Thursday, January 9, 2020

The 2020 Early Bird

The Early Bird Special Run has been announced, and it’s an Esprit named Dyflin:


The Esprit mold has been used as a BreyerFest Special Run numerous times: as the Celebration Horse Pecos in 2011, the 2012 Decorator Prince of Chintz, and in eight different variations (four Matte, four Gloss) in 2016’s Samba Surprise.

It’s also come in a number of scarce and/or difficult to find Special Run releases, including the 2010 Web Special Silver Filigree Alpine, the 2011 Equine Affaire Dappled Bay Steppin’ Out, and the 2010 World Equestrian Games Dappled Flaxen Chestnut and Glossy Silver Bay.

So, in short, the Esprit mold is one tough little bugger to collect, and Dyflin is not going to make the task any easier. They’re taking a different approach this year and drawing the names not long after the Early Bird’s April 15 deadline, presumably to shorten the already-too-long raffle process Saturday afternoon.

It’s a good idea in theory, but many people buy tickets for pick-ups because they have no conceivable way of attending in the first place. I don’t see how finding out that you were drawn for an Early Bird Raffle model will change your travel plans. (“Sorry about that deadline boss, but I have to fly to Kentucky on Saturday to pick up a plastic horse.”)

And in the end, it will still probably lead to a name or two having to be pulled, anyway.

At the 2003 BreyerFest, Reeves thought they could do a variation of that – pull all the names for the Raffle Models first, and then call them out – and that didn’t go over so well, either. Even though I know the names that got tossed out of the pile were simply duplicates (you know, from those folks who buy 500+ tickets) it still looked a little hinky from the crowd’s perspective.

There are a lot of ways to improve time management at BreyerFest. This is not one of them.

Dyflin reminds me of both the 2017 Early Bird Raffle Model Sokkar, and of one of my favorite BreyerFest Special Runs – the Decorator Ethereal Times Square. (What can I say? I love a Glossy Black!) But I am not going to work myself up over it like I did with the Man o’ War Riddle.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

They should make it so the name drawn contacts them if they are not physically attending so another name can be drawn.