Spun Gold

Remember the speculation about the Spun Gold Surprise? Some folks thought that meant straight-up Decorators, while others thought they’d be realistic colors with a "golden" theme, like Chestnuts, Palominos and such.

They split it down the middle: we got "golden" themed colors, with semi-metallic finishes: Champagne, Flaxen Chestnut Overo, and Buckskin Blanket Appaloosa. (Hey, I got that part right! Yay, me!)

So, just like last time, I got a Pinto and an Appaloosa:


There was some carping about the solid "Champagne" version not being a "true" Champagne, but that seemed like nitpicking to me. Heck, a few years ago most hobbyists didn’t even know what the color "Champagne" was. And we’re talking semi-decorator colors on the semi-realistic "Ethereal" mold here; I’m sort of surprised they came as close as they did.

I’ve been wanting to add a few more Ethereals to the herd for some time now, so I was more than happy with his appearance as this year’s Surprise model. I wasn’t lucky enough to get the Surprise within the Surprise - a Gloss Dark Palomino Appaloosa, in the same pattern as the "Fire" - but the execution this time around went off without a hitch, at least. (And not all dumped into roughly the same time slot, like last time.)

At 28-30 pieces distributed, that came out to two Surprises per time slot; roughly calculated, your odds of getting one were about 40 to 1. Still not great, but probably a better bet than the raffle - and you still get a horse out of the deal, if you don’t "win"!

A model with a fairly limited piece count - 390 pieces each of the standard three - on a mold that hasn’t seen a lot of action lately. So hey, not a bad deal, all around.

What’s really nice about the Surprise Tent SR is that it’s really hard to game the system, the way you can (to a degree) with some of the other super-limited models at BreyerFest. Sure, you could buy more tickets to improve your odds, but at 70-85 for the ticket, plus 50-60 dollars a pop per model (or more) and all that time spent standing in line? Most hobbyists aren’t going to invest that kind of effort. Or have that kind of money to play with.

In other words, it’s about as fair a system as we’ll ever have for distributing a rarity as we’ll ever have. You know me, I’m big on the fairness thing. Neither life, nor the hobby are fair, but anything to make it a little more so, I’m all for.

Now that they seem to have worked the kinks out of the Surprise Horses, I sure hope they become a regular feature of BreyerFests to come.