Love my Lucys

I don’t get quite as excited about variations on more modern releases as I do about older releases. Part of it is my bias towards older models, but some of this variation-parsing also strikes me as an effort by some to either justify collecting multiples of certain releases, or to make their models even more special than someone else’s.

Which I am okay and (sometimes) totally on board with this impulse as a collector. As a historian, though, I see it as another shortcut to madness.

By necessity, I have to stick to more notable (or noticeable) variations, rather than document the entire spectrum. If something appears to be especially attractive or unusual compared to the norm, I'll make note of it, but generally those kinds of variations are of such specialized interest that the likelihood of an average enthusiast noticing it is very low.

(I tend to exit out of most conversations, for instance, that involve the phrase "semi-gloss variation". Mostly because everyone’s definition is so different, and so nebulous, that it’s as meaningless as the word "RARE" in an eBay listing. But I digress.)

The modern impulse to seek even the subtlest variations also stems from the fact that there’s a lot less variation than there used to be in Breyer models, too. Newer releases are more consistent - to the point that I’ve had a few hobbyists tell me with an absolutely straight face that all Breyers are painted completely by machines now - but it's more a matter of bland sameness thumbing a ride with consistency.

There’s still some minor variation built into the more modern masking techniques. When you think about it, there has to be: it’s a relatively thin and fragile adhesive masking material that’s being placed on an irregular and three-dimensional surface.

Most of these variations are minor - a slightly different cut edge, or a spot or marking placed a little higher or lower than it’s supposed to be. But sometimes…well, take a look a the speckled behinds of my two Lucys and see why even I took notice of this:

I was going to keep both of them because Gloss and Matte, duh, but that their butt spots are so different is a nice plus. Their stickers are on opposite shoulders too, but that's just a post-production thing. I don't usually note sticker placement at all, unless it's in some really weird spot like the middle of a forehead or stuck to a model's private parts.

(Regarding the latter: I see it all the time, and it never fails to be amuse me.)