Literary Aspirations

The book sale on Monday was better than I expected – I ended up doing a nice little “restock” on my own sale books and added a few to the personal collection, including an older (but not a first edition) copy of Tschiffely’s Ride. It’s kind of beat up, and without a dust jacket, but I can live with that:

I know it’s still in print, but I’m a sucker for older editions: they tend to be cheaper than newer editions, and just as sturdy, if not more so. Chances are if I hadn’t picked it up, it would have gotten tossed into someone’s “decorative book” pile anyway, and that weirds me out to no end.

I’m not as averse as some are to using books in crafting (the “altered book” movement) but the idea of buying books strictly as decorative objects is not something I will ever be (or need to be!) into. If I’m going to have “pretty” books on the shelf, I want books that I would also want to read or find useful.

Another book in that stash was a more recent copy of Will James’s Smoky. I only bring it up here because I’ve been meaning to get the illustration that Chris Hess clearly modeled the Traditional Smoky on, because it’s not one easily found on the Internet:

(Not the best quality, I know…)

As to why Chris selected this pose and not the others, I’d suggest taking an online looky-loo at some of the other original Will James illustrations from the book: this pose was probably one of the easiest to adapt to injection molding!

First Findings

Both the BreyerFest info and the new CollectA/Corral Pals dropped on the Breyer web site today, but I’ll get to those later in the week when I get a little extra time to review it all.

I just happened to be in a Toys R Us for work yesterday, though, and had a chance to see a few of the new 2017 Classics, including one of the new Liams – specifically, the 916 Chestnut Quarter Horse:

He’s not the only new Liam in town. In addition to the Chestnut, he also appears in the #62045 Palomino Morgan and Foal set, and as the Web Special Run #712236 Black Beauty, replacing the Classics Warmblood Stallion.

And let’s not forget that he was also just seen in the Tractor Supply/Big Box New Beginnings Set, in Appaloosa, and in Buckskin in last year’s BreyerFest Pop-Up Store Special Run set with the Duchess.

That’s five separate releases in six months! Prior to that, the Sir Buckingham mold had only been seen twice since its conversion to plastic in 2014 – as the #62115 Liam (in Gloss and Matte) and the 2014 BreyerFest Decorator Special Run #711189 Let’s Celebrate.

It’s a little unusual now to see so many simultaneous or near-simultaneous releases of a mold that aren’t somehow related to a Gambler’s Choice – like the recent Sherman Morgans.

During in the Chicago era (pre-1985), though, it was the norm. Part of the reason why was because there were fewer molds to work with – if they wanted more product on the shelves, it was cheaper and easier to work up a new paint job and packaging for an older mold than it was to create an entirely new one.

I don’t know what’s motivating the decision to go forward with multiple releases on the Liam now. My guess would be cost, again: it’s cheaper to run one mold for multiple releases, than multiple molds for multiple releases, even if those molds already exist.

I came pretty close to taking the Chestnut Liam with me, but I managed to resist somehow. Then I stopped at another Salvation Army on the way home and found all of these goodies instead, all for less than the cost of the Liam, combined:

The Western Horse is for a potential Christmas project, the Mini Whinnies go in my stash, but all of the other horsey items will go straight to the sales list.

Although I am a little skeptical of the coming year as a whole, at least the horses continue to be plentiful!