Buried Treasure?

Another crazy work week, with an extra helping of drama. (This particular "drama" was something that was a long time coming. Didn’t make it any easier to deal with, though.)

I should just go back to bed (because I need it!) but there’s been quite a bit of drama in the model horse world over the past two days that I need to deal with, too.

I had a small window of opportunity to do a little web surfing on Thursday, so I dropped in on Blab for a few minutes of lurking. I noticed a new thread entitled "Buried Treasure?" and thought oh, someone must be talking about that self-published book about restoration I wrote a while back, of the same title. I still get the occasional inquiry about it, so I clicked on the thread to see if I needed to answer any questions about it, and …

Well, here’s what’s pretty much an accurate rendering of my ensuing internal monologue:

OMG! It’s a super-limited 62-piece metallic buckskin Foundation Stallion hidden on the Breyer web site! Where’s my credit card? @#$%! GAH!

Not only that, I just happened to find it literally minutes after the thread was posted, so when I clicked on the link, I think they still had 61 of 62 pieces left. I had no idea at that point if they had, or were, going to do any other advertising for it, so I spent a good ten minutes in utter panic mode, until I received the "confirmation of your order" screen.

It was a rough week, and I was definitely in a "I deserve a pony!" frame of mind. Plus, it’s my birthday this weekend, and I hadn’t yet bought anything specifically for that reason.

I exhaled, crashed for a bit, then I woke up with a start and realized I needed to post a little something here, at least in the comments. (Note to self: really need to look into this "Twitter" thing.)

According to the write up on the web site, they were "discovered in the Breyer archives", though judging from the style and quality of the paint job, they hadn’t been sitting in the archive for very long.

What were they originally intended for? Prizes? Raffles? Volunteer giveaways? Heck if I know.

I know some people are doubting the truly "lost" nature of such a Special Run, but as someone who works in inventory management services, I am not. You’d be shocked how easily inventory can become lost or misplaced, even in a relatively small warehouse. All it takes is a couple of missed keystrokes, or a few mislabeled boxes, and POOF! There goes a few thousand dollars worth of merchandise. 

We’ve also seen from recent finds in the NPOD - like the Glossy Summer Soltices, and the Palomino Appaloosa Proud Arabian Foals - that this is not an isolated incident. (Reeves, if you’re reading, I can gladly get you in touch with somebody to help you with that. No, really.)

I happen to think in this case that since they had significantly more than a dozen pieces for this horse, they decided to go a different route. Since they didn’t do any advertising at all, I could see it being a "word of mouth" marketing experiment - one that obviously worked!

Are there other "lost" SRs knocking around the Breyer warehouse? I have no doubt about it. Are any of them "piecey" enough to do this again? Time will tell.