The Two Dollar Test

I still feel very much like a coagulated puddle of sweat and Gatorade, so you’ll have to forgive me for continuing to be a little antisocial until the end of the week or so. 

It’s nothing personal guys, I just think I underestimated how emotionally overwhelmed I’d be at being at the first in-person BreyerFest in three years. I thought I’d be prepared because I’d been to two live shows and Motor City Comic Con in the months previous, but I guess not!

Everything is out of the car, but I probably won’t be finished unpacking and sorting until the weekend. In the meantime, I also have to deal with some work-related stuff and getting the garden back in shape, too. (Wax beans are imminent!)

I wasn’t able to bring home the Dapple Gray Belgian or any of the Five-Gaiters I was looking for (there was a dearth of vintage stuff at the hotel this year), but I did find a few neat things I’ll be sharing over the next couple of weeks. 

But there is one little thing I do want to share with the group right now. I was actually getting a little obnoxious about it by the end of the weekend, but I think you’ll understand why when you see it.

I didn’t get a chance to go to the NPOD Friday morning, because I had actual stuff to do both at the hotel and at the KHP. I did hear about – and see! – some of the goodies pulled out of the “Body Bins” later in the day, though, including a Matte Dappled Black Five-Gaiter. 

(Yes, I whimpered a bit. But it went to someone who is almost as obsessed with vintage stuff as I am, so I know he will be well-loved.)

Since I didn’t have anything to do first thing Saturday morning, I decided to be brave and go for it.

The only complication I ran into was the fact that Reeves didn’t handle the numbered tickets very well: they had two sets of tickets for the two stores, and instead of handing them out more or less in order, (i.e. either one-one, two-two or in alternating groups of five or ten) they handed out the first 200 sequentially, and then the second set of 200 sequentially. 

That meant that many people would be getting into – and out of! – one of the stores before people who had gotten there several hours earlier. Not cool, guys! They also claimed that both stores had the same merchandise, but I knew that was not the case, which is why I fought to get into the main store in the Covered Arena. 

(This had apparently happened the day before, so that was something I was prepared for. And it was also remedied the next day. And forever, hopefully. This is not rocket science, guys!)

Anyway, after all that nonsense, I found this fabled body bin. It was almost all Classics that day, with some Traditional Foals also in the mix. I’m not as familiar with Classic oddities – in spite of owning an awful lot of them! – but I dug through the bin and pulled a few things out that I thought were worth my time. 

(Technically they were all “worth the time”: everything in the bin was Two Dollars!)

Then I grabbed this Ginger and said to myself: well, she’s peculiar:

She’s Chalky, with natural-colored hooves, tons of pinking, and handpainted eyes. Yes, dear readers, I found myself a two-dollar Test Color! 

A friend of mine pointed out that she might be a Test for the First Christmas Horse Snowball, on the Haflinger mold, and I think she might be right, or at least in the neighborhood.

She’s not in the best condition, and I doubt she’d show well anywhere, but I love her all the same. Especially since I found her at a BreyerFest with a $65,000 Auction Test Color in it! 

I know that the prices at the Auction this year discouraged a lot of people from imagining that they could ever afford a Test Color, but as my little “Snow Baby” shows, it’s not always about the money. Do your research, do the legwork, and treasures will eventually find you.

(I’ll take her out of her bag, eventually.)

Harper, Ginger, and Inventory

This was the first week of the year I was able to devote myself to one of the scarier tasks on my resolution to-do list: inventory. For various sundry reasons I straight-up abandoned inventorying early in the year, and now I have nearly a year’s worth of models to sort out and catalog.

I think I thought it’d be fine because I was being good about restraining my horse purchases, but my lack of shelf and office space says otherwise! So until I sort out this mess (where did all these Stablemates come from?!) I guess I’ll have to really rein in my purchases even harder…

January is nearly over and done with and so far, so good: the only “nonessential” models I’ve purchased have been those in the Tractor Supply Mustang Set, the one from the first half of last year that featuring the Harper and the Sport Horse Foal. I spotted them at Tuesday Morning a couple weeks back, while I was looking for craft supplies to finish up some even older items on my to-do list:

I’m willing to forgive myself with this one, since it’s not sticking around: I bought it primarily for research purposes. I haven’t owned or examined a Harper mold prior to this, and the price was good enough that recouping my investment later in the year shouldn’t be an issue.

Many hobbyists see Harper as a modern replacement/upgrade of the Classic Ginger mold. Although the Ginger mold is a little further down on my “Favorites” list, I do still have a certain fondness for her.

I like Harper’s pose (obviously) and I like the way the mane and tail are sculpted: sculpted hair is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. I think the way a sculptor handles the terminal elements of a mold – the mane, tail, muzzle, ears and hooves – says a lot more about the artist’s mastery of the subject matter and the medium than the biomechanics do.

(Which is why I think the selection of “Great Hair Day!” as the BreyerFest Custom Contest Theme Class this year is secretly brilliant.)

But nice hair is not quite enough to overcome my nostalgia for the Ginger, just yet. Put her in the right color, finish or set and I might eventually change my mind, but for the time being I have a couple hundred uninventoried equines telling me to turn my attention elsewhere.

Tour de Horse

The worst part of the back attack was not being able to go to the flea market. It wasn’t the potential goodies I probably lost, but the window shopping I really missed. Even if I don’t buy something - there’s actually quite a lot I pass up, for a variety of reasons - I still like to see it "in the wild."

It’s also interesting to observe other people in the market respond to them - what’s the market like when I take myself out of the picture? What I like and what other collectors like are two different things: stepping back helps me judge the general market a little bit better.

Yep, even when I’m shopping, I’m doing research.

Since I’ve regained some of my mobility over the past two days, I’ve gone on a window shopping bender, sort of a "Tour de Horse," to make up for that lost opportunity. Yesterday I had a work assignment that was a little bit out of my usual way, and gave me the chance to stop at a number of toy stores, Targets, and other places with Breyers in them.

The only horselike purchase I was going to allow myself was the one Target Pony Gal SM that I’m still missing: I didn’t find him. All I walked away with yesterday was some deeply discounted school supplies (hey, I WAS almost out of graph paper!) but boy, I was tempted.

I wasn’t so lucky today, but we’ll get there in a minute.

One of the stops was a Big Lots: yep, as reported elsewhere they did have some Wal-Mart leftovers: a couple of the Classic Mustang sets, and the SM Flicka set. The discount on them was surprisingly minimal, at least compared to the Breyer merchandise they clearanced out late last year. That’s where and when I finally managed to pick up those oddball, noncatalog Stablemates Accessory Kits that Target briefly carried. They had some of the SR and RR MiniWhinnies Sets last year, too, but I had already picked those up at regular retail.

I wonder if this means that Big Lots will be a regular clearance venue for Reeves in the future, just like T.J. Maxx and Marshall’s? Interesting that most of the merchandise has been Big Box SRs, too. Hmm.

Some of our local Meijer stores have changed their toy departments around slightly, as I suspected: a slightly bigger selection of Breyers, but no store exclusive or store-first stuff (yet.) But they do carry Schleich now! Good to know.

Today I went to the local TSC, nominally to pick up some spray primer and sandpaper, but mostly to look at the toy selection. They finally had the Breyer stuff up: the Banner, the Bonanza Set, the Waiting For Santa Play Set, Nutcracker Prince, and some odd quasi-SR Stablemates Play Sets. (The horses are mostly re-issued RRs; it’s the combination of accessories with horses that make them SRs, sort of. That and their stock numbers. Another one of those documentation thingies.)

The Bonanza Set came home with me, though it’s still hanging out in the car until I can manage to sneak it into the house without anyone noticing. I almost bought the Waiting for Santa set. The price was decent - $29.99, only a couple bucks more than its premiere price on QVC, but I thought I was pushing it with the Bonanza set, so I left it behind for now.

The Duchess is very nice - she’s that beautiful Dark Bay/Mahogany color that I’ve been really loving lately (most recently seen as one of the Color Crazy Huck Bey releases.) It was the Cochise that sold me though. The Cochise in the JAH promo picture was on the Ginger, and she was the one piece in the set I was ambivalent about. I love black pintos, but for some reason I wasn’t loving her.

On the other hand, I came very close yesterday to buying a really sharp, semi-gloss Warmblood Stallion in the RR Bay-going-Gray, so the mold’s surprise appearance in the Bonanza set was a winner for me.

(I wouldn’t read anything into the Ginger mold’s replacement - maybe they just liked the Warmblood Stallion better.)