Sometimes The Only Way Out Is Through

Hey guys, still alive – though not doing much kicking, understandably. Having good days and bad days; hopefully more good than bad moving forward, once the new meds finally kick in.

And if not, Mom’s been crushing it with the vanilla milkshakes.

The worst part of this whole situation is the fact is that I can’t get anything done. I finally have a perfectly legitimate excuse to quilt to my heart’s content, and I can’t, dammit!

And speaking of that, If I haven’t gotten back with anyone, I apologize; I really do appreciate all the cards and plants and letters. Especially the cards and letters – y’all know how much I love ephemera! And feel free to drop me a note anytime. I read everything. 

If you were wondering what my hypothetical BreyerFest selections are, they should be pretty obvious:

As far as Limited Editions go, it’s: Blue Zeus and the Best of BreyerFest Stablemates. Blue Zeus because he’s a Blue Roan Fireheart and the actual live horse I’m basing my Mesteno Custom on. 

The Stablemates are a no-brainer: Stablemates were the first  models I bought with my own money back in the Dark Ages. I am also pretty keen on the mold matches: they are uncannily on point this year, though one is also pretty darn obvious. (I can only imagine what kind of ruckus would have been kicked up if they didn’t pick the Fighting Stallion for Kick Up Your Heels.) 

I think Flowers, the 2021 Raffle Model Bonheur on the Loping Quarter Horse, is probably my favorite here. Such a pretty shade of Chestnut!

Special Runs: I Will Survive (Quagga), and either Fight Song (Pinto Lipizzan) or The Edge of Glory (Ashquar). In spite of my declaration to the contrary, it looks like at least one of my selections this will be chosen purely on sentiment alone. And partly because it’s unavoidable at this point: sometime the only way out of a difficult situation is through.

Brambling

Well, that didn’t last long – another potential financial setback yesterday that puts a sudden damper on my plastic equine hopes and dreams. Like that reverse dapple blue roan Web Special Croi Damsha “Bramble” that looks like it was engineered out of the same stuff my “little girl and magical flying dream horse” fantasies were made from:

Bramble is not what I would have ordered if I ever “won” the opportunity to Design a Test Color, but I wouldn’t have crossed it off my preliminary/brainstorming list, either.

It will be interesting to see if they can pull off such a challenging color on a production piece. They have had mixed results in the past; some of the Connoisseur Flash Reverse Polarities looked awesome, for instance, but others looked like not-passable attempts to do a Leopard-themed Decorator.

The “Berry Pony” concept is not something anyone had on their radar – most guesses centered around gemstones, or Norse Gods and other pantheons. I also thought that maybe, in honor of the Rio Olympics, that they might have gone with something Olympic-themed – either by country, or by discipline.

I guess the “Pony” part shouldn’t have come as a complete surprise: Reeves has spent some time in the past few years building up their stable of Pony molds, including the Traditionals Newsworthy, Bouncer, the new Fell Pony, and the Classic Haflinger/New Forest Pony Mare and Foal. I am all for more and better ponies!

(Speaking of which, is a new Shetland Pony mold in the pipeline yet, Reeves? Something cute, fuzzy, and a little surly? Please?)

The Collector Club Exclusive Abdul, a Flaxen Chestnut Tobiano on the Ashquar mold, has also been taken off the table. I was a little less enthused about him anyway. It’s not the mold or the pose – I’ve seen lots of pictures of Arabian Stallions “feeling their oats”, so to speak, so I have no problems with a mold doing the same.

I’m just not that crazy about him in pinto; solid colors seem to do much more to enhance his unique silhouette.

At least, that’s what I’m telling myself. I am also annoyed that they went with pinto for the CC Special – again. Spotted releases sell better than solids, which is likely why they did it, but remember how pretty the Ashquar mold was in Gloss Bay last year, as Ganache?

He didn’t sell out at BreyerFest, but he did not long after the leftovers were put up on the web site. So while he was not everyone’s first choice, he was a lot of people’s second. Something interesting to ponder there, I think...

Gotta get to be early tonight – I have to work early, and I have a sinus headache that probably needs more sleep than medication to fix.

Oh, and the box with the horse I bought came today: the box was very small, and very stinky. Methinks I’ll be talking about this model sooner, rather than later, and about a topic or two only vaguely related to the reason why I bought him in the first place.

Honey vs. Chocolate

I was hoping that they’d bring back that wonderful dark Glossy Bay they put on some of last year’s "Pop the Cork" Surprise Model Nokotas; judging from the prices they were (and are, still) commanding, he was the clear favorite of many. And guess what shows up on the Breyer Blog last week?

A Glossy Bay Ashquar, named Ganache. It’s still too early for me to decide if he’s going to be on my want list, but I’m going to hazard a guess that he’s going to be on the list of many others. 

The popularity of this new "Chocolate" Gloss Bay is somewhat reminiscent of the popularity of the vintage "Honey" Gloss Bays, best typified by the Old Mold and Family Arabians, such as this set I sold recently:

(Yeah, I know, the eyewhites on that FAM were scary! And 100 percent real, from what I could tell; they too, were a part of that ca. 1959-62 collection.)

Contrary to what many hobbyists assume, Gloss "Honey" Bays were not that common a color in the Vintage Glossy Era (pre-1967). Aside from the Old Mold/Family Arabians, the only other Regular Run release that came in that color was the Clydesdale Stallion.

And only for a short time: he was one of the first models to switch over to a Matte Finish from the Gloss, by 1963.

The #36 Racehorse was nominally "Bay", but was in reality Chestnut, and the Western Prancing Horse debuted in a "Bay" ca. 1962 that was identical to the Five-Gaiter’s Matte Sorrel. The Glossy Bay Quarter Horse Geldings tended to be more reddish-brown than true Honey. The Running Mares and Foals were the same color as the Gelding, except Matte, though some veer into Semi-Gloss/High Satin territory. (Inexplicably, they called those two "Chestnut" in the catalogs and pricelists!)

There are so few genuine Gloss Bay Fighting Stallions floating around that I cannot honestly make a judgement call on what their "standard" color is supposed to be. They switched him over to a Matte Finish around the same time as the Clydesdale, leaving that color to the Family Arabians alone through the middle of the 1960s. All the Bays that debuted after 1963 were Matte.

There are a few Test Color/Oddball Glossy Honey Bays roaming the hobby landscape, too, including the famous Gloss Bay Pinto Western Prancing Horses. (Wanna talk about grails? Sigh…) I’ve always suspected that the Shetland Pony was supposed to have come in a Gloss Bay, originally, but so far I’ve seen no physical evidence.

So, just like almost all the old Vintage colors, it’s far more commonly seen in more modern releases. (Woodgrain would be one of those exceptions, though I’m thinking for not much longer.)

When the Weather Girl mold finally makes her comeback, I am so hoping that they release her in all of the original Old Mold colors: Gloss Shaded Alabaster, Gloss Appaloosa, Woodgrain, and especially the Gloss Honey Bay.

Chamonix

Nailed it! The next Web Special, Chamonix:

Silver Filigree Ashquar! Interesting little detail worth noting: the hooves are a different color than the ears and muzzle. Silver Filigrees haven’t been consistent on that point: just as often as not, the head and hoof colors match - most recently on the BreyerFest Silver Filigree Misty.

I’ll be entering every day - my Mont Tremblant needs a boyfriend - but doubt I’ll get him. As with most low-run Silver Filigrees, speculating will likely be an issue with this one. I won’t be heartbroken if I don’t get pulled for one. It’s not like he was a Kitten, a Khemosabi, a Polled Hereford Bull or a Traditional Man o’ War.

(Again, I want to reiterate: it was an educated guess, not the result of any insider intel. I’m just a little better than most at reading the signs. Making a ton of predictions also helps.)

In other news, per the Just About Horses that are just starting to show up, I was also partially right about the imminent reappearance of the Western Horse: there’s a shiny Appaloosa one named Glitterati being offered next year to celebrate the Western Horse’s 65th anniversary.

I thought the mold would show up in the Vintage Club first, but I am on board with this as well. Plus, I think he’d make an excellent model to use for a hobby outreach campaign.

Organizing a "National Model Horse Day" campaign has been in the back of my mind ever since a coworker mentioned National Clown Week back in August. (Yes, she's a professional clown. Not scary at all, either!) If clowns get a week, surely this great hobby of ours is worthy of a day, right? I wouldn't have to be Breyer-specific or anything like that, just a day to publicly celebrate and advocate for the hobby that gives us so much pleasure.

"National Model Horse Day: Because everyone does deserve a pony!"

Okay, off my soapbox now.

The BreyerFest Celebration Horse will be a Bay Roan Ardennes, on the Roy mold. Most of us were expecting something Drafty - likely a Percheron - so an Ardennes is a pleasant surprise. I don’t have my copy of the JAH yet to judge the quality of the paint job, but I’ve been hearing good things.

It’s nice to see more warm fuzzies about the selection of the Roy mold than I expected on Blab. He’s not one of my favorite molds, personally, but I’ve always believed it was partly because he’s had such a bland lineup of paint jobs over the years. The recent BreyerFest Special Run Radar showed just how much a pretty paint job can mend. 

But I’m sure we’ll be hearing plenty to the contrary, too. I find it so baffling that some hobbyists are willing to bail on the event based on a the very first release - sort of like bailing on a concert because you don’t like the opening act. While we’ve had both beauties and clinkers over the years, the event hasn’t been exclusively about the "Celebration Horse" for years.

And finally, it seems like the Maureen Love article in the JAH is mostly a tease, and noncommittal on the return of the Hagen-Renaker molds. I’ll have to wait and read it myself to see if I can discern anything more from it.

Gone Goofy for Goffert

First, I noticed that a custom I’ve been tinkering with for over a year had started oozing. Then I broke one of my more recently acquired Hagen-Renaker miniatures. Then I get the e-mail from Reeves about Yet Another Special Run - this time, "Kashmir" from the Big Cat Series.

The little cartoon sign above my head that reads TILT finally went off. I spent the rest of the evening working on an abandoned beaded flower project I found in the basement. Horses? What horses?

Anyway, I find the Kashmir most curious. The initial piece in the Big Cat series, the Smarty Jones Kimbia, received a rather cool response. I don’t think many of us would have been shocked if the series had been scrapped or drastically scaled back; there was enough of a delay between the Kimbia and Kashmir to make it seem likely.

What I find even more curious about the Kashmir is the fact that it is the third Special Run on the Goffert mold this year. While it is not at all unusual for a mold to have multiple releases in a given year, they are usually either part of a set or series. In the 1950s through most of the 1970s, many Regular Runs were offered in multiple colorways. (Family Arabians, anyone?) In the 1980s and early 1990s, a lot of Special Runs came in sets of multiple colors, either simultaneously or in sequence. In more recent years, we’ve had the Treasure Hunt, Gambler’s Choice and Surprise models.

In the Goffert’s case, the SRs are from three completely unrelated series: a BreyerFest Celebration Horse, a Brick-and-Mortar Halloween Horse, and a Web Special. This is not unheard of, but definitely a little odd. That must have been some crazy kind of Product Development meeting they had early this year. ("It’s almost time for lunch - let’s just make all the remaining releases on the list Gofferts and call it a day. Who’s up for Chinese?")

Speaking of Product Development, I ran across some interesting commentary online about the Night Mare and the Flagship Store Special Sahran, on the Ashquar mold that deserves some clarification.

First, yes, it is true that Reeves lurks on sites looking for ideas and suggestions. Sometimes they even ask for them, in private or by proxy. However, these ideas and suggestions are very rarely translated into immediate action. You don’t go from zero to Production Run in a week or two, unless it’s a really small piece run and it’s made in the U.S. (The Vault Sale Bull "Colton" comes to mind here.)

Typically it takes months - and in the case of an event like BreyerFest, up to a year - for a model to go from concept to reality. Sometimes little tweaks are made during the production process - let’s make half the run glossy! - but big changes are rare.

When we talk about wanting a certain model in a certain color, and it becomes a reality a week or a month later, it’s certainly not a coincidence. But it’s more a matter that both hobbyists and Reeves are operating in the same environment online, simmering in the same cauldron of ideas and inspirations. We think our ideas are uniquely our own, but chances are, someone else is thinking along the same lines. (For me, it’s a numbers game: I make a lot of suggestions. The more you make, the more likely one of them is going to become reality.)

Anyway, back to the Gofferts. The Kashmir is interesting - I like him more than the Kimbia, but I am tapped out financially. I can wait on him if I have to.

If I happen to run across the Halloween Goffert, named Night Mare, she’ll definitely be coming home with me somehow. You already know I love glow-in-the-dark things, and as a "night person" of Hungarian ancestry, I am totally down with the vampire imagery.