Wrapping Up 2023

I wish I could have gotten more done this week, but my back was definitely not cooperating. One of the first things I am going to do when everyone gets back to business this week is finally make an appointment with the doctor and see if anything else can be done for it, beyond what I am already doing. 

They finally released a hype-free video of the entire 2024 Stablemates Club lineup. I’m a little meh on the Cassidy mold and Gambler’s Choice Foal. I think it’s mostly because Duns don’t photograph very well, so they look a little drab compared to the rest of the lineup. To me, at least. 

I also did a quick skim of the videos posted on Collector Club News page; I know for a fact that I am in at least one of their promotional videos from the 1990s. I know it exists because I had a coworker say “I saw you on TV!” after he got back from a vacation in Colorado, several months after the BreyerFest where I was filmed.  

A friend and I were asked to look at some horses in a class at BreyerFest Live back when it was still in the Covered Arena, and pretend to comment/critique them. None of these videos appear to have that footage in them, fortunately, but I also zoomed through them pretty fast, so I may be wrong....

The only other historical tidbit I can offer is that the gentleman narrating the 1990 Breyer Factory Tour video is Werner Fleischmann, founder of Reeves International, and Tony Fleischmann’s Dad. 

I managed to escape the temptations of the Reeves Warehouse Sale, mostly by doing a little of my own inventory this week. One phrase kept popping into my head as I was wading through all the models and paperwork:

Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. 

It really was one of those years for me: Test Colors, Rarities, Variations, Gloss Prize Models. Just about the only thing I didn’t get this year was a vintage BreyerFest Auction Test Piece, and all y’all know how that turned out…

But seriously, I need to sell a ridiculous amount of stuff in 2024, and I’m not going to get too worried about the prices they ultimately sell for. (Heck, I was going to donate some stuff to Toys for Tots, but again, my schedule got in the way…) Some mistakes were made, and I have to own up to some of them: the physical and mental space are worth more than the money I might potentially “lose”. 

As far as next year’s hobby goals, aside from selling a bunch of stuff, it’s pretty short: I want to finish some of my Customs, and enter at least one contest at BreyerFest. I’d prefer it to be the Customs Contest, but since I’m going to be elbow-deep in quilting and sewing projects until at least the end of January, that one might be a stretch. 

I will also squeeze a few live shows in there, too, but BreyerFest Live is definitely off the table. I am not crazy.

Personal, non-model goals are pretty much the same: lose weight, eat better, save more money, take better care of myself, and try to work on my communication skills. My non-BreyerFest vacation goals are still up in the air; I’m hoping they’ll become clearer by the end of January. (Fingers crossed, Oklahoma City!)

And that’s about it for the year. Off to work on another bajillion piece quilting project. Four blocks pieced, just another 95(!) to go. I thought this quilt was a good idea why?

The Blind Spot

I’m sure there are quite a few of you in the crowd that reads this blog that are familiar with the webcomic xkcd, and particularly number 1053, “The Lucky Ten Thousand.”

Basically, it’s about common knowledge: even when things are allegedly “common knowledge”, there’s a large group of people who – every day – learn about it for the very first time. 

I was a member of “The Lucky 10,000” today, but I am not feeling particularly lucky. In fact, I’m feeling sad, mad, bitter and a little overwhelmed right now.

Today is the day I found out Linda Walter passed away. Back in January.

Yeah, I am NOT okay right now. 

The worst of this experience is not the cruel irony of me being unaware of this news for five full months. Or the fact that I had a blind spot in my vision so large that an entire person, someone very important to me and my personal history, fell into it. 

Or that nobody even mentioned it to me even casually or wondered why I didn’t say anything about it before. 

When I don’t talk about a popular or trending topic it’s because (a) I don’t have anything worthwhile to say about it, (b) I’m legally obligated not to talk about it, or (c) I know/knew nothing about it. 

It may seem like I am all-knowing sometimes. But I am not, and it does not hurt to drop me a line and let me know. 

I haven’t been able to get around the Internet much this year for reasons I’d rather not discuss now, aside from my Paramount Plus subscription. (Because seeing an optimistic vision of the future is something critical to my mental health.) And I do not do Facebook because I already have too much drama in my life and that much social interaction sucks the life out of me. 

(A couple of you were kind enough to let me know about the APH situation as it unfolded on Facebook, and I’m grateful for that. You guys, specifically, do rock.)

No, what hurts the most is the fact that I only learned of this now: I simply have no time to grieve. My boss was kind enough to give me a day to process my rawest emotions, but now I have to put them back in a box and take care of all the other things I need to take care of over the next three weeks.

It’s only when I’m in some of those big empty spaces in between the places I’ll be visiting in Wyoming that I think I can unwrap that box and set them free.

“You attend the funeral, you bid the dead farewell. You grieve. Then you continue with your life. And at times the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on. She is dead. You are alive. So live.” 

― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables & Reflections

Try, Try Again

I forgot to mention my favorite purchase in my Black Friday Box of Goodies: the sparkly sequined blanket! That Extra Pearly Gray Jet Run I found earlier this year was the obvious choice to model it: 

I’m not much of a tack person – new horses always trump a new bit of tack – but I do have a hard time resisting sequins. And also glitter: I may be one of the few collectors out there that doesn’t mind the glitterized manes and tails of many recent Unicorn releases. 

I haven’t gone as far as adding glitter to my actual customs, but that’s because I, uh, rarely finish them? But let’s not talk about that…

Since I was in Florida at the time and trying to minimize my time in the mundane world (which was part of the reason for the trip) the announcement about the newest entrants in this year’s Toy Hall of Fame almost completely flew by me.

We obviously didn’t make it in again, this year. 

While I do not have any personal animosity towards the property or its fandom, I am slightly annoyed by Masters of The Universe getting in before us. 

Mostly because, for better or worse, MOTU has often been portrayed in a negative light in popular (non-nerd) as an example a cartoon designed to sell toys. As a lifelong advocate for a toy that (a) has twice as much history, and (b) has thrived in spite of a nearly non-existent media presence, it does sting a bit.

It may have also been complicated by the possible stigma of horses being considered a “girl thing”. Like it or not, “girl things” are often seen as of less worthy of inclusion everywhere in any discussion about historical or cultural relevance.

For what it’s worth, I do think we actually got fairly close this year; we might even be in the same position Masters of the Universe was in a few years ago. I saw Breyer mentioned prominently in several stories about this year’s entries, and I myself became a (very) minor Fandom phenom talking about it back in September. 

Where Fandom goes, public interest generally follows.

As far as what we can do to make it actually happen next time, all I can say is what I’ve been saying for years: do what you can to increase public awareness. If people ask you what your hobby is, don’t deflect: just talk about it like any other person talks about their favorite activities! 

The more familiarity there is of the brand, and the hobby, the more public opinion will turn to our side. Pulling in some of those stragglers might just get us over the finish line next time.

I know it’s a hard thing for a lot of hobbyists to talk about the hobby in public; it’s never been an issue for me because I was born weird and never recovered. But I also think not talking about it creates a self-perpetuating problem: if we don’t talk about it because we think people will think it’s weird, the fact that we don’t talk about it makes people think we think it’s weird.

(Now there’s a sentence to end a post on!)

The Remains of History

Since we’re on the topic of Gambler’s Choices, I finally opened up my clear Jol:

I think Reeves missed an opportunity here with the gemstone Desatado release Fire Opal: imagine if that color had been painted in translucent and/or iridescent paints on a clear glitter body? 

I mean, it’s possible that they did try it and went “meh, didn’t work” and that’s why they went with what they did. But getting more creative with the translucent bodies – like they did with Jol, obviously – sometimes pays off.

(This is just a convoluted way of saying I want more glittery translucent Traditionals.)

Anyway, on a more melancholic note, the estate sale of our now deceased neighbors across the street was this past weekend. I went in at the beginning to get one last look around the place – and see what the family did not claim for themselves – and then at the end to see what sold, and possibly pick up a bargain or two.

I think I may have mentioned this before, but one of them was a Serial Cowboy/Lone Ranger/Hopalong Cassidy fan, and at one point there were at least a handful of related Breyers in the house. 

(Those were not present.)

So I picked out an assortment of the better Western-themed books (several signed!) and a few others: some as mementos, and the rest to supplement my depleted book sales stash, especially since I was out of town for the local AAUW Book Sale. One of the “others” was an inaugural edition of John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage that had handwritten notes on the days both JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald were assassinated. 

They also avidly collected Presidential memorabilia, so I know that that had to have meant something to them: history written while it was still raw and fresh. It felt so odd finding it there at the end of the sale, marked down and ignored until I picked it up. So I rescued it.

Although there is no history that would have been lost if it had been shuffled into a book sale donation pile – there’s nothing in those notes that adds or enhances our understanding of those events – the meta-narrative of the fact that it was a meaningful part of their Presidental history collection would have been lost.

Which is why I write what I do, when I can do it. As you know, I own many such meaningful things. This blog is not just about their history, but the history of the history, and why it’s important to have these things in my collection.

And in case you are wondering, you will not find any “bargains” at my (hopefully very far in the future) Estate Sale. The ephemera is going somewhere where it can be archived and documented for future historians, and several friends and family members know full well how much some of this stuff piled around me is worth.

Or maybe by then, it won’t be. I will be fine, either way, as long as some of the history remains, with it or about it. 

One Perfect Day

Even though I had publicly committed to the idea of attending Motor City Comic Con this year, in private I was still apprehensive. The live shows I was attending were private events with familiar folks, but Motor City was… huge. And unlike a live show, it would be utterly anonymous and (essentially) alone.

Not only did I feel unprepared, I could think of so many other things that were better uses of my time that weekend: my garden, working on a Diorama Contest entry, listing my mountain of unsold stuff on the Internet…

But then I got news of Liz Bouras’s passing a couple days before the convention, and that’s when I knew I had to go. Although it was purely a coincidence, it didn’t feel like one.

As many of you may have surmised by now, I have had an… interesting life, to say the least. And some of the more interesting stories have involved me in comic book fandom. One of those stories has me at a Motor City Comic Con in the early 1990s with my fandom friends Ken and Mercy. 

This might have been the first time we met in person; that I cannot remember. What I do remember was that one of the first things they told me when I met up with them was: Liz and Paula are here.

That would be Liz Bouras, and Paula O’Keefe. It’s a long story, but they had been friends for a while, but through the comic book side of things. It was something I only found out about after I “met” Ken and Mercy through the pages of the APA Interlac a short time before.

I never did get to see Liz or Paula that day, but it was strangely comforting to know that other model horse people were present.

You see, when I first entered the hobby in the late 1970s, I was concerned I wouldn’t fit in. I felt that I wasn’t your average horse girl: I like other, more nerdier stuff too, and most of the horse girls in my area balked when I started talking about comic books, old movies, cartoons and Star Wars.

But when I opened up my first issue of The Model Horse Shower’s Journal – the September 1978 issue, to be specific – I learned that I had nothing to worry about. There were lots of people in the hobby just like me. That I found this place was no coincidence: it is where I belonged. 

Although I wouldn’t consider Liz a close friend, our paths crossed many times, and we had several friends in common. I entered the hobby just as she was coming into her own in it, as the hobby was transitioning from its earliest, wildest days to something a little more formalized and organized. 

It wasn’t until early last year that I was able to acquire a custom of hers – a vintage piece from that very era – in a body box lot. She was able to confirm it was hers on [this very] blog, and needless to say, he will be with me always. 

Through a different mutual acquaintance, I also ended up becoming the caretaker of a portion of her hobby papers a while back. It was not long after I made a commitment to collecting not just the history of model horse manufacturers, but of the hobby in general. I had no idea that she had been doing much the same. After her passing, I felt I like I was now carrying a part of her katra.

But anyway, back to the Comic Con. I hesitated to buy tickets ahead of time, so I found myself standing in the shorter line to buy tickets at the opposite end of the building. I was minding my own business when someone who had just picked up their prepaid wristbands walked up to me.

“Would you like a free wristband? Someone in our party couldn’t make it, and we have an extra.” 

I was verklempt. Of course I would. In the not-very-short walk to the other side of the building, he asked me what brought me to the convention this year. I told him a little about Liz, and of course about the Breyer Lafayette I had stuffed in my messenger bag. William Shatner was one of the marquee guests this year, and I got the crazy notion several months earlier of having him sign it for me. 

When I got to the end of wristband line, I parted ways with my unknown benefactor. After a moment or two to compose myself, I struck up a casual conversation with the very talkative gentleman in front of me. (As one does at any convention, really.) 

After a few minutes of talking, I realized that… I knew who he was.

I won’t go into the details, because even though some of you are nerds of the highest order, I suspect most of you won’t know who Kim Metzger is or what he’s famous for. He actually apologized for it (he didn’t need to!) 

And again, it felt like kismet: I doubt anybody else in that line that day would have known who he was. At many comic book conventions nowadays comic books have become almost secondary, so the fact that two “old school” fans could find each other, and talk about comic book things at what was ostensibly a comic book convention was… all that I could ask for.

Even if the convention offered up no other delights, the experience had already been totally worth it. 

While I didn’t get to do everything I wanted to do that day (I didn’t get a signed copy of Danny Trejo’s cookbook, or meet Freddie Stroma), I did see what I wanted to see, and attend most of the panels I wanted to attend. And I did get Shatner to sign my Lafayette!

That was when I believe I reached Peak Nerd. There I was at my first Motor City Comic Con in years, wearing a Kingdom Come Superman shirt, waiting in line to have Shatner sign the Breyer Lafayette I had stuffed in my Hello Kitty messenger bag. The only thing that could possibly be missing was a lightsaber or sword. (Though to be honest, I did briefly shop for one!)

(He smiled and said “Thank you”, by the way. I’m pretty sure I was the only person who actually brought him a horse to sign that weekend. I wish I could have said something in return, but like always, I found myself speechless.)

I walked out of the building that day and marveled at how everything had fallen into place to make this experience a reality: I could not have asked for a more perfect day. I was so glad I said yes to what the Universe had in store for me.

People always tell me that I’m brave to do some of the things that I do, like traveling cross-country alone. I don’t necessarily see it as a matter of bravery, but necessity. Life is meant to lived, for as long as you have it: when an adventure offers itself, sometimes you have no choice but to take it.

Chicago Itinerary

Just a few notes here while I run around the house like an idiot, trying to get my act together for Chicago…

I’ll be out of town from Wednesday afternoon through Monday evening. The rest of my family will be having a garage sale while I am gone (she says, with some relief). No significantly horsey stuff will be present because obviously, but if you happen to be in that part of town for other activities, feel free to stop by and maybe even peruse the garden.

(The Ammis and Lupines are past their prime, but everything else is blooming.)

As for my activities in Chicago, I’ll be attending the 80th Worldcon, Chicon 8, in downtown Chicago. If you happen to be in the area – or even attending! – I’d be more than happy to meet up with any of you as long as there aren’t any conflicts with my schedule. 

Most of the panels I will be attending will be related to First Fandom/Fan History, Fantasy, Cosplay, Comics, and Star Trek. I hope to get a couple of things signed by Peter Beagle and John Scalzi. The former because he wrote The Last Unicorn; the latter because I admire him as a fellow blogger and a generally interesting and thoughtful kind of person, though with questionable taste in foodstuffs.

(If you are wondering, yes, I’m taking a Breyer Unicorn with me to get signed. After Shatner, why not?)

I will attend the Masquerade as a spectator, not as a participant. I’ve decided – as of this moment, who knows if it’s going to change when I get there – that I am not going to volunteer. This is my first go-round with a convention this significant with people I largely do not know. It is overwhelming enough to be there as an anonymous fan. 

I’m not even sure if I’ll attend the actual Hugo Awards; that’s another thing I’ll play by ear. I didn’t get a chance to read, listen or watch most of the nominees, so it would be weird to be in attendance anyway, I think. 

I’m still reintroducing myself to that world, I need a little more time to acclimate. 

I am hoping to visit a few other attractions in town if I can find the time: the Art Institute of Chicago, to visit Seurat’s La Grande Jatte; the Field Museum to see the dinosaurs; and also perhaps the American Writers Museum to see the Ray Bradbury exhibit.

As far as posting goes, I will have an automated post sometime during the weekend which will basically be a reformatted repost of my One Perfect Day article from this year’s Sampler, because it seems appropriate. 

Otherwise, I’ll be off the grid for the duration! Don’t trash the place while I’m gone.  

Good News, Last Minute Prep, and Volunteer Stuff

Things are going… okay? 

A stressful thing we had been waiting on at work finally happened, and it went really well! (Whew!) Alas, the party to celebrate will probably happen while I am away, bummer…

I went through my summer shorts and found that most of them still fit. I was a bit worried since I gained a few pounds during the pandemic, but fortunately it wasn’t quite as much as I had thought. (I still need to do something about it, but I’ll worry about it after I get back.) 

The Sampler is done and just needs to be printed; I’ll be picking up the toner cartridges Saturday afternoon since I’m almost out. Sunday will probably be spent yelling and/or glaring at my printer, getting it to all work. I am hoping to have the PDF up by the time I leave Tuesday morning, but my schedule is tight and I can’t make any promises. If not, it will be the first thing I put up when I get back the Monday morning after.

I will have a very limited number of hard copies of the 2020 and 2021 Samplers on hand. The 2020 is on my other computer and involves some obsolete fonts, and I’m not sure I’ll have the time to deal with fixing all that ahead of time. 

The car is already partially packed; I have to work Monday, and it’s going to be HOT here, so the actual horses can’t go in the car until Monday afternoon at the earliest. I’ll also have to dig some of my usual prep stuff out of the closet, but since I have to work Saturday too I won’t be able to get around to that until Saturday night at the latest…

And finally, I have to get my displays ready for BreyerFest. 

Remember how I’ve been joking about having a meet and greet at the Kentucky Horse Park during BreyerFest? Well… I kinda-sorta do have one in the Hobby Information Booth this year! As a part of my volunteer duties, I’ll be in the tent from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday to meet all of you in an official capacity and answer any questions on Breyer History you want to throw at me! 

As I’ve said before, a lot of times it’s hard to judge if something is authentic or not unless I get to examine it in person; if you happen to have something you want me to look at, feel free to bring it and I’ll do my best to give you a fair assessment of its authenticity, and everything I might know about its origins. 

I won’t do price estimates, though. With the way the market is right now, I don’t think I have a really good grasp of what anything is going for, and there are others out there who specialize in that sort of thing anyway. (I would also end up giving you an estimate of what I would pay, and I am notoriously cheap.)

In addition to bringing out some of my rarities, I’ll see about bringing some of my scarcer bits of ephemera for you to ogle at too; how much I bring will depend on how much room I have in the car. 

I’ll also be in the Hobby Information Booth from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, primarily as a Greeter, but I’ll be available to talk about history and answer questions, too. Because you know, history dork here!

And in one last exciting bit of news: It really looks like a Legion of Super-Heroes series is coming to HBO Max! I thought they were kidding before, because us Legion fans are kinda sensitive about the subject, but it’s apparently really going to be a thing. Sprock, yeah!

Not Dead, Just Tired

After finishing up all my other obligations, I am now able to work on my BreyerFest stuff free and clear, but I felt I was entitled to a day off before that madness begins. 

I am hoping to have the Sampler at least half written by the end of this weekend, which will also be punctuated by periodic episodes of garden weeding and watering, as necessary. And if there is time, I might even watch a movie or two!

(Spoiler Alert: there will not be time for movies.)

My VIP ticket packet came earlier this week:

Nice! I know some people are trying to figure out stuff according to the numbers on the tickets, but I am not going to bother trying. I figure the system is probably about as complicated as the one that fulfills the orders at the warehouse, and we also know those are not necessarily done in chronological order…

There was some freaking out a few days ago about a rumor that Stein was a VIP sell out, but I am ignoring that as the usual social media noise. People in the hobby – well, in most hobbies in general – are so eager to find any confirmation of their worst fears that they’ll seize on any bit of information, no matter how dubious.

I have no doubt there will be few, if any, leftovers of him available at the end of the event, but I also don’t think everyone who bought a VIP pack designated him as one of their selections. I didn’t! Some All-Access ticket buyers will get them. Maybe not a lot, but some!

I am kind of curious to see what I’ll be getting on the AA ticket I get with my volunteer ticket. As long as I don’t end up with duplicates of what I preordered on my VIP ticket (Franz, and the Gummi Bears) I think I’ll be good.

(I know, I know, I probably didn’t need to buy the VIP ticket, except that the convenience of it all was a big draw.)

I did mark Stein as my first choice on the AA ticket, so If I get Stein, that’s awesome. But if I don’t, I’m also not blowing a hole in my BreyerFest budget to get one. That money is earmarked for something Vintage: the Dapple Gray Belgian, the Albino Five-Gaiter, or a Matte Black Poodle are all pretty high on my search list this year. 

While we’re in the neighborhood of the topic, I will have some exciting news soon about some of my volunteer duties at BreyerFest this year! (I am not trying to be coy: I do not want to spill the beans until all the details and scheduling are completely hammered out.)

The Weight of Missing Souls

I was going to open with some exciting developments in my garden – some of the seedlings may survive after all! – but the news of Liz Bouras’s passing kind of squashes that “Spring is my favorite season because it represents the triumph of life over death” vibe I wanted to go for. 

Although I wouldn’t consider her a close friend, our paths crossed many times, and we had several friends in common. I entered the hobby just as she was coming into her own in it, as it was transitioning from its wild and wooly early days to something a little more formalized and organized. 

It wasn’t until last year that I was able to acquire a custom of hers – a vintage Arabian from that very era! – in a body box lot early last year.

I also ended up becoming the caretaker of a (large!) portion of her hobby papers a few years back. Today I feel that in doing that, I now carry a piece of her katra with me.

I also have a funny memory of (not meeting) her at the Motor City Comic Con several years ago. That memory will be on my mind quite a bit at Motor City this weekend. But I’ll have to tell it another day, when I am not feeling so melancholy.

In other news…

Information has leaked (possibly prematurely?) of the next Exclusive Event, which is supposedly going to be in Florida in November. My Google-Fu turned up these images of the banner ad and the possible guest horse Salvino that were pulled from the Breyer website:

I’m not terribly bullish on the idea Florida, but I do have a standing invite to visit from a friend who, in spite of my protests to the contrary, is bound and determined to move there in the very near future. 

And I do want to go to at least one more Exclusive Event in my lifetime. But I’ll probably have just as much luck getting draw for the event as I was for (the actual) Kingfisher – which was none, in case you weren’t able to figure that out:

I know I don’t really need more models right now (I won’t officially cop to anything, but I’ve been… bad) but winning something for a change would be nice, you know? As acknowledgement, at least, of my existence as a human being. That’s kind of a pet peeve of mine, and all of these drawings that go nowhere feed into my phobia of being forgotten.  

I am not super-crazy about the clean-legged version of the Brishen mold, but I do love me a Gloss Blue Roan Pinto. 

I will now log off and think happier thoughts. (My new nerd t-shirts arrived today, and I have to decide what to wear the convention on Saturday: Kingdom Come Superman, or Green Lantern?)

Close To Home

The diorama is… getting there. All of the components are (essentially) done except the body; all I need to do now is finish the horse itself, and then glue everything together. 

I am surprised at how well the customizing is going, especially since it involves a lot more sculpting than I am normally comfortable doing for a diorama project, especially in such a short period of time. Here’s the only clue you’ll get before the big reveal:

And also a bonus, this was the other project I have (temporarily) abandoned – a FAM that was going to be a Staffordshire Pottery Horse:

I have a bunch of Family Arabian Mare bodies that I will eventually turn into an assortment of art projects – this was a plan well before the announcement of this year’s BreyerFest theme – because those bodies are cheap and nobody does anything with them except as armatures, and I think that’s a darn shame. 

There is a lot of potential there that just needs a little imagination to realize it.

Regardless of the outcome (I haven’t consulted the Magic Eightball yet!) this diorama project has been a very therapeutic creative distraction. And there are only so many weeds to pull in the garden.

I know a lot of hobbyists are a bit bummed that there won’t be much to do during the second virtual BreyerFest except sit in front of a computer screen and watch videos. To be honest, I’m kind of looking forward to luxury of a couple of obligation-free days of doing mostly nothing. I might even bake a cake!

Then there is also this sad news to deal with:

https://www.breyerhorses.com/blogs/news/my-collector-story-janice-cox

When you consider just how large and complicated a topic as Breyer History is, it is both surprising and unsurprising that there aren’t actually that many of us doing the legwork of uncovering, analyzing and publishing Breyer History.

The loss of any hobbyist – whether we’re someone well-known, or unknown – is always a diminishment. But this one hits close to home. 

Hall of Fame 2020

(Waves at everyone who found me during their Google search of “Breyer History” after seeing “Breyer Horses” on the 2020 Toy Hall of Fame Finalist list.)

Yeah, so this happened today: https://www.toyhalloffame.org/finalists

And here I thought I’d have to struggle to find a suitable topic for today that didn’t require a lot of research; I’m deep in the middle of several big projects here, and I’m both mentally and physically tapped out at the moment.

I did find a couple of interesting Spanish Fighting Bull variations at the local Salvation Army Store today (after another failed Stablemates run at the Tractor Supply next door), and I thought that would be perfect: the original #73 Black release of the Spanish Fighting Bull has a number of distinct variations that are definitely worth talking about.

Next time it is, then!

Anyway, this Hall of Fame thing is a delightful surprise; I suspect that the 70th Anniversary PR campaign is what finally pushed Breyer Horses over the top and on to the Finalist list, at last.

I kind of wish the hobby had gotten more than a tangential nod in the write up on the web site, and they could have used more iconic Breyer releases like the Family Arabians or the Western Horse to illustrate them, but as they say, It’s just an honor to be nominated.

Guys and gals, you know what to do: go vote, because Breyer is up against… Bingo, Lite-Brite, Yahtzee, He-Man and My Little Pony. That’s some tough sledding. 

You can do it every day up through the 16th, so go… do your hobby duty!

https://www.toyhalloffame.org/players-choice-ballot

Going to Show?

So this happened:

I’m not sure how I managed to get lucky enough to snag the rest of the Series 3 Mini Whinnies – minus the chase piece, because yeah right – with minimal manhandling at the one Walmart that never seems to have nothing ever, but I’ll take it. I now want to built a tiny little wooden stable or something to display them all in, but that’ll definitely have to wait.

I am also several lesser degrees of stressed than I was earlier in the week. Packages are on their way, issues are being resolved, all that jazz. Wasn’t a big fan of the snow yesterday, but that’s Michigan weather for you. I won’t have time to plant anything outside until next weekend, regardless.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know that I’m seriously considering entering the Virtual BreyerFest Photo Show. Even though the prizes are basic (just Regular Runs and BreyerFest SRs), I haven’t photo shown in years, and photography is not my strongest suit.

On the plus side, there will be flats and rosettes, prizes (if I win anything!) will be mailed for free, and any Champs from this show won’t be disqualified from future shows. Plus I’d get a voucher for $25 off a future $100+ purchase on the web site. I know that last thing is not an incentive for many, but as someone who makes her purchases tactically and loves a good coupon, it’s definitely one for me!

Doing this means I could also say that I got to show at BreyerFest (sort of!) all without having to physically endanger some of my lovelies.

Incidentally, this is not the first time that Breyer has hosted a big photo show – they did one in 1981! From the Vol. VIII, Number Two issue of Just About Horses:

I entered and got creamed, of course. Back then the idea of getting Regular Run models as prizes was actually kind of a big deal, so a lot of people entered, including several Big Name Hobbyists. Little old me who had only been showing for a year or two with photos taken with an Instamatic camera really didn’t have a shot.

Everyone who entered eventually got at least a Stablemates for their efforts, I think? I remember getting an unsolicited Bay Stablemates Saddlebred in the mail not long after, and I just assumed it was a participation/attagirl/door prize type of gift.

My camera is better as are my photography skills (marginally). And as I discovered at live show I participated in last year I definitely have some models that could be competitive today. So I have not yet dismissed this notion.

I still have a few more days to decide. In the meantime, other projects await….

Hall of Fame Effort

You can skip this part if you’re bored or annoyed by the comic book talk already, but I could not let this slip by uncommented: a YouTube clip that from Late Night with Seth Meyer last Thursday, featuring the comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis, who puts in a strong plug for his reboot of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Comic book nerds talking about the Legion of Super-Heroes on network TV? Be still my heart! See, see? I told you I am not crazy.

(Okay, maybe a little: I have been writing a blog about Breyer History for the past ten years.)

I’m deep in the middle of finishing some old business here – all those odds and ends that got dropped in the run up to BreyerFest – but I figured you’d probably want to hear a bit from me about Reeves’s latest attempt to get Breyer nominated to The National Toy Hall of Fame, at the National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.

First, the link:

https://www.breyerhorses.com/pages/breyer-nomination-for-the-strong-museum-national-toy-hall-of-fame

Second: my opinion on the matter.

As someone who’s been writing a blog about Breyer History, it should be fairly obvious that I am all in favor of this campaign. One of the many reasons for the existence of this blog is to proselytize for the historical and cultural significance of models horses in general and Breyer Horses specifically.

If you want to utilize this blog as a part of your application effort, please feel free!

And also let me say that if this campaign is ultimately successful, I’d also consider donating my model horse archives to The Strong whenever the time comes for me to be parted from it.

(But to be clear: that would not be for a very, very long time. Versta?)

However…

This is not the first attempt at getting Breyer into the Toy Hall of Fame. While I believe and agree that Breyer models meet all of the criteria listed on the web site, they also have the burden of being seen as primarily a girl’s toy.

While there are some toys in the Hall of Fame that are/were marketed primarily to girls – like Barbie, and the Easy Bake Oven – the majority of toys now included skew towards basic, timeless items (my personal favorite: the Cardboard Box!) or products that were considered appropriate for all children (LEGO).

Reeves has made great strides in expanding their fanbase – I met several young boys this year at BreyerFest who were pretty stoked to be there, and not just because of the CollectA dinosaurs – and historically, there have been male collectors and hobbyists within the model horse hobby since the beginning.

But the perception that toy horses are a niche product designed for horse crazy little girls still remains, to a degree. The public at large puts us (the hobby, and the horses) in a box and kicks that box in a corner. And that attitude works against us.

I hope the effort works this time. If not, we’ll get there, eventually. You all should know by now that I am trying my darndest!

Black Beauty Western Pony

Let’s see – the garden’s been abandoned, for now. I gave up on even starting the diorama yesterday. I’m tripping over almost everything in the house and I still haven’t entirely finished either the Sampler or my Sales List.

Yep, full panic mode activated!

I know I’ll pull it out like a superhero, but dang, the view is scary from here!

Anyway, here’s a little something to admire along the way – a Black Beauty Western Pony! Isn’t she cute?

She was one of my earliest in-hobby purchases, from ca. 1980: I think I bought her from an ad in Shari Struzan’s The Hobby Horse, a hobby publication that briefly became the hobby’s oasis after Linda Walter shuttered The Model Horse Shower’s Journal.

(And I only managed to get a subscription to The Hobby Horse because I managed to place a classified in either the last, or next to last issue of the MHSJ. More about that crazy story some other day…)

Back then, we pretty much bought and sold everything sight unseen: in the stores, everything except the Stablemates came in closed cardboard boxes, and it was too much of a hassle to take and send photographs back and forth while negotiating for a horse off of a newsletter sales list.

You took your fellow hobbyists at their word, and sent the money. For the most part, I wasn’t disappointed. (Sure, there were some, but not as many as you might have thought.)

I bought her along with the Black Beauty Western Horse, because even then I was kind of obsessed with early Breyer History, and why the heck not?

Keep in mind, I hadn’t even seen an actual Black Beauty Western Horse or Pony at that point, either. So not only was I buying something I hadn’t had a chance to inspect, I had virtually no idea what to expect when they finally got here.

I was obviously pleased, because they’re still here, all these years later….

As a bonus, here’s an ad for the Black Beauty Western Pony from the September 1953 issue of Western Horseman. 

The Rules of Shipping

There aren’t a lot rules when it comes to packing models for transport or shipping: some people prefer crushed or shredded paper, others go with packing peanuts, and the hobby itself is pretty evenly divided on the issue of mummy-wrapping.

(FYI: I only do it for Breakables and Customs.)

As long as the model in question gets where it needs to go with little to no damage, in a timely fashion, most hobbyists are fine with whatever packaging method gets used.

But there are two hard and fast rules that we all agree on.

The first: when using bubble wrap, you wrap the model with the bubbles facing outward. While I’ve found that it’s more of an issue with Customs and newer Glosses than with the vintage Original Finish pieces I usually deal with, I still do it out of common courtesy and to keep myself in the habit.

The second: no matter how great the temptation, you never, ever ship Stablemates in a bubble mailer. You’d think that was patently obvious: break resistant isn’t the same as unbreakable, especially when you are dealing with thin legs and tiny tapered ears and tails. Right?

Apparently I got lucky – real lucky! – that when my Gwenevere and Blind Bag Magnolia came in their bubble mailer(!) from the Breyer warehouse earlier this week, they arrived unscathed:

That’s my first non-unicornized mini Magnolia! I am especially pleased at the quality of my Gwenevere, too, but I’ll talk more about these models as models another time.

Back to the shipping issue: I don’t have any more insight into the current Reeves warehouse and shipping situation than the rest of you. I’m an eleven and a half hour drive away, folks, and I haven’t physically been to New Jersey since 1992. Whenever we have occasion to communicate, those topics don’t usually come up. As long as whatever I order gets to me undamaged and without extended delays, that’s their business, anyway.

(Though I would absolutely love to spend a day or two poking about the warehouse, just because. That’s a dream vacation right up there with a horseback tour of Iceland, attending San Diego Comicon, or visiting the alleged family castle in Hungary. But I digress...)

While I am absolutely certain that they have received plenty of feedback about this serious violation of the “rules of shipping”, I’ll add my voice to the chorus, for whatever it is worth.

It doesn’t matter if the percentage of undamaged pieces is greater than the damaged pieces, and/or that it might be cheaper to fix the damaged items as they happen rather than go back to more durable packaging you were using before.

Unless you are shipping models where condition is irrelevant (in other words: bodies) you ship Stablemates in sturdy boxes. End of story.

Pressman

(As an art historian and Francophile, today has been a very bad day. Since I have things I really need to get done this week, I am going to put my feelings about what happened in Paris today in a little box and take them out when I have time to grieve and reflect. 

Sometime after the show on Saturday, I presume.

On with today’s show…)  

The topic of Pressman horses came up recently, and I thought it was worth posting on the blog, since information about them in the great wilds of the Internet is pretty scarce.

Pressman was – and remains! – an established toy company that’s still in business. Though primarily known for their board games (they were the ones who helped popularize Chinese Checkers in the U.S.) they’ve made all sorts of toys over the years, including a brief foray into the world of model horses.

Here’s a page from the 1965 Montgomery Ward’s Christmas Catalog, featuring their exclusive release of Pressman’s “Horsey Set”, including the Hunting Horse (a knock-off of the Stretched Morgan), the Western Cowpony (an amalgamation of the Fighting Stallion and Mustang) and the Thoroughbred Racer (kinda-sorta a Running Mare):

Like Breyer before them, Pressman broke into the market by copying the designs of other companies – here obviously, Breyer!

There were a number of toy companies that tried to cash in on the toy horse “craze” in the 1950s and 1960s, but Pressman was one of the few to put some serious effort into it. This was probably because they were a toy company that had been around since 1922: they could afford to take a few risks. This is also why they dropped it when the model horse market dropped off in the late 1960s – they already had other, more profitable things to sell.

There’s currently a Pressman stable for sale on eBay, and what’s interesting about the box is that it specifically calls out the existence of the “new fascinating hobby” itself!

Although Breyer, Hartland and the rest did actively promote model horses as collectibles from the get-go, it was hobbyists like ourselves that came up with everything else that makes up what we call “the model horse hobby”: showing, customizing, pedigree assignments, racing and all that other stuff.

However, this is one of the things that gets glossed over in hobby histories: the toy industry took note of our efforts (and via our letters, undoubtedly), and made the effort to push to promote the hobby as well.

And why not? There was money to be made!

There were some favorable articles about the hobby as early as 1959 (in Western Horseman) and Mission Supply House actually published a professional-looking hobby newsletter ca. 1965-1967.

Breyer eventually got into the hobby promotion game in 1968, with the publication of the first “Collector’s Manuals”. But they didn’t specifically mention the hobby by name until the 1970 Manual:

Malik and the Classic Andalusian Stallion

It’s nice to see everyone excited about a new Classics mold that not either a Love reissue, or a repurposed Nonplastics/Gallery piece:

A lot of the excitement over Malik is because OMG, it’s an affordable Original Finish Plastic Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig Arabian! 

That’s totally fair.

But what got me excited was its obvious visual shout-back to another Breyer Classics milestone, the Andalusian Family Stallion:

Breyer had released individual Classics-scale horses as early as 1965 – starting with the Rearing Horse Rex – and used the molds leased from Hagen-Renaker in the early 1970s to launch the “Classics” line altogether.

But in late 1978, the Andalusian Family became Breyer’s first fully formed, internally-designed (Hess, of course) Classics family set.

More sets would shortly follow, including the No. 3040 Black Beauty Family and Friends Set and the No. 3035 USET Gift Set in 1980, and the No. 3030 The Black Stallion Returns Set in 1983.

The Andalusian Family was such a big deal for me, though, that I went out of my way to hand my aunt the Bentley Sales Company order forms – carefully annotated, naturally – with my Christmas list, so I could be the first kid in my social circle to have them, at least a month or two before they hit retail stores!

(Yes, that’s the very Stallion from the set that I received, above.)

It was also an important moment for me personally, as it was one of the earliest moments in my life that I realized I had access to the power and resources of a “fandom” – i.e. the model horse community – and I liked it!

And Now, A Nonadventure!

It’s October and all I want to do is hibernate! Alas, I have no time for that silliness.

Speaking of silliness, I suppose I should tell you about my desperate and ultimately failed attempt at trying to get on Antiques Roadshow earlier this year. To bring Breyers, or horses, or frankly anything other than rusty old Civil War guns and pawn shop guitars to the masses…

One of their shooting locations this year was less than 20 minutes (!) from the house, so I applied for free tickets.

Didn’t get drawn for them. I was not expecting to, but still annoying, and disappointing.

Then they made more tickets available. Didn’t get drawn for those, either.

Then they offered “free” tickets if you made a donation to the local PBS station. That was a no-go from the start, since the amount they were asking as a suitable donation was greater than my BreyerFest budget.

Then they offered tickets to people who could write a compelling enough essay about an object that they wanted to bring. There were a significant number of tickets available (150, I think?) and I can write things.

Surely I could thwart my lack of luck with the power of my words! So I did write ups on three horse-related items.

First, the large, hand-colored photograph I have of Midnight Sun. Aside from the strangeness of an obvious relic from Harlinsdale Farm turning up in a flea market in Michigan, I thought it’d also make for an excellent segue into educating the public about the ongoing efforts to save the breed from the scourge of the Big Lick. And I could bring a Breyer Midnight Sun as part of the package!

Nope.

Second, on the letter I have written by Wild Horse Annie to Marguerite Henry talking about the newly-released Breyer Hobo (among other things). One equine legend writing to another equine legend about a third equine legend (Breyer, ahem). Aside from the sheer uniqueness of the letter, I could also have brought along a Classic Hobo and possibly other Marguerite Henry-inspired models for illustrative purposes.

Nope on that one, too.

Third, I wrote about the horse-themed photo album I found a couple years ago, featuring photos of the previous owner’s horses, his trip to Cheyenne Frontier Days (in 1946!), carefully annotated photos from a day at the racetrack in June 1942, all that good stuff. And there was a photograph in the album of a WWII-era Navy baseball team that might have included Yogi Berra, too.

If they weren’t interested in any of the horse stuff, surely the baseball angle would have drawn them in, right? I mean, after guitars and Civil War relics, there seems to be baseball stuff in every episode of Antiques Roadshow, am I right?

Nope. Strike three.

Sorry guys, but apparently they didn’t find me or my stuff interesting enough. This I found a little more devastating than losing a random lottery-type thing: I expect to lose random lotteries, but I pride myself on being at least minimally interesting to almost everybody!

I suppose if I had something horse-related that was also Detroit-related, like Seabiscuit (who started his “comeback” here) or Man o’ War (the Match Race against Sir Barton was just across the river, in Windsor), or The Lone Ranger (which originated in Detroit), or a verifiable piece of a local carousel, because Detroit’s Golden Age corresponded almost exactly with the Golden Age of Carousels, and there were probably more wooden carousels here per capita than any other place on Earth, y’all.
 
But I didn’t have any of that. So like most my other attempts to bring attention to the hobby to the masses, I found myself sitting home. Again.

So many people in the hobby try to hide their interest in the hobby from the public eye. Ironically, I do everything short of tap-dancing down I-75 in a hot pink tutu during rush hour, and I see nary a shrug in my direction.

Sigh. 

The Times

I had a particularly bad migraine yesterday and I’m still feeling a bit nauseous, so just a bit of commentary about that article in The New York Times.

If you haven’t read it yet, I’d recommend it; it’s actually rather decent:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/26/style/horse-girls-breyerfest.html

I especially liked this paragraph – it makes BreyerFest sound so exotic and alluring:

If Breyerfest is the horse girl’s bacchanal, the nearby Clarion Hotel is its open bar, from which the ecstasy of material excess flows like wine. Throughout Breyerfest, the hotel transforms into a kind of Kowloon Walled City, in which dealers cram their rooms floor to ceiling with shelves of model horses and open their doors to the madding crowd.

If I wasn’t already a lifer, I’d be penciling BreyerFest into my 2019 itinerary right now!

Also, had I known The New York Times was milling about, I would have made the effort to get quoted! While it’s not necessarily something I’ve been looking to add to my “bucket list”, it would have made a nice bullet point on the Curriculum Vitae.

(I’ve been quoted in newspapers before, but nothing on that big of a stage.)

Although the hobby has gotten a lot of press over the years, most of it has been via regional newspapers and specialty periodicals (like Western Horseman); national press like this is a little out of the ordinary.

For the most part, this article was pretty respectful and with little in the way of the “Let’s ogle the oddballs!” framing that hobbies and other unique subcultures tend to get put into.

I do have a few other quibbles with the article, though.

The impression that the hobby itself is of more recent vintage, and generated by Breyer itself is frustrating. I know why they framed it this way – this is at its core a puff/promotional piece for Reeves – but no, not even.

This little hobby of ours has been around long enough that it’s become multigenerational. There were newsletters, live shows, and organizing bodies within the hobby proper over fifty years ago. It was hobbyists who were pestering Breyer to get more involved: that the industry exists as it does is largely in response to us!

BreyerFest is also essentially just an outgrowth of an earlier event – Model Horse Congress – that was originally organized by hobbyists for a couple of decades prior.

That Reeves gets to dictate how we get seen by the larger world is partly our fault; we’ve spent way too much time quibbling over incidental things and awarding each other prizes, rather than promoting the activity itself.

But I am in no mood to argue those points all over again. It’s time for this old “horse lady” to get herself to bed for the flea market tomorrow.

More Photos from the Slush Pile

Another random picture day. First up, my really handsome Dapple Gray Proud Arabian Stallion:

He’s an earlier variation, obviously, with two airbrushed hind socks just like the *Witez II variation of the Mahogany Bay. And like my *Witez II, he’s almost perfect – just a slight bit of yellowing, and some tiny hoof and eartip rubs. A bit of light restoration and he’d be showring ready.

Hmm. I guess I should get cracking and finally track down a minty-mint heavily shaded early Alabaster guy to complete the trio, eh?

(My guess is that it’ll be another incidental find like the other two: it’ll happen when it happens.)

Next up is something I scanned a bit ago to talk about the hobby really being an offshoot of science-fiction fandom:

Oldsters among us will recognize the name Dragonquest, as in Linda Leach-Hardy’s Dragonquest Studios. She was a local artist/customizer for me (other side of town, though) so I very occasionally run across some of her old customs at the local flea market.

The last time I did it was actually kind of funny; I was looking the model over, and the seller was trying to impress me with “And it’s signed by the ARTIST!” and I came back with something like “Yeah, I used to hang out with the ARTIST back in the 1980s. I even had her do a commission for me!”

(Hey, it was like 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning. That’s about as sick a burn as I could muster.)

Here’s that wee custom, by the way:

While’s we’re at it, here’s a scan of the first official appearance of Comet, the Super-Horse, because why the heck not:

I think it was in my reference files because I was thinking about doing a Comet custom for the “Fantasy” division of the Customs Contest last year. Which didn’t happen last year, this year, or probably any time soon, because that giant scary pile of unfinished quilts in the laundry room isn’t getting any smaller.

And finally, here’s a fellow I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while, but I never got around to it for some reason. First, a more recent photo of him:

And the original photo of him, from Marney’s Album:

From the style of the original photograph, it’s pretty obvious that he’s a very early Test Color for the Appaloosa Performance Horse. But is he an actual pre-1974 Test for the Appaloosa Performance Horse?

I’d like to think so: even if the evidence is lacking, the timing is right.

It’s kind of interesting that they were experimenting with different types of roaning just as they were phasing out the old style of “Freckle” roaning, isn’t it? I’ll having to write that topic down for future investigation...

Back to (BreyerFest) work.