or until you turned 18), or by "awards won" (two or more Champs/Reserves). Or some combination thereof. (There was also an effort to accommodate "experienced" younger showers with a Youth division, but that generally didn’t get a lot of entrants.)

It wasn’t strictly enforced - there was no national governing body then, either - so there was no way of discreetly dealing with hobbyists who had clearly overstayed their welcome in the Novice division - or had never truly qualified for Novice status in the first place. Other than giving them dirty stares or talking about them behind their backs. (Same as it ever was!)

It got so bad that the joke in these parts was that the ‘Novice’ division had tougher - and more experienced - competition than the Senior divisions did! That was also part of the reason why I did only a year’s "term" in Novice before moving up.

Plus, it felt weird to me competing as a Novice, especially since I had been in the hobby for at least six years by the time I had entered my first live show. I had entered several photo shows by then, did my own customizing, written articles for newsletters and I had even corrected and rewritten the "Complete List of Breyer Releases" that Breyer had been sending out to hobbyists who asked for it. I might have technically qualified for "Novice" status, but I was no novice.

(Why yes, I was quite the cheeky little brat back then. Marney sent the list back to me with a thank you note a couple of years later, so I felt quite justified in my opinion of myself back then. But, I digress.)

Abuse of the Novice category eventually led to its elimination at BreyerFest, because the stakes were so much higher: it wasn’t just about winning rosettes anymore, it was all about the cash money - in the form of prize models.

Funny how all that got disappeared down the memory hole, especially since the persons involved were not random, unknown entities.

But I’ll get to that selective memory problem some other time, when I’m up to it. What's actually up next: even more questionable behavior at BreyerFest you probably didn’t hear about.

Being Good

I was so good the other day.

I had a couple of hours to kill between assignments, and it wasn’t worth the effort (or the gas) to go home in between, so I stopped at a hobby shop nearby to peruse the latest Breyer selections.

The prices were excellent, as was the selection (over a half dozen of the Man o’ War version of the War Horse Gift Sets on the shelf, alone) but I didn’t walk out with a single one. The Brookside Pink Magnums were especially tempting, but then I remembered I still had King in the box at home waiting for me. And a flea market opening up in a couple of weeks.

(My King is lovely, by the by. He may not have a dorsal stripe or scrotum dots, but his color is spot on.)

I suppose I am contractually obligated to mention the controversy that’s sweeping the model horse world this moment: a 2005 Early Bird Raffle Model - the fleabitten gray Lonesome Glory - that ended up in a picker’s lot on eBay.

I have nothing against picking; it’s essentially what I do to support my hobby "habit." I have an aunt who does it, and a great many items I buy at the flea market - judging from the contents of the booths I shop at - are from storage auctions. Heck, if I had the time and money, I’d be buying storage lots myself.

What’s at issue here is the quality of the picker, and the nature of the pick itself.

The picker, judging from his feedback and his merchandise, doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of respect for said merchandise. It’s one thing to not be knowledgeable about everything you end up with in a storage unit: that’s essentially impossible, unless you’re a professional auction house with in-house researchers and stuff.

But what distinguishes a good picker from a questionable one is respect for the merchandise. Stuff that’s been put into a storage unit was put there because it had some value by the owner. True, that value may be subjective, or highly personal, but it was there, presumably. You don't pay good money to store things you don't value.

Taking the extra effort - such as doing a bit of research, or putting a little more care into the selling or packaging - may not pay off with every transaction, but it will in those odd cases where a truly rare or valuable item shows up.

Take care of the small things, and the big things will end up taking care of themselves. Or something like that.

Even if I had the money to invest in that auction, I wouldn’t do it, because it feels like I’m rewarding unethical behavior. I have a hard enough time with a few of the vendors I deal with at my local fleas, and the sums I’m dealing with there are sometimes (literally!) pocket change in comparison.

The nature of the pick itself troubles me even more. How did this model this rare, and this coveted end up in these dire circumstances in the first place? All of the scenarios I can imagine are sad ones: job loss, foreclosure, illness, or death.

Many of the things I buy at the flea market are a result of some sort of loss, too. What is so striking about the Lonesome Glory was the rapidity of its decline in fortune - less than seven years, from raffle model to a picker's inventory.

He’s a disquieting reminder of how quickly things can go bad for any of us.

Privacy vs. Ponies

All sorts of things I’d like to talk about today, but I suppose I am obligated to talk about the dustup that happened earlier today on Blab, regarding the stolen BreyerFest Special Run photos.

Someone - or someones, I’m not sure - apparently "hacked" their way into the less public parts of Reeves’ server, and downloaded photographs of several as-yet-unannounced BreyerFest Special Runs, as well as body shots of both sides of the upcoming Valentine’s Day Special. And then they posted them in a couple of threads on Model Horse Blab.

Reeves caught wind of it, contacted Blab, and the threads were locked down, removed from public access, and the person or persons responsible for the hacking and publishing were suspended from Blab, with insinuations that possible legal action to follow.

I just happened to be on Blab around the time the photos were being posted, and my first thought (after "ooh, I want…") was "Uh oh, someone’s been sneaking around the back end of the Breyer web site. Again."

I understand Reeves’ dismay at the situation, and I do not fault them for the swiftness or the intensity of their reaction. On the other hand, this has happened before, and Reeves should not have been surprised that it happened again. I am sort of shocked that, in light of those previous incidents, that they hadn’t beef up their security protocols by now.

This does not mean I express any sense of approval for the actions of the hacker(s) in question.

I’ve said this on numerous occasions: I love my hobby, but some of my fellow hobbyists I can do without. They don’t just lie, steal, or cut in line. They will have their children proxy show for them at youth-only live shows, trample a disabled woman in a wheelchair, and casually express (non-hobby related) opinions so offensive they’d leave most decent people dumbstruck.

Being a hobbyist does not automatically make you a good person. It just makes you someone I happen to have something in common with.

Because of this web site, and because of my reputation, I also happen to have access to a lot of (legally) sensitive Breyer information. I try my best to not spread anything questionable around, thought from time to time it does slip out, accidentally. There’s a lot of data in my head, and sometimes it’s hard to keep track of what is and isn’t permissible to say. If I do blurt out anything unacceptable, it’s not with any intent to do an Anonymous-style "gotcha" on anyone.

(Conceivably, I could, but I like enough of you that I want to stick around in the hobby a while longer, y’know?)

I didn’t download any of those pictures, nor will I relay any information about them, except in the most general sense (Glossies! Pintos! Vintage molds!) I suspect within the week, the privacy issue regarding much of that information will be moot. (That’s why they were on the server in the first place, right?)