Peeking Out of the Cave

In the middle of a bunch of things here, so I’ll do a little cleanup and go back to my cave.

Following up on the Classics discussion in the post previous, the two bodies I pulled out of my body box to tinker with are a pair of Classics: the Mesteno’s Mother and Duchess. I’ve seen both of them get customized by others, but either as simple repaints or armatures, and neither of those approaches works for me.

I happen to think there’s something beautiful inside each of these molds, so my challenge is to reveal it without obliterating the original character of the molds themselves. 

But the bulk of that work won’t happen until after BreyerFest, because I’ve barely worked on my Sampler for this year. I am not too worried about it yet because I know what I want to write about, and I have already penciled in the three-day Fourth of July weekend to do it in. 

The next Bird of a Feather Series release Meadowlark is up, and I like her. But I’m not getting my hopes up because we all know how the market is right now:

Bluegrass Bandit is another model that gets way more negativity thrown at it than the average model, and I’m not sure why. I’m kind of up to my eyeballs in sales items right now, so I wouldn’t be as hurt was with the previous release in this series (Crane). Just… kind of bummed.

(The one I really want at the moment is Milky Way, and the prices are not encouraging.)

Some hobbyists are annoyed that they didn’t get enough forewarning about the Mercy for Animals Hope Gala charity auction lot, which included a Test Color Ayrshire Cow and a Hampshire Pig. I am also not sure why this was a big deal either – the knowing about it part, not the auction itself or the cause.

As you can tell, I haven’t been terribly on top of things in the hobby lately, but I knew about it when it was still live. And promptly ignored it, because it was already well above what was willing to pay. 

I wasn’t going to stick around to watch either, because I’ve never had much fascination with watching other people spending enormous amounts of money on things. Haggling, negotiating, wheeling and dealing can be artful and entertaining to watch, but I am not someone who takes particular joy in treating high-dollar auctions like a spectator sport. 

(And the clapping? Why the clapping?)

I already had a Hampshire Pig anyway:

I always wanted one of the Special Run Pigs from the 1980s, but they’re pretty elusive because they were primarily sold to pig farmers, not hobbyists. When they do show up, they tend to do so pretty randomly. 

And that’s how I got mine: I found him in a box lot of Breyer Animal molds on eBay years ago. I don’t have time to look up the price I paid, but it was neither a steal nor an extravagance, and I’m sure I made up most of the sale selling the excess out of the lot. (I do remember getting my #365 Black Angus Bull out of the same lot. I wanted one anyway, and since he came with...)

The Hampshire appears to be the most “common” of the Special Run Pigs, and I haven’t found any of the others yet at a price I can justify to myself.

Controversy

Oh goodness, where do I even begin?

The topic of color is just as controversial one in both the live horse and model horse community. 

Some of it is comes out of old and often debunked beliefs and institutional prejudices about certain colors and patterns (Pintaloosas, double dilutes, narrow ranges of acceptable breed colors, excessive white rules, etc.) 

And some of it is genuine concern about the health and wellbeing of the horse itself: flashy color sells, and sometimes horses with obvious and/or potentially harmful characteristics will be bred because they’re a pretty color or sport an eyecatching pattern. (And some of the colors themselves are harmful in and of themselves, in a genetically homozygous form.)

Any time a model is released in an atypical color – for the breed, or just in general – there is always a backlash.

My first concern when they announced next year’s BreyerFest theme – one that I initially dismissed because surely they were smart enough not to go there – was that they might pick a Celebration Horse that might fall into that latter category: pretty, but problematic.

What I was hoping for was that Reeves would carefully thread this needle: we wouldn’t just have colorful representatives of breeds known for their flashy looks, but also horses that didn’t fit the “mold”. That would have included not just rare colors on more common breeds (Pinto Trakehners!), but unusual patterns and oddities (Brindles and Chimeras), visually striking examples of rare breeds, and also horses or breeds that thrived or succeeded outside of their more usual or expected roles or overcame great obstacles or disabilities. 

And also, at least one actual Zebra, a couple of Decorators including a Rainbow-colored one (duh!) and one or two rarely used older molds because they are also “of another color”, metaphorically speaking. 

Well, that’s what I would have gone with or proposed, if I had been asked.

When I initially saw the Celebration Horse model, my first reaction was “Oh okay, an Appaloosa. We haven’t had many Appaloosa Celebration Horses, so that’s seems like a logical choice.” The model looked nice, though very similar to last year’s Holiday Connoisseur Ambrose. I figured there would probably be a little bit of backlash over that, because any time any release is followed by a somewhat similar release, there’s going to be trouble.

But that was not where the trouble really was. I saw pictures of the actual horse the model was based on, and the first words out of my mouth were “Oh, dear…”

Although I have made it very clearly and obviously known that I am not a stickler when it comes to model horse anatomy – plastic has no genotype – that does not extend to the real thing. 

Horses should look like horses, and function like them too. I, too, cringe at what has become of some breeds in recent years, especially Morgan and Quarter Horses. Give me those old Foundation-bred horses anytime!

There is, undoubtedly, some after-the-fact enhancements that make the real-world horse look even more exaggerated in his photos than he does in person. Sadly, it is these exaggerated looks that often win and sell: that’s part of what got the Tennessee Walking Horse breed into the sorry state that it has devolved into. 

It becomes a vicious circle that results in horses being bred to a type that either can’t, or shouldn’t, exist. 

Do the owners of these horses actually love them as horses, or do they only see them as investments? It’s complicated: some do, some don’t, though most exist in a state somewhere between the two. 

I’m not going to speculate on the owners’ motives or where they exist on that scale: I think it’s unfair to do so, especially since I do not know them in any sense of the word. I do understand why he was withdrawn from the event as the Celebration Horse. I saw the tone of the conversation on Facebook, such as it was, before it was pulled. 

I have no doubt there were some comments that veered into volatile or threatening territory: provoking and stoking strong emotions is a behavior endemic to Facebook, and one of the many reasons I try to avoid it.

There’s also been some speculation that this incident proves that the Powers-That-Be at Reeves are “not actually horsepeople”. I know for a fact that this is not true: some of our very own work for them on, by salary and by contract. 

But what did happen to get to this point? It was probably a combination of factors. 

I think part of the problem is that they were allured by the horse’s celebrity owner, and the possibility of using his celebrity status to draw more attention to the event. They’ve been using that strategy since the 1970s with releases like Stud Spider and Lady Phase, and to great effect at BreyerFest. 

It’s also somewhat obvious that the folks at Reeves tend to favor English and International disciplines over Western ones, and may not have been as aware of some of their attendant controversies. They probably had assurances that the horse was N/N for HYPP, and that was enough to allay their initial concerns.

Regardless of how they got to this point, the issue is now: where do they go from here?

First: the model itself likely never got beyond the Test/Sample phase, and production for Celebration Horses doesn’t usually begin until well after ticket sales do, so they don’t have a warehouse full of unsellable models to deal with. 

Second: who becomes the Celebration Horse now? I’ve always assumed – since the Mego incident in 1995 – that Reeves has had backup plans for Celebration Horses who are unable to attend for any given reason. 

If they had backup choices, they’re going to be recontacted this week, obviously, and whatever contracts need to be renegotiated, they will be. It’s also possible that another guest performer who may have already been confirmed – but not yet announced – could be bumped up to “Celebration Horse” status, which could save a lot of time, money and aggravation.

If I had a choice, what I would do is take the negative and turn it into a positive, with a Tennessee Walking Horse as the Celebration Horse. I’d use the Bluegrass Bandit mold as opposed to the Midnight Sun (of course) and utilize this very visible platform to highlight the efforts to redeem and reclaim the breed from the Big Lick. There are a lot of very colorful TWHs out there – another thing the breed is known for! – and that would definitely help “retcon” it into the theme. 

Anyways, that’s my thoughts on the matter. Not exactly how I thought my first “official” post about BreyerFest 2021 would go, but there it is. 

September Shopping

I know I got lucky with the Fruitcake Fillies last year so I kinda-sorta had it coming, but I seriously do not have time to deal with twinsies right now:

The Salem is just as awesome as advertised, though: I don’t know what process they are using to achieve this, but he glows so intensely you could use him as a nightlight.

This is also my first in-hand experience with the Mason mold in person, and I have to say that… I really like him! I wasn’t overly impressed with the mold when he debuted as the 2018 Horse of the Year, but I think I was letting the original release’s sedate gray color get in the way. It’s amazing what a difference a nicely designed paint job makes!

(I think the same situation is going to occur with the new “Mighty Muscle” Draft Horse.)

Speaking of… since I happened to be in that part of town, I swung by one of my local toy stores on Friday, ostensibly to check out some of the Fall releases. I was impressed by the sparkly Cupcake (who, despite what some people say, does look like chocolate in person), found myself still on the fence about the “Black Opal” Desatado Lightning Ridge (a concept that would have definitely benefited from translucency), and unexpectedly fell in love with the Brick and Mortar Marwari release Khalid.

I didn’t buy any of those three, though if I can carve out any time in the next several days to do it I just might go back for the Khalid. He was a release I hadn’t really given him much thought to prior to seeing him in person, and now that I have I realize that he’s the exact shade of Dun Sabino that I’ve been chasing for years.

I’ve tried painting one myself, and got others to try and paint one for me, but here Reeves goes and just nails it in a Production Run. I was not prepared for that.

It took me a couple of Tractor Supply Stores, but I did manage to secure a Stella that met my specifications yesterday. The same store had a drop-dead gorgeous and extremely Chalky Sampson too, but since things are kind of chaos here at the moment (and the Khalid is messing with my head) I decided to stick to my original plan. Though I did thrown in a few of the Series 2 Spirit Stablemates I hadn’t acquired yet, including the Chase Running Mustang Spirit. Because there’s always room for Stablemates!

And finally, here’s last week’s flea market acquisitions: while the weather was fine, I just wasn’t feeling up to the task today (busy, allergies, not sleeping well, etc.)

The larger Fox Terrier is actually hard plastic – I’m assuming Diamond P, but I don’t see a mold mark anywhere so don’t quote me on that. As I’ve pointed out before, in Breyer’s earliest days they briefly billed themselves as a “Horse and Dog” figurine manufacturer. And it makes sense: by 1958 they already had the Boxer, the Poodle, Rin Tin Tin and Lassie molds in their lineup – all before the Old Mold Arabians and the Clydesdale Stallion even debuted!

That parity would be short lived, with only four more Traditional Dog molds introduced in the following twenty years.

Would a Fox Terrier have been a part of the mix eventually, if the Dog molds had been just a bit more popular? (Or the horses, a little less so?) Sometimes I wonder.

Brishen and Friends

And the winners are – a Buttermilk Buckskin Brishen Sampson, a Buckskin Blanket Appaloosa Smarty Jones Hakan and (not pictured on the web site as of my posting) a Black Pinto Bluegrass Bandit Stella.

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/search/breyer

Again, the standard disclaimer applies: nope, I really did not know ahead of time. 

(Incidentally, I went back and looked at the Stablemates bin tag UPCs: it’s the 6217 Mystery Unicorns Assortment – the one with the Navy Blue Alborozo. Adjust your expectations accordingly. Or not!)

I’ll have to see them in person, of course, before I make my final decisions – there are a few other models I’m considering adding to the herd in the meantime, besides – though the Bluegrass Bandit intrigues me the most. I know some hobbyists aren’t too fond of the mold, but I am hoping that translates into making it the easiest of the three to find/choose from.

While I like the color on the Brishen – it is very reminiscent of the color on the 2017 Bollywood Surprise Harley, who was very well-received generally and I liked very much also – I am a little bit disappointed that they went with the “standard” version of the mold.

The Brishen mold has two different versions of the mane (up and down), two different versions of the tail (up and swished), and even two different versions of the legs (feathered and unfeathered). Of the 11 previous Special Runs or Regular Runs of this mold (excluding gloss variants or Tests), six of them have been the same combo as the original Premier Club Brishen release: the “up” mane, the “up” tail, and the “feathered” legs.

I get it, the “fluffy” version the most popular variation of the mold, but of the eight different possible mold combos, four remain completely unexplored, and two – the Dag Dia version, and the Novelisto D version – have only been used once.

I have a sneaking suspicion we’ll be seeing more of this mold again soon, possibly/probably as a Special Run for next year’s “Celtic Fling”-themed BreyerFest. Reeves certainly hasn’t been timid about using different mane and tail combos before, either with Surprise models, or with 50/50 Splits like this year’s Roxy release Diana.

At this point I am on the fence about whether or not they’ll use the Brishen mold as the Surprise model, though; while the mold is still just a bit too popular for that sort of thing, but he’s still had a relatively limited number of releases and all those mold options to explore.

And speaking of that, since Sampson will undoubtedly be popular – with some hobbyists exploiting the pre-order option on the TSC web site to essentially put a chunk of the initial store stock on hold – those of us initially left out in the cold may need to take a deep breath and either wait for second shipments to arrive, or get some sort of confirmation on production numbers before paying a premium. 

The Other Black Bear

So far, so good on the Black Friday sales – I was initially tempted by the Premier Club Stablemates and was actually online when they were still available, but I managed to wait it out until they went away.

Actually, aside from a handful of eBay transactions I’ve been real good – no Rosalind and Rigel, no Griffin, no Fletchers, no Goblin, no dubious Craigslist deals, no side trips to farm stores, and the only actual Black Friday sale I attended was at the JoAnn Fabrics. (Kona Cottons were on sale! And I had a coupon!)

But we all know something else is coming shortly, right?

I’m trying not to think too much about it – I’ve got a few other things that take financial priority this time of year – but still can’t help but worry that the Elk, Saint Bernard or Deer Family I’ve been hoping/campaigning will turn up either at an inopportune moment (like last year’s Olaf) or show up as another frustrating Micro Run.

(I am kind of baffled that everyone is so convinced that this year’s special Animal is going to be a Moose. It’s not going to be a Moose, people. That ship sailed with Ghost.)

Since I’m not feeling terribly chatty today and I need to re-check my final count for the Dun Scotty contest (ha!) here’s a picture of my Warehouse Find Reissue Bear on the Bluegrass Bandit mold:

I’m kind of surprised she’s still available on the web site, but we’ve been so bombarded with new product over the past few months that maybe we shouldn’t.

She does have a few flaws and goobers – nothing I can’t live with, but if I can upgrade sometime in the not-too-distant future, I’ll do it.

There’s a higher-than-average incidence of manufacturing flaws on the Warehouse Finds/Reissues. That’s because they are/were manufactured from unpainted bodies stored in the warehouse for an indeterminate period of time, then shipped to China – and back. All that travel (in time and space!) is going to take a toll on a body, plastic or otherwise.

Bearable

In case you were wondering if the evaluation of my finds earlier this week was correct (i.e. as a preemptive consolation prize for not getting Cornelius), it was.

I know I am in the minority here, but I still think doing purchase raffles for Micro Runs is a bad idea. Partly because I’m pretty sure it means I will never win one ever again, and partly because I do not enjoy watching the parade of ransom notes masquerading as sales ads that follows.

Rather than make myself angry, I’ve spent most of the past couple of days off the Internet, enjoying the last genuinely nice weekend of the year and working on some particularly vexing sewing projects. And unboxing some of the recent arrivals:

It’s funny that I passed up the Bear models when the surplus was shipped off to Tuesday Morning a while back, but I had a much harder time resisting the Reissue – even though, technically, the Reissue has even less detail than the original release!

(No painted horseshoes, chestnuts, or belly stamps, in case you missed them.)

Some of it, obviously, is a response to its relative rarity: there are going to be fewer of the Reissue than of the original release.

I don’t think they’ve ever officially released quantity numbers for any of these Warehouse Finds, but it’s generally been assumed to be fewer than 1000 pieces each – and sometimes significantly less. (This, in part, is based on an early hobbyist hack of the ordering system than Reeves has since fixed.)

Second, and in spite of the winking web site conceit, most of the Warehouse Finds aren’t really old stock, newly rediscovered: they’re older bodies, newly painted to look like the older releases. They are Special Runs in all but name. Special Runs, even relatively common ones (anything over 500 pieces, in this day and age) still carry a certain cachet.

And third, well, have you seen the prices Bluegrass Bandits have been going for lately? It’s hard getting a body quality one for under $30.00! Buying the Reissue seemed a safe bet, financially.

Incidentally, the flea market was great this weekend, too, but I’ll get around to those goodies later in the week.

Repeating Themselves

Well, there’s my first must-have for this year’s BreyerFest, the Store Special Repeat the Beat:

That’s exactly the color I’ve been hoping for on the Bluegrass Bandit mold! It is very similar to another recent roan paint job that I was very fond of, the Classics #931 Bay Roan Quarter Horse:

In its rather short life, the Bluegrass Bandit mold has already made three other appearances as a BreyerFest Special Run model: 2011’s Translucent Under the Sea, 2013’s Store Special Lady C, and 2014’s Store Special Champagne Wishes.

True, it is a bit unusual that a mold that’s only been around since 2008 is now making its third appearance as a Store Special, but Bluegrass Bandit mold has become unusually popular over the past few years; I’ve been trying to add to my tiny (2 piece!) collection, but the prices keep getting in the way.

While it is also true that a Tennessee Walking Horse has little to do with the India theme, I suspect the real horse’s guest appearance at BreyerFest this year may be a not-so-subtle nudge in the effort to get the soring ban finally implemented.

Like the recent Christmas Horse Esprit Bayberry and Roses, Repeat the Beat’s tail lacks a white basecoat; because Samples are usually depicted in these early promotional pictures, it’s too early to tell if this is idiosyncratic to this particular Sample, or a detail that will make it into the final production pieces.

It may see a bit odd, but I do like it, since it adds a hint of translucency to the tail itself. But I’ll be fine with it, either way.

Weather Reports

I’m feeling a bit under the weather today; probably something I picked up from the assignment in the hospital late last week. No trip to the flea market today! (It ended up raining anyway.)

So it’s another day of odds and ends.

I had my first BreyerFest nightmare Friday night. This surprised me, since I usually start having them earlier in the year. But so far all the little projects that I need to get done prior have been going reasonably well.

Even my two ticket times are fine; I’m not crazy about the 10 a.m. Saturday ticket, since that means I’ll only have one shot - not two - at the Store Special Bluegrass Bandit, who's going to be the insanely hot item this year, I think. But I’ll deal, and sharpen my elbows if necessary.

I’m so not on board with the Sunday ticket times. I know they’re doing it to increase the number of tickets sold; there are only so many people you can push through a ticket line in an hour, barring medical emergencies. But that means the sales of extras are getting pushed to the very end of the event, and I am not keen on that development.

If I don’t have any volunteer commitments (none that I know of, this year) then I like to high-tail it right after the Sunday raffle. Hanging out that extra hour or so just means a longer drive - and possibly, another day off of work I have to schedule for.

Following up on some recent comments…

Regarding the history of Peter Stone and Breyer/Reeves, that’s sort of a tricky subject for everyone involved, and not something I feel I can discuss in a direct way in a public forum.

Let me put it this way. I think it’s one of those topics that makes me think that we really need someone from the outside to write the history of the hobby. Not to get into any details, but it would be better if we had someone who could be more objective about it.

Putting on the graphic designer cap: regarding the dropped letters in logos, yes, it’s done to draw the eye. I was never fond of the dropped R in the previous "coffee can" logo though, because it looked more like a mistake than an intentional act of design. If it looks like a mistake, it’s perceived as a mistake. (And ergo, the people start looking for more…)

For the record, I don’t think Breyer has had a clear, consistent or successful brand identity since the early 1980s. It’s gotten better in the past few years, but it still seems a bit too bland and corporate to me. When I look at the most recent logos, I don’t see "legacy toy company with a slightly quirky fan base".

And finally, because I just scanned it for another project entirely, here is a picture of that one quilt block that I was recently preoccupied with, Odds and Ends. Most of the web searches for the block name will give you something completely different. THIS is the one that piqued my interest:

All of the other sewing projects - outside of the BreyerFest stuff - have pretty much been put away for the time being.

Delicate Condition

Vita is fine now, BTW. Me, on the other hand …I worked over 17 hours on Thursday. Combined with dealing with the latest big blizzard, and Vita, my still-slightly-fragile health went off the rails again.

It’s nothing serious - it’s more exhaustion than anything else. I’m feeling just a bit more tired, rambly, and a disconnected from reality than I usually am.

I haven’t had a chance to take a personal look-see at the new Flagship horse Aurelius - a Gloss Flaxen Chestnut Desatado - even though I had an opportunity to do so earlier this week. In the pictures I’ve seen so far he looks very pretty and very promising, but I doubt I’ll be getting one.

It’s nothing against the mold or the color, I need to do a little bit of downsizing before I start buying again, outside of the occasional Web Special and Vintage Club stuff. I haven’t had the time to do that because of work getting in the way. (Time will be made, once I get these minor health issues out of the way.)

Pictures of the two BreyerFest Raffle models are now making their way about the Model Horse world, via hobbyists visiting the Breyer booth at the Road to the Horse Expo in Lexington this weekend. It looks like that us old farts will (sort of) be getting our wish after all: one’s a Pinto Clydesdale Stallion named Walk Down Memory Lane, the other is an Appaloosa Fighting Stallion, named Kick Up Your Heels. Both are Glossy. More widely-available releases would be even better, but it’s nice that they’re going with two "Vintage" molds this year.

(But would I turn down the Early Bird Raffle Alborozo? Heck, no!)

Everyone is rightly going ga-ga over the Fighting Stallion (striped hooves!), but I’d be just as content with the Clydesdale; he’d make a fine husband for my Gloss Palomino Clydesdale Mare. (Does he have mapping? Hard to tell in the photos I’ve seen. If so, also awesome.)

Like everyone else, I’m suspecting that the Store Special Champagne Pinto Bluegrass Bandit Champagne Wishes is replacing the Nonplastic Store Specials, which haven’t exactly been setting sales records. On the web site she’s described thusly:

Champagne Wishes is a Connoisseur Level model with delicate mapping, silver horseshoes and beautifully detailed eyes.

Connoisseur Level? Delicate mapping? Silver horseshoes? Sound like something extra limited and extra expensive to me. Since they specifically dropped the Connoisseur word on us in the description, I’m expecting something in the same range as the program of old: about 350 pieces, somewhere around $150-200.

This is entirely speculation. Since this is a new thing, I could be wrong. All I’m hoping for is that there are at least enough of them around that I have a reasonable shot. I’ve been waiting for a realistic (and somewhat affordable!) release on the Bluegrass Bandit mold that I can’t live without, and I think she’s it.

Plus I was addle-pated from a lack of sleep last year when I ventured into the Pit, and never did get around to buying the also very pretty Black Pinto Store Special Lady C. The prices on her aren’t too high either, but like Aurelius, some downsizing will have to happen first.

Sitting It Out

Due to some glitch in the inventory company’s own inventory system, I find myself sitting at home for a couple of days this week, without work. During the busiest time of the year, when there’s literally work to be had all day and every day, and everyone (else) is complaining about the massive amounts of overtime they're putting in.

Normally I’d raise a stink because, hello, I don’t get paid to sit at home: no work, no pay. But I decided to turn this liability into an asset, and get some other work done in the meantime.

(Model horse related, mostly.)

The "Consolation" Special Run Bull Colton does appear to be being made specifically to cover the oversells on the Logans at the Vault Sale. I’m not sure if they’re going to make just enough to cover the oversell orders, or exactly the same amount as Logan, or what.

On Reeves’s inventory issues and the Vault Sale, I will speak no further. Not because I have nothing more to say, but because of diminishing returns. There’s no point in making an argument once everyone’s made up their minds.

The other big news this week is that all the BreyerFest 2013 stuff has hit the Breyer web site in a big way. A bunch of different Specials were announced, including a Desatado in Dun, a pretty chestnut pinto Haflinger, and another pinto Nokota Horse (as the Early Bird Special).

One of the Raffle models is the Traditional Totilas in a Star Dapple Gray, which makes about as much sense to the "Denim & Diamonds" theme as the Early Bird Special Stretched Morgan did to last year’s "British Invasion". The paint job looks a little weird, but it's also a not-good photograph of a test piece, so I'm not fretting over it.

There’s going to be another SR "satellite" store, too: one of the Specials available in it will be a Bucking Bronco in a quasi-buckskin color with kerchief-style decals on it. It’s very similar to the Home Decorating Show Paisley Rearing Horses that broke my heart a couple months back. I love the Bucking Bronco mold, so heck yeah, it's on my must-buy list.

The two Store Specials were also announced: a Black Tobiano Pinto Bluegrass Bandit named Lady C, and a pinto Brighty named Tennessee Titan. Titan is similar, but not identical to the still-incredibly-desirable 2005 Fest Special Run Oliver. Judging from the reaction I’ve been seeing to the Brighty, I’m guessing we’re in for another very quick sellout. (Keeping mine, if I get a hold of one.)

They also announced the themes and rules to the contests, and honestly, I just can’t get all that worked up about either one of them right now. I am utterly indifferent to the charms of most country music. I’m more Motown than Hoedown: I like some of the old-timey stuff, bluegrass, yodeling cowboys and stuff like that, but most modern stuff makes my eyes glaze over.

If I can come up with something, I’ll do it, but I just can’t get as emotionally involved as I did last year, where I ended up flaming out rather painfully. (When other people win with your same ideas - not once, but twice in the same year - yeah, you do tend to take it rather personally.)

Elvis on my Mind

I took a couple weeks off from flea marketing; my heart wasn’t into it, and the weather was simply not to my liking. But I did go yesterday. And golly, look at what I found!

In glorious black velvet! Is this not one of the most awesome things ever? It’ll look perfect next to my vinyl upholstered horse head with the hand-cut fringe. (Not for sale either, ladies, at least not yet.)

I also bought a couple of china figurines - a pretty Roselane Sea Gull, and a scary-looking Pekingese of German origin that looks vaguely like Ernest Borgnine. Because, duh.

I do regret not buying a vintage fuzzy gray mohair men’s hat; ‘twas only five bucks, and made by Detroit’s legendary Henry the Hatter, but for  reasons unknown, I left it behind. Maybe because I figured that a Vegas/Rat Pack-themed BreyerFest is a very dim possibility, at best.

(Great. Now I’m thinking how sweet a Vegas-themed BreyerFest could be. Showgirls, playing cards, slot machines, neon, lounge singers, a Don Rickles impersonator going around and insulting the anatomy and finishwork of BNAs…)

There were quite a few horse-shaped objects to be had, most of them reasonably priced, but I decided to leave them all behind. I have quite enough to sell as it is, thank you, and that Bluegrass Bandit/Bear I saw at Tuesday Morning last week was weighing heavily on my mind. I was looking at my schedule the day before and noticed that I’ll be working just down the road from that particular store this week.

Depending on how the week goes, he might just be coming home with me after all.

Shopping Roundup

I suppose all - or most - of you have found out about the latest Special Run surprise - this one being a Gloss version of Zenyatta’s foal, available on her web site. As of my posting this, there still do appear to be some left out of the 500-piece run:

http://www.zenyattashop.com/breyer-zenyatta-foal.html

Like Pavlov’s dogs, I salivated right on cue and bought one, too. Dark, chocolately bays have been my weakness of late - and in gloss? I was doomed.

Speaking of shopping…

While I love road trips (I’ll be taking one very soon!) I don’t take much joy in day-to-day driving. Getting stuck in traffic jams makes me wish that automotive engineers would stop trying to coax more horsepower out of smaller engines and just devote their time to finally inventing teleportation technology, dangnabit.

I had to do way too much driving for work this week; the only thing that made it bearable was that it gave me a chance to go to stores in areas I would not normally travel to. I like to multitask, so getting a little research done on the way to or from work? Excellent.

The first store I got to hit this week was the Tractor Supply, to check out their holiday selections. Like last year, it’s all Regular Runs, Holiday merchandise, and possibly a smattering of farm store stuff (those trailer sets cobbled together from factory leftovers.) I did really dig the Holiday Horse "Buena Noche", but I’ll save my natterings about him for sometime closer to the holidays.

And I finally managed to get a really good look at the Padre there: I still don’t have a Spirit mold in my collection, and all the other releases in that mold have prices outside of my comfort zone. However, his HUGE ZOMBIE EYES scared me away. Reminded me of that one Adventure Time episode. You know the one (or should):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZdtZIuVzmE

I don’t want a scary-looking horse staring at me while I sleep, either.

While I certainly haven’t been to every Walmart within driving distance of my house, I’ve now been to enough to conclude (for now) that they are only a figment of the Internet. Then again, I didn't see of the Mesteno Mustang SRs in these parts, either, so maybe it’s just a regional thing. (Which doesn’t make a lick of sense to me, since Breyers sell really well everywhere else around here.)

Then, just today, I swung by one of my "local" Tuesday Mornings to check out their latest offerings. Some of them received a small (and unadvertised) shipment of Breyer stock, mostly (but not entirely) discontinued Elvis Collection merchandise.

This store had a couple of Kongs and a couple of Bears; I took a modest fancy in one of the Bears, but I managed to escape without him following me home.

I will admit, it was a close call: my other two Bluegrass Bandits have nonrealistic finishes, and the pretty mahogany undertones they put into what would have been an otherwise nondescript matte black paint job were …intriguing.

Nope. Can’t do it. Gotta save the cash for the road trip. (Yes, it’s model horse-related. And yes, it’s something you’ll all hear about, when it all shakes out. No joke guys, it’s big.)

It's Pink?

My original plan with the Breyer Blossoms program was to just buy my birth month’s horse (April) as my representative sample and ignore/bypass the rest. For all the usual reasons: no space, no money, not a lot of interest.

Judging from the photographs I’ve seen on the Breyer Facebook page, it appears that the only month I’ve seen so far that I do not like is …April. They went with a hot pink base color? Seriously?

Some daisies do come in pink; English Daisies (Bellis Perennis) have been a staple in my garden for several years now. They’re prolific, easy-to-grow, and low maintenance - essentially, a very pretty weed. But they’re not the kind of daisies that immediately spring to most folks’ minds, either.

I am not a huge fan of the color Pink. I was never a "girly girl", was never into Barbies, and my skin tone precludes me from wearing it. I don’t even use it that much in my quilting projects, even though it’s a pretty versatile and useful color, from a design perspective.

I like the other "pink" horse released this week a little better: the semi-Decorator Valentine’s Day Web Special "I’m Yours". If you haven’t seen her yet, it’s a realistic red roan Bluegrass Bandit with a kiss-shaped star, and faint kiss prints on her flanks, similar to the hearts on last year’s Huckleberry Bey.

I’m a little surprised they didn’t call her "The Kissing Bandit", but I suppose they probably didn’t want to deal with the trouble that would come their way from the parents of the more underaged components of their target audience. (The ones old enough to use Google, but not old enough yet to have had "The Talk".)

I haven’t taken a gander at the current debate about it on Blab, or elsewhere. If it’s anything like the tenor the Blab "disappeared" discussions took last week, I’m probably not missing much. I do not understand why it’s perfectly acceptable for a customizer to add exotic flourishes to a realistic paint job, but it’s an unforgivable sin if it’s part of a production paint job.

Some people like a little frou-frou, and some don’t. Depends on the model for me. I’m a tiny bit disappointed that it’s not a straight up red roan, since I already have one nonrealistic Bluegrass Bandit in the herd, but not disappointed enough to not enter for it.

What concerns me now that Reeves has moved so much of its customer interaction online is that the bugaboos and preferences of a very active, very vocal minority of those customers might end up dictating the kind of models that get released for everyone. Not everyone wants glossy, nonmetallic finishes on only conformationally-correct models by sculptors X, Y - but good heavens, not Z!

There should be room enough, and releases enough, for everyone here.

Equus Non Grata

I didn’t go to the flea market today. Work didn’t go well the night before (everyone was at each other’s throats, for some reason), the weather was iffy (overcast, drizzly), and I didn’t feel all that awesome to begin with (an unfortunate choice of snack foods, I think.)

I need to get cracking (again) on the stuff I already have to sell, anyway. Life sort of got in the way of me putting things up on eBay, so it looks like I’ll be starting up the MH$P sales again. Like before, nothing impressive, just the usual middle-of-the-road shelf sitters and collection fillers.

Everything sells eventually, but some models are harder to sell than others. One mold that’s become an incredibly difficult sell of late is the Midnight Sun:


For obvious reasons, of course: in light of the recent attention being paid to the continuing practice of soring in the TWH show community, the mold itself has become (justifiably) something of a pariah. Few hobbyists dare to sneak any into their showstrings nowadays, lest they get labeled as condoning the practice.

We haven’t seen a new release on in the Midnight Sun mold since 2002, and I rather doubt we ever will, again.

Other molds have fallen "out of fashion" before, such as the Appaloosa Performance Horse and the Quarter Horse Gelding, but that was due more to shifting tastes than the increasing awareness of abusive showing practices.

I suppose one could still sneak Midnight Suns in under collectibility; an historical entry would require way more ‘splaining’ that it’d be worth. Especially since the true historical type of Tennessee Walking Horse is closer to the Bluegrass Bandit or even the G3 Tennessee Walker than the Midnight Sun mold - which itself doesn’t even really depict Midnight Sun!

And again, the mere existence of such an entry would also bring up the insinuations of acceptance on the shower’s part.

In some ways, the situation with the Midnight Sun mold has become somewhat analogous to the situation that exists with some of the more offensive forms of African-American memorabilia. Should they be preserved purely as a matter of historical interest, or should they be shunned - or even destroyed outright - to actively discourage that line of thinking from ever arising again?

As someone who considers herself something of an historian, I fall somewhere in the murky middle. Blotting out any part of our history may feel right or good, but it rarely works. Even if you manage to eliminate it entirely, it still leaves a hole, and a hole can be as problematic as the thing that once filled it.

I suspect what will actually happen to the Midnight Sun molds will be more of a continuing diminishment - of both interest, and of controversy - to the point of it becoming an embarrassing footnote. Most of the releases of the Midnight Sun, save for the 1984 Model Horse Congress SR, are plentiful enough that a spike in interest due to rarity will probably never become an issue. (Unless hobbyists get all crazy and start using their spare Midnight Suns as kindling.)

I have a small number of Midnight Suns in my collection - mostly variations of the original release, in black - and I have no intention of tossing them in the nearest bonfire. They’re a part of the historical record, for better or worse. I won’t go out of my way to acquire more, unless they happen to fall into my lap somehow, or have some historical significance (i.e. a Marney Test.)

Two Forward, One Back

When you’ve had the week that I had, the only logical response to it is cleaning, filing and sorting. I haven’t yet resorted to dusting though - if I’m not showing it, selling it, or photographing it, there’s absolutely no reason to dust it.

I mean, I do do it on occasion to keep the allergies and the cobwebs down, but anything more than once every year or so seems like an extravagance to me.

In the process, I finally got the "paperwork" for all of the newest arrivals done, too; this encompasses not just logging them into my personal collection inventory, but also jotting down all the relevant observational data about the models themselves, for my research. I hadn’t noticed until yesterday, for instance, that the Bluegrass Bandit mold comes with fully modeled horseshoes.

(Under the Sea is my first example of the mold, hence my not noticing it before.)

I also had a chance to unpack and enjoy my Sorcerer’s Apprentice:


I managed to get all three of the SR resins in the Tent; the Prince Charming has already been rehomed, and the Avalon will be, shortly. They are all lovely, but I break fragile things, so the notion of me keeping all three for myself was out of the question. One’s enough for me.

It’s not like I could have changed my mind and gone back for more, either. Silly Reeves people put every last one of them out Friday morning, with the usual consequences ensuing. So predictable.

If I’ve failed to mention it before, let me mention it now: I had the good fortune to have the honor of being the first person in line on Friday this year. Another BreyerFest accomplishment, checked off the list!

It was one of the coolest moments I’ve ever had at a BreyerFest: I felt like I was leading an Olympic delegation, minus the flag and the dorky matching outfits. (I’d be cool with carrying a flag, but no-can-do on matching windbreakers, serapes or berets. A cape? That, I could do.)

Anyway, what that meant was that for a brief, glorious moment, the NPOD all mine. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cry, scream, or set up a blockade to defend my territory. Then I spotted the resins: it wasn’t just one, or a small selection of all three - it was clearly the whole wad.

So my thoughts immediately turned back to business: grab one of each while I can, before the horde behind me gets to pillaging. The samples could (momentarily) wait.

Good thing that I did, since the resins were pretty much gone, I think, by the time I managed to saunter over to the register. (Saunter? Okay, more like drag, with considerable assistance.)

If they do this resin thing again next year, they better darn well spread ‘em out like they were hinting before the event. Even though the NPOD was a little more sedate than it has been in the past few years, I think it has been, in part, because they’ve been doling out the other Store Specials that way. Even if it’s only tamping down the desperation just a tad, it’s a tad that seems to be making the difference.

If they’re going to ramp up the Store Special program with resins now, they might as well follow through.