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. 

Icebergs

This is not the post I wanted to write, but it’s probably the one I need to write, right now.

First, let’s start with something more pleasant; that way if you don’t want to deal with the unpleasantness, it will be easier to walk away, and I won’t judge.

Anyway, here’s the Pinto Icelandic I bought last week:

The first store had two, but I didn’t like either one; the second store only had this one, and he was… actually pretty nice! Usually when there’s only one model left out of a shipment, that means there’s something wrong with it, but I couldn’t find anything amiss with him.

While I am fortunate that I have a lot of store to choose Breyers from, I also have to compete with an almost equally large number of collectors in the area. In other words, the numerical advantage is often lost, and whatever I find is as much a matter of luck as anything else. 

My tastes are also pretty eclectic, so even if what I want is not present, I usually find something worthwhile. As anybody who has wandered the halls of the Clarion with me has discovered.

Iceland has been a source of fascination for me for several years – I have a couple translations of the Icelandic Eddas in my to-be-read pile, still unopened – but my attempts to learn a little bit of Icelandic (or even fake an accent of it) have failed, so I I’m going to call him “Spotty Iceberg” just because it’s close enough and it could pass as an actual show name, if I ever get a chance to live show again.

I don’t even have any space for him at the moment, though. The house and the office are a mess, and right now I am also a mess, and this makes as good a segue as any to the unpleasant part. 

When I saw that the comments for my second BreyerFest post entered the double digits, I suspected that things had taken a turn for the worse, and they had. 

I will not dress this up in pretty or clever words, or make this weakness of mine a strength (or whatever such nonsense those self-help books are trying to peddle). 

Yes, I am jealous. I have always been jealous person. I acknowledge that it is my greatest failing. I am very much my Grandmother Julia’s grandchild: she was a woman who had exceedingly good taste and who could grow a rose bush from a popsicle stick, but a woman so consumed by jealousy of her children – and particularly her talented middle child, my mother – that she damaged them all emotionally, and profoundly. 

Nature? Nurture? A little bit of both? Does not matter. I am jealous person, and I hate myself for it. 

For a second year in a row I found myself alone in my basement, and this year I had to watch other people having a good time in the company of other model horse people. While I did get to “participate” in BreyerFest this year, my part was done several months ago, in the solitude of my basement and in the small hours of the day. Nobody in my real-life circle of friends, family and coworkers knew what I was talking about when I was discussing my challenges or frustrations with it. Or particularly cared. 

(My boss did, a little, but I barely see her because of my current schedule.)

I live 11.5 hours away and I knew it was never going to happen anyway; I haven’t been to the factory since 1992, when the sample room was little more than a walk-in closet. Whether it will ever happen again is a mystery to me; all I know is that it will not be soon. 

I suppose this is also a good a time as any to reveal another reason why I have not been so good at controlling my emotions lately. As some of you may know, I revealed on Model Horse Blab on Saturday that Vita has been unwell.

That word, in itself, is a kindness: she’s been losing the ability to walk, and it’s very likely that she has Degenerative Myelopathy. They can only confirm it with an autopsy, but she has all the symptoms and it’s something that’s been documented with Wirehaired Fox Terriers. 

It’s been progressing very rapidly over the course of the past couple of months, and while she’s not in any pain, it makes me so sad to see her struggle. She’s always been so independent, and she gets mad when we try to help her up the stairs or into bed. 

And I cry because there’s nothing I can do to help her. Alone in the basement, at night, with only plastic horses to keep me company.  

Sorry to get so heavy there. Something lighter and happier next time, I promise. 

Like Lightning

As someone who: chose Ansel as one of my BreyerFest Special Run selections; who wrote a paper about Georges Melies for a high-school French class, then rewrote it in English for a college Film History class; who was ridiculously excited when they found a near-complete print of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis; and who has a huge pile of vintage film memorabilia about “Rex, King of the Wild Horses” stashed under her bed…… yeah, I want that danged Raffle Model! I want Muybridge like a chocoholic wants a Bumpy Cake. (Thought to be honest, I like the Caramel Bumpy Cake just a touch better.)

Icelandics just happened to be on my mind: I was just starting to price the two Jóls (clear, and teal) I still need to get, and I had already decided that Sporður frá Bergi is on my BreyerFest shopping list. I had also recently been pricing Honeysuckles, but that is clearly not going to happen any time soon...

Like last year, to simulate the BreyerFest experience I’m going on a mini-road trip that will consist of me shopping at a couple of local toy stores, and then stopping at The Telway for sliders and onion rings. (And if anyone wants to come with, let me know.)

I know the odds of me winning a Raffle Model are probably about the same as me getting hit by lightning.  Incidentally, I’ve come pretty close to that a couple of times, too, but those are both instances where I’m grateful it was a near miss. 

But this model hits all my buttons: a Silver Black Splash Icelandic with blue eyes? Named after Eadweard Muybridge? Losing this one’s gonna hurt more than most. 

The Latest in Stablemates

Head’s up: I’m switching over to a different schedule this week, so my posting times might get a little weird here for a while until I figure out my new normal. (Or if it even sticks. The situation is… complicated.)

In the meantime, I’ve finally opened up some recent Stablemate arrivals. My Hendrik is nice, no complaints here:

I also really like the Charleston that I bought all the way back in (ulp!) November. While I look forward to getting more of this cute little feller in the near future, that particular collection will probably be forever incomplete, with the Customs Contest Runners-Ups prize being the Black Pinto version of this: 

This is still not sufficient motivation for me to get my tools out of storage and give that contest a try; I have my hands full as it is trying to get my garden to look like a garden again. (The weather is definitely not being cooperative. At least we didn’t get snow?)

If there’s another rainy weekend in the near future I might actually get a Diorama done, though. (And if it does happen and I actually submit it, I’ll definitely post it here, post-BreyerFest.)

Then there’s my Gold(en) Charm Mini Secretariat, who is just so pretty:

It’s been generally accepted that Gold(en) Charm is the least favored of the original Four Decorator colors, but I think it’s rapidly becoming my favorite, or at least co-equal with Wedgewood Blue. 

Not that it matters, because if I was presented with a choice like that I would probably spontaneously combust. 

That’s actually been a nightmare of mine: finding myself at a flea market or yard sale and finding several Decorators, but only having enough money to buy one or two. 

Which, for better or worse, hasn’t happened yet. 

I have been present at situations where I bought something and the vendor has said something like “Good, that’s the last of them”, making me wonder what the heck I missed in the first place. 

And then there was the vendor who deliberately hid a box of models from me as I approached, after letting others rifle through them. Truth be told, I was taking advantage of her, but it wasn’t the horses: some of my biggest flea market scores came from her dollar table, including a giant bag of vintage gumball charms and a large collection of older (early 1970s) Hagen-Renaker miniatures. 

And if she had asked, I would have given her an honest estimate of their value. But you know, some flea market vendors have to feel like they are in complete control of the situation, and the reputation of some of our co-hobbyists sometimes precedes us. 

But anyway, back to Stablemates.

My “Steven Universe” Unicorns are still unopened (yeah, I know) but I did open up the Chasing Rainbows Unicorn that I bought with them; I was hoping for the yellow Prince Charming and not the Pink, and luck was with me that day:

The box was already heavily picked over by the time I got to it, so I didn’t even bother trying to find the Rainbow Connemara/Croi; I’ll wait a little longer and see if they become more plentiful over time, or if (more likely) hobbyists get fickle and move on to the next new thing. 

And finally, the store also had a small quantity of leftover Fun Day Stablemates, so I bought one of the Icelandics, too:

Since everything else I’ve been eyeing has quickly shot out of reach, I’ve been pricing the Traditional Icelandics. The prices for the Web Special Honeysuckle are inexplicably high – inexplicable because wasn’t everyone complaining how “blah” it was when it was released? – but the Jols are still in my comfort zone, so I think that’s where I’ll focus once spring cleaning and spring planting are done. 

Raspberries

Boy, I picked the wrong week to give up caffeine. 

(Long story short: I’ve become entirely too dependent on Diet Mountain Dew to get me through the day, and I’m trying to figure out what my migraine triggers are anyway. If anything I write in the next couple of weeks comes across as crankier than usual, that’s why.)

First: Yes, I saw those images and No, I am not going to talk about them until it’s legal and appropriate to do so. Trust me, I have opinions. 

Second, I won’t keep you in suspense:

Raspberry it is! Not my first choice – that was Clear, obviously – but she really does look like one of those Brach’s Filled Raspberries, and I find myself resisting the urge to lick her. 

(The Raspberry-flavored Kit Kats I picked up at Kroger earlier this week are not a bad substitute.)

I’ll probably wait a while on acquiring the Teal and the Clear, because I am both cheap and patient. Since almost everybody want the Clear, it looks like I’ll have to be extraordinarily patient with that one.

Now, about the Coal. 

I kind of suspected that they were up to something when they didn’t show the Coal in the original offer. Either they were going to do something different with the color, or with the mold. 

And this year, they decided to go with the mold.

Seeing hobbyists react like they received an actual lump of anthracite when the Coal was revealed to be the Galiceno Pony kind of annoyed me (to put it politely). 

Are hobbyists so unaware of history that they’ve completely forgotten about the existence of the 2017 Early Bird Raffle Horse Sokkar? Sokkar was the reason why I rated the Icelandic Horse as an “outside possibility” in the first place. 

I like the Galiceno Pony mold and I would have been thrilled with a Coal, but since getting randomly drawn for this sort of thing never happens to me, the possibility never enters into my buying equations. 

I buy things because I like what they are presented to me as, not what they might possibly be. Life is full of disappointments, and I have no desire to add to the list. 

(And with my luck, if I did get a Coal, I probably would have fainted at the sight of it, hit my head on the nearest piece of furniture, and spend the rest of my day in the ER.)

Buying a Coal secondhand is unlikely: all I’ve got to play with is the $600 stimulus check, and (checks recently completed Coal sales) that’s obviously not going to cut it. I suppose I could throw in a couple of my CC Glossies, but then it starts looking like actual work, and I already have plenty of that, thank you....

And that’s fine. The world’s on fire again, my tinnitus is driving me crazy, so not getting a shiney black pony that nobody wants anyway is the least of my worries.

So Sparkly

The Jóls are starting to arrive, and to be honest, I love them all. Traditionals with embedded glitter? Be still my heart... 

I know some folks were complaining that the colors weren’t “festive” enough, but growing up with a mother who saw Christmas Trees as her own personal creative challenge, the notion that holiday decorating has to be limited to a red, green and gold palette is an odd one to me. 

One of the first things I learned from her: anything can be festive if you cover it with enough glitter. Or pinecones. 

Speaking of, here’s my festive holiday centerpiece, made almost entirely from stuff purchased at Dollar Tree. (The pinecones and branches came from the backyard, obviously.) It didn’t win the contest it was entered in, but you probably already guessed that:

I set it on the table, everyone went “Ooh, it’s so pretty!” and that’s when I knew it was over. I know this game.

But back to the Jóls. The Clear ones are obviously reminiscent of ice, the Teal Blue ones look like the Disney version of a Nokk, from Frozen, and the Red ones look like my favorite holiday candy, Filled Raspberries. 

I’ll be happy with any of them; I like them so much, in fact, that once I get this exhausting mess around me sorted out, I might make an effort to complete the achievable trio. 

But the mess before me is huge, and that effort is far away. 

I’ve actually made some decent progress – I can now walk through my office without stubbing my toes! – but I still have a lot of hard decisions ahead of me. What gets sold, what goes into storage, reevaluating my goals and priorities for the coming year…

Buying less stuff is definitely on the menu, regardless. Once all this packing and paperwork is done, I think I’ll just focus on my first loves – Stablemates and earlier (1950s/1960s) Vintage items – and maybe actually finish a few customs and other hobby projects in whatever spare time I am able to carve out in the new year. 

Blessed Jól

As far as this year’s Christmas Surprise models goes, there were only a few colors/molds/options I would have considered for purchasing, and darn it all, Reeves somehow managed to perfectly thread the needle with a sparkly, translucent Icelandic Pony named Jól:

I’ve been dreaming of a clear translucent Traditional release ever since I saw Marney’s Transparent Belgian a lifetime ago, so that’s the one out of this trio I want the most. But I am just happy to get one at all, considering that they sold out in, what, 45 minutes?

I know the whole “12 random Glossy Black Coals” gimmick is at least partly responsible for the swiftness of the sellout, which is one reason why I wish they wouldn’t do it at all. I’d rather have collectors buy things because they like them and want them, not because they think they might be able to win the model horse version of the Lotto.   

And also because the distribution of said Coals the past two years didn’t appear to be completely equitable anyway. Unfortunately, the way the distribution system is set up it’s probably impossible to completely remove the possibility of someone getting two Coals.

When I make my decision about buying, the possibility of a Coal never enters into it. Most of my model horse luck is a consequence of 40(!) years of research and living in a model horse-rich environment. And, on very rare occasions, a bit of good timing.

But the luck of the random draw? Nope, never me. 

Apparently there has been a lot of grumbling about this year’s Christmas Surprise and I’m not entirely sure why? While some of the particulars are, by nature of the promotion itself, a surprise (the mold, the colors), everything else about this year’s promotion was pretty darn standard. Boring, even.

Don’t like the colors, the mold, the concept, the price? Go spend your money on something else. That’s what I would have done. And might still do, depending on what shows up on the Internet over the next week or so. 

I did think that the Fjord mold was going to get the nod this year because of the Berries Pony Goji earlier this year. It had been out of production for a while, and when you run a mold, you don’t run it for just a few hundred pieces, you know?

More Retail Therapy

I’m feeling a bit better today after doing a bit of shopping. Aside from some necessities (a new winter coat, and a new barn jacket) I also found a grab bag’s worth of goodies at the local Salvation Army, along with a non-equine Beswick:

Since I live relatively close to Canada (less than an hour away) Beswicks are not an uncommon sight around here, even in Salvation Army stores. There’s a note on the bottom of this Kitty McBride figurine, however, that notes it was a souvenir of a December (Christmas?) 1977 trip to England. Not everything I buy comes with a provenance, but I’ll take it…

I was momentarily excited when another Salvation Army store I visited had a nice collection of Japanese clinkies, but they were all overpriced, and one of them was even missing a leg! There was a Wooden Breyer Stable there, too – the big fancy one with the cupola – that I ultimately walked away from, because I don’t have room for that kind of nonsense right now. 

(My inner 9-year-old, on the other hand, is still pitching a fit.)

I also bought something indulgent on eBay, but I’ll talk more about that when it gets here. I don’t normal buy vintage models at “full retail” but when I found out last week that I didn’t need to save up as much money as I thought for the new sewing machine, that money had to go somewhere. 

It’s almost time for the Winter Web Special to drop, and I am secretly hoping that it’s not something I am going to want: it’s not so much a money thing as a I don’t want to get my hopes dashed again thing.

My initial suspicion – since the release of Frozen II is imminent – is that it’ll be something on the Fjord, but it could just as likely be something on the Traditional Icelandic, and that would be a problem. I love that big floofy boy, even though I don’t currently own one.

My platonic ideal would have been the 2017 Early Bird Raffle Sokkar, but that didn’t happen. I will eventually get myself the Berries Ponies Series Honeysuckle in Palomino Roan, but as I appear to be one of the few people in the hobby that didn’t consider her a complete disappointment, I think I can afford to wait.

Actually, my biggest concern right now is a potential Winter Animal Special, like the Longhorn Olaf or the Eldora and Sol Cow and Calf set. I somehow had the misfortune of missing both of them utterly, in spite of them being both rather plentiful for a Web Special (350 pieces) and sold on a first-come, first-served basis.

I don’t even care what it is, and I might not even buy it regardless: I just want to be online when it’s actually still available for sale. As I’ve explained before, sometimes it’s not so much about the buying as having the option. 

Things I am not worried about at the moment: a Collector’s Club Appreciation Sale (as I already have several order options available at a moment’s notice, if/when it happens) and the Christmas Day Special Run, because that’s… not going to happen until Christmas Day.

I am also likely passing on the Premier Club next year. I can wait for a Regular Run of the Akhal-Teke, especially since the model looks about three feet long. Lynn Fraley’s work is hit and miss with me, and I am not as enamored with Kylee Parks’s stuff as the rest of the hobby is, though that’s partly a matter of me being leery of anyone with a short resume, no matter how impressive.

The Burbank Color

My Fylkir arrived earlier this week. The Appaloosa!

Once upon a time I had a notion that the Stablemates Icelandic mold would be something that I’d actively collect. I haven’t gotten the 2013 One-Day Stablemate Indigo yet, but that was more a matter of timing and priorities, rather than money.

Then Reeves had to go and make him the Gambler’s Choice mold for the Stablemates Club this year.

I was absolutely fine with all four of Fylkir’s colors, but I was hoping that I’d get one of the “more desirable” ones, primarily to save myself some money. Alas, it appears – at least in the short term – that the Appaloosa is the least popular of the four colors.

That’s kind of a bummer, but I do have some big expenses coming up soon anyway, so I’ll chalk it up as the Universe’s way telling me the disposable parts of my income need to go elsewhere.

One thing I find interesting about the Appaloosa Fylkir is that it’s another appearance – second in a year, in fact – of the Burbank colorway: a dark-headed Bay Roan Appaloosa with a masked spotted hip blanket, first popularized on the Exclusive Event Nokota Horse release in 2008.

Earlier this year, we saw it again on the Collector’s Club Exclusive on the Classics Swaps mold, as one of the three available colors on Scotty. That I did not buy because (grumble-mumble) they didn’t make my favorite out of the quartet – the Dun – we voted on.

(Hmm. My favorite of the four Gambler’s Choice Diesels last year was the Gloss Brindle, who also ended up being the least popular of that set. I sense a trend…)

Anyway, it’s kind of neat to see a color “born” like this, especially since it arose out of a Special Run that was not that well received when he was released. Though I think that was due more to his relatively large run size for an Exclusive Event item, rather than any aesthetic issues.

I wonder who’ll be the next to wear it?

Nazruddin and Sokkar

We already knew that this year’s BreyerFest Celebration Horse was a Chestnut Marwari; the only question any of us really had was what mane and tail option they were going to go with on the Marwari mold.

The original short mane and swish tail it is, then!

The Early Bird Raffle piece is, umm, different? As in a Glossy Black Icelandic named Sokkar? (That means socks, in Icelandic. She has four big ones, so that makes sense, at least.)

Early Bird Raffle pieces are another one of those unpredictable BreyerFest things. Sometimes they seem to have a vague connection to the theme, like last year’s Smarty Jones Polo Pony Polomar; Polo is popular in South America. Other years are baffling, like the infamous Stretched Morgan Bennington in 2012 – one of the most quintessentially “American” breeds for a British-themed year? Okey-dokey!

So this year it looks like we get something more the latter than the former.

If there was any model from last year that I could have taken home, aside from the treasures that I did, it would have been one of the live show prize Glossy Carrick Cortes Cs. So Black! So Shiny! So of course I’d be happy to take home a Sokkar.

It might just be me, but I am also getting a bit of a Vintage vibe/callback from Sokkar, too – specifically, her similarity to the original #27 Fury Prancer. (Great. Now really like is turning into I think I want. Always doing this to myself, I am.)

But as I might be on the other side of the Park for the “Bollywood Bash” Costume Contest when they draw for them, I will have to persuade myself to not worry about the tiny possibility of getting drawn.

I like that the Diorama Contest rules have basically done away with all of the nuance and boiled it down to a generic “Make it something about India”. That’s what I think these contest entries have been judged for all along, regardless of whatever silly copy they wrote up in the rules. Whether that realization will help me or anyone else I know who is pining for the glory of a win, though….

I already have somewhat solid ideas for both the Costume Contest and the Diorama Contest, but since I’m currently putting in some OT at work and am tied up with some other creative projects, they’ll have to wait.

The “good” bodies and craft supplies are packed away in the garage anyway, and January is being very January. All I want to do when I get home from work is snuggle myself underneath one or more of my fifty or so unfinished quilt projects.

Uncatchables

There are some models that are determined to elude your grasp, and I just going to have to accept that the Mini Falhófnir is one of them. My Vintage Club Bravo came in the interim, and he will have to sate my Stablemates fix, for now:

I was a little concerned that they might not attempt the muscle line shading on this little guy, but it’s there. Yay! Now that the painters have had a little practice with that color, here’s hoping we’ll be more Glossy Line Shaded Alabasters in the near future.

It’s definitely one of the more underused of the “vintage” colors, and it’s hard to think of a model that wouldn’t look good in it, in any scale.

It can be a hard mental hurdle for a lot of hobbyists to overcome, but having a few “uncatchables” on your want list is not a bad thing. It would be very boring for me, personally, if every model I ever wanted just fell into my lap. The chase is part of the fun!

And it’s so very satisfying when you do finally snag one your elusive little buggers, especially if it’s at a fraction of its price when it was hot and/or new.

Speaking of gloss light gray goodness, apparently there are some Glossy Icelandic Elskas floating around. I’ve been fortunate enough to see quite a few Elskas locally, but nary a one in Gloss. I’m guessing that the Gloss percentage for the run is significantly lower than it has been for other more recent releases with random Glossies, like the Bay Giselle and Gilen set from a couple years back. (I saw another one in a store not that long ago, actually!)

I wouldn’t mind finding her, but I’m not going to go out of my way looking for her, either. If she’s as rare as I suspect she is, I really don’t have enough time in the day. Especially when I have to deal with this mayhem-generating monster:

Yesterday she got into a goodie bag stashed in my bedroom – necessitating an emergency run to the vet – and today she’s been hellbent on taking down the Christmas tree one ornament at a time. After all that, then she has the audacity to still be this adorable when she naps.

Anyway, I do want to get myself one more “store-bought” horse for the year, but I’m eyeing something a little more mundane like a Foiled Again, a Glitterati, or that pretty Indian Pony Performance Horse with the nice dappling who’s been giving me That Look the last few times I visited him at one of my local toy store haunts.

He’s not the Chalky variation – another one of my uncatchables – but he is pretty, affordable, available, and one of my favorite molds. Not seeing any downsides there.

Some of Our Stablemates are Missing!

Like everyone else, I am perplexed by the lack of new new Stablemates. You know, those cute little guys who debuted as the One-Day Stablemates at BreyerFest last year. I was able to secure three of the four this year. No Icelandic "Indigo", alas!

The Andalusian "Chrome" turned up as a raffle item at the Big Easy Bash back in February, as a miniature version of one of the earliest Exclusive Event items, the Legionario Bourbon Street. The Appaloosa/Stock Horse "Dungaree" showed up at the same event as the 200-piece run Moon Pie, in a pretty Gloss Red Bay Overo. And the Icelandic is schedule to appear as a "Mini Me" freebie for Premier Club members, for the new Traditional Icelandic Falhófnir.

There has been no sign yet of my personal favorite - the Bucking Horse "Rivet". (I love the look Chrome is givingt Rivet in this photo: "Dude, seriously, what’s your problem?")

It’s only been about a year since they’ve been released, but we’ve grown so accustomed to such a fast pace to new releases that a year feels like an eternity. Even the original BreyerFest pieces are somewhat hard to come by; Reeves miscalculated the demand for them, and they were sold out by mid-day Saturday. (Some were held back for Will-Calls.)

There have been other Stablemates who have vanished for much longer periods of time. The original H-R/Love Quarter Horse Mare mold disappeared in 1988 due to a molding issue. The rest of the Hagen-Renaker molds eventually followed suit when the lease with H-R was not renewed.

The infamous Palomino "Playmat" Horse came and went in an eyeblink in 2007. Technical/molding issues were also the reasons, allegedly, why he was quickly replaced by the G2 Warmblood for the remainder of that item’s production run.

(One of our local stores had three or four of these Playmat Sets - with the original horse - for the longest time. Silly me didn’t want to spend the $20 on the set just for a single Stablemate. Not one of my brighter moments, to be sure.)

Most recently I have been troubled by the lack of Reining Horse releases. While all of the other WEG 2010/G4 releases have been issued in multiple colors and multiple sets since then, the Reining Horse has seen only one additional release, a Black Splash Spot Leopard Appaloosa in the 2011 J.C. Penney Parade of Breeds set.  I had a fun little project in mind earlier this year that was quashed because there were no affordable, body-quality Stablemates Reining Horse to be had.

Other than possibly some concerns about breakage with the Andalusian's slender ears, I have no idea what the hold up might be. Guess we’ll just have to cross our fingers and hope the problems are more conceptual in nature, rather than technical or legal.