Striking Green Gold

After getting dismissed early from jury duty on Thursday, I decided to stop at the Walmart on the way home, and guess what I found?

It looked like they had just plopped a freshly opened box of Mystery Stablemates on the shelf, so it was more a matter of timing than luck or skill. (There is nothing especially special about the Pony. I just like the mold.)

I wanted to wait until I got home, but my curiosity got the best of me, and I opened them in the parking lot. I probably should have waited – you guys weren’t kidding about the overwhelming paint-store smell!

It’s not just the Gloss that’s responsible for the Friesian’s unique funk, but a combination of the opaque green-gold metallic paint, the Gloss, and the sealed bags they marinate in.

I think that these Green-Gold Friesians will end up being not all that rare, since they seem to be appearing at roughly the same rate/quantity as all of the other pieces in that Mystery assortment, and are being replenished somewhat regularly. They only seem scarce because everyone is rushing the stores and grabbing all the Glossy! Metallic! Friesians they can find.

The situation with the Copper Florentine Django is a little bit different: he’s appearing in one out of every four Mystery assortment boxes. That is rare, but not elbow-to-eyeball Black Friday Sale rare: that’s 750 pieces for every 3000 boxes of Stablemates shipped.

Since many of the other pieces in the assortment are in high demand also – the Reiner, the Bucking Horse Rivet, Tushar, and that especially handsome Alabaster Eberl Andalusian among them – I foresee many more boxes of those Mystery Stablemates being sold and shipped, and many more Djangos with them.

This is why I can’t muster the energy to worry about him. There will be more in the pipeline, sooner and later.

My second Friesian will be sold or traded in the near future (for the Metallic Blue Endurance Arabian, I hope?) There were no Unicorns or Mini Whinnies at the store I stopped at, and since I have too many other things to buy and/or worry about in the next several weeks, that’s likely the end of my Walmart adventuring.

Midnight Blue

It’s water over the dam at this point, but I wish Reeves had waited an extra day to post the Scotty offer. It doesn’t seem quite right that a lot of people who had to wait a day for their paychecks to clear on Friday found themselves out of luck.

The sellout would have still happened in roughly the same amount of time, but the distribution would have felt a little more even-handed.

The release of the newest Web Exclusive Mare and Foal set, Fiona and Rory, seems like small compensation:

This little bit on the web page is interesting:

Their inky coats shimmer with just a touch of midnight blue iridescence.

That’s something new! Or at least something I had not noticed before. (Like the fact that my birthday was also National Superhero Day. How did I miss that awesome fact for 20-some years?)

Reeves has been issuing Black horses with metallic or iridescent undertones for a while now; Gwendolyn came out in 2005, the Web Special Stock Horse Stallion Summer Solstice in 2009, and the lovely Weather Girl Thunderstorm in 2011.

All of those releases were more of a gunmetal gray, and not “midnight blue”. The photographs on the web site are not helpful: Fiona and Rory don’t look any different from the standard, solid Black seen on models like Rhapsody in Black, the Fell Pony Emma, or the Classic Standing Thoroughbred.

That means one of three things: the photographs depict Preproduction pieces without the added “bling”; the iridescence is subtle and/or hard to capture in photos (like a Chalky!); or the photos – like so many of Reeves’s other photos – just aren’t that good.

Experience tells us that the third option is the safest bet, but we won’t know until they start showing up.

It won’t be here, anytime soon: I didn’t order these either. The next time an obligatory Club purchase comes up, I’ll definitely give it some thought.

Rejoice, and my Opinion of Opinions

The birthday was not unpleasant; I got a new paper shredder, some spendy cash, and dinner was topped off with Bumpy Cake. (A local delicacy - basically a giant chocolate cupcake with two layers of frosting. Add a scoop of chocolate ice cream to that, and you’ll be napping to bedtime. Which is exactly what I did.)

Then the mail came and my new driver’s license was in it. Gah! The makeup didn’t help. It’s not awful, per se, but I definitely don’t look well - I look more like a potential organ recipient than a potential organ donor.

Speaking of bad photographs, the usual nattering nabobs of negativity are ripping up the newest Connoisseur model - a homozygous bay pinto Rejoice, named "Pandora" - based on what’s clearly another awful photo job. How many times do we have to go over this, folks? Never judge a Breyer by its PR photo.

(And c’mon Reeves, you’re no better! It takes all of what - fifteen minutes? - to lighten, brighten and do a little minor color correction in Photoshop. I’m still trying to figure out what color Hollywood Glamour is supposed to be!)

I prefer the Rejoice mold to the Clock Saddlebred. It has nothing to do with anatomy or breed correctness: she’s more lively and animated than the Clock Saddlebred, who seems a little bit like a poseur to me. I think I have the same number of examples of each in my collection, though with BreyerFest (and maybe, the Connoisseur drawing) that may change soon.

One of my all-time favorite BreyerFest Specials is my lovely, lovely Gwendolyn, one of the more desirable specials for 2005. She was already at the top of my list before I arrived in Kentucky that year; her scarcity and striking looks made her many hobbyists’ top pick, as well. I got lucky and managed to snag one of the last ones in my line time:


I love her color - whatever it was supposed to be. I presume it was an attempt to create a shaded black with a metallic sheen, since it’s not too dissimilar to Summer Solstice, and the Bluegrass Bandit "Devil’s Food Cake," who were both advertised as such. Whether it’s actually realistic or not is not a concern of mine; she looks good in the paint job, and that’s all that matters to me.

As far as the "metallic" debate goes (which - good grief! - managed to ooze over into Haynet during Blab’s down time last week) I’m not a hater. Sure, there have been a few instances where I think Reeves has gone a bit overboard with the metallic paint, but I think that’s been the exception, not the rule. A healthy horse, well-groomed, does shimmer; a little touch of metallic in the paint actually adds to the realism.

I wish I could find the picture I took at a BreyerFest several years ago of the Haflinger Aristocrat TOF to illustrate my point; you’ll just have to trust my word and my memory here. He and a few other guest horses were walking past the crowds assembling near the tent for the raffle drawing; the light of the afternoon sun raked across his chestnut coat, and at that moment he looked just like a living, breathing Golden Charm. I remember turning to the person next to me and remarking "And some people say that Decorators aren’t realistic!"

From the commentary on the boards, though, you’d think that metallic paint was the Worst! Idea! Evar! in the history of model horsedom. I suspected that the reality was a little bit different, and probably more in line with my closer-to-neutral opinion.

Not because I think my opinion is always right, but because I don’t think Reeves would be doing something for so long if the models weren’t selling.

A poll on Blab from several months back backs me up on my opinion of the opinion. As I’ve explained before, I don’t normally hold most online polls in very high regard; they’re just too easy to manipulate. This poll was a little bit different: it only allowed a user a single vote, and the voter’s name was attached to it. You couldn’t "swing" the poll one way or another, unless you managed to persuade your compadres to vote likewise.

And the majority opinion? Most folks were fine with metallics, as long as they were done well, and within moderation.

So what explains the disparity?

I've struggled for half a day trying to come up with an elegant, inoffensive way of putting this, but the brain just isn't cooperating, so I'll just plow right to the heart of it, instead: just because a small handful of people - or even one person - expresses the same opinion over and over (and over and over ...) does not mean that their opinion represents the majority. One opinionated person expressing the same opinion twenty times is not the same as twenty different people expressing the same opinion, even if it takes up the same amount of bandwidth.