Sometimes a Cigar

Another quickie here because I do not have time for more:

In regards to the raging debate, all I have left to say on the matter is that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a biergarten is just a biergarten. So here’s a picture of one of my Cigars, the Connoisseur Series Wanderlust:

(He’s another one of those molds I have a lot of rarities of, and I don’t know why. But not the actual Cigar, for some reason.)

The whole concept of BreyerFest “selling out” tickets is a recent one: earlier ones didn’t “sell out”.  They would cut off ticket sales at some point because they needed time to make enough of the Celebration Model for everybody. 

They may well have attendance targets they want or need to meet now, and it’s difficult to calculate how much stuff to make, especially when it involves a couple dozen different things. In the past they made a certain amount of stuff and hoped that they would have enough for everybody: sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t. 

The only rough way to calculate that is based on ticket sales; you do a rough estimate of how many models an average attendee will buy based on historical averages, and divide by the number of models you plan to sell. And err on the side of caution of having a little too many rather than not enough, because when you don’t have enough, ooh boy…

Last year was a weird one because it had been a couple of years since we were all in Kentucky, and a lot of people still weren’t quite ready to attend large public gatherings again. I think the BreyerFest we know and love will feel a lot more like it did pre-pandemic this year.

But not the same. It’s never the same BreyerFest twice, and it shouldn’t be. 

Also: if you need to get in contact with me or relay some information to me, the easiest way to do that at the moment is e-mail. If you happen to have my phone number you can also call or text, but there’s less than a dozen of you with that kind of access so I know it’s not likely an option.

(Nothing personal if you don’t have access, I just don’t have the time or spoons for that level of social interaction.)

I do read the comments, but unless it’s something I can or should immediately address, I am probably not going to respond to them, especially in the next month. I am notoriously bad with responding to e-mails, but I do read all of them.

I don’t have the time to talk about the Bentleys today, but I will be talking about them in the next post or two.

And finally…

If anyone is up for a picnic involving karaoke, corndogs and light beer under the big tree in front of the Covered Arena some time Saturday afternoon during BreyerFest, I’m all for it. Wearing magenta is recommended but not required; any obnoxiously colored shirt will do. 

I can’t guarantee that I will actually perform any karaoke, but if I do, I want to call dibs on Nine Inch Nails. Just because.

The Unexpected

I unexpectedly got the weekend off, and I didn’t know quite what to do with myself. What is this thing they call “free time”, and what do I do with it?

(I decided to finish prepping a long-delayed appliqué quilt project – something to keep me busy during jury duty this week!)

And since I have a few free moments here, I’ll randomly open one of the “Breyer Breeds” models that I purchase a few weeks back and never had the chance to unpack, because such is my life right now. And the winner is…

There he is, my beautiful boy! (I know the likelihood of you believing this was something randomly pulled from my stack of boxes is slim, but I’m sticking to my story.)

They did a wonderful job with his facial details, perhaps to make up for the fact that he is a solid, unshaded black:

He reminds me a great deal of the Classic Best in Show Thoroughbred release in Solid Black, the popular #935 release that ran from 2011 through 2018, and was even briefly released as a “Special Run” for Pottery Barn Kids in 2012. (As far as I know, the Pottery Barn release is identical to the Regular Run, but I haven’t gotten around to owning or inspecting one in person yet.)

So does that make this Man o’ War a “Maxi Me” of the Classic Thoroughbred, or is the Classic a “Middle Me” of the Man o’ War? Details, details…

I still want a vintage Black Man o’ War (I know, still dreaming) and I am kind of hoping that these releases – except for the Quarter Horse Gelding, naturally – get included in the Collector’s Club Appreciation Event this year. They would all look amazing in Gloss, but a Gloss Black Traditional Man o’ War would be delightful. 

And since we’re talking about Thoroughbreds, am I the only one who wants the current Test Color offering? I have two Sample Cigars – Nosferatu and Aintree, both lucky NPOD purchases – and a true Test Color would make it a nice trio. Plus I love the “Gold Chestnut” variation of Golden Charm in general, and wish this Gold Medalist series had taken off. 

I do remember that nonhobbyist fans of Valegro were both baffled and put off by this Gold Medal release, and the whole concept of Decorator colors in general, which was possibly part of the reason why the series never came to be. 

Sometimes a Cigar

Video done. Thank goodness.

As far as horse stuff goes, I got nothing today. I kind of feel like I do the week after BreyerFest: I am all horsed out. I just want to eat pudding and shop for guitars. (This is not a metaphor for anything. That’s actually what I’ve been doing.)

Honestly, I’m not quite sure what to do with myself now. I mean, I have plenty to do, but I guess I just want to spend some time savoring the momentary absence of a deadline. 

Anyway, here’s a picture that didn’t get used in the video: my Sample of the Halloween Horse Nosferatu, on the Cigar:

I know lots of people were disappointed with Nosferatu, expecting him to look… more like this than the “fuzzy bats” we actually got. That’s part of the reason why I didn’t buy him – but didn’t take a pass on the Sample when he was offered to me in the NPOD some time later. 

He was issued fairly early in the “new masking” era, and I suspect he was intended to be much more cleanly masked like the first Halloween Horse Skullduggery, and then plans went sideways. 

That happens a lot more than you might imagine in product development, and not just with model horses.

His shading is really remarkable in person, but the two times I’ve taken him out to show he’s barely been acknowledged, much less placed. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that Cigar’s status as one of the cool or popular molds has long since passed. 

That’s fine – more for me!

I do need to pick up a few more of the Halloween Horse Series, eventually. When prices are less insane and the house is a little more decluttered. 

Me and the Triple Crown

The flea market was excellent; some good bodies were present, but mostly I went for the non-model stuff, including a Palenske print of Whirlaway I found in a box of loose ephemera. It was dirty and damaged, but I thought it deserved a better fate than becoming part of someone’s scrapbook project. A much better looking example here:

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/3347297

Speaking of Triple Crown winners…

I didn’t want to be like all those other folks jumping in on the bandwagon, so even though I was home at the time and had no pressing commitments, I decided to not watch the Belmont.

You know how I have a knack for predicting upcoming Breyer releases? I used to have that same "gift" with horse racing. It’s not really a gift, as much as it’s a side effect of deep research: the more you know your stuff, the easier it is to make more-accurate-than-average predictions - sometimes even unintentionally.

I was good enough that I even briefly considered - much to my parents' horror - a career as a bookie.

I haven’t followed racing with that kind of intensity in years. It is interesting that in spite of that I still retained a bit of my horse racing senses: this was the first year I can remember since Affirmed that I didn’t dismiss the idea of another Triple Crown winner to anyone who mentioned the possibility to me.

Horse racing - especially the Triple Crown excitement of the 1970s - is what brought me into the hobby in the first place. Although I had been collecting for a few years prior, and I had been talking about the hobby with a couple of acquaintances I had met on the junior high school bus, I didn’t officially enter it until a few months after Affirmed’s Triple Crown in 1978. I received my first issue of Just About Horses shortly afterwards, and an issue of The Model Horse Shower’s Journal (via JAH) in September of that year, and it’s been downhill ever since.

If recent Breyer history is an indicator, there will be an American Pharoah model, possibly by the end of the year. In general, there haven’t been that many issues with getting permission or licensing rights. I know if I owned a famous/successful racehorse, I’d certainly be welcoming that phone call!

It can take several months or even years to create a mold from scratch; we didn't get the Classics Ruffian mold, for instance, until 1977 - a year and a half after her passing. Since they’ll want to get the model out as soon as possible, the likelihood is that they’ll reuse an already-existing mold.

I could see some slight mold modifications to an existing mold - the simple changes to manes, tails and ears that they’ve been doing for a while now. The suggestion I've seen most often is for the Lonesome Glory mold, and they’ve made changes to that mold before (for the last official Connoisseur, Mosaic), so that might be a good choice.

Second, for those still clamoring for an entirely new mold, let me remind you that only two other winners have had their own dedicated molds: Secretariat, and Citation. The Secretariat mold was not well-received, and the Citation is a G1 (Hagen-Renaker) Stablemates mold.

Everyone else - save the Christmas ornament series - has been on a repurposed mold.

There’s no shame in that. Affirmed was my guy, and I love the example they made of him on the Cigar mold - especially the one in Gloss.

Absolutely Fabulous

It’s going to be another short one today: after the week I had at work, even getting out of bed seemed like a stretch. Just as I was about to surrender to sleep again, Vita jumped in bed and gave me a dirty look: nothing like a guilt trip by a dog with a reputation for being a late riser herself. 

The only advantage to not being home most of the week (besides the alibi) is that I appear to have missed some assorted dramas on the Internet. Good.

Let us instead, in this slightly calmer corner of the model horse universe, focus on my current favorite-horse-ever from this year’s NPOD: an Aintree, a 2012 BreyerFest Tent Special on the Cigar mold.

There were lots of Aintrees available in the sales tent this year - like other Tent Specials I have noted, he was one whose overly high piece count didn’t quite match up with the demand.

Aside from the piece count being a little too high, his paint job was prone to paint flaws. The semi-chalky paint finish Reeves decided to go with, while it added a certain depth to the shading, also tended to drips, runs, and puddling. I’ve been seeing similar problems on the Regular Run Palomino Marwari release, too.

The amount of dappling the paint job required was also, in my opinion, too ambitious for something with a 1400 piece run. Though most of the ones I saw were at least passable, the bad ones were truly unforgettable. So much so that I am beginning to regret not buying an Aintree of that caliber that I found in the tent that morning, as well. (You’d think I’d learn by now not to pass by anything that catches my eye, good or bad...)

As you might have guessed by now, this particular Aintree is not one of the leftovers: he is also a Sample. Or more: aside from his lack of BreyerFest stamps and VIN number, his finish is not semi-chalky. His front hooves are also handpainted dark gray, not airbrushed, and his dappling? Absolutely fabulous. It's some of the nicest dappling I’ve seen on any model, Regular Run, Special Run… or Test Run.

It would not surprise me if he did turn out to be more than just a Sample, but an actual Test or Display piece. Aside from a couple of minor (fixable) flaws, this guy is truly live show quality.

I briefly considered that he might have been the photography piece, the one used on the web site and other promotional materials, but the shading doesn’t quite match up with the one photo off the web site. Just because he doesn’t match up doesn’t necessarily mean he’s not what I think he might be: as I’ve been trying to drum into everyone’s heads for a while now, Samples and Test Colors are not necessarily unique.

Being unique also does not necessarily enhance the value of a Sample or Test, either. The style or quality of the paint job, the popularity or desirability of the mold, the suitability of the color to the mold can (and often do) plays a bigger part in a model’s perceived value, versus quantity made.

Regardless of his technical status, I love him. Not as much as the next model I’ll be showing you, but once you see HIM, you’ll understand why.

(And those of you who know who I'm talking about, already do.)

Creme of the Crop

Feeling a bit better today. I’ve gotten some of my flexibility and mobility back - I’m not 100 percent yet, but I can at least play with Vita again the way she likes it - rough and dirty.

(You know - like a typical terrier! So get yer minds out of the gutter.)

I did have a pretty productive week, even if it was spent mostly sitting in front of the teevee. I finished one quilt top, am well on my way towards finishing another, and I figured out what I was doing wrong with my chocolate-covered crème drop recipe.

Oh man, are they awesome. I always suspected the real reason why I was never a big fan of crème drops before was because the store bought ones weren’t fresh enough - and I’m glad to have been proven right. Or maybe not - I can’t stop eating them. Maybe I’ll pawn the surplus on my coworkers at the District Office party on Tuesday ...

The fountain pen auctions ended VERY well. I definitely made the right decision to forego the Buy it Now option. Especially since nothing else sold. (Sigh.) I’ll be listing some new and fresher stuff this week, mostly on MH$P. Money isn’t as big an issue as space right now, so I’ll be more than willing to make a deal on almost anything. I really do need to take the downsizing/herd culling thing seriously, and soon.

When it happens, it's going to be mostly more modern things - you know me and my attachments to  really old and really weird junk. Plus, most of the really old weird junk that I like doesn't sell anyway. (Well, nothing that's more than a month old is selling. But that's nothing new.)

I was going to talk about epistemic closure in the hobby today (can you tell I’ve been cruising the Yahoo Groups archives, again?) but the sugar buzz from the crème drops has put me in too pleasant a mood for that, so here’s a picture of one recent addition to the herd who's not going anywhere:

I like the Cigar mold, but I don’t have a huge number of them because as I've discussed before, they’re shelf-eaters. When I spotted this lovely Sato in the Tuesday Morning about a month ago, though, I was so struck by his shading and detail that he just had to come home with me. I don’t have any place for him right now, but I’m hoping the culling will take care of that problem.

Something more actually history-related next time, promise.

In Other News

Is there more to the story of the Copenhagen Belgian?

Yes, but it’ll have to wait until next week. Partly to see what happens with the auction, partly because I’m way behind on everything else, but also because there’s plenty of other model horse news that needs to be attended to.

First, most of you know by now - or should know - that Reeves released/dumped a bunch of warehouse overstock at Tuesday Morning stores and the TJ Maxx/Marshalls chain in the past two weeks. The assortment there included Weather Girls, more Elvis items, Prince Jesters, Satos, Kongs, Stablemates sets, some of the creepy doll sets, the Breast Cancer Bluegrass Bandits, Kripton Senis, Cedrics …

You get the picture. Lots of good stuff.

When I did finally manage to escape my house earlier this week (I think it was Monday night? I can’t remember. NaNoWriMo is melting my brain, again.) I somehow ended up at a couple of Tuesday Mornings. Fortunately I managed to walk away with only a pretty nice Gathering Storm (the 2011 Online Collector’s Choice Big Ben) and a gorgeously shaded Sato, both of whom are currently chilling in the car until the coast is clear.

(Yes, dear readers, I also plead guilty to the "sneaking new horses in the house and pretending they were here all along" ruse.  I did sell a couple things this week, so that sort of makes it okay, right? Right?)

I tried finding a Priefert’s Kong that pleased me enough to take home, but they all either had minor flaws I couldn’t stop staring at, or had paint jobs that were a little too flat black for my tastes.

There were also no Weather Girls in my neck of the woods - all snapped up early, I presume. I was sort of hoping to get another Palomino Weather Girl as an accompaniment to the sample one I picked up at BreyerFest this year, but it looks like that will have to wait.

The second bit of news: yes, I was aware of the Heavy/Resin-filled/Home Decorating Show Breyers that turned up on eBay over the course of the past month. I was even an underbidder on a couple of them, but as you know by now, I was not one of the winners.

That’s what happens when your bank accounts are significantly closer to zero than your competition. Being distracted by the whole Blue Belgian business didn’t help, either. (A most pleasing distraction, at least.)

Make no mistake, it definitely stung - quite a bit, to be honest. I happened to be volunteering at BreyerFest the year that the Home Decorating Show leftovers were sold in the Pit. And with my first shift being first thing Friday morning. At the Help/Information Desk.

Yeah, I had to watch everybody else walk past me into the Ninja Pit.

Torture? You bet. It was the only possible way volunteering could have been made unpleasant for me, outside of being made to dance around in the Pal O’Mine suit. (That year was not good for me for a variety of reasons. The absence of the NPOD shopping experience was a relatively low on the list of grievances, believe it or not.)

With the prices that a couple of those pieces brought - and the added attention - it seems even more unlikely that I’ll be able to smooth that particularly rough-edged memory from my mind.

Not that all of them can, or should be. How else would the world know of pearls?

Daytona

I am elbow-deep in paperwork and prep that I need to get done by Sunday for the road trip, so it’s another pretty pony drive by today. This one is a Daytona that I picked up in the NPOD last year:

There were a few other pieces from the Sunshine Celebration that were also made available in the Pit that year, but by the time I made it to that particular corner, Daytona was the last one available.

Not that I’m complaining: he’s beautiful. I am so in love with dark seal bays right now it’s not funny - to the point where I’ve been lingering a little too long over pictures of the Heartland High Tech Hackney, even though I know I shouldn’t.

BTW, don’t get your knickers in a twist over the availability of these models: it seems pretty clear to me that they were a part of the infamous "Sample Room Cleanout" that occurred earlier that year. They were all priced at event retail, too: none of us lucky enough to stumble on these treasures got a "deal" on them. (Other than not having to pay the aftermarket mark-up.)

He - and I’m assuming, all the others - had the same mold marks and backstamps and VIN numbers that the regular production pieces did, so it seems that they may have been pulled from the production run to be used as photography/display/promotional Samples. Normally Samples are made - and shipped - ahead of production, but it may have been a case where they were crunched for time, or felt it wasn’t necessary, adding an extra model or two to everyone’s production run instead (or pulling from the spoilage).

Whether or not there are "true" samples (sans VIN numbers) of said models floating about, I do not know. Probably.

Regardless, this is a classic case where provenance is important.

British Flavoured

Spent some time yesterday poking the underbelly of the Breyer web site - the legal way, via the links, tabs and buttons.

I’d consider myself a fairly adept user - I even took some classes, back in the day, when I had delusions of being a webmaster. Even though I haven’t done much in that department since then, I still find myself obsessing over the structure of every web site I visit. If I get annoyed enough, I’ll even start sketching out - on paper, or even just in my head - how I’d reconfigure it.

I wasn’t super-impressed with the Breyer web site before, but now that I’ve spent some time wandering around the place, I think it annoys me more than almost any other site I visit on a regular basis. There’s too much "fluff" getting in the way of the "stuff". Fooey!

Rather than discuss how I’d completely restructure it, let’s discuss the BreyerFest material, which was my original reason for visiting the site.

I am not as upset as many are about the lack of true "Britishness" regarding the Celebration Horse "Mariah’s Boon", and the Store Special "Taskin". They are, if not true British breeds, at least British-flavoured.

I am as mystified as everyone else over the Early Bird Special: a Stretched Morgan mold, in Liver Chestnut? That’s one peculiar choice for a British-themed BreyerFest. Aren’t Morgans like the quintessential American breed? Kind of wondering how they’ll spin that one. (As a product of "New" England? Maybe? Whatever.)

"Bennington" seems a little blah from the picture, but that’s probably more the photographer’s fault than the horse. I certainly wouldn’t complain if I won one.

The dapply-dun-silver-whatever that is the SR Cigar "Aintree" is beautiful, but my preference between the two now public Tent SRs is the British White Bull "Bowland", on the Charolais Bull mold. I’ve wanted a British White for years, so that one’s a no-brainer for me. There’s at least one other Tent SR that’s on my must-have list, but since the photos haven’t officially been made public yet, I’ll have to continue refraining comment. (HINT: I kinda-sorta gave you a clue the last time I talked about them.)

I’m running way short of time today (work + driveway shoveling) so I’ll finish up the BreyerFest 2012 discussion tomorrow.

The Stuff of Nightmares

Well, I don’t think I could have had a worse experience in getting a reservation at the CHIN yesterday. Over two and a half hours of redialing, only to just barely end up with a room on the second floor. (The first time since - 2004?) I thought the hoi polloi had all decided that the CHIN was no longer worthy of their patronage?

(There I go again, believing what people write on public web sites. Completely forgot about the whole righteous "I’m gonna give NAMHSA a piece of my mind" meeting a few years back that wasn’t. All talk, no action - same as it ever was.)

I suppose I should be grateful to get a room at all, but I almost - and I am not exaggerating here - had a nervous breakdown in the process. Everyone who knows me well knows I don’t do phones. I wish I had some other less-obscure phobia to deal with, like heights, or clowns, or speaking in public, but somehow I got stuck with telephones. It’s better than it was (thank therapy for that) but unsolicited "’Sup?" phone calls from me aren’t in anyone’s future.

(If you do somehow score a phone call from me, your first thought should always and ever be "Oh no, what’s wrong?")

I’ve managed to pass the reservation duty on to other family members the past few years, but there was no one available to do the job this time around. I was literally sick the rest of the day, and I wasn’t feeling much better today. I looked pale and morose enough at work this morning that even the coworker going through chemo seemed concerned about me. (Which, in turn, made me feel even worse. Irrational Fear < Cancer.)

I was planning on taking less stuff to sell next year anyway, but less generally means (at best) one less tote. Lord, I hope the rumors about publicly accessible elevators next year are true. Or that a significant number of people change their minds and trot themselves over to the Embassy Suites anyway. ($40-70 more a night, and minimal room sales? Sorry, no can do.)

Enough kvetching. To make up for my drama queen rantings, here’s a picture of another Pit find, a "Master Design Sample" for the Halloween Horse Nosferatu:


(What, you thought that once I did a post on the Pecos, that that would be the end of BreyerFest stuff? Shoot, I have at least another week’s worth of stuff to go here.)

"Master Design Sample" is what it said on the bag he came in, which I am assuming is either a fancy-schmantzy in-house term for Test Color, or some permutation thereof. You’ll notice that his bats, unlike the production version, are sharp and crisp, and that this sunset shading is pretty darn amazing, too. He does have a little wear and tear, which is consistent with him being a True Test, and not something they just did purely for auctioning or raffling.

All the flaws are easily repairable though, should I ever get the notion of showing him. (I already have the perfect name for him: Dormammu!)

I don’t have any promo materials for his original release back in 2002, to check if he’s the actual photography sample. Would be mind-blowing if he was, but irrelevant, since he’s not going anywhere anyway.

Like a lot of hobbyists back when, I was a little bummed by the quality of the production Nosferatus. Not enough to get the screaming-meemies over it, but enough to make me shrug and hope for a cheap one on the secondary market. I suppose this Nosferatu qualifies as both cheap (for a Test Color) and secondhand (via the NPOD.) Funny how that works out.

Now, if I could only snag one of those leftovers Frankensteeds. (There were some rumors floating around that they might drop them in the Pit this year, but as far as I know, that didn't happen.)