Splashing Around

Not much to say again, today: yesterday was another washout at the flea market, and most of the week ahead of me will be used to get my BreyerFest paperwork done, because of course I’m behind.

It’s more a matter of finding the time that fussing over content. I’ve managed to make all of my other deadlines for other things throughout the year, so I am feeling surprisingly blasé about it all at this point.

It could also be the Benadryl talking: in lieu of bashing my head against a wall and attempting a Diorama Contest entry this year, I’ve been spending that time making my garden presentable again. It’s something I can look at every day and get some satisfaction out of it without any worries about whether it gets deemed prize worthy.

Things were going great – but apparently I touched something I shouldn’t over the weekend, and now I’m having a rather unpleasant allergic reaction that may require medical intervention in the next 24 hours. (You can actually see the imprint of the offending leaf on my arm!)

Lovely. I just can’t win either way, can I?

On the plus side, I have most of the components of a possible costume entry, so if the paperwork goes well this week, that’ll be what I spend my free time on next week.

Speaking of free time, looking over my schedule for BreyerFest weekend, it doesn’t look like I’ll get much of an opportunity to get any store-related shopping done; all I’m hoping for at this point is to somehow pick up a Gloss Foiled Again and an Ichabad Crane.

Hotel-wise, I have no idea what I’ll seriously be looking for this year. I’ll know it when I see it, I guess. Just like every other year!

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that my favorite of the current crop of Auction Test Colors is the Splash Pinto Valegro:

I was thinking just yesterday that I wanted to see more Splash Pintos, though I was hoping for a more… affordable option. I’ll just have to settle for a Silky Keno or a Pierrot. (Had the latter, and sold it. Not sure why. Just being dumb, I guess.)

The first true Breyer Splash Pinto – one that was specifically designed to look like a Splash – was the Black Pinto Johar in the Eagle and Pow Wow Gift Set from 1995, I beleive? Then followed by the G1 Draft Horse from the JC Penney Christmas Catalog Stablemate Set the following year.

And finally, one additional note: I added a link to Mares in Black to the right.

Due to my work schedule and other commitments, I don’t get to interact with hobbyists face-to-face on a more regular basis. The informal and intimate qualities of podcasts make me feel like I’m overhearing a really great conversation at a live show or in a hallway at BreyerFest.

That’s the only problem I had with the podcasts: I found myself at several points over the first two actually trying to participate in the discussion! As if I didn’t already talk to myself enough…

(Flower) Marketing

I haven’t talked about what I’ve found at the flea markets lately because I haven’t found anything worth talking about. All I’ve picked up are a few odd bodies, some non-H-R minis, and a few books. I think I’ve spent more on produce than I have on horses. (Which is not hard, considering how expensive produce is this year.)

I don’t think the market is tapped out, as much as it’s going through a weird funk right now. In the meantime, I’m trying to pay down a few bills - and stockpile a little cash for some bills to come. (Though I will admit to spending a little bit too much time looking at group lots on eBay - I need that horse-buying fix!)

Apparently there’s a new, non-Mesteno-based series of Classics on the shelves of Walmart right now, but I haven’t had a chance to stop by one yet to get all the info. They appear to be a mix of repackaged older releases and some Gift Sets, with all the usual accessories, Companion Animals, and creepy dolls. Mid-States (Rural King, et al) may have something similar going on, too, but so far nothing but a few vague listings - no pictures, no descriptions - are showing up on the Rural King web site.

Rather than talk about things that do not exist, let’s talk about something that does:

Yeah, I broke down and bought a couple of those Breyer Blossoms thingies. They had a bunch of them in the Pit this year, all of the releases through July, at the non-club price of $25 each.

I was going to get one of each of the three molds used in the program until I remembered that I rather liked the October horse Calendula, on the Johar mold. I’m enchanted by the notion of a model horse that’s intentionally orange, and not merely a failed chestnut. So I just bought the April (the Morgan Mare) and the May (the Warmblood Mare), and will bide my time until October.

I like the series more in person than I did in the photographs (this is never a surprise) though not enough to want to buy up the entire series, yet. They seemed to be selling modestly well in the Pit, though most folks who were picking them up were doing it strictly on a "and just one, for my birth month" basis.

A few months back, Reeves ran an ad for the Breyer Blossoms in the USA Weekend/Parade supplements that come with many Sunday newspapers. The target audience for this ad was not the hobby, obviously, but people who wouldn’t have otherwise thought of buying a Breyer as a gift.

And who knows? Once they get one, maybe they’ll get another. And another, and another…

More on Reeves' marketing strategies another time, when I have the time.

Model Horse Metadata

I’m still sore and exhausted from shoveling the consequences of Snowpocalypse II. Ten inches! It took three of us an hour to shovel, scrape and snowblow the driveway yesterday.

And today, despite the snow coming up to her chest, Vita decided to take off after some deer in the yard. (Apparently she now thinks she’s the world’s smallest Deerhound.) Thankfully, the people who finally managed to catch her called the vet’s number on her microchip tag, and the little sociopath is now back home. (The people who caught her thought she was "just the sweetest thing." Ha!)

I’m also sulking about my work situation: basically I’m getting fewer hours (and less money) because I’m doing such a good job at what I’m doing. It’s not manager double-talk - the way the assignments get set up, it’s in the company’s best interest to put the better-skilled people on the shorter assignments, and the less-skilled people on the longer ones. What that means is that in exceptionally busy weeks, less-skilled people get way more hours. Making more per hour doesn’t mean much, when you’re working 10-15 fewer of those hours.

So yeah, not a whole lot of happy in my corner of the world at the moment.

One thing that is making me happy: a big heaping pile of vintage photos I purchased recently. Test colors, live show photos, old photo show pics - all sorts of awesome here, including these:




Yes, those are photographs of the original clay sculpts for the Classic Sagr, Shetan and Johar. Just, wow. I almost feel like I’m touching history!

The bulk of photographs in this archive aren’t quite as impressive. Most of them are reference photos of what we considered the pinnacle of rare and desirable things in the pre-Reeves era: Decorators, Glosses, Horse and Rider sets, early Special Runs, that sort of thing. (Many of these things are still rare, of course, but considerably less desirable in this era of micro runs.)

Back then, information on older models was much, much harder to come by. We didn’t have any books to go by, and early Collector’s Manuals and Dealer Catalogs were almost impossible to find. It was not unusual for those of us with older or more rarely seen pieces to buy, sell and trade photographs of these models to each other for reference.

Even though many of these photographs are no longer technically useful, they’re still valuable - as a document of our efforts of documentation.

Behold, I have finally crossed that final threshold: I’m now collecting research materials about research materials. It’s not just research, it’s metadata!

(Is it time for me to go to bed now? Yes, yes it is.)