A New Decorator Color? On Geronimo?

I had a tiny bit of free time over the weekend, and it seemed like as good a time as any to get caught up a bit on paperwork – and do a bit of unboxing!

Yep, I still hadn’t unboxed stuff from BreyerFest last year. It’s not out of a lack of interest – I love Translucents, and my Auriverde! – but of time, space and priorities. (In other words, the usual nonsense.)

There is nothing particularly noteworthy to say about the Auriverde, other than I wish I had some sunny window space for him; all that is currently occupied by other models more in need of the sun.

Some of the first hints and inklings of this year’s BreyerFest Special Run lineup have been announced in the past few days – a blog post that specifically references “polo ponies” and of course, a sneak peek of what appears to be a Geronimo:

Interesting! I haven’t had a chance to examine a Geronimo extensively or in-the-round yet – all three releases so far (the Premier Club release, last year’s Custom Contest Prize Guerreiro, and the Raffle Model Areia) are all either a little or a lot out of my price range. There is a fourth release on the mold coming named Bandera, so that lack of familiarity with the mold will likely change soon.

http://www.breyerhorses.com/Bandera---Symbols-of-the-West

At first I thought Bandera was going to be a slighty-more-metallic-than-average Chestnut, but it looks like Reeves might be doing a full-on Copper patina with him.

We’ve had “Ageless Bronze” pieces in the past – like the #1102 Durango on the Smoky, and the #832 Hyksos on the Black Stallion – and other metallics in whole or part (some even made with/of actual metal!), but I think this the first time they’ve released a model that actually looks like a pot metal carnival prize horse.

Which is not a criticism – I kind of like it! At the very least, I am intrigued. If that is actually the case or intent, I would absolutely love to see future releases on something a little old-fashioned and/or Western-y, like the Western Pony or Prancing Horse, or the good old (and little seen) #36 Racehorse mold.

Soap and Sunshine

Here’s an updated picture of those two Gloss Alabaster Family Arabians that came in an especially dirty box lot a while back:

Originally I was going to leave them as-is, as an “ultimate” example of grubbiness, but after nearly a year of their sad faces peering over the monitor in my office, I had to do something.

They still have a ways to go in the unyellowing process, but here’s what the other side still looks like, to give you an idea of how far they have come:

You might think that’s bad, but it’s a considerable improvement over what they originally looked like before they even hit the bathtub:

They were literally so grimy you could not even tell they were Gloss! The grime was so thick in spots that it actually came off in chunks, which kind of freaked me out a little bit at first. Was something else coming off as well?

Nope, just years of neglect.

And it really didn’t take much serious effort, beyond a little soap, sunshine, and patience. (No actual bleach in this case: it tends to do more harm than good on Gloss Finishes.)

In the weeks that they’ve resided in my bedroom window, I’ve kind of gotten attached to these two; they were slated for my sales list after rehab, but right now it’s 50-50 on whether or not they’ll stay.

I already have a really nice Gloss Mare, and several superlative Gloss Foals (because of my obsession with tracking ear/mold variations on the Foal mold), so I shouldn’t. Since Family Arabians have been trending up of late – especially now, with a Family Arabian Stallion in the Vintage Club lineup this year – finding them a new home shouldn’t be hard.

Unfinished or Unpainted?

No luck in the local Walmart Stablemates hunt so far; it looks like that experiment/promotion may be a little more limited than we imagined.

C’est La Vie.

The past few days at work have been slow going, and a new shiny thing would have been a nice distraction. I’ll just have to distract myself with other things.

Speaking of Stablemates, here’s that Stablemates Painting Kit I found a little while back at the local Salvation Army. Complete with all the painting bits too, remarkably!

The models in these kits may be unpainted, but they are not raw or unfinished. They’ve been trimmed, cleaned, and the surface lightly prepped/primed to accept paint. Painting is just one step in the production process, albeit the finishing one.

I don’t have any true Factory Unpainted pieces out right now to show you the differences, and it might not be that helpful anyway. Like Chalkies, true Factory Unpainteds can be difficult to photograph, with nuances that are probably best demonstrated with an in-person examination or comparison.

Ironically, these early Test Color Quarter Horse Mares may be most helpful here, since I suspect they were Preproduction pieces that didn’t go through the full finishing process before they had a paint job slapped on them. The paint job caught and accentuated all the ridges and roughness of the back seam:

The unfinished nature of the seam is especially visible on the example on the left. Most of this roughness wasn’t from the mold itself, but from the acetone used to melt and soften the edges prior to assembly.

Most (but not all!) Stablemates come out of the mold solid, so they wouldn’t necessarily have this kind of problem to deal with. Most of the molding issues with Stablemates would be with sink marks (indentations caused by overheated plastic), mold flow lines (squiggly lines on the surface of the plastic), and flashing (rough extruded edges at the seams).

Sink marks can’t really be fixed or finished away, but mold flow lines and flashing can, to a degree.

So this is why I wince a little whenever I read complaints about newer releases that are either mostly or extensively white, as somehow being less finished or less complete. Perhaps, but there’s still a lot of work that goes into getting a model to that state in the first place!

Single Year Releases

Here she is, my newest Duchess:

That’s the #62006 Pinto Sport Horse and Foal set. It’s one of the slightly less common Duchess releases – it was only available in 2010.

I was expecting my first purchase to be something a little more common – like the #62031 Gray Mare and Foal set that was also rereleased as part of the Walmart Sunshine Stables/Meadows promo in 2012, or one of the current releases like the Red Roan Western Horse and Rider set with the disturbingly oversized doll.

(Seriously Reeves, what the heck is going on with those funky horse and rider sets?)

But this pair turned up on eBay at an unbeatable price, so they became my inaugural purchase in The Duchess Project.

The bonus here is that this was a set I had been thinking about buying before I decided to collect the Duchess mold. She looks lovely in Tobiano Pinto, and I’m a big fan of the saucy little Sport Horse Foal mold, too.

Back when I started collecting – or more accurately, when I started learning all I could learn about Breyer History – Breyer models that were released for a single year (or two!), like the #191 Gray Bucking Bronco or the #169 Liver Chestnut Scratching Foal seemed so exotic and appealing for just that very reason.

In the 1960s, 1970s and well into the 1980s, it was unusual for a release to run less than three years. If it did, it was either a Decorator-level turkey, or had a manufacturing issue (too expensive to produce, or an actual qualitative problem).

I wince a little now when I see either of those two on eBay, usually unsold and endlessly relisted. I cannot offer a home here: I added examples of both of them to my herd a long time ago, with no pressing need for more. (Well, perhaps a few more of the Scratching Foal – there are some sock variations I don’t have!)

Time has not made them less numerically rare, but the market is now flooded with items of similar or greater rarity, on a seemingly endless number of molds. Our choices, and our focuses, are no longer as narrow or limited as they once were.

In a way, it makes collecting easier – as long as the focus you choose isn’t the mold of the moment.

So far, so good for me with the Duchess. Except for those darn Walmart releases with the Wolves in them; those sets may be the bane of my existence this year.

Blind Bag Stablemates

So I guess there are Blind Bag “Horse Crazy Surprise” Stablemates at some Walmarts now? These are not the blank/unpainted pieces from the various painting kits, but actual factory painted and finished Stablemates, including a “rare” Mystery Surprise that is apparently a G3 Friesian in Metallic Gold Buckskin.

While I like this idea in theory – hurray for more Stablemates! – the only problem with Blind Bags is that once the rarities or mysteries are revealed, it’s not hard to fish them out with a little strategic groping.

That’s why I’ve never been a big fan of the idea of multiple molds in Mystery/Surprise releases, especially at BreyerFest. I could see things getting very contentious very quickly at that particular section of the Special Run table, once the more desirable ones are ferreted out….

It’s clear that this is a first run/trial run of the idea, at least as single-pack Stablemates. This program is both an extension of the Mini Whinnies Blind Bag program and a logical replacement of the Stablemates Mystery Foal Surprise sets – right down to the metallic goldness of the Surprise.

It’s possible that Reeves could get clever about this in future Stablemates Blind Bag Mystery releases and switch it up – for instance, using one of the “common” pieces in the assortment printed on the bag (all older releases, at least in this go-round) in multiple colors as the Mystery Surprise.

Or make them all new releases – as is going to be the case with the Stablemates in the new Spirit: Running Free line, I believe. I haven’t really looked much into that yet; although I admired the character designs and Breyer sculpts, the movie really didn’t do much for me and I doubt the animated series will, either.

(My heart still belongs to Steven Universe!)

I’ll look for the Horse Crazy Surprises if I happen to be in or near a Walmart anytime soon, but other model horse purchases will still take priority. (My first “new” Duchess arrived today!)

Moondance and Hwin

I like the new Collectors’ Club Special Run Moondance, a lot. But if I’m getting another Forever Saige this year, it’s going to be the Regular Run Hwin instead.

Looking back at my most recent permanent acquisitions, there are very few spotted horses in the mix. The last ones were the Vintage Club Stablemate Riptide and the Chesapeake Stablemate Cecil, and both of those were “Gift with Purchase” kinds of items. The last intentionally purchased ones were the BreyerFest Bozeman and the Classic Duchess. I guess I’m just on a solid color kick right now!

Some models look better in solid colors anyway, and I think the Forever Saige is one of them. I’m not the only one; quite a few hobbyist hearts seemed to turn when they saw her as last year’s BreyerFest Special Namib in that beautiful Dark Bay-Brown.

The real Hwin, as I suspect most of you know, is named after one of the talking horses in C.S. Lewis’s The Horse and His Boy.

I have mixed feelings about that installment in the Narnia series. I loved the Narnia books in general, and I was really excited to find out that there was one with talking horses in it.

Reading it did motivate me enough to start writing my first novel – about a talking horse – back when most of my friends were writing Star Wars fanfic. (My early exposure/obsession with Mr. Ed didn’t hurt, either.)

But that was because it turned out to be my least favorite book in the series. I don’t know if it was because it hadn’t aged well, or if it had to do with the apprehensions I had about equine literature even then. I felt compelled to write the talking horse fantasy novel I really wanted to read.

Around the same time, though, I also discovered the hobby, and after a while it mitigated my need to write horse fiction. Why write talking horse fantasies when I could essentially “live” them in miniature form?

I still continued to write fiction, but horses were only incidental to the plot, if they appeared at all. Even my fiction-writing attempts today are relatively horse-free. The hobby still fills that niche for  me.

In Glorious Black and White

On the heels of last year’s Diorama Contest Prize Pele, we now have Live Show Benefit Horse Reno, on the Buckshot mold. In an intricate Gloss Black Frame Overo Pinto:

I wouldn’t mind taking one of those home! It doesn’t look likely that I’ll be able to attend any live shows this year either, so he’s another Rare Shiny (partially) Black horsey that I’ll just have to admire from afar.

Here’s a little factoid worth pointing out regarding Pele: while the greatest number of entries in the BreyerFest Diorama Contest is usually in the Over-20 Age Bracket, that wasn’t the case last year. I believe it was in the 10-14 Age Bracket!

If the number of entries indicates the general level of interest in the prize itself, it was a younger group of hobbyists who were the most interested in a Buckshot, for once!

A notoriously tipsy, thirty-year-old mold with “artistic” conformation?

It does seems curious, until you realize that there was a Palomino Buckshot release named Rascal a few years back – in 2009 and 2010, to be specific. He was a part of the “My Favorite Horse” series, which was specifically designed and marketed for younger/newer collectors.

http://www.identifyyourbreyer.com/images/1361a.jpg

Judging from the number of Diorama Contest entries last year, that program obviously succeeded! Some of those kids got a little bit older, stayed in the hobby, retained a fondness for the Buckshot mold, and were motivated enough to enter.

I know some hobbyists are making squishy faces at the thought of another Buckshot prize model, but I think they’re just tailoring the Live Show Benefit Horse to a slightly younger crowd this year. The past two models – 2015’s Western Pony Razzmatazz, and 2016’s Fury Prancer Chase – were more esoteric and targeted for older and/or more experienced hobbyists.

Some of us grayhairs like Reno too. Will he be motivation enough for me to find the time and money to attend a live show this year? That I do not know.

Just one minor housekeeping note here.

Since I am in the busy season at work and consequently not home much, my selling activity will be greatly curtailed or even nil through January and possibly part of February. As soon as I am able, I’ll try to start tossing a few odds and ends up on MHSP.