Whatnots

Nothing makes you feel old like shopping for store brand Ben-gay at the grocery store.

On the other hand, with it I’ve been able to get a decent night’s sleep with it for the past two days, though the dreams are beyond weird. Like playing hide-and-seek in a multidimensional furniture store weird. 

I’ll take it, I guess. 

What I won’t be taking? A trip to Denver in March. Tickets for BreyerWest go on sale today (I double checked this time, LOL). Flights are expensive, the exclusive special – a Gloss Harkness – is nice but nothing I can’t live without, and my presence is not required, so I am giving it a pass. 

(It’s a little more complicated than that, but nothing else you need to know.)

I think too many hobbyists are overthinking the fact that the Swirls & Snowflakes Stablemates are still available. They probably made more due to historical demand – remember that some previous iterations of them sold out in hours – and I also think the hobby in general is experiencing blind bag fatigue. 

The general public likes blind bags just fine, but the Christmas ones are targeted toward active collectors, and I think most of us would like the option – if possible – of buying a complete set and being done with it. Designate a certain amount of them as sets, sell the rest as individuals, the end. 

For me, personally, it’s also because (in case you haven’t noticed!) I’ve been acquiring a crazy amount of rarities, Test Colors and Grails: things I have wanted for years, sometime decades. Things like that trump items that I found out about a week or two ago. My money is also not infinite: I have to draw the line somewhere.

And now there’s a Test Color/Oddity Lady Roxana on eBay that’s caught my eye. Like I need another Test Color, yikes… She’s not even a BreyerFest Auction piece or anything. I already have a Sample Roxana, on the Sahara release. And a Preproduction Test of Roxana on the Sham…

Yes, I have a lot of Tests, Samples, Oddities and Whatnots. Probably not quite as many as Reeves does, but I’m hesitant to get them out for a group shot and put that theory to the test. (No pun intended!)

Finally, I found this link on another (non-horsey) blog I frequent, and I thought I would be something of interest to at least a few of you; consider it an early Christmas present:

https://go.nasa.gov/MessageInABottle

Ahead of Its Time?

I just realized that if I had decided to go to BreyerWest, I would have experienced another weather-related freak out with the ice storm. 

I now feel like I have somehow outwitted the weather gods. 

Whether this ends up being a good (that I dodged a bullet!) or a bad thing (that there will be meteorological retaliation somehow), only time will tell.

I’ve made much hay out of the absence of the Old Timer in this year’s assortment of BreyerFest Special Runs. I’ve made less of a fuss about the Pacer because now that we have the new Standardbred mold Constantia, my expectations for the Pacer’s return have dimmed a little. 

He’s an old Hess mold with a molded-on halter, after all.

With the exceptions of the rarities – the Exclusive Event Praline, the BreyerFest Live Hot to Trot, and Test Colors (BreyerFest or otherwise) – I have just about all of them. I could stand to upgrade a few, and while I have all of the Sulky Set colors and variations, I don’t have a NIB or MIB one per se. 

(I have pieces of one. It’s… a story.)

I don’t think I have the QVC reissue of Niatross either, but that’s not a consequence of it being particularly hard to find – it isn’t any moreso than the QVC Man o’ War, who turns up a few times a year – it’s just me being easily distracted and/or having bad timing. 

Of all the Pacer releases, none are more notorious than the Riegsecker Pacers from 1984: a set of three in Palomino, Dapple Gray, and Flaxen Red Chestnut. The Palomino and the Dapple Gray draw most of the collector attention: the Palomino is that notorious eye-watering shade of Neon Yellow that was very common in late-era Chicago releases, and the Dapple Gray was also very typical of the times with random, wild and messy dappling.

But the third member of the trio is much more sedate, and as a result doesn’t get quite the same looks:

Other models were decorated with similar Flaxen Red Chestnut paint jobs at the time, but the Pacer feels a little different. While the other two Pacers are very much of their era, the Flaxen Red Chestnut almost seems like a harbinger of the more realistic and less generic colorways Reeves would produce – after several years of mostly unsuccessful experimentation in the late 1980s and early 1990s. 

None of the three come up for sale very often anymore: they only made a few hundred of each, and hobbyists like me who collect the Pacer tend to keep them. 

Riding It Out

I find myself in the midst of a midwinter funk that no amount of seed starting can fix. All I can do is ride it out until it passes, or at least until the end of the week, with BreyerWest and the news it brings. 

I am most curious to see what the Volunteer Special looks like; this year they are implementing a new program that essentially turns it into a Gambler’s Choice model, in three different colorways, that applies to all volunteers at designated Breyer-sponsored events. 

This was something I think they were going to implement earlier – in 2020, the Celtic Fling Volunteer Special Ben Nevis came in two different shades of Chestnut Pinto – but the Pandemic got in the way. 

I’ll be interesting to see how that affects Volunteer applications. While some of us do for the love of the hobby, there are a significant number of hobbyists who do it for the financial boon. 

(I like the heat and I don’t usually mind the humidity, so the whole “compensation for my pain and suffering” isn’t part of the equation for me.)  

While it could be argued that three small (125 piece) runs are going to be “more desirable” than a single 375-piece run, I’d counter that if a model is awesome enough, the quantity is almost irrelevant. But if it brings in more applications and more enthusiasm, so be it.

I don’t have much more to say today; I really need to finish planting the petunias and alpine strawberries. (The strawberry plants were much easier to grow from seed last year than I imagined they would be, but the berries themselves are teeny, and I need at least 50 plants to be able to make anything out of them!) 

I suppose I should leave you with a picture of something: the lovely, lighter variation of the Prince Charming release of Linzer, the mini Brigadeiros from last year’s Best of BreyerFest Set!

The majority of Linzers were much closer to the Traditional Brigadeiros’s Seal Bay color, but a handful of them were this sooty buckskin. While I have largely curbed my Stablemate variation habit (with the recent exception of the Dollar General pieces) this one I simply couldn’t resist, especially since he seemed to be a bit on the scarce side. 

The Concept of BreyerFest

This should be fairly obvious at this point, but I’m not going to BreyerWest. It’s too far away, and there’s no room in the budget right now anyway. Even if I did have the resources, I’m way behind on all the projects I had intended to work on this year already; I can’t afford another distraction.

I don’t do many “real world” model horse things outside of BreyerFest; my work schedule even rules out a lot of local events, outside of some weekend flea marketing. One of these days I’ll finally make it to a local live show again, I swear…

There’s also the thing where I consider it very important to step away from some potential model horse activities and carve out time for other things. I’ve said this multiple times before, but it bears repeating: I think a lot of hobbyists get themselves in trouble by not having another activity outside of the hobby to step away into.

It’ll keep you from burning out and/or losing your mind.

Lost out on a much-wanted Special Run? Totally bombed out at a live show? That obscure Clinky Grail you finally acquired arrives on your doorstep, smashed to bits?

Time to do some knitting. Or birdwatching. And in my case, quilt. (Actually, the past few weeks it’s mostly been prep work. Yes, I wash and iron fabric for fun!)

It doesn’t stop me from having BreyerFest-related nightmares, or posting dumb things on the Internet, but it helps.

I’m also a little bit worried that some of my co-hobbyists might be working themselves up a little too much about having another BreyerFest-like event on the west side of the country. It’s somewhat understandable: it’s been a few years since there’s been an event of that sort out that way, and Kentucky is several time zones away and simply not feasible for most folks out there.

In 1991, Reeves experimented with having four regional BreyerFests instead of just the one in Kentucky. They could kinda-sorta pull it off then, because BreyerFest in its earliest years was a relatively simple affair: a “gift” model, some meet-and-greets/Q&As, dinner, a raffle and an auction.

How simple? Check out this actual promotional flier for the very first BreyerFest in 1990:

And take a look at the schedule of events for the 1991 Kentucky BreyerFest (the first one I actually attended):

Yep, all in one day! (From what I remember, the “diorama contest” was a fairly casual thing then, and significantly different from the diorama contest of today.)

All the fancier stuff that we now come to expect came later, accruing over time, and has since made the regional BreyerFest concept more difficult to pull off – unless they are able to tie it to local hobbyists’ efforts.

From what I’ve seen so far they’ve been shooting for a relatively modest event, closer in spirit to the earlier BreyerFests than the later ones.

Which is fine, really. While it is always good to hope for bigger and better things, anything beyond getting together with a group of your fellow hobbyists to talk and do some horsetrading is gravy.

Eyes of the Beholders

I didn’t get one of the leftover Fontanas that were made available to Collector’s Club members on the Breyer web site on Tuesday. I would have if I could have, but I really couldn’t afford it this week. (New license plate tags for the car + magazine subscription renewal = no extra spendy cash!)

I wasn’t surprised that they sold out in a matter of hours - even though there were well over a hundred of them to be "disposed" of.

Just because something doesn’t sell out at the event it was made for doesn’t mean there wasn’t any demand for the model hobby-wide. Lots of hobbyists couldn’t make it to BreyerWest to purchase it, or didn’t want deal with the hassle that goes into arranging for a pickup, or just flat out didn’t have the money then. (As opposed to now - it being tax refund season, ya know!)

And as for the current online aftermarket - or lack thereof - for the item, that’s really not a good indicator of demand, either. A significant portion of collectors don’t really participate in that arena, at all. They’d rather deal with the safety and security inherent in buying straight from the manufacturer, even if it means a slight markup over the going price in the aftermarket.

(Can you blame them, really? A quick skim of any of the hobby-transaction-monitoring-type places would give most folks the willies.)

Kudos to Reeves for making a leftover SR available to members this way; we can only hope that similar items - like certain BreyerFest leftovers - do, too. Especially if it means more room in the NPOD for weirder, newer, and more exotic stuff!

I suppose I should talk a little about the next Vintage Club piece, which IS a Buckskin Fighting Stallion, with the rather unimaginative name of "King" - the nickname he originally came with.

I am pleased - not just at my guessing skills, but the model itself, who’ll look faboo next to both my Buckskin 1993 Jamboree Rearing Stallion, and my old Buckskin Mustang with the extra body shading and eyewhites:


(See what I meant about those "black points"?)

I couldn’t see eyewhites in the photo on the web site, which is a bit of a bummer, but I’m still hoping the dorsal stripe might be there.

Some hobbyists are obviously displeased that he is neither Glossy, nor "Not Boring" in some way (i.e.: spotted, speckled or dappled). I was sort of afraid of that - and why I’m so concerned about the web site forum content and contributors.

(BTW, I’m not going to muddy myself any further with them for now - I’ve had my fill of unpleasantness this week, both online and off!)

As someone who’s obsessed with Breyer History, as per the title of this very blog, I’d rather the models reflect the actual scope of Breyer History, and not some narrow (mis)interpretation of it. Vintage does not equal Glossy - or Decorator! Some of my favorite oldies, like my Mustang, are neither.

I certainly wouldn’t object to a Christmas Decorator release, though. The evidence for them is so tenuous, but the desire is so palpable. They may never have truly existed, but they need to exist, right? Close enough for me.

More recent Stablemates molds in the four alleged Christmas Decorator colors would also be acceptable - as a little boxed set of ornaments, maybe? (Oh goodness, yes!)

Stablemates are Not Tote Bags

Something short again, today: I had a particularly brutal overnight assignment that left me unconscious for a good part of yesterday, leaving me a few hundred words behind my daily writing goal. I probably won’t get a whole lot done today either (sigh, company) but I can’t afford to worry about it too much.

The more I worry, the less I get done. I have tomorrow off, and a schedule completely free of obligations. I'll be fine.

By the way, did anyone happen to notice that one little tidbit of BreyerWest information that sort of got lost in the hubbub over the judging? Someone from Reeves said that the leftover Fontanas were specifically going to be earmarked for the BreyerFest sales tent next year.

Yeah, I know: a tossed-off comment from a single, unnamed Reeves employee is not exactly a firm ground to base any speculation on. (Heck, the suggestions of one of those employees may have exacerbated the judging debate. All the more reason why they need to hire folks with a wee bit more model horse experience, methinks.)

They could have just as easily said "They’ll end up on the new web site," or "We’re not quite sure what we’ll do with them yet." Both standard and acceptable nonanswers. Casually mentioning that they’re probably going to "the BreyerFest Store" (aka the NPOD)? Most peculiar.

Knowing them, it’s probably nothing – most of the other BreyerWest SRs have ended up in the NPOD, and it really shouldn’t be that big a deal that Fontana might end up there, too. Yet, I can’t recall them ever mentioning – in public – what leftovers they were specifically earmarked for the store before, especially nine months out. It’s almost like some clever word-of-mouth marketing. (I know, I know, I’m ascribing them way too much cleverness.)

It does make me wonder about those little ASPCA donation/pledge "Hermes" gift models, too. They made 75 of them to give to donors/pledges of $100 or more, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to get 75 donors at that level. The NPOD seems like the most logical place for them to go, but the fact that they were made specifically as a possible incentive for donation might bring up some ethical issues.

http://www.teamaspca.org/participant/steph4molly

I can imagine some folks might be willing to pony up the $100 dollars for them in the NPOD on the condition, perhaps, that the money generated from those models also goes to the ASPCA. That would get around the money issue; if they’re still being used to generate donations, problem solved. (Unless they just donate the remainder to the ASPCA free and clear, to do whatever they see fit with them. Or something else along those lines. That would work, too.)

There’s also the issue of it being a "gift with donation" thing in the first place: I have to admit that the act of offering them kind of squicked me out. A limited-edition Stablemate is not the same as a tote bag or t-shirt. Yeah, there are folks out there who’d be willing to pony up some cash for a Breyer tote bag or t-shirt (see also, the NPOD) but nothing on the same scale as rare, glossy Stablemates.

The person making the donation is already getting a tax deduction for their act of charity. Possibly being able to make money on that act of charity, by reselling the gift that came with? Now there’s an awkward scenario.

I suspect that most hobbyists who have made the required level of donation aren’t thinking of selling, or if they are, it’s only for the sake of generating more donations in kind.

I pity the kind of backlash the first secondary market seller might face, regardless of their motivations. It’s a gift, and they can do with it whatever they want, but an awful lot of hobbyists aren’t quite as charitably minded towards their fellow hobbyists.

(Often for good reason. Sigh.)

BreyerWest, Mostly

My JAH arrived today. I haven’t finished rifling through it yet, though from what I’ve read so far, my suspicions about the content of the online discussions seem to be right - as in, a lot of the information being discussed isn’t.

So there’s going to be two more Web Specials by the end of the year - one on a favorite mold (a Decorator Nokota Horse) and another in a favorite color (Silver Filigree Weather Girl)? I wouldn’t mind either, but I suspect I will be getting neither. Nothing to do with my finances - where there’s a will, there’s a way and all that - it’s just that my luck with the Web Special program hasn’t been so good lately.

I don’t even want to imagine what the aftermarket prices on a Silver Filigree Weather Girl are going to be. The prices I’m seeing on the BreyerWest Volunteer Glossies are scary enough.

So they put a different tail on the Roxy mold, for Fontana? Hmm. I wasn’t super-keen on the original tail, but it did reflect the character of the horse it was modeled after. A different tail might be more in line with what’s in fashion in the show ring, but I tend to prefer models that have a more specific - as opposed to a more generic - character to them.

I’d have to see one in person before I pass judgment. It might be a while; with all of the other programs and Special Runs coming up in the next couple of months, it doesn’t seem likely that I’ll be picking up one of the leftovers. (I’m assuming there were - I haven’t heard otherwise, but I might not have been looking in the right places.)

In other BreyerWest news, Reeves cut back on the show awards, and gave out plain old unglossed Regular Run models to Sectional Champs and Reserves - the horror! (Glosses were still awarded to the Overall Champs and Reserves.) Needless to say, that ticked off a few showers, who evidently thought they were entitled to such things; their kvetching about it apparently helped sour the mood of everyone within earshot.

All I can say is that it’s about time they cut back on those awards; all they’ve done is drawn out the worst in some hobbyists, who have done some very devious things in the past to win. This change is something I’ve been advocating for years, and it looks like a lot of other hobbyists are coming around to my line of thinking, too.

The only mistake they made was in not announcing the change in the program earlier. The way the awards were advertised - as "special Breyer awards" - left a little too much open to interpretation.

Whether this is a preview of downgraded awards to come at BreyerFest, I don’t know. Still, I think something should be done. If not Regular Runs, then something else.

For instance, I wouldn’t mind a modified version of the current program, but with an identical range of prizes awarded at all three shows, rather than three different sets of awards. Sure, that would "up" the piece count on all of the awards, making them slightly less rare and/or valuable, but they’d still have the cachet of being exclusive to the show. A program like that might have the additional benefit of cutting down on the de facto proxy showing a bit.

Or how about coupons redeemable for Breyer merchandise, like Green Stamps. One more Sectional Reserve, and I can get an Equestral Crystal horse! (LOL - could you imagine the little booklet they’d have to include in the show packet for that?)

As you can tell, I've obviously had way too much sugar today. Darn Lemon-Walnut Zucchini Muffins.

Now for Something a Little More Colorful

(This is how crunched for time I am right now: the following post was written in the back seat of a car during an especially long carpool. Multitasking, woot!)

I see a lot of people are upset that the next Connoisseur horse is another translucent Moody Andalusian. That doesn’t bother me so much; I sort of expected that we’d be getting a duplicate or two at some point in time. What cheeses me off is that they went with Van Gogh as their next Artistic inspiration.

Snore.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Van Gogh as much as the next person, but it’s such a predictable choice. I thought they might have had it in them to go a bit daring – Kandinsky was the first in the series, right? But I guess they just had to play it safe.

Rats. I was really hoping for a Franz Marc Belgian. (And if you don’t know who Franz Marc is, you really should.)

I wonder what’s up with this being the third Translucent release on the Andalusian mold? That’s mighty peculiar. I didn’t think there was anything chemically different between the standard White Tenite and the Clear, except for the pigments. Are they leftovers from the Breast Cancer horse? Or just playing it safe, again?

I was an Art History major in college, and this is (sort of) an Art History blog, so yeah, I’ll probably be sending in the card anyway, depending on what the money situation is after BreyerFest. Him being a Translucent isn’t hurting, either.

Speaking of colorful new releases, I’m really liking the BreyerWest SR Fontana; just the other day I was thinking how nice a pinto release on the Roxy mold would be, and voila! There she was. Like the universe was listening to my thoughts or something. (Oops, there go those delusions of importance again.)

The name kind of cracked me up a little – not that it’s all that funny, unpredictable, or has any special meaning to me. It’s just that with all these genre movies coming out lately, I’ve been letting my nerdiness really hang out: the very first thing that popped in my head when I saw the name was that there must be a serious Trekker in the Reeves offices. (If you don’t get the reference, here you go: D. C. Fontana.)

How bad has it gotten? I actually said this in an actual conversation with a coworker last week:

"I had my first LOC published in Green Lantern back when Alan Moore was still writing backups."

Fortunately, it was one of those kind of coworkers I could say something like that to and not look like a complete dork. The conversation then moved on to voiceover artist Frank Welker, for some crazy reason.

(BTW: not enough Mogo in the Green Lantern movie! The Bzzd cameo was kinda cool, though. Also cool: http://hoosierinanity.blogspot.com/2010/03/yippee-ki-yay-green-lantern.html. The comments are a hoot.)

I don’t know if I’ll actually be buying one, guess it’ll depend on the situation I’m in by the time they make the leftovers available to the rest of us. I’ve been thinking about seriously cutting back on my purchases in the second half of the year to pay for some long-overdue non-horse expenses.

Getting Warmer

Okay, now I’m convinced that the flea market is (a) sentient, and (b) consciously messing with my head:


At least this one has a horse on it!

It’s pretty trashed, but it was cheap, and the clock mechanism works. I won’t be discussing it any further here since, by sheer coincidence, it’s a crucial part of an article I had just happened to be working on the night before for the Sampler. (Actually, I was kinda worried how I was going to illustrate the article, since I didn’t have one of the key pieces I writing about. Problem solved!) So y’all will have to wait.

(The Sampler’s about half done. As are the two contest entries. Looks like I won’t be getting much sleep for the next two weeks.)

Man, I really feel sorry for the BreyerWest Escondido. He doesn’t look anything at all like the model he’s being compared to, the inexplicably popular palomino Tesoro. The #867 Tesoro had an almost unprecedented four year run in the Breyer line - from 1992 through 1995 - at a time when many models were lucky to stick around for two.

I found it inexplicable because I thought Tesoro’s paint job back then was underwhelming. He looks great in that color, no doubt, but there was no "there" there. There were no crazy markings, shading, or hoof details to distinguish it from any other palomino paint job. He was just a plain palomino.

He obviously struck enough of a chord to be able to stick around for a leisurely four years. I haven’t picked one up yet; I have just about every other El Pastor, some of them in multiple variations, but not Tesoro. I’d hate to pay "retail" for him, only to find one for substantially less at the flea market. It’s nothing personal; it just happens often enough that I’m leery of buying almost any regular run models straight from the store, unless the shading or detail are really exceptional.

I’m still on the fence about buying Escondido. It’s not the price that’s putting me off - the limited quantity and level of detail just about justify it - but ‘Fest is just around the corner. Maybe there’ll be a few in the NPOD, or I can work a trade for one. I’d hate to buy one now, only to discover I could have saved myself the postage.

Smoking Hot

Another rough week, over with.

Finished doing the purge today - and it wasn’t quite as drastic as I thought, or hoped for. I did not expect to be so unreasonably attached to certain molds, for one thing (the Cantering Welsh Pony? Really?)

But the process is as done as it’s going to be, except for the selling. I am most definitely not welcoming that; I’m contemplating on the wisdom of getting a table at the swap meet this year instead of dealing with all the fuss and bother of eBay or MH$P.

Of course, now I have the immediate issue of where I’m going to store all of my "new" sales items. It’s only going to get worse, now that the flea market season is almost upon us, too. While I’ve been pretty good about staying out of the stores and off of eBay, I feel like I have a moral obligation to rescue any lost little equine souls I happen to find there.

I’ll just have to postpone worrying about it until it actually becomes an issue. I have enough real problems to deal with at the moment.

So Reeves announced the QuarterFest and BreyerWest SRs: the Gloss Dapple Gray Lady Phase "Smokin Hot Chic" and the light chestnut/dark palomino El Pastor "Escondido," respectively. They both seem quite nice, given the photographs they’ve provided. I don’t think it’s likely I’ll be adding either to my herd due to the ongoing space issues, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Of the two, I’d pick the El Pastor over the Lady Phase; I have a soft spot for the Spanish Breeds, and I already have the earlier version of the Dapple Gray Lady Phase, with black points and the resist dapples. A second dapple gray would be nice, but not a necessity.

Here’s a nifty old file photo of the real El Pastor, from the October 1969 issue of Western Horseman. The similarity of the El Pastor mold to this photograph (right down to the swish of his tail!) makes me wonder if Chris Hess used this photo as one of his sculpting references.


I have to say I’ve been quite amused by the frenzied online reaction to the Lady Phase: it sort of reminded me of the good ol’ days of JAH, when they still ran classifieds. Whenever someone wrote an article about a particular mold or model, the next two or three issues would be filled with want ads begging for the featured model. (Sometimes quite literally: "If you have any free models, send them to me!" ads were just as much a nuisance then as now.)

It makes me wonder if one of the factors influencing the online frenzy is the same absence of information that drove the desires found in the JAH classifieds. You’d think that with all of the information available online, that hobbyists would be somewhat more informed about upcoming and current releases, but it’s just not the case. How many times have you seen some new SR or variation discussed to death on some online forum, only to see it brought up a few days or weeks later by a clueless someone who thinks they found something new and mysterious?

(Seriously people, would it kill you to do 30 seconds of research before you post something? Gah!)

The somewhat more muted reaction to the Escondido tells me that most of the crazy for Smokin Hot Chic is it being a combination of "Lady Phase" and "Gloss Finish." I like Lady Phase, but I’m not going to lose my mind if I don’t get one. A lack of space and money tends to reorder your priorities that way.