More on the Swirly Keychains

My work schedule is still not compatible with a social life, so the trip report will have to wait a little bit longer. In the meantime, though, I’d like to clarify a little bit of misinformation that seems to be making the rounds regarding this guy, and others like him:

He’s a piece from the 2003 BreyerFest Mod Squad set – and yes, by some strange coincidence (you know, the kind that only seems to happen to me) he’s the very same swirly Stablemates Keychain whose picture I linked to in my recent discussion on swirly- and solid-colored plastic Stablemates. He was one of the trivia prizes on the Blue Bus, and I won him.

I didn’t know he was the specific prize for that question, they just reached into the bag of goodies and randomly handed him to me.

As far as I know, most of the Stablemates given away as trivia prizes for this year’s Exclusive Event were leftovers of previous Keychain Special Runs and giveaways, with the best of them being the Glossy 2013 Toy Fair Highland Pony.

I am not aware of any of them being the Test Swirlies that had been given away at previous Events. Those were somewhat different than regular Keychains in that they either had no actual keychain parts attached, or just the hook.

I didn’t see every single one out of the forty or so that were distributed over the four buses, so there might have been something especially special, but I think – with the current crazy prices for Diesel – that they would have revealed themselves by now.

That being said, it is true that the Mod Squad Keychains are a little harder to find than other Special Run keychains made in similar quantities. I know some were sold in the NPOD later, but I wasn’t sure that was the entire remainder.

That was back when the BreyerFest Keychains were finally fading out as a thing, and they were beginning to get left behind for physically and metaphorically bigger Special Runs. I skipped out on that set that year because I didn’t think it’d be difficult to get them later on. (Ha!)

Makes me wonder just how many of these leftover Keychains they still have knocking around the warehouse. Now that might make for a fun giveaway or warehouse sale for Stablemates Club members….