Some Recent Shopping

A sampling of recent purchases:

A Border Fine Arts piece with original hang tag, an addition to the Duchess collection, a signed (!) first edition of Mr. Limpet (yes, the book that the film The Incredible Mr. Limpet was based on) and another sari.

It is hard to tell from the photograph, but the sari is handmade and of the most beautiful green and orange shot cotton. It’s more likely I’ll be cutting it up for a quilt than wearing it.

There have been a few other items – another Duchess, a body for my Diorama Contest entry, some interesting variations – but they’re either not ready or not suitable for prime time. I’ve been trying to keep the shopping excursions to a minimum, as some bills and the flea market will be coming up soon.

I also had the chance to see the new 2017 horses in person late last week, as work took me past one of the stores that carries the full line – including the Pocket Animals and CollectAs (though this is the one that stocked CollectAs before the deal with Reeves.)

They had a clean, perfectly masked Paint Me a Pepto, but the two new releases that almost came home with me were Xavier (the Unicorn Othello) and the Decorator Geronimo Bandera.

The Xavier was so iridescent it glowed, and the Bandera was really well executed and almost exactly how I imagined it was going to be: a plastic representation of a potmetal carnival prize horse. But after seriously considering them and a couple of the newer CollectAs, I managed to walk away from the store unscathed.

The new Reeves-CollectAs, if you haven’t already seen them, have the Breyer logo imprinted on their bellies in addition to the paper tags. Other than my Australian Stock Horse, I haven’t spent a whole lot of time examining the earlier pieces to see if there are any other subtle (or not so subtle) changes to the “new” pieces.

It’s good to know that we’ll be able to distinguish the Breyer “in the wild” sans paper tags, though.

The only other thing worth noting about the shopping trip was that they had BreyerFest brochures, that I happened to see a couple little girls pick up as they were shopping. Other than inform them that the CollectAs they were also looking at were now being distributed by Breyer, I left them alone; I figured they were already well on their way and Mom wouldn’t want some rando at the toy store to evangelize.

Filling in the Holes

So it looks like the CollectA line will be operating under an arrangement similar to the Pocket Box animals: certain items (horses, pets, farm animals) are being repackaged/rebranded and sold as Breyer product, with the originating company maintaining the noncompeting lines and items independently.

Both of these moves were done, obviously, to plug holes in the Breyer brand – expanding their offerings in the Micro Mini scale with the Pocket Box items, and making an entrée into the vinyl toy animal market currently dominated by Schleich. 

Like the Pocket Box critters, it’s still a little too early form me to determine how I will handle them. There’s a potential for multiple releases with the CollectA items that’s not available with the Pocket Box items, so I expect I’ll end up treating the CollectA pieces more like standard Breyers, and the Pocket Box pieces more like accessories.  

One thing that’s been largely forgotten in all this is that this is not the first time Reeves has adapted or adopted competing items as their own. In 1986, they gave us the #9900 Breyer Riding Stable set, aka the Pine Lodge Riding School, a play set composed of Britains:

It was a fairly popular item, too, running through 1989 in the Collector’s Manuals/Dealer Catalogs, and available through 1992 in the Sears Wishbook; I still find (usually) incomplete sets around here from time to time. 

It does feel a little weird/wrong to find a Breyer box with Britains in it, though.

There’s nothing wrong with any of these products per se – some of the CollectA horse molds are actually great, and I might be buying some of the Pocket Box Aquarium items, too. But it’ll be a while yet before I can “buy” them as Breyer products.

CollectA

Here’s my CollectA collection:

CollectAs are available around here – of course they are! But the stores they are in are a little bit out of my way, and by the time I make there, whatever horses they had are usually long gone. I did get lucky last year and spotted this Australian Stock Horse Stallion that my fellow local hobbyists obviously missed.

Rumor has it – well, it’s not really a rumor, more like a fact waiting for an official Press Release or Statement – that Reeves is acquiring CollectA. From the just-released Just About Horses:

In 2017, we will be introducing two exciting new collections. The first is a new range of realistic and authentic horse and animal sculptures. This delightful collection will be created in durable vinyl with family-friendly price points to introduce young children to the joys of collection. The second collection, is, well …. under lock and key until February! We’ll keep you posted!

Some are saying this is just Reeves buying up the competition. While it is true that the Breyer brand itself does lose some business to the likes of Schleich (and Papo, and Safari, and Bullyland…) I see it more as Reeves deciding to compete directly in this particular segment of the model horse market.

It also didn’t hurt that, you know, some of the CollectA horse sculpts – by artist Deborah McDermott – are pretty darn nice, too.

As far as collecting/documenting goes, I’ll be treating the pre-Reeves CollectA items the same way I treat the Hagen-Renaker molds and the Creata Micros: basically, as separate but related entities.

As to what Reeves is going to do with CollectA, I don’t know. I know many things that Reeves might be surprised that I know, but this is something I have not be made privy to, through either official or unofficial channels.

My guess is that the line will continue more or less as before, with some rebranding, relabeling, and somewhat different paint jobs on the horses, at least (in terms of both style and color).

It’s going to make for some…interesting diorama entries at BreyerFest this year, I think.