More on the Swirly Keychains

My work schedule is still not compatible with a social life, so the trip report will have to wait a little bit longer. In the meantime, though, I’d like to clarify a little bit of misinformation that seems to be making the rounds regarding this guy, and others like him:

He’s a piece from the 2003 BreyerFest Mod Squad set – and yes, by some strange coincidence (you know, the kind that only seems to happen to me) he’s the very same swirly Stablemates Keychain whose picture I linked to in my recent discussion on swirly- and solid-colored plastic Stablemates. He was one of the trivia prizes on the Blue Bus, and I won him.

I didn’t know he was the specific prize for that question, they just reached into the bag of goodies and randomly handed him to me.

As far as I know, most of the Stablemates given away as trivia prizes for this year’s Exclusive Event were leftovers of previous Keychain Special Runs and giveaways, with the best of them being the Glossy 2013 Toy Fair Highland Pony.

I am not aware of any of them being the Test Swirlies that had been given away at previous Events. Those were somewhat different than regular Keychains in that they either had no actual keychain parts attached, or just the hook.

I didn’t see every single one out of the forty or so that were distributed over the four buses, so there might have been something especially special, but I think – with the current crazy prices for Diesel – that they would have revealed themselves by now.

That being said, it is true that the Mod Squad Keychains are a little harder to find than other Special Run keychains made in similar quantities. I know some were sold in the NPOD later, but I wasn’t sure that was the entire remainder.

That was back when the BreyerFest Keychains were finally fading out as a thing, and they were beginning to get left behind for physically and metaphorically bigger Special Runs. I skipped out on that set that year because I didn’t think it’d be difficult to get them later on. (Ha!)

Makes me wonder just how many of these leftover Keychains they still have knocking around the warehouse. Now that might make for a fun giveaway or warehouse sale for Stablemates Club members….

Affording to Wait

I was going to write a little more about the Classic Hobo - the recent archive acquisition has quite a bit of material relating to him - but apparently a good portion of model horse land has lost their minds over the goodies Reeves was handing out at Toy Fair this week.

In case you missed the hubbub, among the usual goodies they handed out - magnets, pens, catalogs, pins and all that - there was also a "very limited" G3 Highland Pony keychain. An attendee to the Toy Fair got a hold of a rather substantial number of these trinkets: over 20 have been listed so far, thus explaining my rather pointed use of scare quotes.

The more keychains that have come out, the higher the prices have become. They started out around $15.00 - in a lot that included all the other goodies mentioned above - and the last few have been going for $59.99 - for just the keychain alone.

There’s really no other way to get around the fact that this entire situation is nuts. And not in the cutesy-adorable way.

For Pete’s sake, people, it only takes a few seconds to (a) do a teeny-tiny bit of research and (b) apply a small portion of logic to this situation. If some one person was able to get a couple dozen of these items, they simply cannot be all that rare. (And shipped in bubble mailers, too? I don’t think so.)

Remember the "cash cow" incident a few years back? Lots and lots of hobbyists flew into a rage over a situation where we may have been referred to as "cash cows": in other words, easily milked for money.

The whole situation struck me as ridiculous - not because of the incident itself, but because many hobbyists were basing their opinions of it on third-, fourth-, and fifth-hand knowledge of the situation, wildly different versions of the story, and opinions that were mistaken for facts.

(Sound depressingly familiar?)

I think the main reason it got as much traction as it did was because it hit a nerve: way too many people in the hobby really are "cash cows" - especially when it comes to things like Gloss Finishes. We all know - or at some point, been - that person.

(I can think of several situations where I did not acquit myself in the most dignified of fashions.)

I’m not expecting people to be entirely rational when it comes to anything they are passionate about, but you’d think some would learn from experience, eventually.

Do I want one of those keychains? Of course I do. But I also know how these things go: I think I can afford to wait.