More on the BHR Rehoming Sale

One of the recent Black Horse Ranch eBay auctions looked very familiar, so I took a quick skim of my files, and look who I found in one of Marney’s albums!

This is the same Dapple Gray with white points Proud Arabian Mare that went for an oh-my-goodness amount about a week or so ago.

The photo is unmarked and undated, but presumably before 1992; most of the photos in this particular album are from the mid-1980s, so I’ll hazard a guess that that’s when and where this model came from.

There are a few photos in the album that are specifically attributed to Karen Grimm, including at least two other Test Colors and several Decorators that Marney was obviously using for reference. Including this guy, whose auction ended Friday:

I have no idea if discovering and posting these photos earlier would have had any impact on the prices. Maybe, maybe not. In the PAM’s case, most of the value would be in confirming the fairly safe assumption that it - like most hobbyist-owned Test Colors from the 1970s and 1980s - passed through Marney’s hands at some point.

Not all did, of course: eBay has been littered, over the years, with Tests and Oddities discovered "in the wild". Lots of people had access to the factory, and the goodies sometimes abandoned inside. 

There are several unmarked photos in the album, so it would not surprise me if there are even more of Karen’s models "hidden" within.

In other BHR news, it has been reported that part of Karen’s collection will be sold at BreyerFest at the host hotel (the Clarion) in one of the suites, starting Thursday night. As far as I know (no time to follow up here, again) it’ll be a straight-up sale of Breyers and some of her famous "Faux Finish" Breyers.

Whenever someone asks me about selling off an entire collection - big or small - I always give "take it to BreyerFest" as a viable and expedient option. It’s the best place in the world to get rid of a lot of models quickly: that’s where the money and the desire are.

I’ve gotten some flak for advocating it, because some hobbyists see it as a limiting factor: if they can’t go to Kentucky, they can’t buy. It’s early enough, however, that I hope some enterprising hobbyists will consider offering pick-up and selection services, like they do for Special Run Ticket items and at the Peter Stone Warehouse Sales.

(I can’t do it. Please don’t ask.)

I gather that due to safety and capacity concerns, there will likely be a limit to the number of people in the room at any given time, so there may be a line or numbering system of some sort.

I don’t know what I am going to do about it right now. My Thursday night is already on its way towards being extremely busy, and I doubt I can accommodate an extended amount of time standing in another line. 

I’m more curious to simply see it (and document it!), rather than purchase anything from it. Though I will buy something, undoubtedly, most of the models I would pine for I wouldn’t be able to afford. *Bask+++? Certain Test Colors? Some of the more exotic Fauxs? Not gonna happen.

The Burden of History

Update on the BHR situation - they are now also accepting offers for some pieces via MH$P:

http://www.modelhorsesalespages.com/searchlist.asp?Accid=19554

Interesting. Glad that they’re going to spread the wealth in multiple ways. Hope there are some direct (no bid) sales in the pipeline too.

As for the absence of the promised social media presence, we may still be in the "soft opening" phase here - a low-key launch made prior to a bigger announcement, presumably to test the market and work out any potential issues.

On the issue of the museum … that’s a complicated one. At some point in their hobbyist "careers",  I believe most hobbyists fantasize about the notion of starting, having, or at the very least donating their little beloveds to a museum.

Most of us abandon the idea rather quickly: we don’t have the time, the money, or the enthusiasm to follow through on the task. Even if we do, other things get in the way, like work, family, or the sheer amount of storage space required before it ever gets to the actual working museum phase.

The history of past efforts is not encouraging, either; it gotten to the point that whenever I hear rumor of someone else taking up the task, I involuntarily start make painful-looking faces. "Oh, this has a high probability of not ending well."

Small museums dedicated to idiosyncratic hobbies have a difficult time making a go of it, especially after the founder’s passing. Even if a building and a curator (full, or part-time) are secured without much money or fuss, it’s the funding needs that accrue over time that become the bigger issue. Things like general building maintenance, marketing, utilities, and finding someone who knows how to dust correctly. (A bit of an issue on my end, but let’s not go there. Sigh.)

Unless you are independently wealthy and/or manage to set up a healthy endowment fund, you’ll find yourself competing with hundreds of other small museums for a relatively small pot of grant money. Money that’s more likely to go to a local Civil War history museum than to a collection of horse-shaped objects.

In the end, the needs of today often end up outweighing the needs of the yesterday.

Even if the collection itself disperses, though, the legend of it still lives in the provenances of the pieces that disperse. That’s not a bad thing.

Ooh boy, that feels like a bit of a downer. To lighten the mood a bit, here’s a little speculation about the latest BreyerFest Special Run clue on their web site blog:

A wise woman once said "Fashion changes, but style endures." Our next horse is stylish and timeless too.

Like many others, I think this reference to Coco Chanel refers to a vintage (for me, pre-1985) mold. Personally, I’d like to see it be an Old Timer: we haven’t had a widely available Old Timer release since 2004’s Starman and Noddy.

We have had the Vintage Club "Gus" in 2012 and the Reissues of #935 McDuff (the Blue Roan Appaloosa) and #1260 Noddy (the Gloss Palomino) but none of those releases were readily available to the general public or low-involvement hobbyists.

After the Western Horses and Family Arabians, the Old Timer mold is probably the most recognizable model to the general public. And they love him: I have never had an issue selling Old Timers of any color, of any vintage, in any selling forum.

I think it’d be both funny and appropriate if it were the Family Arabian Stallion. Not only does clue "fit", it also segues rather neatly into the "Four Arabs from Four Eras" theory I floated earlier.

The only problem there would be color: he’s come in just about every color, outside of some Decorator ones, and another Decorator in the Tent lineup seems unlikely. Unless it’s a Translucent.

A Translucent Family Arabian Stallion would be several levels of awesome.

We’ll find out soon, if not already.

So Many Horses

Since I’ve been dealing with a lot of weirdness and paperwork for the past two weeks (hobby and nonhobby), I’m a bit late to the party when it comes to the Black Horse Ranch collection listings on eBay. (Under the seller ID: thehorseyouwantcalif)

But not too late - we are talking about a collection of 9500 pieces, and I only missed about a week’s worth. For those of you unfamiliar with the scope or significance of this collection, here’s a page that gives you a few hints of its glories:

http://www.bhranch.com/model/modeltour.htm

I also have some of Marney’s photographs of Karen’s collection (from the late 1980s?), and I’ll get around to scanning and posting more of them later this year, after I finish upgrading the computer hardware and software.

(Click to enlarge.)

They are not a better or more intimate look at her collection: the pictures are mostly panoramic shots that focus on capturing quantity rather than detail. They will not add much value to most of the pieces in the Collection in terms of either provenance or monetary value, since it'll be difficult to single out any but the most distinctive pieces.

But it is fascinating to compare these photos to later photos to see how even the largest (and arguably one of the most complete of all) collections evolve over time.

I’ve been around long enough that I bought models directly from Karen Grimm - as in actual hobbyist-to-hobbyist transactions, and not just the Special Runs and Regular Runs she sold as a dealer. The allure of buying "certified" pieces from the BHR Collection isn’t going to be as strong to me as it will probably to be with other hobbyists who may have heard of her only as part of hobby legend.

The prices for the first couple batches certainly seem to say so. No room in my budget for this quarter, alas.

I do hold out hope that perhaps, a few hundred (or thousand) pieces down the line, I might find a suitable something or two from her personal collection to add to my own.

(For the record, I have no involvement in this dispersal, other than a signal boost.)