Making Mischief

The seemingly endless parade of Fall Special Runs continues, now with more Classics "Farm Store" Mustang sets, Tractor Supply Specials Maverick (Bay/Dun/Brownish Missouri Fox Trotter) and Travis (Black Pinto Carrick), and now this fascinating little oddment, Mischief Night:

(Photo taken from the Breyer web site Collector’s Club sneak preview page.)

A Classics … Hobo? Interesting mold choice, and one we haven’t seen since the Pony Express Gift Set in 2001. The price is right and he Glows In The Dark, so my next order to Reeves will include him if he’s still to be gotten. That seems likely, since the Classics Hobo has never been a wildly popular model in any color, but you never know with these things.

The appearance of the Hobo after such an extended period of time, on a Special Run with a rather narrow appeal, suggests two different things to me. Either they’re using up warehoused bodies, or gearing up for another production run of the mold in the near future.

We won’t know for sure about the "warehoused bodies" theory until the first ones start showing up, and they can be physically inspected for clues. The photos on the web site are better than we’re used to, but still not helpful clue-wise.

Speaking of, an example of the other Glowing Halloween Horse "Night Mare" just showed up on eBay today, sooner than I expected. I don’t know what’s up with having two different Glowing Halloween Specials this year. Will Glowy Little Bits/Paddock Pal and Stablemates SRs be not far behind?

By the way, I had no idea that "Mischief Night" is what they called "Devil’s Night" in New Jersey; I learned something new today. Technically we’re rather loath to refer to the nights before Halloween by that name any more in the metro Detroit area, for a variety of reasons I won’t get into here.

(Just a helpful little tip if you happen to be traveling in and around our area around that time of year.)

In another BTW, I’m finally getting some stuff up on MHSP! All items there will do a two-week stint before being shopped elsewhere. Extra money this time of year is always helpful, but the additional space will be an even bigger boon, especially now that I have more archival materials to deal with.

More on some of the latest ephemera acquisitions next time, and their origins.

(Before I go, I will answer the most pressing question here and now: yes, I do plan on publishing at least one of the photo albums in the near future. It’s already digitized, I just haven’t had the time to take care of the rest.)

Hobo's Bundle

The dentist appointment went well, though I probably shouldn’t have celebrated on the way home by buying - and eating - an entire bag of chocolate-covered pretzels. (In my defense, I hadn’t eaten anything all day. Then I had a salad for dinner.)

I’ve been looking through that file on Hobo that I casually mentioned a couple of weeks back, trying to tease an appropriately shaped blog post or two out of it, but it’s been hard.

A lot of what’s in the file are your basic kind of background research materials: magazine and newspaper articles, fliers and brochures from various Mustang organizations, including WHOA (Wild Horse Organized Assistance), and so on. Some of them personally annotated by Velma Johnston (aka "Wild Horse Annie") herself.

This bundle of documents is more interesting as a collection than any one item in it.

Except for the letters. Included in the file are a small number of letters to and from Annie - mostly involving Peter Stone, Dick Lewis, and surprisingly, even a copy of a letter to Marguerite Henry herself!

Which are, in themselves, a bit problematic to discuss.

Most of the correspondence relates to the article that was written for an early (tri-fold brochure!) issue of Just About Horses featuring Wild Horse Annie, with the usual exchange of corrections, updates, and tender pleasantries.

There’s also a great deal of communication about details of her personal life that are best kept private. Reading those parts of the letters - even in the privacy of my office - sometimes makes me feel like I am intruding on something I shouldn’t.

There is one small piece of the letter I think I am comfortable with sharing. In the letter from Annie to Marguerite, she acknowledges the receipt of a half dozen Breyer Hobos, a gift from Marguerite.

The six Hobos came thundering through a foot of snow into my entrance hall yesterday …and what a handsome sight. I am pleased beyond belief …so what if he is a buckskin! I almost have myself convinced of it by now, anyway. And the tiny [double heart brand] on his left hip is just the right touch. Indeed it is a beautiful job of modeling, and the kit is so colorful, besides the story it tells.

Whenever I see any discussion of the adaptation of either a real-life or fictional horse into a Breyer model, hobbyists are quick to point out the deficiencies or inaccuracies in it, sometimes even citing the commentary of those associated with the horse in question in support of their argument.

The reality is usually far more complicated than that. Sometimes the complaints made public by the people involved are not about the interpretation per se, but about all the intangibles that went into creating it. If there was a flaw somewhere in that process - a poor choice of words, a lack of acknowledgement or thanks, or even a missed phone call - that sort of thing can make a small problem seem so much more annoying than it originally was.

Obviously things went right, in this instance.

Stringing Words Together

For some strange reason, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about last year’s NaNoWriMo novel recently. The first NaNo novel I did came out finished, more or less. It’s by no means publishable, but it’s structurally sound. Last year’s attempt …wasn’t. I thought I could just put it away and be done with it, but nope. It feels like it’s nagging me to rework it.

I really can’t: I have too much to do as it is without adding "novel" to the pile. It's a loose end that'll just have to hang loose for a little while longer. However, it is a good time to tie up some other loose ends...

One of these days I’m gonna "win" a Web Special with just a single entry. As you might have guessed by now, Zeus wasn’t it.

There are three main reasons why Hobo gets little love outside my corner of the blogosphere: he’s a Classic, on a wonky base that warps, and he’s a Hess sculpt. While I don’t consider any of those factors as strikes against him, lots of other hobbyists do. (Especially the Hess thing.)

The "Made to Order" Collector’s Club Special Run is a Glossy Dappled Flaxen Liver Chestnut Tobiano Pinto Huckleberry Bey, named Enchanted. I think he’s quite pretty, especially for a Huck Bey. Huck’s come in quite an assortment of attractive colors, so finding something that stands out is a challenge.

The reception elsewhere to Enchanted has been relatively cool, with most of the objections fixating on his color. This strikes me as very weird. "Glossy Dappled Flaxen Liver Chestnut Tobiano Pinto" sounds like a description that could have come from any random Stone Horse "Factory Custom" order form, verbatim.

I like the Huck Bey mold, but I’m no longer in love with him: the color is what’s attracting me to him. My indifference towards the mold has nothing to do with any anatomical deficiency, a dislike of Arabians, or bases, or anything like that. I’ve just …moved on. I like the ones I have - a Polaris, and a couple variations of the Atlantis Bey V - and someday I’d love to pick up one of those solid variants of the original Bay Huck (who I thought was just really attractive).

I don’t think I’ll be ordering one because I have other things I need to buy first. And if I do fall back in love again, I don’t doubt that - like Pamplemousse and Gus, before him - there’ll be a few leftovers to pick through.

Regarding my comments on the "Cash Cow" incident, it was the reaction to it - rather than its veracity - that struck me as ridiculous, and way too typical of how everybody in the hobby reacts to anything even remotely controversial, truthful or not.

Remember the situation a few years ago when the rumors about BreyerFest moving to a different locale cropped up? I was actually in a room at the HIN/CHIN at the very moment those rumors got their start - as casual, jokey, somewhat unserious throwaway comments - and saw them blossom in a matter of days to something kind of scary, intense and almost impossible to quash.

I recently remarked that many of my coworkers have a sad propensity for believing in fantasies and conspiracy theories. Many of my fellow hobbyists are, alas, no better.

BTW, I’m not implying that anyone reading or commenting here is one of those people (especially you, D), but it’s definitely an issue in the model horse community as a whole, and something that rarely gets addressed in a meaningful way.

This is something of a conundrum for me, too, in that some of the information I relay to you here comes from sources who wish to remain confidential. Sometimes I refrain from commenting about certain topics because I want to avoid bringing in details that could break those confidences. In some ways I am engaging in multiple "conspiracies" in the production of this blog. 

The things I do for y’all. You have no idea.

Made of Broken Parts

Shuffling boxes and papers seemed to help both my state of mind and my state of office. I even found those three missing quilt projects that have been bothering me for months. (Not that I have any time to do anything with them right now, but No Longer Missing, yay!) I was also surprised to see how many spare Breyer parts I had lying around the basement:

I already know what some of you are thinking: sorry, none of them are for sale. They're all a part of my restoration/spare parts graveyard. I may not need them now, but I will. Or I might. Actually, the Hobo stand does belong to someone; I've just been too busy and/or distracted to hook them up since I got it.

I bought a body box lot years ago that had a kinda rare variation of the Classic Hobo - most have solid legs with sort of grayish points, but this fellow had four actual (white) stockings! Alas, the base he came with was nonfunctional. (What kind of ninny starts customizing a Hobo by messing with the base? Sheesh.) I managed to find the above base at the bottom of someone’s free box at BreyerFest last year, and I snagged that sucker so fast you could see sparks flying off the carpet.

I’d show you a picture of that oddity, but since he was base-free until recently, he’s still hidden somewhere in storage. (And bugging the crud out of me almost as much as those three quilting projects did.) I was going to make a base for him at one point, but that went the way of so many other good ideas. (Nowhere.)

Here’s my more "ordinary" Hobo who, I hope you can see from the picture, is not altogether ordinary himself.

Poor Classic Hobo can’t get no respect. He hasn’t even had a production release since 2001, in a something-that-was-supposed-to-be Dun for the Pony Express Gift Set. He might make an interesting - and somewhat appropriate - release for this year’s BreyerFest theme, but somehow I’m doubting it, considering the lackluster enthusiasm expressed over Brother Polo Pony’s 2008 Special Run Patagonia. (Though I think it was mostly the photographs that did that little one in.)

In the right color or finish, though, I’d definitely consider him. (Indian Pony-style chestnut pinto? Though I’d take almost anything in that color, frankly.)

The Jumping Horse Wall also kinda-sorta belongs to someone; it’s my backup for my test color/cull White Jumping Horse. He looks better/dressier with it on the shelf, but if I were ever to show him, I’d go with the unpainted Wall he came with. (He’s also in storage, mostly because Jumping Horses take up an insane amount of shelf space.)

The next couple of days are going to be a bit crazy, schedule-wise, which will totally kill this lovely forward motion thing I had going. I probably shouldn't even be here now, come to think of it.