The Deluxe

Originally I was going to wait until either Easter or my birthday to open up the “Deluxe Grab Bag” I bought, but work’s been kinda exhausting and a little nuts and I figured eh, go for it. I would have probably found out what everybody got by then anyway, and by opening it now I’ll still be able to enjoy the element of surprise.

I think you’ll find the results interesting, to say the least. My Grab Bag (#3) contained:

• 2021 issue of Just About Horses
• Stablemates Friesian Cross
• Stablemates Paint Horse
• Stablemates Appaloosa Sport Horse
• Stablemates Mustang
• Fairytale Friends Sage
• Stablemates Suncatcher Set
• Unicorn Serendipity
• Matte BreyerFest Rheverence
• Charm and Gabi Rider Set
• Crafting Til Christmas Advent Calendar
• Stardust Styling Head
• The World of Breyer Puzzle
• Hope of the Year
• Breyer Breeds Chestnut Trakehner
• Classics Silver Bay Morab
• Elsa

Yeah, you read that right: Elsa. I won’t bore you with the details of how this happened, but this now means I now own THREE of the Normande Cows now. 

It was definitely not by design! So if anybody out there needs a NIB Elsa at retail plus postage, I got you covered, yo…

As far as what I’m keeping from this box, I think it’s just going to be the Serendipity and the Puzzle; the Hope appears to be nicer than the one I got back in December, so that’s probably an upgrade, too. Everything else I either already have, or don’t want/need. I was kind of hoping that I’d get one of the Breyer Breeds releases I didn’t already own, like the Chalky White Roy or that pretty Silver Bay Black Beauty, but no such luck.

But I took a gamble on this one because I figured Reeves learned their lesson on the previous less-than-stellar boxes, and it looks like I will come out ahead of this deal financially. A refreshing change of pace from the two BreyerFest Grab Bag Bummer Boxes I got stuck with last year! 

Yeah, technically they both got canceled out by the Gloss Quelle Surprise in the NPOD Grab Bag Box and the Two Dollar Test Color Ginger stomped all over everything, but I still ended up with way more stuff to sell than I was expecting.

And now I have even more! Needless to say, if there’s anything here that anyone is interested in, drop me a line and I’ll see what I can do, because I definitely do not have enough room in the car for all this nonsense at BreyerFest.

Setting Them Free

In case you were wondering, I (probably) won’t be making a pit stop at the former Chicago location of Breyer Animal Creations while in town for Chicon 8 next weekend. 

It’s not the neighborhood that scares me (hello, I grew up and around Detroit!) but my schedule is already very full, and I’m nervous enough about potentially missing out on the Exclusive Event waitlist draws (ha!) and Johann. 

I also want to heed my own advice and not overschedule myself. I have a… bad habit of doing that. (Someone please talk me out of volunteering at Chicon next week. Seriously, why am I even entertaining the notion?)

Anyway, here’s the set that the laundry room forced me to unbox earlier than I expected: the #1734 Deer Family!

(I had a heck of a time setting them free from their soggy mess of a box, though. I swear they used about ten feet of wire to secure them inside it!)

One of the scarcer Deer Family releases, this set was only available in 2015 and 2016; mine came in a Grab Bag, back when they still sold them on the web site and they had good stuff to include. 

The only Deer Family items that might be scarcer are the #3125 Whitetail Deer Family in Summer Coats, and maybe the Fawn Flicka, who was included in one of the Walmart Exclusive Wild Mustang sets. Both were 2005 releases, not coincidentally.

One of the reasons I put off unboxing them is because, as anyone who has had a set of these in their possession knows, both those legs and antlers are crazy fragile. I just repaired a Fawn who took an unfortunate dive off a shelf several months back, and somewhere around here I still have the assorted pieces of my Chalky Buck’s antlers rattling around.

(His little slip and fall was when I discovered just how brittle Chalky plastic actually is!)

Even though the Deer have been perennially solid sellers since their debut in 1964, there aren’t a lot of bold or distinct color options they could go with for future releases, other than Piebald or something Decorator. Either one would make lovely future Winter Web Specials, though.

Payback

Whenever I have a monetarily-better-than-average BreyerFest, I always fear the inevitable payback. 

Win a Raffle Model? Epic Roommate meltdown that ends with me sleeping in a patio chair near the pool in the hotel. I am uninvited to that wedding and never see this person ever again.

Get picked to Volunteer the first time? In the month prior to BreyerFest, a half dozen different roommates leave me in the lurch for a full double suite, including one who informs me three days before I leave. Oh, and my first Volunteer shift is 9 a.m. Friday, so I have to watch people march past me into one of the best NPOD years ever. 

(‘Twas the year of the German Stablemate Sets and the Interior Decorating Show Samples. ‘Nuff said.)

Win the Costume Contest the first time? Break a tooth so bad it needs a crown. (And me without dental insurance!) 

Win the Costume Contest the second time? Break my foot. Insurance does cover most of it, but because I wasn’t able to work full-time for a month afterwards, I end up with a credit card debt from all my other expenses that takes me nearly five years to pay off. (It never got bigger, but it also never got smaller.)

This year: get a Glossy Surprise Model in a Warehouse Box in the NPOD, a Test Color Ginger in the “Body Box”, and that beautiful Carina Zeitgeist as the Volunteer Model. This year’s payback?

I bought two Warehouse Finds boxes off the website during BreyerFest, spending nearly $450 (cost + shipping + taxes) and this is literally all I’ll be keeping from it:

The most exciting thing in the boxes? The free magnet! And of course, the 2019 One-Day Stablemate just had to be Arya, the one Special Run that sent me into an apoplectic fit that year. 

(I still don’t like it, but this is the third one I’ve ended up with so far – all against my will, I wish to have on record – so by accepting this one I hope the Universe will finally stop sending them to me.)

I also purchased a Torlinie, but he was thrown underneath one of the Warehouse Find boxes, and I am stunned he is still in one piece. 

Or maybe not: even though the box was big enough to stuff an actual Shetland Pony in, it was about 70 percent packing material.

(He’s really cute in person, by the way! Would definitely recommend!)

All told, I will probably lose at least $150 on this deal, maybe more: none of the extra stuff is in particularly high demand, or even selling at retail. I already have plenty of better things to sell, and when I finally get the time, that is what I am devoting my limited resources to. (In other words, it is all probably BreyerFest sales fodder for next year. Bleh.)

While I more than made up for it with everything else I acquired over the weekend, this also happened to come at the end of a rough week for me and definitely did not help improve my mood. And it was pretty much why I spent a significant chunk of my Sunday in the garage getting some quality time in with unsold bodies and my Dremel drill. 

(Suddenly I am possessed of the idea of turning a Western Prancing Horse into a replica of an antique Staffordshire Pottery Zebra. Because sure, what is one more unfinished custom project, hey...)

Next time, I think I’ll skip the online Grab Bags entirely and just order things that are a known quantity.

NPOD Grab Bags

Trying to take it easy today. I have a very busy extended weekend ahead of me and just chilling today seems… like a nice idea, no?

Anyway, Jaime confirmed for us that the “Warehouse Finds” thing is indeed an online version of the NPOD, with various – and unidentified – goodies basically packed grab-bag style, at various price points from “not too expensive” to “expensive”.

It’s a bonus benefit exclusive to Adult ticket purchases, and limited to one purchase per account for the whole weekend. As opposed to the other goodies that you can purchase every day, depending on the type of ticket you’ve purchased.

That sounds super-duper fair and actually something I hope they replicate at BreyerFests going forward, with some modifications (i.e. no box shaking, no opening until you’ve cleared the register, or maybe you purchase a claim ticket instead and go to another location to pick it up).

The only additional thing I’d like them to implement is that they include some documentation with any actual Samples you might get – doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just a sheet of paper with the basics. (“[This Model] is a sample from the Breyer Archive Room and sold at BreyerFest 2020, blah blah etc.”)

Us Collectibility Nerds love that kind of nonsense. Give us more paper!

In short, I approve, and I hope I can snag one! (Maybe the fact that my circadian rhythms are completely out of whack will work to my advantage on this? Hmm.)

Seeing as I am the kind of person who once injured herself reading, I am not overly curious about the imminent reveal of the Pop-Up Store Crystal. (Unless it’s a replica of Emma. Then maybe.) Jaime mentioned a third as-yet-unannounced SR for this store, and that I am curious about.

Actually, I just realized that I’m not quite sure how all of the individual stores/shopping areas are going to be set up. (A single page with links? One big store? Virtual rooms you wander in?) As I mentioned above, my weekend is gong to be extremely busy (Only a couple hundred seedlings to transplant. No biggie!) and I am going to put off doing a deeper reading of the latest updates and changes until later in the weekend.

Especially since my brain is mostly focused on all the fancy cheeses I impulse-bought at Kroger today. (Mmm, Welsh Cheddar!)

That Darn Warehouse!

My cold is clearing up, the weather is finally turning lovely outside, some long-term projects I’ve been working on are progressing nicely, everything is going according to budget, then WHAM:

Surprise Boxes? With actual good stuff in them, not just discontinued items and overruns? Why do you do this to me, guys?

As to whether this means that the warehouse is cleaned out for realsies, and that this finally means the end of the NPOD, or any other surprises elsewhere?

The answer would be no.

Every time there are new models released, there will be Samples.

Every time there is a Web Special, there are going to be unsold/undistributed pieces from those runs – “desirable” or not, it doesn’t matter.

Every time there is a special promotion – random glossies, gifts with purchase, and all that jazz – there will be leftovers.

BreyerFest Special Runs? Leftovers.

Short run Regular Run models, concepts and promotions that go unexecuted/underexecuted? Leftovers.

Club models? Unclaimed leftovers.

Contests? Yep, leftovers there, too.

Anyone who has worked in a warehouse in any capacity – and especially those of us who do inventories of such places – also knows how easy it is for things to hide in even the tidiest of them. Just like your purse, the glove box in your car, and the junk drawer.

(Let me tell you about the magical roll of quarters that lives in my messenger bag. Every time I clean out my bag, it’s in there, but every time I actually look for it or need it, it’s not!)

So surprises like this will continue to happen, and pretty good stuff will turn up in the NPOD from time to time, too.

I suppose I could charge one, but I’d really rather not.

I’ve never had an issue selling the duplicates from previous “Surprise” Grab Bags – especially since I look at it from this perspective: you’re getting everything in the box at basically half-off, so selling the items within for anything above half the MSRP is coming out ahead.

But I already have enough to sell as it is, and flea market season hasn’t even really gotten into full swing yet. (This week, maybe? Fingers crossed!)

Plus, I did really well with the last big promotion – the Free Rare Glossy for Christmas one (ah, Wixom!) – and I’d really rather ride that high for a little while longer.

If something really good I’ve been wanting anyway shows up in one of the boxes, I might go for it, but otherwise I think I’ll be saving that roll of quarters for the flea market.  

The 500 Club

I had no trouble filling up my shopping cart to get a Glossy Cosette offered on that “Collector Appreciation Day” earlier this week, but I didn’t go through with it. Partly it was because I managed to score something wonderful in my Grab Bag Box:

Any of the four Classics issued for the 2014 WEG would have been fine – the Chestnut Johar, the Bay Frolicking Quarter Horse Stallion, the Black Warmblood Mare, and the Alabaster Classics Ruffian – and all four have shown up in the #1 Grab Bag Assortments.

As my favorite among the four, however, the Ruffian one was something I was actively pursuing at BreyerFest this year. Having her show up on my doorstep helped make up for some of the bad fortune/timing I’ve been having with eBay auctions over the past week.

(I wasn’t quite as lucky with the Sherman Morgan in the lot: just another “normal” Silver Filigree there.)

Both the Glossy Cosette and the 2014 WEG Classics were issued in runs of 500 pieces. Nowadays collectors consider 500-piece Special Runs to be relatively common – heck, anything over 100 pieces, really – but quantity alone is rarely the sole determinant of rarity or value.

I’ve had a number of Classic Arabians on my sales list the past couple of years, but outside of body-box quality pieces, they’ve been a tough sell. The collectors who grew up with them (like yours truly) already have them, and newer collectors aren’t all that into them.

That’s the reason why I took a pass on the original Cosette: there is no sense of urgency. The Matte version has been available to the general public on the Breyer web site for a while now, manufactured in a quantity sufficiently large enough that they were able to gloss 500 of them for the offer. She seems almost as common and familiar as any other Regular Run item.

The way the Gloss Cosette offer was structured – you had to buy a hundred dollars of qualifying items – meant that there will be leftovers. They will turn up elsewhere, maybe even in future Grab Bags that will also come with a bunch of discounted stuff I already wanted!

Like the 2014 WEG Classics. But even though those items were also issued in runs of 500, on molds that are also modestly but not wildly popular, there’s definitely a sense that those models are more desirable – or at least harder to come by – than the Classic Arabian releases, Matte or Gloss, will ever be.

The 2014 WEG Classics were distributed at the event in France, and then disappeared (warehoused, apparently!) You could get them from some sellers overseas, but the shipping was prohibitive for many of us. Some of the WEG Stablemates did make it over here, but the Classics largely did not.

Now that they’re finally letting some of them go in the Grab Bags, and presumably in other places or in other offers or situations, the perceived rarity of the WEG Classics may change. Hobbyists will get blasé about them, too, and then move on to the next newest or hottest thing.

I’ll just keep buying and keeping what I like, rare or not.  

Winter Surprises

No Olaf for me – I didn’t even have a choice in the matter, since I got home from work about 15-20 minutes after they sold out. If it had been the day before (when I was home earlier than usual) or the day after (my day off) the situation might have been different.

Or if they had announced it when they had usually announced these sort of things – early afternoons or evenings…

…but if there’s been anything consistent about these December Surprises, it’s their complete inconsistency. We’ve had Giveaways (the War Horse), Vault Sales, Christmas Day Sales, Boxing Day Sales, Micro Runs, 350-piece Purchase Raffles, 350-piece Direct Purchase items, Gambler’s Choices, Christmas Decos, Black Friday Surprises and Gifts with Purchase Offers.

I take some consolation in having mixed feelings about the release itself.

To deal with some of my space issues here, I had sold off a couple Longhorns, and I am considering letting go of a couple more. He really is one of the shelf-hoggiest of shelf hogs, and I’d like to devote that space to other Nonhorse molds I’m currently more interested in – namely, the Dogs and the Deer Family. So he was not a must-have for me.

It seemed like an odd mold choice, too, as the Longhorn Bull isn’t something I’d associate with either cooler climes or Holiday themes. The name grates me a little, but that’s strictly a personal thing – whomever it is on Team Breyer that’s a big fan of the Disney references, I wish they’d give it a rest.

On the plus side, the money I might have spent on Olaf I got to spend on something else – a Grab Bag! I wasn’t going to buy one, initially – my sales inventory is almost at a manageable level here, finally, and I didn’t want to risk adding to it so soon. But one of the Grab Bags (#1) had the newer Deer Family, the Eve and Claus Mare and Foal set, and some of the leftover WEG 2014 Special Run Classics, and since those were all things I had been actively eyeing before, it was a no-brainer.

And I get another shot at a Silver Sherman Morgan too. (Third time’s the Charm? Literally, maybe?)

The color on the Olaf pretty though – I think I’ve made it abundantly clear this year that I do love me some Gloss Alabaster – and the fact that it is a 350-piece run, and not a 40-piece one is oddly encouraging. That means if I find some shelf space, and one at an affordable price (IOW: not too far off the issue price) six months or a year down the road, it might be doable.

I am curious if Olaf was made from bodies leftover from the 2007 BreyerFest Special Run Alamo – as I suspect the 2009 Lone Star Experience Wranglers were – or if this is a precursor to either another Special Run or Regular Run Longhorn in the near future.

Time will tell, I guess.

Chocolates

It feels very strange to be relaxing in an office chair and not have to go to work or to bed within an hour or two. After nearly two weeks of that, I’m not quite sure what to do with myself! Other than clean up the debris left behind. I’ve been picking up stuff all day, and I’m still finding articles of clothing in inappropriate places. (I have a better throwing arm than I thought!)

My Vintage Club Levi arrived a few days ago, but he still hasn’t been opened yet, because work. I am somewhat encouraged by most of the comments I’ve seen in passing this week. More on him next post.

The Grab Bags appear to be what I - and most other hobbyists - assumed they would be: a mix of BreyerFest Specials, Regular Runs, Classics and MiniWhinnies sets. I haven’t seen any reports of crazy-awesome things like Samples or Artist’s Proofs, but it’s still a little early yet, and not everyone wants or needs to share. (Which I am totally fine with, BTW. Some joys are best enjoyed in private.)

I wouldn’t have minded getting a Tinseltown - the dun Lonesome Glory BreyerFest SR from 2010. I wasn’t real crazy about his color back then, but I’ve warmed up to it considerably since then.

Speaking of duns, one of the more captivating new releases for me is the GVF Sjokolade, on the Henry Fjord mold: http://www.breyerhorses.com/gvf

I know there’s been some concern expressed that there might be some difficulty distinguishing his paint job from the original Henry release, or from the WEG Reissue, but if the web site photos are anywhere near the ballpark, I don’t think we have a lot to worry about.

The real horse has brown points, not black or charcoal, which makes sense since his name means "Chocolate" and his barn name is "Hershey"! Even if the color isn’t quite there on the model itself, it looks like they’re loading him up with a different order of detail than the previous Fjords had - better than the Henry, and just plain different from the WEG model.

I think it is a safe bet that this model - in Gloss or Semi-Gloss - will turn up as a prize model in this year’s BreyerFest Youth Show. A highly coveted prize, if my recent experiences with the mold continue to hold. Popular fellow he’s been, lately.

If I’m not lucky enough to locate the Sample "Hershey" this year, I’ll be more than content with just a nicely shaded Regular Run one. Assuming I have the room for him by then.

Off to enjoy the rest of my evening, lounging in flannel jammies, eating clearance Christmas candy and catching up on my TV time. Boring and mundane never felt so inviting.

Grab Bags and Trakehners

As I was going to or coming from work on Tuesday (possibly simultaneously!) the notion of Grab Bags popped into my head. As in, "It wouldn’t surprise me if they broke out a Grab Bag offer while I was away."

Of course they did! I was home just long enough - and at the right time - to order one if I wanted to. I decided to take a pass on the offer because I haven’t had the time or energy to deal with the small handful of packages I’ve gotten in the past two weeks. Another box of stuff could possibly send me or my family over the edge.

(Even Vita. The little weirdo loves to peel and eat packing tape off boxes.)

Generally I’ve had pretty good luck with the Grab Bags in the past. I think some people are being overly optimistic on what "special items" may be contained within, though. I’m guessing it’s more along the lines of BreyerFest SRs, Mid-Years, recently discontinued items, Blossoms and other web site doodads - you know, similar to before.

Cigar Aintrees and St. Bernard Beethovens, rather than Vintage or Premier Club anythings. (I’ve been wanting a Beethoven, but they’ve been trying to sell the leftovers in the NPOD for the past few years at original retail, which I thought was a tad high.)

The super rare or desirable stuff has tended to be the exception, not the rule.

Here is a picture of my fabulous #54 Trakehner, who I received for Christmas in 1979. I’ve shown him around before, but I think you can understand why:

Most models have some degree of variation in their paint jobs, as a consequence of having multiple painters over multiple years of production.

The original release of the Trakehner seems to have had more variation than most in his six year run (1979-1984). I’ve seen him light and dark, brown-based and red-based, with extensive shading and none at all.

The earliest ones, like mine, were a bit fancier and more seal brown than the others, but the other variations I haven’t been able to date and track as closely, nor distinguish quite as distinctly. Sometimes I think they painted him the shade of bay they happened to have leftover from whatever they were painting the day before.

Whenever the topic of "The Trakehner Society" Trakehner comes up, though, I always take a deep breath. Like the Kansas City Shams or the Florida El Pastors, he’s another one of those models for whom many are claimed to be, but few truly are.

In fact, I don’t think there’s been a single verified one outside of the one with the unassailable provenance. The paint job is a solid bay - somewhat different than many/most #54 Trakehners, but not that far out of the normal range of variation we see on the original release.

So unless someone is able to give you some solid, inarguable documentation or provenance, the best answer to the offer of a Trakehner Society Trakehner is "No, thank you."

Accidental Vacation

Sorry about the unannounced vaycay - all the year-end paperwork I had planned for next week got bumped to this week, because of heavy additions to my work schedule. I also made the mistake of picking an "easy" project to make for Mom’s Christmas present this year:


French-beaded Marigolds.

My original intent was to make a Christmas Tree, but I thought the Marigolds would be less time-consuming. Ha! You’d think I’d know myself by now.

(And no, I’m not taking orders. I'm still in the "gifts to family and friends" stage. Quilts, I'm willing to discuss.)

Looks like I’m going to get stuck with my Grab Bag leftovers for a least a couple of months - have you seen the race to the bottom the prices took on MH$P? I don’t necessarily think its reflective of a lack of demand for any of these models in particular, it’s more a matter of lots of people being desperate to unload, no matter the cost. I guess I can wait - I’ve got room in the sales boxes, and if all else fails, I can always move them out at BreyerFest. It’ll be a non-NAN year, and I’ve found that you get a higher percentage of offline, low-information or lower intensity hobbyists who wouldn’t have had the knowledge, means or opportunity to take advantage of the deal in the first place.

If anyone wants to make a modest offer on anything in the meantime, though, be my guest.

I don’t know what to make of the random awesome goodies some people got in their Grab Bags. Was it an intentional thing to get us stoked for the next round of Grab Bags, or another one of those "blame it on the intern" type of mistakes? The former seems more likely than the latter, since I don’t doubt we’ll have at least one more Grab Bag dump before BreyerFest next year. There are just too many things floating in the warehouse that didn’t make an appearance in this round. (Why no Pink Poodles?)

I’m all talked out of this Grab Bag topic. Let’s move on to something else.

It’s nice to see that the "one gloss set per case" on the new Giselle and Gilen has been confirmed as a year-long thing. I'd love to have a set, but I was in no mood for more mall crawling, especially this time of year.

I do wonder how long it’ll take the rest of the hobby to find this news - or if they'll even "discover" it at all? I’ve been doing a lot of lurking lately, and I’m a little appalled at both the quality of news being distributed, and the unevenness of the distribution.

You know what this hobby needs? A good, all-purpose, nondenominational news hub. Not a list of links, terms and general information, but honest to goodness news. When things are getting released, contest/entry deadlines, live show and club events by region, artist announcements/open houses, etc. and so on. I do plan on expanding my Internet "presence" next year, so maybe I’ll pencil "…and establish an online model horse news network" on the bottom of the to-do list.

More tomorrow, after I finish unwrapping and assembling the presents. (Including a comfy new office chair! Yay!)

Happy Grab Bag Day!

Darn these Grab Bags - I didn’t get anything done today! Grab Bag "Y" landed on my doorstep around lunchtime. The contents consisted of:

• WEG Mandiba
• WEG Jamaica
• Enchanted Forest
• Bats in the Belfry
• Pokerjoe
• Pharaoh
• Patagonia
• WEG MiniWhinnies Set
• Ponies Gone Wild "Gina"
• Pony Gals SM Swedish Warmblood
• WEG SM Reiner

Yep, definitely worth it.

I’ll be keeping Jamaica, Bats in the Belfry, Enchanted Forest, the MiniWhinnies Set, and the PGW "Gina." I may or may not keep the Stablemates (as bodies). Everything else will be put up for sale (preferably) or trade.

I haven’t settled on prices yet; I want to wait a bit and see how the market shakes out. I’m not too concerned about making all of my money back on my investment, but getting a little of it back before the end of the year wouldn’t hurt. I just wish other hobbyists would be a little less cagey about revealing their pickings so far.

I’m not surprised to hear that there are multiples occurring from box to box: it seemed overly optimistic of the "8 boxers" to think that there’d be 48 to 54 unique Traditional-scale items spread across the eight different assortments. Haven’t heard about too many porcelains showing up yet, which I find odd, but it is still a bit early yet. How I ended up being one of the early birds this time around, I do not know…

Disappointments: no WEG Snow Globe or doggies. Guess I’ll have to wait ‘til next year’s NPOD for a Beethoven. I was also hoping for one of the bigger plushie horses, for Vita: I’m thought she’d dig having a plushie as big as she is, to play with. (No, not THAT way - that’s what the doggie bed is for.)

My favorite of keepers is the Enchanted Forest. What a lovely paint job on this boy!


You know me, I’m a sucker for a simple, well-executed color. Which, in this case, is a rich, shaded chocolate bay with subtle dappling.


The Jamaica is really nice, too, even if he is just another bay on the Trakehner mold. I’m glad that that mold has had something of a comeback in recent years: whatever his faults, I’ve always considered him one of better of Chris Hess’s later efforts. In this era’s obsession with wild paint jobs, crazy hair, and increasingly extreme action poses, it's nice to see a lot of other hobbyists are rediscovering his understated charms.

The First Rule of the Flea Market

Hesitating is for losers.

You go to enough flea markets - especially the open air, "live chicken and car parts" ones - and you learn that rule hard and fast. If you find something even remotely interesting, or think it might be something good but you’re not 100% sure of it - your decision has to be made right then and there. Once you walk away from the booth, chances are good it’s not going to be there when you make up your mind a half an hour later.

That’s just how it works at the flea market. The first person to offer a vendor the amount of money he or she is looking for an item, it’s gone. It’s nothing personal: vendors appreciate your interest, but they’re much more interested in your cash.

Considering the white-hot intensity that’s accompanied the past few exclusives, it only made sense to treat the Breyer Holiday Grab Bag deal just like a transaction at the flea market, especially since they put an extremely charitable "8 per household" limit on the purchases.

No room for hesitating. I know my fellow hobbyists all too well. Some of them are just crazy enough to buy that maximum - especially the ones that might have missed out on the Alpine.

So I got up Tuesday morning, logged on at the designated time, click-click-clicked, then went to lunch.

Needless to say, I was a little shocked when I logged on an hour or so later to see that they sold out in less than 15 minutes. I was expecting a quick sellout - within an hour or two. But 15 minutes? Whoa.

The fault here is obviously in the household limit: if these Grab Bags were of "extremely limited" quantities, an 8-piece limit is ridiculous. Four would have been more reasonable - isn’t that what the previous buy limit on Grab Bags was?

Just how limited was "extremely limited," though? There was a rumor floating around initially that pegged the quantity of Grab Bags at 50, but I find that extremely dubious. A Grab Bag purchase poll on Blab is already up to 90, and that’s only counting folks who are on Blab.

If I were to hazard a wild guess, I’m thinking a 150-250 piece estimate is more likely (or 160 to 240, if you’re looking for a "multiple of 8" number.) Blab is awesome, but it does not contain the entirety of the model horse universe within it. Half, maybe.

Like everyone else, I’ve been watching the commentary on Breyer’s Facebook page about the Grab Bags with all the fascination of a car wreck. It reminds me of why I’m not on Facebook: almost everyone on it is either emotionally or physically about 12 years old (if that.) I’ve got enough emotionally stunted people in my life to deal with, thank-you-very-much.

(In case you get curious and look it up: someone with my name IS on Facebook. It’s not me: I think it’s a distant relative in Hungary, but I’m not entirely sure. My knowledge of Hungarian is limited to food items.)

While I think it’s more than fair to call out the more egregious whiners on Facebook - and elsewhere - I’d caution my fellow hobbyists on going too far in the calling out. Posting kissy-face "Shut Up, Everything they do for us is Awesome!" messages everywhere is (a) unproductive, (b) a little nauseating, and (c) untruthful. Reeves HAS been making a lot of boneheaded mistakes lately.

And they do need to be reminded of that.

But there is a difference between holding someone’s feet to the fire, and burning them at the stake.

Holiday Shopping

I won’t be putting my name in for Vignette this time around. I got my JAH in time to mail it in, but I made a decision a few weeks ago to refocus the collection: fewer "ooh, pretty horsie" pieces and more "historical/significant" ones. Part of that refocus includes having at least one example of every mold: that was the rationale for my attempt at Alpine.

I love the CWP mold, I really do, but I have lots of Cantering Welshies already.

I’m thinking I’ll probably spring for a Grab Bag: based on the $350 estimated value, there seems to be a high likelihood of porcelains showing up. Party Time, Dances with Wolves, Romantico: we know those guys are cluttering up the warehouse. I don’t have many of the porcelains - because, you know, I’m a big clumsy Buffalo - and this would be a good way of getting one at a price that won’t make me hyperventilate when I do eventually break the poor thing.

Speaking of Buffaloes and Connoisseurs, I’m not sure what’s up with everyone’s insistence that there’s just going to be Connoisseurs this time around, specifically Taima. Wishing for them - nay, almost counting on them? Seems awfully cynical, if you ask me. There’s plenty of other stuff kicking around the warehouse: WEG, recent discontinues, old XMAS stock, Fest SRs, Treasure Hunt items, Fall Dealer SRs, old plushies…

With my luck, I’ll end up with the assortment with all the stuff I already have, like Red Carpet Royalty, the Pink Poodle, and Buttercream. Now that I think about it, that’s not necessarily a bad thing: my sales inventory is getting a bit low. But I wasn’t planning on doing any more selling until Spring, and I hate having too much money tied up in inventory.

Maybe I should take my recent lack of horsebuying success as a hint, and blow my teeny-tiny year-end surplus on something more practical, like socks or antibiotics. (If I don’t have whooping cough, then whatever I do have is doing a darn good impression of it.)

In other news, I’m still being kept somewhat preoccupied by the Tack/Accessories Project. I made another discovery today: the Wood Corral was a mid-year or Holiday 1982 release, not a 1983 one. Something didn’t quite seem right with that date, so I skimmed through my Christmas Catalog binders, and voila, there it was in the 1982 Aldens Christmas Book:


As most hobbyists know, the Aldens company ceased operations in December 1982: the company itself didn’t "go bankrupt," but its parent company Wickes did. They sold off as many of the divisions as they could while reorganizing, but a buyer couldn’t be found for Aldens:

http://www.nytimes.com/1982/12/18/business/wickes-closing-its-aldens-unit.html

The infamous Black Pacer - and I assume, all of the other Breyer merchandise - was shipped back to Breyer, who then passed it to other mail-order companies, most notably Bentley Sales.

Grab Bag

I’m still not operating at 100%, but I’m getting there. And along the way I have discovered my new favorite sickbed indulgence: Del Monte Fruit Chillers. (Single-serving sorbets! Brilliant!)

I’ll be doing a bit of a "grab bag" style posting today, wrapping up a few loose ends that don’t merit a single post individually. I’m still feeling a bit scattered from the flu, so I might as well work with it, rather than against.

Speaking of the Grab Bags, I managed to successfully resist their temptations. Part of me feared I would have ended up with a porcelain, and I have a nasty habit of breaking those kinds of things. Especially when I’m slightly disoriented from OTC cold and flu remedies.

Interesting how most of the Medalist Ponies that were sent out in the Grab Bags were the Bronzes - were they going through them by color, or did the bulk of the leftover Ponies just happen to be Bronze? (I can’t recall the ratios of the different colors leftover in the Tent.) Or did they just happen to pick that color because it was the most autumnal of the three colors, and therefore the most appropriate thing to include in a "Fall" Grab Bag?

The second "wave" seem to be including Gold one, so I’m just going with the "by color" theory. And if that’s the case, I still have a shot at getting a Silver one, which is the only one I really want. (It’s one of my stable colors, and the chemical symbol for silver is Ag, which just so happen to be my initials. Hence the want.)

Me and my pedestrian tastes: I think of all the LSE models, I like the Shining N Sassy best. They really put a lot of effort into her: birdcatcher spots, rabicano roaning and mapping on the blaze? Excellent! Not that I have any remote chance of getting her at a reasonable price, even though she’s considered unforgivably "common." I do wonder what’ll happen to the handful of Frankensteeds leftover in the second grabby hands pass through: will there be any controversy when they finally show up somewhere else?

I find it very surprising, still, that there are hobbyists out there that are unaware of the amount of Reeves’s lurking about in the online model horse world. They avoid posting mostly in the interest of not playing favorites (and to avoid the inevitable stream of unsolicited PMs, too.) They will be specifically lurking about on Blab, however, in a thread asking for suggestions for future BreyerFest themes and guest horses. It’s in one of the open, no-pay forums, so if you think you have the next great idea, go for it.

I’ll be doing more follow-up on the Boehm biography in the future; it led me on a couple of interesting and surprising productive research paths, quite literally ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. (Two words: Miniature Golf. No, really!)

The outdoor flea market is closed for the season. We have plenty of antique malls, thrift shops, indoor markets and Salvation Army outlets to keep me sufficiently busy, but I do miss the cheap, unpredictable thrills the outdoor market offers. Like everyone else, though, I’m having a hard time selling anything right now, so less inventory is probably a good thing.

I have a few things I’m giving away (for the cost of postage): back issues of my BreyerFest MGR Samplers. I always end up with a few extra cobbled together from the leftover pages created during the printing process. They’re all complete issues: I just reprinted whatever pages I’m missing from my original computer files. Here’s what I have left, by year:

2009: 7 issues
2008: 7 issues
2007: 3 issues
2006: 2 issues
2005: 1 issue

PM me or drop me an e-mail for availability and a postage estimate, if you’re interested.
I don’t plan on reprinting any more on an individual basis: I might print an omnibus/collected edition sometime in the future, no guarantee though.