The Latest in Hamiltons

If you are wondering if the time change helped with my sleep patterns, the answer is the same as me getting drawn for a Vail: that would be a No.

In lieu of stronger medications (there is a family history of sleepwalking: I am NOT mixing Ambien with that!) I’ll probably ramp up my quilting and sewing activities, in the hopes that the peace of mind that comes from completed projects will help.

I am more or less okay with the Vail: the past month has been a bit on the expensive side (a minor but necessary car repair, an unexpected dental bill, things on eBay I shouldn’t be buying but were unlikely to show up ever again) and there are a couple of things I need to save up for, including a space heater for the garage and a new phone. 

Consequently, the Swirls and Snowflakes Stablemates that have been rescheduled for Tuesday Monday are now completely out of the question for me.

Since I am so very, very close to finishing a one of those aforementioned projects (to a certain stage, anyway) I’ll just give you all a better shot of my Gloss Buckskin Pinto Stagecoach Surprise Hamilton:

Aside from being the first Gloss I’ve pulled from the actual ticket line since… 2012, egads – he also appears to be nigh-perfect. I’ve been looking for a good Hamilton to add to my showstring for a while, and I think he might be the guy, in spite of the fact that Buckskin Pintos generally aren’t my preference. He’s just so nice in person! (The shading on his other side is even better.)

He isn’t the rarest color of the bunch by far – that would have been the Decorator, followed by the Dapple Gray – but as I’ll likely be showing him more in Breed than Collectibility, the argument is irrelevant. 

The first Stagecoach Surprise I pulled was the Matte Dapple Gray; I remember looking at him and thinking he’s probably the “rare” one, because I almost always pull the rarest Matte. But I was not particularly enamored of the color on him. So I immediately traded him for a Matte Black Pinto, which I felt suited him much more, and who also turned out to be the most common Matte.

Even after the Dapple Gray’s relative “rarity” was confirmed a while later, I was untroubled by my decision. I’d rather have something I like that’s more common, than something I dislike that’s more rare. 

Within reason: at this point, my collection is almost a refuge for all the ugly, weird Test Colors and Oddities the rest of the hobby has deemed “undesirable”. And I just caught myself looking at some inexpensive NIB Mesteno sets the other day, and it wasn’t just the ones with Duchess in them; my recent experimentation with them has piqued a certain curiosity...

(I did buy something cool and rare yesterday, but it wasn’t a Mesteno.)

Batting .500

In a note almost completely unrelated to the rest of the post, I am mildly shocked that the Zombie Snowman Classic Rearing Mustang Neva is sold out. I am not so enamored of him that I have to buy one at a jacked up price elsewhere on the Internet, though.

Speaking of…

Well, I was half right: they made 1000 of him:

I mean, yeah, he’s pretty, but let’s not kid ourselves here: even though they made 1000 of him, the aftermath of this drawing is going to be Marshall (the notorious Micro Run Polled Hereford Bull) level ugly. I would not be surprised if several hundred of them end up getting listed for sale within the first hour or so of the drawing.

Some will sell because many hobbyists can’t be patient, thus ensuring that the cycle will continue on, ad infinitum. 

Look, most of my life I didn’t have the money to not be patient, and I’m not about to change. Plastic horses are frivolous things, and life goes on perfectly well with or without them. (Or so I tell myself.)

There are way too many Silver Filigree releases – some of them nigh unattainable – for me to be a completist at this point, so I am not going to get too worked up if I don’t get drawn for Tahoe. This is very likely: I don’t usually get picked for the “popular” ones, though I did get Zugspitze last year somehow. So I don’t have a lot to complain about, really? 

I’ll just put my entry in, and worry about it when the time comes.

Since I don’t plan on being online too much in the next couple of weeks – I’m planning to staying as offline as possible through the end of the year to get some real-world things done – I’ll probably miss most of the drama, thankfully. 

Though I may stream some Star Trek stuff over the holiday break while I finish prepping that massive hexagon quilt project: I received a year’s subscription to Paramount Plus as an early Christmas present, and I’ve heard so many good things about Strange New Worlds…

This week I’m trying a new sleep schedule to improve my productivity. It worked out great yesterday, but day two has been some tough sledding. I think I’ll hit the sack a couple hours early and try it again tomorrow.

Gaiter Bait

I was very fortunate to get the one model (aside from the Centerpiece, which will never happen ever) I wanted out of the event, the Cremello Five-Gaiter Okeeheelee:

(I only just realized today that the Park he’s named after is… full of ‘gators. Nice one, guys!)

I had decided that this was going to be the year I was going to finally acquire those Gloss Alabaster/Albino and Palomino Five-Gaiters that had eluded me all these years. Especially since all the Saddlebred love now belongs to Hamilton, who appears to have replaced both Othello and Silver as the model on everybody’s BreyerFest Surprise Model bingo card.

(Except mine. It’s going to be a while, guys. Seriously.)

But until I got Okeeheelee, it looked like the year was going to be a washout. I kept missing all the good ones – online, and in person – sometime by minutes. Like most models (and most recently, my Alabaster Proud Arabian Stallion) it looks like I’ll have to bide my time until the right ones come along.

So I was plenty pleased – and a bit worried – when I saw Okeeheelee, sitting there right in that sweet spot in between Albino and Palomino. He was my first choice, and my luck in getting picked near the front of lines is generally not good. The same goes with cremellos, sometimes in the most bizarre ways: it took me a year to finally get the “ordinary” Uffington, because the Holographic Silver just had to happen.

I got so lucky: I was seventh in line! I probably shouldn’t have worried, since everyone was having a conniption over the Bouncer, who would have been my first choice if the Gaiter hadn’t been there.

A few more thoughts about the trip itself…

Three things I miss about Florida:

The weather, obviously. Other than the hurricane part: snow is much easier to shovel than water. I spent a lot of my extended Thanksgiving weekend buried under a pile of blankets. 

Secondly, my friends – or more precisely, getting to hang out with other humans I can have interesting conversations with. And by interesting conversations I mean the engineering of stagecoaches, notable Florida Thoroughbreds, or the differences between Puerto Rican-bred and Colombian-bred Paso Finos. You know, normal stuff.

My family doesn’t really want to hear about the horses anymore (something I’m sure some of you might understand), and all my coworkers talk about are reality shows, football and their hair, three things I could not care less about if you paid me to.

And finally: passing as a reasonably put-together and competent person. I sometimes (okay, often) deal with Imposter Syndrome, and being able to walk around and not feel like a completely out-of-place weirdo was nice. 

I get a little of that at BreyerFest, too – the Imposter feeling, not the not-a-weirdo feeling, because I completely lean into the weird in Kentucky – but as I’m not on Facebook (or even the Internet all that much, lately) I managed to avoid knowing who else was going to be present in Florida (with a couple of exceptions). 

So I walked into that situation without any preconceived notions of how I had to behave or who to expect. Kind of like a real vacation, except with the happy coincidence of some of friends coming along for the ride. (In two cases, quite literally!)

And as I mentioned before, all the freaking out at the CSRs in the days leading up to the event also probably helped.

Time to crawl back under those thick, heavy blankets, and look at seed catalogs. 

Silver Basecoat Blacks

[Head’s up: the next week is going to be coo-coo bananas for me, so if I disappear for more than my usual 2-4 days, I just want to let you know I am (probably) not dead.]

Turns out I did have a few moments to spare yesterday so I opened up my Lafayette after all:

Nice! I am pleased.

When they mentioned “silver basecoat” in the original notification e-mail, I assumed that meant that Lafayette would be the same silvery black color as Summer Solstice, Gwendolyn, and the Weather Girl Thunderstorm. 

I own all three of those models – I like them enough that they’re all a part of my display collection – so I was perfectly fine when that did turn out to be the case. I was lucky enough to get a Lafayette without any significant condition or box issues either, and that’s good because I don’t have time for any of that right now.

People are very quick and not at all discreet when it comes to expressing negative opinions on the Internet about any darn thing, so it appears that my opinion (currently) seems to be in the minority. 

Apparently he’s not black enough? Weren’t folks complaining not that long ago that they didn’t like solid black or near-black horses? Stuff like this is why I buy what I like and try not to get too caught up in the opinions of what other people like. 

Personal preferences are personal preferences. Nobody should be shamed or bullied for liking or disliking something on an aesthetic level. 

I’m a visually-oriented person, so trust me, I am judging people’s aesthetic choices all the time, especially when it comes to clothing. And sometimes I do find them wanting. 

But I do so internally. The only time I tend to verbally comment on anybody’s apparel choices is when I am either envious, or it looks really great on them and I think they deserve the compliment for their good taste. As long as as it meets all of the the legal definitions of acceptable attire, it’s none of my business if they think they look great in magenta.

(Nobody looks good in magenta. Okay, almost nobody.)

Anyway, I’ve liked popular things that have become unpopular, I’ve like unpopular things that have become popular, and every shade in between that. 

Wee Box

Apparently my Lafayette is coming next week? In spite of me ordering in several hours after it went to backorder status? And me being completely fine with it being on backorder?

Guys, honestly, I don’t know what’s going on either. All I do know is that Reeves knows there are problems. 

Whether this baffling situation – with live orders being put on backorder status, backorders moved up to live status, with no rhyme or reason – leads to a resolution, I also don’t know. 

I sure hope so: I had multiple issues with shipping from the warehouse last year, and I am usually one to let most things slide and work themselves out. Most of them were eventually resolved to my satisfaction (i.e. the Glossy Cheesecake) but not all (the sweatshirt that shall not be mentioned ever again). 

I am lucky – and grateful – that I can do most of my Breyer shopping locally, so I only have to deal with this nonsense with club- and web-exclusive merchandise. 

But let’s close on a happier note: here’s a picture of my Glossy Atticus with his wee box:

I like him more than I thought I would. I am so used to seeing the Traditional Clydesdale Stallion mold with his hair braided that any other hairstyle makes him look like an “old school” custom to me, back when we only had a handful of Draft molds to work with and we had to make do. 

(He does make a nice Jutland or Brabant, with a little work.)

I do love this style of box – it reminds me of those tiny Whitman’s Sampler boxes, the kind that come with 4 to 6 pieces of fancy chocolates. The graphic design is very bold and visually appealing, too, very much in the style I would have gone for if I had designed it. The only change I would have made to the design would be to make the corner silhouette reflect who’s in the box.

But also a big YAY for reusable boxes. We haven’t had that for Stablemates since… the 1975 Sears Wishbook Stablemates that will now set you back a car payment, and the silverplated 25th Anniversary Saddlebred, that will set you back a couple of house payments. 

And Here We Go

When I said SOON, I wasn’t expecting NEXT DAY!

Well, I was kind of hoping it would be, because it would have been a perfect way to celebrate National Model Horse Day and all. But I also know that NMHD is pretty much just my personal holiday (it’s the 57th day of the year!) and not anything outside of this blog even knows about, so it’s almost purely a coincidence. 

I think. 

Anyway, I didn’t get a chance to access the Internet until almost 5:30 p.m. that day, so the initial batch of Lafayettes were long gone before I even knew they were available. But fortunately Reeves did go with the backorder option, much to the delight of almost everyone except hobbyists with an unusually narrow definition of the term “limited edition”.

It’ll take six month or so for the backordered ones (including mine) to get here, but thank goodness I don’t have to rely on the secondary market to get one at all. A few are selling in the $125-135 range, but for the most part I think people actually read the e-mail/understood the maths before pulling the trigger. 

I hope that all Collector’s Club Exclusives are done this way from now on, especially ones that are advertised for months in advance. There are a lot of models offered through the CC that are not guaranteed in any way – Web Specials, Test Colors, Exclusive Event models, BreyerFest items – and there should be some models available to anyone who has a CC membership, if they want it. 

As for the small handful of folks complaining that Lafayette is not really all that special anymore because he can be backordered... well. I have said this before, but it needs repeating: quantity is only one factor of many when it comes to aftermarket prices on any given model horse, whether it’s a Special Run or Regular Run. 

There are many models with pretty substantial runs that command pretty high prices because collectors love them and want them. Some of the pricier Exclusive Event models, for example, are the ones with 80-125 piece runs, oddly enough. Heck, look at the prices for the Seattle Soiree model Redmond!

When Reeves started labeling things “Limited Editions” and “Commemorative Editions” back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, those items regularly outsold Regular Run, open stock items. Sometimes by A LOT.

So I would always roll my eyes whenever a flea market vendor would try to tell me how “rare” those models were. The quantities specified on the Commemorative Editions had no relation to how well other models made that year were selling. Just because they limited a model to 10,000 pieces in a year did not mean all regular run models made that year were selling more than 10,000 units. 

In fact, I would not be surprised if these “Limited Editions” were the best-selling items in their respective years. (I do not have the time to dig out those files for specifics.) It was just a marketing tactic. People see a number, and they automatically assume that if there is a fixed number, that means it is rare.

Limited does not mean rare. It just means something about the run of an item is fixed in some way: by location, by time, or by quantity. Sometimes those models retain their value. Sometimes they do not.

Collectibles are an unreliable and unpredictable investment, and your money should be better spent on models you intend on keeping long term. End of story. 

Personally, if I really want to get down and dirty, I would propose that Reeves consider making all of their more aesthetically pleasing Special Runs the higher piece count ones, and the more challenging/less showable pieces the scarcer ones. Let’s see just how much money some collectors will cough up for a metallic magenta Khemosabi with lime green points, a Lady Roxana in “Baby Poop Brishen Brown”, or a Fuchsia Pintaloosa Family Arabian Mare. 

The fan base of these molds is sufficiently high enough for most of them that smaller runs will still sell out, handily. (In fact, I am certain that more than a dozen of you are now saying to yourself “I would buy a Fuschia Pintaloosa FAM in a heartbeat.” Me too people, me too.)

If they want to make something extra nice and showable, put it in the Benefit Auction and make sure that money goes to charity.  

In short: if you want to make short-term profits by buying low and selling high (arbitrage) go play that game in the actual stock market, not the plastic one.

That Hamilton Horse

I took a chance at the Walmart in the road construction zone today… and success!

While I’m tempted to go for broke and complete my collection of the Warmblood mold – especially now that the Fairytale Friends releases, including Sage, are open to anyone, club member or not – I  am still annoyed about the BreyerFest Arya release and I do not give up little grievances easily. 

In other Stablemate news Chalice, the Bonus Stablemate for next year’s Deluxe Collector’s Club membership, is a replica of the model that broke the bank at the 2019 BreyerFest Benefit Auction, and he’s pretty spiffy. I originally thought that he’d be a chase piece for the 70th Anniversary Stablemates set, but this will also do. (And be much easier to acquire!)

But the model that’s got me all twitchy and bothered is this hot ham and cheese sandwich of a horse:

Glossy. Dappled. Black. Hamilton. 

Pardon my French, but damn. Reeves, you ain’t playing!

Well actually, that I already knew, but the rest of you will see why in a few weeks. 

That Hamilton Horse better be either a pre-order, or a run of 3000+ pieces, because if my recent interactions have been any indication, their beleaguered Customer Service Reps have been through enough in the past year and really deserve a break. 

In fact, probably all deserve gift baskets. (Saturday is Sweetest Day in these parts…)

Chasing Rainbows

From what I’ve seen of the Seattle Soiree models, I think I’ll be okay: I have no “mighty needs”. I certainly wouldn’t turn down a Black Blanket Appaloosa Idocus Nirvana if it were offered to me (at a reasonable price, of course, which is not going to happen).

They dropped a few more reveals on us today to brighten our spirits, including the rainbow-hued thingie they sneak-previewed in the March newsletter: it’s a Goffert named Crystalline!

I actually… really like this one. I was just thinking to myself last week that, other than the 2014 BreyerFest Celebration Model, I don’t actually have any Gofferts in the herd, and I’d like to remedy that. The colors remind me of Larkspurs and Delphiniums, flowers that I’ll be reintroducing to my garden once the weather warms up a bit more. (All of my previous ones have either died off, or spent themselves.)

They also “officially” announced the Winx portrait, on Emerson. The only surprise there is that they’re shipping by the end of this month. Since all the stores that would have her in stock are all closed as non-essential businesses until the end of April, I’ll just have to wait until May for the luxury of shopping for one in person.

And finally, the BreyerFest Saturday Raffle Model, Order of the Thistle:

Don’t get me wrong, he’s drop-dead gorgeous and if by some improbable bit of good fortune I win one he’ll be staying with me forever, but I continue to be amused by the lack of fuss being made about the mold choices this year. I am not quite sure how a Gold Champagne Tobiano Pinto Saddlebred on the Hamilton mold really fits into the theme here.

The only surprise is that most of us assumed that this mold was going to appear as a Store Special, not a Raffle model, because the only semi-reasonable way they could shoehorn a hot new mold into a theme it was unsuited for was as a portrait model of a guest horse or performer.

Nah, they decided to go the Woodford route: give an inappropriate mold a gorgeous paint job and a name that fits the theme, and call it a day.

Unboxing More, Chasing Less

The in-hand photos of the new Collector’s Club release Carter are beginning to trickle in online and, as we suspected, his color is merely a slight variation on the very attractive Rose Gray color that was one of the scarcer colors available on last year’s BreyerFest Surprise Andalusian.

He’s quite lovely, but as I am still opening up things from last year, I’ll have to give him a pass. Things like my beautiful Bisbee, who I only recently rescued from the backseat of my car:

Yeah, I know, Bad Andrea. In my defense, (a) the weather has been mild, (b) I usually park under a tree anyway, and (c) I don’t do a lot of off-roading in my spare time. As you can see, she survived the ordeal just fine.

Sometimes I do feel a little alone in my appreciation for the Forever Saige mold, and I am perfectly okay with that. Collecting less popular molds means a lot less stress tracking down the scarcer ones! And wasn’t the Saige in last year’s BreyerFest Auction the cheapest of the lot? That’s definitely food for thought.

Last year – and particularly, the last four months of the year – were a little crazier than I anticipated, and the unboxing of things was not a priority. So for the next month or so I’ll focus my attention on unboxing all the goodies that are already here, instead of chasing more.

Unless I luck into that Black Pinto Smarty Jones: him, I’ll make an exception for. I love Black Pintos and I have a pretty fine little Smarty Jones collection going – including the Daytona, the 2018 BreyerFest Dark Horse Surprises in Black and Palomino Splash, the Connoisseur, and the Halloween Horse – and he’ll fit right in.

I’d love to add a Polo Pony version of the mold to the family, but the two that I really like (the 2016 Early Bird Model Polomar and the 2012 Raffle Model Carlisle) are essentially unattainable, and it’s hard to find a 2015 Santiago that doesn’t look totally goofy.

And good gravy, how insane is it that Palomino Hamiltons are selling for more than the Pinto Smarty Jones on eBay right now? I mean, I get that math is not everyone’s strong suit, and rarity alone does not guarantee value, but that’s still… arithmetically questionable.

It’s only (checks calendar) February 2nd! I don’t know what the production cutoff date is for models designed to be one-year releases, but I’m pretty sure there’s no need to worry until, I dunno, at least May or June.

Rumors Have It

In other news, there’s yet another round of Unicorn Mystery Surprise Unicorns at Walmart. Like a lot of others, I am mentally and physically tapped out of the blind bag thing at the moment; unless there happens to be one in the assortment I can’t live without – not likely, but who knows? – I’ll either skip this round entirely, or buy them whenever the mood strikes, or the budget allows.

None of the BreyerFest Store Specials have been officially announced, but there’s a very credible rumor going around that WGC Marc of Charm will be one of them – with the model being used being the one he modeled for himself: Hamilton!

(Tentatively pencils him in on my must-get list.)

Speaking of Hamilton, I’ve also heard that the 70th Anniversary Collection will have at least one of each of the four primary releases in each case of six, with the other two being a random choice of the five, with one in ten cases having the Chase Piece Pinto Smarty Jones.

If that’s so, then the odds of getting the Pinto Smarty are about one in 60 – not great, but better than the Stablemates Chase pieces, which are one in 96. This comes out to about 250 pieces per every 2500 cases (15,000 units total) sold.

Back when Reeves had distinct definitions for all of the releases that were not your typical, Regular Run models, the term “Limited Edition” was used to describe models that were specifically advertised as being limited to one year of production. Not surprisingly, “Limited Editions” typically sold better than Regular Run models – often, ironically, outselling some Regular Run models that were discontinued after a single year of production!

The production quantities of these Limited Editions were in the neighborhood of 15,000 pieces, thus explaining the origins of my rough guess number. That was nearly 30 years ago, so I am assuming the actual production quantity will be north of that.

And also assuming that they keep the proportions of the other four models in this release roughly equal – at least initially – that means that about one in four of this assortment will be a Palomino Hamilton.

For the number geeks: that is about 3,685 pieces per 2500 cases/15,000 units – roughly the equivalent of a Brick-and-Mortar Special.

So again to all those people who are still freaking out about getting one: calm down! I don’t think the first new shipments of anything will even be hitting stores for another week or so anyway.

Personally, I am not in any big hurry, but if you could see the state of my house right now you’d understand why….

FYI: Yes, I knew all about the Riddle on MHSP. Aside from the fact that I am a little bit short of fun money this month, what I could comfortably pay for it even if I had that money to play with was well under what it even started at, so that was a complete and utter nonstarter.

Palomino Hamilton

Since I am basically tapped out, and trying to end the year with as little credit card debt as possible, I passed on the Ambrose.

I had a feeling they were going to drop one more bombshell on us before the end of the year. I’m still sorting out my decidedly feelings about the whole thing, so I am going to talk about another topic I’ve put off for a while: the Palomino Hamilton.

If there’s one thing I’d like to say to the rest of the hobby that would actually get listened to and followed, it’d be: chill out about this Hamilton already, people.

If what happened with the first run of the Collector’s Club Appreciation Glossies is any indication, I think Reeves has the situation under control, and production will be calibrated accordingly: a little more of this, a little less of that, with the Pinto Smarty Jones chase piece remaining the rarest, regardless.

I am not going to worry about it until the middle of the year at least, and possibly not until after BreyerFest, when I presume the bulk of production on this particular Gambler’s Choice run will be concluded. And for those of your afeared that a substantial chunk of those will be going to Dremel-happy customizers, I wouldn’t count out another production item on the mold by the end of 2020, either. 

Seattle Soiree Special? Tractor Supply? Brick and Mortar? Any one of the multitudes of Holiday releases? It’s going to happen, people. Plenty of Hamiltons for everybody, whatever your hobby persuasion!

What I find kind of fascinating about this particular release of Hamilton is that he is an intentional callback to another iconic Breyer release: the #53 Palomino Five-Gaiter!

That release used to be such a cornerstone of many hobbyists’ collections in the 1970s and 1980s along with his brother, the #51 Albino, until the mold’s recent fall from favor.

What was interesting about the #53 Palomino was that it was made well into the “Matte Finish” era, not being discontinued until 1971. As far as I know, it was never officially made in a Matte version – sure, I’ve heard the rumors, but I’ve never actually seen one in person.

Later ones are definitely a different shade of Palomino than earlier ones, though some of that can be attributed to the fugitive nature of the Palomino paint Breyer used back then. (Under normal/average environmental conditions, early Breyer Palominos tend to turn slightly brownish with age, to a more golden honey color.)

But yeah, I am definitely not going to get my dander up about the Palomino Hamilton until I absolutely have to. And probably not then, either, likely because we will be obsessed with another (real or perceived) Reeves marketing flub by then.

Hamilton, and Occam’s Razor

Sorry for my relative absence the past week or so guys – things kind of got crazy there for a few days, and there were some lingering aftereffects from the whatever-I-had last week still causing me some inconveniences.

And consequently all my best laid plans for the weekend went out the window.

Although there was no auction or antique show for me today, I did get a chance to see some pretty horses. But that’s a long story, and time is short today.

Let’s (briefly) talk about another thing that flew past me in the week before and of BreyerFest: the Premier Club Hamilton!

He is lovely and makes me wish I had joined the Premier Club this year. When the first sneak preview picture was making the rounds the weekend before BreyerFest, I took one look at it (below), and the first (and only!) logical explanation that popped into my head: well, duh, that’s a Saddlebred. 

Conceptually, it also made sense because Reeves has slowly been “updating” their lineup, replacing Vintage molds of popular breeds with more modern ones. And no Vintage mold has fallen more out of favor than the original rough-and-chunky Five-Gaiter, who I sometimes refer to as “The Racking Drafter”.

In short: he was due for an update. 

So I was surprised (to say the least) at the number of people contorting themselves into explanations of how it could be... almost anything but a Saddlebred.

Occam’s Razor, people: the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Not always, but usually.

I need to stumble into bed here in a few moments, so I’ll close with a photo of one of my favorite Five-Gaiters from my collection, a Sample of the Regular Run CH Sprinkles release I picked up in the NPOD a few years ago:

He’s a Sample because you can tell in person that he’s a he, and not a she. And he is one of my favorites because his paint job is even more amazing in person!