I spent an hour last night rationalizing how I wasn’t going to buy the Christmas Surprise model unless it was Emma, and like the fool that I am I bought one anyway.
Ugh.
My rationale now is that since it’s Huck Bey, he’ll be easy to sell if I don’t happen to love whatever one I get. And since I am also going to attempt (AGAIN) to go on a budget diet next year, I figured this is going to be my last “wild and crazy” splurge for a while.
I don’t know why they’re doing it this way this year: early, and without pictures. I am assuming it is both inventory- and staff-related: I used to work in the inventory services industry, and a lot of companies do their physical inventories at the very end of the year, and the more stuff they can get out the door before December 26th, the better.
Reeves doesn’t directly employ as many people as you think they do, and most people do not particularly enjoy doing inventories, even if it is their job, or part of it. (I did but, well, it got complicated at the end.)
No selling scenario Reeves can come up with can be entirely fair, no matter what any hobbyist out there thinks. Every scenario can and will be gamed, and not everyone can have equal access or equal luck all the time ever. (Yes, even random draws!)
I’m annoyed as heck that I struck out all three times with the draws for Garret – a model I personally campaigned for! – but I accepted my fate and moved on.
You either choose to play, or you do not. That’s all there really is to this. For some strange reason (I blame both the back pain and the weather) I decided to play. If there is any silver lining to this, it’s that this marketing changeup will allow more people time to participate, and the ability to consider the purchase, rather than simply relying on impulse and timing.
I spent a lot of time last night considering the purchase and did it anyway. I’d like to think that was my intuition talking, but let’s get real here: even this year, my luck has not been that good. If it was, I’d be hanging out on Fiji like the guy who won two billion dollars in the lottery, and not giving two thoughts about a plastic horse on the Internet.
(Other than shopping for a BreyerFest Party Bus because really, what’s the point of having all that money if you can’t just randomly rent a party bus for all your friends?)
I take a little grim amusement in the fact that people were mad when Reeves first started selling special items on Christmas Day. And now they are mad they are not. And entertaining some odd fantasies that it will not sell out because of their ire.
There are far better things to direct your anger towards.
17 comments:
Yeah--I'm looking forward to seeing what these Hucks look like! This year (because they changed the dates around) was my 1st chance to buy one(and it not be sold out)-but alas--because of the cost, I had to give it a pass!
Right now, speculation is rampant that they're going to look like this year's "Swirls and Snowflakes" SM's (which I personally like and managed to get the whole set!) and others are hoping that they look like the "Flash" or "Sherman Morgan's" of a few years ago!
In any case, they're sold out now (despite the misgivings) making it another win for Breyer! So--I guess we'll see!
I for one am growing tired of the random d
releases.
It's always been a Christmas Morning run, marketed as such. Now give us not even a full day to know. Sorry they lost me on it.
I'm just getting burnt out on the constant money drop. I don't even think I will be rejoining the club's next year. I need a time out from weekly releases. Prices keep going up, and you can thank the flippers for that. The door on this hobby is starting to close in some of our faces. If you can't afford top dollar just shut up and take the scraps.
I really don’t understand when people say the hobby door is shut on them. Does being in the hobby mean you have to buy every SR, win every raffle (and if you don’t win, but on the secondary), buy ever GC, etc., right now? There are tons of ways to participate, and get many models. It really doesn’t seem like a lot of fun to only focus on the most highly desirable models and be constantly disappointed - so in that sense I can see it’s not a “hobby” for some.
It flat out means if you don't win, there's little to no chance for some of us to be able to afford flipper prices. Cost can be hard enough. RR are getting even out of doable range even these days.
So for some it feels like we are being shut out. If you don't understand that, good for you you aren't in this situation.
Oof, I don't pay much attention to these specials, limited releases, etc. Now and then one comes up that I'd enjoy- the dapple grey Western Prancer, the In-between mare. It's interesting how the business/hobby have evolved, and how fast and frequently limited productions are released.
As a fan of both marine life and Red Dwarf, I think Fiji is a quite the destination! :^)
You’re obviously oblivious. I too am being shut out of the hobby. A hobby I’ve been deeply involved
in since the late 1970’s. I’ll try to explain but I doubt you’ll understand or sympathize.
The cost of the model horse hobby is becoming prohibitive for many. 3/4 of the models released each year are exclusives or special runs of some sort. If you are barely getting by on a budget and can not afford several Collector Club accounts or can not pay to join all the online clubs or go to BF or the Collectors Club Event, most of the models released each year are simply unaffordable.
Even the regular run models are getting expensive, especially if you do not have a local dealer and have to pay for shipping.
I only collect Traditionals. I have no interest in any other scale. A regular run Traditional plus taxes and shipping cost me 2/3 of a days pay. I simply can not afford to buy more than 2 or 3 models a year and that’s pushing it.
I also have several shows each year in my area and if I work overtime a few days and save my birthday and Christmas money I can usually attend 1 or 2 of them if they charge an entry fee (most do charge a $40-$50 fee). Unfortunately since I do not have a table full of Club models or BF and Event models or raffle and auction models I rarely do well. My regular runs, that have flaws since I can’t hand pick them, can not compete with all the rare and HTF models the hobby Deep Pockets bring to the show. I used to do really, really well with my show string of regular runs before Breyer started all these online clubs but now my models are overlooked by judges who only have eyes for the rarities. It’s not worth paying a fee and going to shows only to come home without any ribbons. I’d be happy with a 6th place at this point.
So I can not afford the online clubs or the models from them, I can barely pay for a few regular runs each year and showing is a bust. I am not the only one it this situation either. So, yes, the door is being shut in the faces of many hobbyists.
BTW: I am a college graduate who works full time (40-50 hours a week is the norm). I am not a drop out working a part-time, minimum wage job. If hobbyists working full time can not afford their products then Breyer has a problem. Plastic horses are not a necessity so if they become unaffordable for many then sales will drop.
yes, this was a perfect description.
Something that has brought so much joy for me since the early 90s some days just makes me want to cry.
I went to show this year. I do have some nice horses, and pretty much tanked. But man it was fun to see the horses there in that room.
If you want to see what the Christmas Surprise Wassail looks like...there are 3 of them on Ebay right now...the solid green, solid red and filigree red.
Since Huck has been out of production for a while, I am hoping that the Surprise is a precursor to a 2024 regular run release on the mold. Huck is my favorite mold for customizing and Huck bodies are getting expensive.
I understand the frustration people are feeling regarding this hobby. I don't belong to any of the clubs because I just can't afford any of the higher priced models. In fact, this year I purchased seven regular run models, the two Winterfest specials (thanks to my family knowing what I wanted for my birthday) and my singular special run at Breyerfest because I fell in love with Speos. I did manage to buy enough bodies at Breyerfest to supply me with customizing projects for the year.
We can only hope that conditions will improve (we have to remember that when we ask for things to "change" the situation always gets worse, so let's be specific and demand improvement instead) Best wishes to everyone in the hobby for 2024; may your wildest plastic pony dreams come true!
I’ve been collecting since the 80s, so yeah, I recognize and agree that things have changed in the hobby - the world has changed.
Back then, for me, there were a couple of local tack shops that had a small selection of Breyers. Acquiring a CWP was a distant dream! Mail order was often not an option because it was hard to justify shipping & handling fees. I’ve generally found showing to be cliquey and unwelcoming. I didn’t have a fancy camera (and film & developing was expensive), so I never did well in photo showing. Quality RRHs were completely out of reach! Yet somehow it was tons of fun, and continues to be.
Maybe more people were in the same boat, or were able and content to make do.
People complain that Breyers are made in China now and the QC is “terrible”, but if Breyers were made exclusively in the US, they’d be at Stone prices. Would it be better to have no SRs or clubs so people don’t feel left out? What’s the solution?
No one said “No clubs”. The clubs & BF are fine. It’s ok to have a few exclusive & a couple of micro or mini runs each year. The problem is when the exclusives & SR’s make up the majority of releases in a year. It’s simply not good for the hobby or business to make 65-75% of the models unobtainable for a large segment of collectors. It discourages some from entering the hobby, drives others out & breeds resentment in those trying desperately to hang on. It also feeds the flippers which just makes the problems worse.
Solutions are simple. Limit exclusives, LE’s & SR’s to 40-50% of releases each year by increasing the # of RR’s & slightly decreasing the # of exclusives, LE’s & SR’s. But most importantly & for the love of God, Breyer NEEDS TO GET THEIR PRODUCTS IN STORES!!! And I’m not talking about the cheap cartoony crap showing up in the Dollar Store & Five Below. If people could go to a store that’s near where they live & see what the models really look like (as opposed to the shitty promo pics Breyer is notorious for) & hand pick models as well as NOT paying shipping then sales would increase. More people would buy their products if they actually saw in on the shelf in front of them & could pick out which one they liked best, whether it’s the lighter one with more shading or the darker one or the one with a more gold shimmer.
When I was a kid in the 80’s there were 5 stores within 20 miles of my little hometown (population around 10,000) & everyone knew what Breyers were because they saw them in Ben Franklin, the feed store, the tack shop, the little locally owned toy store & department store. They also saw them in the Montgomery Wards & Sears catalogs. Now, you tell people you collect Breyers & they think you’re talking about the ice cream brand & give you a funny look. Very few outside the hobby knows Breyer horses anymore because they never actually see them anywhere.
Breyer needs to stop actively & systematically eliminating their dealers. They need to start recruiting more stores to sell their products & instead of viewing them as competition for their website. I’ve never seen any other manufacturer have such a backwards view of retailers & they need to knock it off & start recruiting more dealers & treating all of them with consideration & respect.
Getting Breyers into stores is a great idea, but I expect that the number of stores willing to carry them has dwindled to almost zero. We all know how online shopping and big-box stores have destroyed most of the small mom-and-pop stores we all love -- the hometown toy shops that carried Breyer, model trains, model kits, and all kinds of fun stuff. Unfortunately, as has been noted, the world has changed and that kind of store is virtually extinct. The larger stores like Walmart, Target, and the like don't see enough profit in carrying Breyer; it's probably pretty expensive even at wholesale prices. Tractor Supply only has Breyers during the holiday season.
And even if stores were willing to carry Breyers, they'd likely find it necessary to hike the prices even higher than they already are. I don't know what the solution is, unfortunately.
Wellllll---looks like they're being delivered before Christmas to those who bought them! (so now Breyer *doesn't * have to reveal them on Christmas Day ' Cause now we know what they look like!)
For myself, I'm a little disappointed by the splatters and am glad that I passed on them! The glittery dark colors look nice--so I'm looking forward to seeing more photos-- but did they change their minds about the bald faces --or are the ones we're seeing variations??
There are plenty of Mom and Pop stores around, especially in tourist areas. Lots of feed stores, tack shops and gift shops are locally owned. They don’t carry Breyer’s because of Reeves ridiculous requirements and all the hoops they make dealers jump through to sell models. MAAP policies and having to carry the entire line of products are a couple. If Reeves would butt out so the store owners, who know their clientele better than Reeves ever will, can decide what to carry and the prices then more stores would sell Breyer models.
Why should a locally owned tack shop in central Iowa who’s shoppers are mostly farmers and stable owners, be required to carry those ridiculous styling heads? If the store owner knows his clientele much prefers TR models for themselves and CL for their kids then why can’t that be all the owner orders? And let the store owner decide on the price instead of Reeves telling him/her what the price has to be. Once the store owner pays Reeves then the products legally belong to the store owner so why does the manufacturer think they should have any say in the price?
If Reeves would back off and concentrate on making a better product instead of controlling and dictating every minuscule detail to dealers then there would be more stores willing to sell their products.
I live in KY and just 10 years ago I had 6 stores within 25 miles that sold Breyer’s. Now there are none. The stores are still in business, they just don’t carry Breyer’s anymore. When I asked why I was told it was because of all the “nitpicking rules” or “all the hoops they make you jump through” by the managers. That’s what has killed all the local dealers, not the big box stores. And it’s by design, Reeves doesn’t want dealers. They want their website to be the only source for models.
When I was a kid, the hobby was a lot about crafts and customizing. Maybe that's because I was a kid, I don't know. I still find joy in taking a questionable mold and turning it into something beautiful. I think the hobby has really gone towards buying stuff ready-made instead of do-it-yourself. I miss the made-by-owner feel we used to have of all the old customs and tack. Sure, not everything was perfect, but that's kind of the beauty of it.
Fully agree. Nobody buys the cheap garbage in the stores, the traditionals are what sell. If they can't move the cheap crap on their own website then they either need to offer it as limited special editions or not at all. Stop holding the dealers hostage to buy the cheap garbage that nobody wants, and stop holding their money hostage for months too.
Not sure if it's my comment or Andrea's post that was "obviously oblivious." Sometimes I make short comments and expect people to reverse engineer what I'm trying to communicate.
But Anonymous nailed it- it seems like Breyer is addicted to (or dependent on) limited releases. I saw this coming in 1989 when their catalog started discontinuing more. And more special limited editions, commemorative editions...and then these clubs! If you're selling to a limited audience, it makes sense- yet it seems like it has certainly created a class of sellers who are taking advantage. I don't know how they couldn't have seen this would alienate those who don't have extra cash. It seems like they have diverse enough sales (toys, clothing, knick-knacks) so that there are affordable items, yet it does seem insulting that the very item "true collectors" want is priced out of their range.
In the 80's you could buy discontinued models at a discount via mail order. Not so now...Like a fool I didn't buy the bay Sable Island for what was it, $40? Now everyone selling one on ebay wants $100 for it! (Yes, matte) Apparently they are aging well. By treating these models like investments, it's just a microcosm of how people wall themselves off from reality. Not a comforting thought.
And yet the heart and soul of the hobby is in finding those oddities with forgotten pasts (only this week I learned about old mold PAMs with brown manes & tails!) or restoring a care-worn horse, or customizing. While the internet is probably to blame for proliferating these unaffordable new models, it is a blessing for finding help in restoration & customization.
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