The Rules of Shipping

There aren’t a lot rules when it comes to packing models for transport or shipping: some people prefer crushed or shredded paper, others go with packing peanuts, and the hobby itself is pretty evenly divided on the issue of mummy-wrapping.

(FYI: I only do it for Breakables and Customs.)

As long as the model in question gets where it needs to go with little to no damage, in a timely fashion, most hobbyists are fine with whatever packaging method gets used.

But there are two hard and fast rules that we all agree on.

The first: when using bubble wrap, you wrap the model with the bubbles facing outward. While I’ve found that it’s more of an issue with Customs and newer Glosses than with the vintage Original Finish pieces I usually deal with, I still do it out of common courtesy and to keep myself in the habit.

The second: no matter how great the temptation, you never, ever ship Stablemates in a bubble mailer. You’d think that was patently obvious: break resistant isn’t the same as unbreakable, especially when you are dealing with thin legs and tiny tapered ears and tails. Right?

Apparently I got lucky – real lucky! – that when my Gwenevere and Blind Bag Magnolia came in their bubble mailer(!) from the Breyer warehouse earlier this week, they arrived unscathed:

That’s my first non-unicornized mini Magnolia! I am especially pleased at the quality of my Gwenevere, too, but I’ll talk more about these models as models another time.

Back to the shipping issue: I don’t have any more insight into the current Reeves warehouse and shipping situation than the rest of you. I’m an eleven and a half hour drive away, folks, and I haven’t physically been to New Jersey since 1992. Whenever we have occasion to communicate, those topics don’t usually come up. As long as whatever I order gets to me undamaged and without extended delays, that’s their business, anyway.

(Though I would absolutely love to spend a day or two poking about the warehouse, just because. That’s a dream vacation right up there with a horseback tour of Iceland, attending San Diego Comicon, or visiting the alleged family castle in Hungary. But I digress...)

While I am absolutely certain that they have received plenty of feedback about this serious violation of the “rules of shipping”, I’ll add my voice to the chorus, for whatever it is worth.

It doesn’t matter if the percentage of undamaged pieces is greater than the damaged pieces, and/or that it might be cheaper to fix the damaged items as they happen rather than go back to more durable packaging you were using before.

Unless you are shipping models where condition is irrelevant (in other words: bodies) you ship Stablemates in sturdy boxes. End of story.

Inevitable

Well, that was completely expected.

Technically it wasn’t officially “gone” when I went back late the next day – someone apparently called earlier and put the Alborozo (and only the Alborozo!) on hold.

I’m more annoyed than mad, though; I had to deal with an insanely long road trip for work that day and that made a call and/or pickup arrangements extremely impractical anyway.

But mostly I am a little puzzled by all the fight put up for an item that there’s no guarantee of being limited or exclusive? All over a modest mark-up, at that?

I did feel sorry for all of the other Painting Kits left behind, especially the mini Magnolia – I’ve spent a lifetime finishing in second place, so I know how it feels to think the spotlight is yours at last, and… nope.

For the record, I did see some of the Stablemates Alborozo Unicorns at BreyerFest. However, I didn’t have the chance to give them the careful, in-the-round inspection I wanted: BreyerFest just isn’t the time or place for careful inspection, or introspection.

So now I’ll have to wait a little longer, until everyone else gets this nonsense out of their system, and local suppliers finally get some of those Unicorn Surprise Box Assortments on their shelves.

Maybe.

In the meantime, here’s a picture of my Palomino Dead Heat:

I had decidedly, initially, to pass it by; I love the Ruffian mold, but it’s longer than an extremely relaxed housecat, and shelf space is already at a premium here.

But after the inevitable disappointments of (a) no Glosses, (b) no Prizes and (c) no Raffle models I went and got one sooner, rather than later. It didn’t hurt that it was the American Pharoah version of the mold, as well – short-tailed, with the boy bits – and since I haven’t gotten around to getting one of those yet, I could totally justify it.

I wasn’t thrilled that they decided to start the sale on the Special Run Leftovers at the very same time as the Sunday Raffle; by the time the Raffle was over, everything but the Dead Heat and the Newmarket was gone.

It was inevitable with shifting the Sunday Raffle past the last ticket time on Sunday that there’d be a conflict; it wasn’t a problem for me this year since I had already gotten everything I “needed” earlier anyway. I’ll just have to remember to plan accordingly next year, just in case.  

Adventures in Home Decorating

It’s the question that’s launched a thousand debates at live shows and online: what are Breyers, exactly? Are they toys, or collectibles?

The correct answer: they’re whatever you want them to be. I’m not trying to be clever or coy here: Breyer actually made that "ambiguity" central to their earliest advertising campaign. Their earliest known slogan was "It’s a Toy, a Welcome Gift, an Art Object, because it’s so real" (emphasis theirs, not mine.)


(Sorry for the moire patterning - it's the scanner again.)

Breyer was still a relative newcomer to the world of proprietary products then, and probably seemed like a safe bet to them to shoot for the widest possible customer base. (It’s cheap enough to be a toy, but classy enough to be home décor!)

By the early 1960s, though, different product lines, with different marketing strategies, started to emerge. Some were clearly marketed towards the home décor market - such as Decorators and Woodgrains - while others were clearly marketed as toys, like the Family Arabians (every model, in every color had a name!) Everything else sort-of fell in between: these were the slightly nicer and pricier models that members of the youth market to aspired to, and that the adult market also saw as an affordable and more durable alternative to comparable china figurines.

By the late 1960s, these loose distinctions in their product line fell apart. The short and simple reason why? Hobbyists. Breyer had been aware of the "hobby," such as it was, by the early 1960s, but it wasn’t until the late 1960s - with sales lagging, and the brand in danger of being discontinued completely - that Breyer finally decided to tap into the hobbyist market. And hobbyists preferred a more realistic model horse.

Pieces designed for "home décor" didn’t disappear overnight; they just didn’t get quite the same attention and marketing push that pieces designed for the toy and hobbyist markets did. Woodgrains continued to be made into the early 1970s - mostly as special runs for the Ranchcraft Lamps - and a handful glosses and nonrealistic colors were mixed into the regular run line.

In recent years Reeves has attempted to recapture a larger portion of the home décor market. Someone on Blab recently resurrected an ancient thread - from 2004! - about an attempt by Reeves to grab a bigger piece of that market. A few models featured in that failed launch were later repurposed; I think the 2006 Porcelain release Tally Ho might have been one of them.

Another one of these models was later featured as a Daily Breyer on their Facebook page: Hot to Trot. She’s definitely not my cup of tea - not because of the paint job (that I kinda like) but the mold: Magnolia is not one of my favorite Moody sculptures.