Stablemate Freakout No. 6051

I know you know that I know things, but the fact that one of the newly revealed shrinkified Stablemates is the Missouri Fox Trotter mold in that fabulous Fleabitten Dapple Gray I was just waxing eloquent about is not one of the things I knew.

This is yet another total coincidence, I swear.

In fact, I am always double-checking myself to make sure that I am being extra discreet about the things I have a privilege to know about. It genuinely freaks me out to accidentally reveal things even if I had no idea I was actually revealing it ahead of time.

I wish that sort of predictive power worked with lottery numbers and other contests involving cash money. Life would be a lot... different.

Anyway, here is the short video they about them on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CA57bDWnF--/

I figured this Blind Bag Assortment was going to involved Stablematized things when they released the picture of it the other day: you don’t just drop a picture of a blind bag like that for a run-of-the-mill blind bag mix.

What surprised me about it is that technically, there are only three previously-unknown-to-us Stablematized Traditionals in the assortment: the Fox Trotter (swoons), the Fell Pony Emma (screams uncontrollably) and the Indian Pony (collapses on floor, dead).

I didn’t expect the Clydesdale to be Woodgrain either: the only previously Woodgrained Stablemates were the BreyerFest Keychains from (ulp!) 1999. Including the G2 Clydesdale and Andalusian

(I see what you did there, guys!)

As for who the Chase pieces are going to be, my top three guesses:

• Rugged Lark: Maybe that April Fool’s photo was a total fake out!
• Big Ben: He’s the logo horse for the 70th Anniversary Celebration merchandise, and he’s yet to show up anywhere. Moody molds shrink really well (Emma and Brishen, hello) so duh…
• Alborozo as… Alborozo. Which would be perfect, really. With the “Super-chase” piece being either the Early Bird Alegria or one of the Auction Alborozos. Plus his silhouette is on the bag. 

Like everyone else, I need a case of these. Reselling duplicates is not going to be hard, I suspect, as many people will be buying duplicates to replicate their favorite molds in all their respective Traditional-sized colors.

The Indian Pony and the Fighting Stallion, especially.

Oh, and the Stablemate Best of BreyerFest Raffle Model Commemorative Set Numero Uno is also pretty great. Funny how that news was such a big deal back on… Monday?!

My Missouri Fox Trotter Shortage

A few observations upon doing a very rough run-through of the part of the collection that’s in storage, hunting for potential show prospects.

I have… a lot of Basset Hounds.

And Elephants. So many Elephants.

I didn’t realize I also happened to collect Cigar. I mean, I had three of them on display in my office, so I shouldn’t be surprised. But, dang!

I also don’t have nearly as many foals as I thought I did, outside my horde of Family Arabian Foal variations. But I am already remedying that.

As I am with my Missouri Fox Trotters. For someone who advocated – and sent it in as a suggestion for years – I have surprisingly few actual Breyer Missouri Fox Trotters. So I am very pleased with this guy’s arrival last week:

Not just an Iron Metal Chief, but the 1997 Christmas JC Penney Gift Set with the certificate, blanket, original box and all that nonsense. Go big or go home, right?

Sure, it’s not something super-rare, obscure or even particularly desirable (he was cheap!), but sometimes none of that matters. As I’ve said so many times before: you’ll never go wrong just buying what you like.

I’m hoping to add a nicely shaded Prince Jester and that pretty Fleabitten Dapple Gray from the 2009 JC Penney set to my herd in the near future, too. Oh, and buy back a 2006 BreyerFest Pierrot that I once owned, then sold because I don’t know what I was thinking.

All the others Fox Trotters I really, really want are out of my price range – like the Connoisseur Masquerade, 2002 Raffle Model St. Louis Blues, and Frankensteed.

But anyway, unless something really spectacular shows up in the meantime (like that early BreyerFest Auction Indian Pony that went for almost nothing on eBay last week that I missed BY MINUTES) I think I’ll try to lay off making any online purchases between now and BreyerFest.

Even though my actual vacation expenses will be minimal this year, I’d still like to fatten the various bank accounts to soften the blow the Special Runs will make, regardless.

Well, back to my grindstone.

Chesapeake, Part II

Originally I was going to write about the Chesapeake trip as I’ve done with all my previous trips: as an epic Odyssey where model horses are the treasures, conquests, and victories sought.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that that was the wrong approach: this trip was more about the experience, than any victories that would come along the way. Any models I acquired would be secondary. Completing the trip unharmed (physically, mentally, financially) was the only true victory I sought.

And find it, I did.

I did that by letting go: of expectations, of preconceived notions, of obsessively detailed to-do lists. Other than doing the things that I absolutely had to do ahead of time, I did very little to prepare for the trip.

It typically takes me a couple of months to get ready for BreyerFest, but for Chesapeake it basically took me an afternoon: a couple of phone calls, a trip to the bank, a trip to the dollar store for some snacks, and then toss some clothes (and my Jet Run) in a suitcase.

And I was off.

After taking Vita for a 45-minute walk, of course: she knew I was going on a trip, and demanded the last few minutes of my time before I left be all about her. After the walk – where she spent most of it glancing back at me and smiling that not at-all-innocent smile of hers – I gave her the carrot and the handful of marshmallows she usually demands in tribute, and then I was off.

Finally.

The drive itself was relatively uneventful, though a little bit slower than anticipated. I arrived in Pittsburgh about an hour later than I wanted, hitching a ride with a fellow hobbyist from there forward. It’s not very often that I have traveling companions for my horse trips, and I always forget how much fun – and how quickly the time flies! – when I have someone to talk horses with.

We arrived at the hotel sometime around 9:30 p.m., and settled in to our respective rooms for the night.

We were a little disconcerted the following morning at check-in, when we received our event packets and discovered that they did it to us again: there was another 144-piece run among the Special Runs being offered on Sunday, a Palomino Pinto Goffert named Mason. Oh goodness, not again, I thought…

The selections that were offered – outside of the Fell Pony Black-eyed Susan, that I think everyone was sort of expecting – did seem rather odd too, especially for the nature of the event. Three Pinto Drafts, a Pony and a Missouri Fox Trotter?

We were visiting the Fair Hill Training Center and the Fair Hill International: I was kind of hoping for at least one Warmblood or Thoroughbred in the bunch, aside from the Chesapeake model herself, and the little G3 Thoroughbred Cecil we had just received.

Like everything else on the trip, I decided to let go of my trepidations about the models and just go with it. I liked Mason better than last year’s Four Stars, and since I have found almost all my other Gofferts wanting in some way (and sent them to other homes), coming home with this one wouldn’t have been a heartbreaker.

It wasn’t about the models, it was about the journey, right?

And for the inevitable second Goffert that was probably in my future? Well, I did have an upcoming dental appointment I could pay off with it, I guess… though I really did hope I could at least get the Fell Pony. She might have been the plainest – and most “common” of the bunch after Mason – but the heart wants what the heart wants, you know?

I’d worry about it when the time came. Turns out that like everything else on this trip, I didn’t have to worry about it at all, but we’ll get to that next time…

Chesapeake, Part I

I’m still mentally – and physically – unpacking from last weekend, and with my work schedule it’ll probably be a few more days still before both tasks are anywhere near completed. As will be the full trip report, as well; but in the meantime, here’s what I brought home:

I was actually the second in line in my ticket time, so unlike the last Event, I found myself with the enviable option of being able to get whatever I wanted…

… and I chose the models that I liked (the Fell Pony, and the Fox Trotter) instead of the ones that would be easiest and quickest to resell (the Bell-bottomed Shire and the Brishen). Technically I did buy the Brishen, but I did it to help out one of my roommates who would have been just out of purchasing distance of him, and we swapped later.

Because I fully expected and planned on getting one or two of the high piece run item (again) I now find myself in the position of having to decide what else to sell to make up the small financial shortfall that came with actually getting what I wanted.

(Whatever I decide will probably go up on MH$P, as my schedule allows.)

I was still bummed that Reeves obviously didn’t learn its lesson from last time regarding the Four Stars: a significant number of attendees (up to one-third!) should not be put in a position of having no choice at all in their selection of Special Runs.

It was mitigated a little bit this year, in that apparently 24 of the 144 piece run Goffert Masons are Geldings rather than Stallions – an (allegedly?) unplanned for mold variation.

If they insist on doing another larger run again, they really need to do something along that line to soften the blow: gloss half the run, have some variability in the color or markings, or include a mold variation of some sort (hair or gender).

That way even if you have to get two, one of them still might be a rare kind of wonderful. And there’s the possibility that – if existence of a surprise is made known ahead of time – more people near the front of the line might be tempted to take a chance on it, and thus move and improve the selection down the line.

For what it’s worth, I actually liked the Mason. I’ve bought several Gofferts in the past, yet all but my Celebration models have consequently been found wanting, and sold. I am not sure that would have been the case here.

The next Event is in the Spring of 2018; it’s too early to tell if I am going, or if I can go, but I’ll cover that in the actual trip report.

And I would be remiss to not call out the awesome team of fellow hobbyists that helped make this trip possible and wonderful: Erin, Marcy, Ellen and Jennifer!

Hey, It's Smoky!

Feeling a little bit under the weather today; I haven’t had a day off in a while, and I think it’s starting to catch up with me. I did take an extended nap this afternoon, after a quick snack of rice crackers and Vernor’s Ginger Ale, so I’m feeling a bit better now.

Fortunately nothing major - like a last minute Buried Treasure or limited Web Release - happened while I sleeping off whatever came over me this morning. That already happened earlier in the week with the latest batch of Warehouse Finds/Reissues: I came home from work in a less-than-pleasant mood, stayed offline for a while, and when I did log back on - bam! - more Reissues, some of them sold out already.

I did pick up the Missouri Fox Trotter in Palomino, and threw in the Clydesdale Mare I had been mulling over for a while, to make the postage charge more palatable. The original release of the Fox Trotter - Southern Sunrise - was a model I had been interested in acquiring before, but almost all the ones I had seen previous had bland and undistinguished paint jobs with odd pink undertones.

The Reissue looks like it might be more to my liking. The Hagens I found earlier this week were fun and welcome, but nothing beats the New Horse Smell of a freshly unboxed Breyer!

The only Reissue that I missed that bothers me (just a bit) is the Smoky. That was a surprise - both his reissuing, and his popularity. I had not gotten the impression before that he was that much of a "fan favorite" among hobbyists. He’s in an awkward, not-shelf-friendly position, and there haven’t been a huge number of releases of the mold lately.

The most recent was a small group of Florentines raffled off at the Passage to the Pacific Event in California in 2012.

While some of the enthusiasm over his latest release may be more a matter of its scarcity, he does have his fans. I have a couple of friends who are diehard Smoky collectors, and I have a number of them myself: both variations of the original, an unnumbered Ageless Bronze Durango, and the Buckskin Shenandoah without his bald face.

I had at least one Flocked Unicorn at one point, and possibly more, because Bentley Sales had so many of them they were practically giving them away. I’ve long since sold them (cheaply, and with no regrets) because I have issues with Flockies. Those glassy-eyed stares make me shudder.

There is one rare Smoky that I do truly covet: the mold was used to test the original, funky Blue Roan Appaloosa paint job for the Buckshot mold. I don’t know how many were made - not more than a handful, if the case was typical - and the one piece whose location I do know of is very, very beloved by his owner.

From the reference photo floating around, the Smoky Reissue has more shading than the Regular Run, and more neatly airbrushed socks. The first version of the Smoky that the Reissue duplicates, the one with four stockings and dark gray points, tends to have a lot of overspray issues.

If he’s as nice as the photos make him out to be - and so far, that really has been the case with the Reissues - I’ll hold out hope that a few more turn up at BreyerFest.

If not, life goes on.

Dance Moves

Still hobbling around the house like an old lady. I did manage to run all my errands today, though at several points during the process it did look like I was performing an impromptu dubstep dance routine. Like this, but less cool, and without a DJ:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXO-jKksQkM

(What, you thought I listened to that Kid Rock junk, just because we went to the same high school? Feh. Don’t get me started.)

I have also decided that December is going to be a quilting month; if my mobility is going to be limited for the duration, I might as well make the best use of it.

The Winter Web Special is the Missouri Fox Trotter mold in Gloss Gray Blanket Appaloosa with a white mane and tail, named Arosa. Ooh, he’s a tough one for me: I am extremely fond of the Iron Metal Chief mold in general, and the color is very pretty, and reminiscent enough of the St. Louis Blues BreyerFest Raffle model that broke my heart back in 2002.

Nope, gotta control myself. What I really need to do is get back to the ephemera cataloging. I was about 90 percent done with the sorting when the NaNoWriMo happened, so it’ll probably take me a day or two to figure out what I was doing when I semi-abandoned it for the latest attempt at The Great American Novel.

Also, for the record and to clear up any prior confusion, I’ll let you know that it was agreed to that the ephemera was my compensation for my assistance with the sale of the Copenhagen Belgian. It is essentially mine to do with as I please.

As to what will be done with it all, I still haven’t decided. Some of it will be sold on a piece-by-piece basis; there are multiples of certain fliers, for instance, and of early (late 1970s) Just About Horses that simply are not necessary to keep from an historical standpoint.

There are multiples of negatives and transparencies that may or may not be sold; I haven’t been able to determine yet if they are duplicates, or subtly different takes from the same shoot. If they’re different, they stay in the file. If not, they’ll have to go.

I may be contacting Reeves at some point about the dispensation of some of the materials. A lot of it they have, but some of it, I know they don’t. I foresee a conference call or extended e-mail correspondence about it in the near future.

When this future will be I do not know; it probably won’t be until after the start of the New Year. I don’t want to initiate any new business before the old business - financial paperwork, and some ongoing eBay and MH$P sales - is completed. January is also an extremely busy time of the year for the work that I do in the mundane world, so the earliest possible "near future" will be in February.

And speaking of some ongoing business, it appears that a lot of fountain pens that my brother gave me to sell on eBay includes a "rare" and/or desirable piece. I sort of figured it was something good when I got two e-mails about it within an hour of listing it, about relisting it as a "Buy It Now".

Which I didn’t do, because, duh.

Hee.

It’s reassuring to see that we’re not the only crazy ones out there in collectibles land. Fun too, when it works in your favor.

The Mysteries of Breyer Bay

I picked up a really nice Bay Missouri Fox Trotter yesterday - the No. 768 with green and gold ribbons. Nothing rare or fancy, but I’m a softie for both Missouri Fox Trotters and for a well-shaded Bay paint job, and the price was right. I haven’t bought many models strictly for me this year, and I really needed one right now.

Breyer has an … interesting history when it comes to the color Bay. They really didn’t start rendering the color "correctly" until the mid-1960s. What came before then - and for a long time afterwards - was a color I’ve come to call, for lack of a better term, "Breyer Bay."

Breyer Bay describes a red-brown base coat with a black mane, tail and hooves, four white stockings, and usually some manner of facial markings. What it lacks is the black legs or points that would make it a true "Bay." Some real-life horses do exist in this color as Breyer painted it, sorta, but I’m getting ahead of the discussion here.

Even Breyer couldn’t keep this version of the color straight in their minds: early catalogs refer to the Running Mare and Foal in this color as "Chestnut" while at the same time calling the Family Arabians and QH Gelding in this very same color "Bay." (All the while calling the distinctly chestnutty #36 Racehorse "Bay.")


And adding to the confusion, Running Mare and Foal were labeled as Chestnut through 1970 in the Dealer Price Lists, but they continued to be called Chestnut in the Collector’s Manuals through 1975! (Yes, this pretty girl is a semi-gloss with eyewhites. NFS!)

Whatever!

The existence of Breyer Bay has been an ongoing problem in my research. You wouldn’t think it the case, but one of the hardest parts of my research is writing correct and accurate color descriptions of all known Breyer releases. Some colors aren’t difficult to describe - like Black, or even many of the Decorator colors.

Sometimes it gets a little dicey when you’re trying to explain a color on a model that shouldn’t legally exist in the breed it’s meant to represent - the whole Palomino Arabian conundrum comes immediately to mind. But that’s more of a showing or breeding issue than a descriptive one. You can explain away your Palomino Arabian as a crossbred or an extremely pale chestnut to not get it disqualified from the ring, but visually, it looks like Palomino, and that’s how I describe it.

Now, in the showring, a model with a "Breyer Bay" paint job can be explained away as Chestnut, or Primitive Bay, Baby Bay, or some sort of roany or sabino type thing. But it’s still the same color, regardless of the way you explain it. When I began writing my descriptions, I realized that what I needed was a simple, concise way to describe it on paper with a minimum of confusion.

Because the last thing the world the model horse hobby needs is more color confusion. (Quite a few nonexistent SRs and variations can be chalked up to a seller’s - or potential buyer’s - poor choice of words. But that’s another discussion.)

So I took the lazy route, and just decided to go with the term "Breyer Bay" to cover it. Maybe it’ll catch on, and maybe it won’t. It does make my job a little bit easier, though.