More Not-So-News Things

Typical: work gets crazy for a couple of days, and suddenly there’s model horse news everywhere.

First, there’s the Pop-Up Store Stablemate Copacabana, a Decorator on the G3 Running Mustang:

Argh! I was hoping to avoid the Mercado this year, because I haven’t had much luck in the past few Pop-Up Stores. If they significantly up the piece count on it enough that I’ll be able to stroll in Saturday afternoon and pick one up, great. If not, he gets consigned to my want list.

I have too many lines to stand in and too many activities to participate in to suffer for a Stablemate. Even a purple one covered in orange flames.

I think it’s interesting, though, that hobbyists are generally more accepting of crazier or more experimental Deco finishes on Stablemates than they are on larger scale items. Personally, I’d totally be down with the 2014 Birthday Cake paintjob on almost anything:

Second, they’re doing another Test Color Purchase Raffle, and this time around it’s something with a significantly larger fan base than the Cody:

A fleabitten gray Indian Pony. Oh, dear.

Is this going to be a monthly thing now? I don’t know if I can handle that, especially if they get around to the stuff that makes me crazy, like a Pacer, Man o’ War, or a Stretch Morgan. And if is, I hope they throw in a few more affordable pieces in smaller scales along the way, or an occasional giveaway. (Affording it will be a challenge. But gosh, a fleabitten IP?)

I’d hate to see this new thing turn into a de facto two-part event every time: the raffling, then the reselling. I guess all I can say about this one is that I hope one of her many adoring fans (if not me!) straight-up wins her.

And third, I stand corrected: the “new” Sao Paolo mold is actually the Stablemates scale porcelain Esperanza, from the Spirit Collection. That would explain her slightly cartoonish features!

I have a good explanation for missing that: I grew up in an era where all Breyers were plastic, and I still have a hard time seeing or acknowledging Breyers as Breyers that aren’t. And I prefer plastic: I was born clumsy (almost literally!) so anything fragile that enters this residence tends to end up broken or damaged at some point.

Consequently, I only have a small number of Nonplastic pieces – mostly ornaments, and mostly gifts. And while I really dig a couple of those “Breeds of the World” resins, I haven’t been brave enough to buy one, even the deeply discounted ones I see at Tuesday Morning.

But yes, definitely something that came out of left field. Or more descriptively, the parking lot behind the fence beyond left field. Makes me wonder what gets translated into plastic next...

Two More Small Additions

I decided to take a pass on the Kasper and Jack Halloween Foals; aside from trying to stay focused on budgetary issues, the more I looked at them, the less appealing I found them. To be honest, they just didn’t look that well-designed to me.

If I’m going to buy any Glow-in-the-Dark Halloween horses this year, it’ll be the Fighting Stallion Ichabod, with the cute little Appaloosa skull spots. Or last year’s Goffert Night Mare, covered in vampiric imagery that bordered on the genuinely creepy.

I did make a couple of small additions to the herd this week, though:

The now-no-longer elusive G4 Stablemates Andalusian and Bucking Bronco! I picked this pair up at a Jesse-free Tractor Supply, and found even more at a Meijer; the Meijer had the Mystery Foal Surprise sets also, but I’ll be taking a pass on those through the end of the year.

(Gotta save up for whatever surprises they’re going to throw our way this holiday season – now that it looks like I might be able to afford some of it.)

Remember when so many of us were worried earlier in the year, when the initial shipment of these two pretties sold out in an eyeblink? They’re still showing up as “Unavailable” on the web site, but judging from the number of pieces now turning up on eBay, Reeves must have allotted the latest batch to retailer orders first.

They don’t appear on the Discontinued list for 2015, so if they’re still not in your neck of the woods yet, I wouldn’t worry about it. Stablemates releases, generally, seem to have a longer shelf life, outside of Special Runs and mistakes like the Play Mat Palomino:

Who has reappeared this year, incidentally, in a slightly altered form:

http://www.breyerhorses.com/special-delivery

While most recent switches of medium have been from Nonplastic to Plastic – like the Classics Amelia (formerly Tally Ho) and Liam (formerly Sir Buckingham) – the Stablemates, again, have been a bit of an exception to the rule. There have been a number of plastic-first Stablemates showing up in Nonplastics forms later, like the BreyerFest Specials in the early 2000s, and the “International Miniature Collection” from 2004-2005.

I’d rather see the Play Mat Palomino in plastic again, but it’s reassuring to know the mold hasn’t been completely forgotten.

Tacked Up

It may have been a holiday weekend, but model horse business kept me occupied for most of it. I purchased items for the costume, tinkered with the diorama, rewrote several articles, reworked the sales list, did a bit of design work on the BreyerFest paperwork, and I just finished archiving about a year’s worth of hobby e-mails, because that’s ephemera, too: it just happens to be of the electronic sort.

FYI: as far as the Midyears go, many online dealers already have them listed on their respective web sites. It’s not my policy to recommend one online dealer over another, because I am fortunate enough to have several local toy stores from which to handpick, and my experiences ordering online (beyond the Breyer web site) have been rather limited.

If you need any other assistance, the Halloween Horse’s name is Ichabod and he’s a Fighting Stallion covered in skulls. And he glows. So awesome.

Some of the other Midyears include the Best of British releases, and a Pacer. Others, too, but I noticed the Pacer because it is a Pacer - with a yellow halter! I love it when they use more unusual or flamboyant colors on halters like that. My favorite, in that regard, would be the beautiful "Payne’s Gray" halter on the Matte Bay Quarter Horse Gelding in the 2001 Riding Academy Gift Set release for JC Penney. The funky colors used on the 2009 Surprise Quarter Horse Geldings are also cool, though maybe a shade less so because of the unattainability of the Silver Filigree, Smoke and Charcoal ones.

Molded-on tack is definitely not a thing with collectors nowadays: they want their horses clean and unadorned. All of my first three horses - the Man o’ War, the Pacer, and the Western Prancing Horse - came with molded-on tack, so I have not had much of an issue with it personally.

It’s been years since any new Breyer injection mold has come with molded-on tack or accessories (excluding ribbons and braids); the Balking Mule was the last "new" mold with any, in 1968. It wasn’t until 1995, with the release of the Fine Porcelain Premier Arabian Mare, that we started seeing new molds with molded-on tack again. Just about all of the newer molds with molded-on tack have been Nonplastic releases designed to appeal more toward the "home decorating" crowd than the collecting-playing-showing ones.

Two factors put an end to mold-on tack on plastics. The first was the moving away from the questionable practice of adapting and appropriating of molds from other companies for their own use; as I explained before, most of those early tacked-up molds were based on preexisting molds from other companies.

The second was hobbyist influence: by the late 1960s, Breyer was taking the hobbyist movement, and the advice of the individual hobbyists, more seriously. We didn’t want molded-on tack interfering with our own tack, for play or for show. 

Delicate Condition

Vita is fine now, BTW. Me, on the other hand …I worked over 17 hours on Thursday. Combined with dealing with the latest big blizzard, and Vita, my still-slightly-fragile health went off the rails again.

It’s nothing serious - it’s more exhaustion than anything else. I’m feeling just a bit more tired, rambly, and a disconnected from reality than I usually am.

I haven’t had a chance to take a personal look-see at the new Flagship horse Aurelius - a Gloss Flaxen Chestnut Desatado - even though I had an opportunity to do so earlier this week. In the pictures I’ve seen so far he looks very pretty and very promising, but I doubt I’ll be getting one.

It’s nothing against the mold or the color, I need to do a little bit of downsizing before I start buying again, outside of the occasional Web Special and Vintage Club stuff. I haven’t had the time to do that because of work getting in the way. (Time will be made, once I get these minor health issues out of the way.)

Pictures of the two BreyerFest Raffle models are now making their way about the Model Horse world, via hobbyists visiting the Breyer booth at the Road to the Horse Expo in Lexington this weekend. It looks like that us old farts will (sort of) be getting our wish after all: one’s a Pinto Clydesdale Stallion named Walk Down Memory Lane, the other is an Appaloosa Fighting Stallion, named Kick Up Your Heels. Both are Glossy. More widely-available releases would be even better, but it’s nice that they’re going with two "Vintage" molds this year.

(But would I turn down the Early Bird Raffle Alborozo? Heck, no!)

Everyone is rightly going ga-ga over the Fighting Stallion (striped hooves!), but I’d be just as content with the Clydesdale; he’d make a fine husband for my Gloss Palomino Clydesdale Mare. (Does he have mapping? Hard to tell in the photos I’ve seen. If so, also awesome.)

Like everyone else, I’m suspecting that the Store Special Champagne Pinto Bluegrass Bandit Champagne Wishes is replacing the Nonplastic Store Specials, which haven’t exactly been setting sales records. On the web site she’s described thusly:

Champagne Wishes is a Connoisseur Level model with delicate mapping, silver horseshoes and beautifully detailed eyes.

Connoisseur Level? Delicate mapping? Silver horseshoes? Sound like something extra limited and extra expensive to me. Since they specifically dropped the Connoisseur word on us in the description, I’m expecting something in the same range as the program of old: about 350 pieces, somewhere around $150-200.

This is entirely speculation. Since this is a new thing, I could be wrong. All I’m hoping for is that there are at least enough of them around that I have a reasonable shot. I’ve been waiting for a realistic (and somewhat affordable!) release on the Bluegrass Bandit mold that I can’t live without, and I think she’s it.

Plus I was addle-pated from a lack of sleep last year when I ventured into the Pit, and never did get around to buying the also very pretty Black Pinto Store Special Lady C. The prices on her aren’t too high either, but like Aurelius, some downsizing will have to happen first.

Long and Winding Roads

FYI - My upcoming road trip (this weekend!) isn’t to Sweden:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/08/world/europe/sweden-nobel-prize-medicine/index.html

There aren’t a lot of Gurdons in the world; in fact, it’s a rare enough name that the chances are fairly high that we’re all related to each other somehow, though I don’t know this guy intersects with our family tree. Our branch appears to be from a little town in Hungary called Borzavár:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borzavár

(Allegedly we’re related to royalty, but if you go back far enough, everyone is. Moot anyway, since there’s nothing left to inherit. Another fun family rumor: either a great, or great-great grandfather was in the Austro-Hungarian cavalry. So maybe I might have inherited something after all.)

Dang it, though, there goes my dream of being the first Gurdon to win a Nobel Prize. Guess I better get cracking on being the second. (Why must I forever be Alydar to someone else’s Affirmed? Bah!)

Maybe I can be the first to win the prize in Literature? I could live with that. I’m now undecided about participating in NaNoWriMo this year, BTW; I have plenty of ideas, but time is definitely going to be an issue.

I suppose I should put a little something model-related in this post, yes? Other than the road trip thingie, my mind hasn’t been on the horses much the past few days. I’ve been checking in and out on Blab, but it seems to be going through another one of those phases where five or six people are posting a lot of giggly nothing every day. I’ll admit I don’t have much of a life, but yeesh. guys. Go bake a cake or rake some leaves, why don’t ya?

I am intrigued, but not overly excited, about the upcoming Web Special, which appears to be something Decorator-y, though it’s not clear what the "theme" is quite yet. Purple, Silver and Blue equals what, exactly? Halloween? Fall? The Presidential Election?

I need to move more horses out, not in. I’m currently on the fence about this fellow, for instance:

This year's pretty porcelain Store Special Killarney!

I only just opened him up this week. In the ensuing hubbub, I sort of forgot he was even here; it also didn’t help that I was a little afraid of him, with me being clumsy and him being porcelain. He’s actually really cute, and I lurve his big ol’ Roman schnozz. I’d certainly be open to having him translated to plastic: he strikes me almost as a more handsome and up-to-date revision of Morganglanz.

Too bad his lackluster sales at BreyerFest probably put a kibosh on that. I think it was the paint job more than anything else: if they had put some minimal pinto markings or a blanket on his behind, fewer would have been left behind.

Page Clicks

The most exciting thing about the WEG Chestnut Esprit giveaway for me was that they finally gave us an official name and item number for it: it’s the WEG 2010 Media and Athlete Gift Esprit (item#9142). Yes! And thank you! Another tiny hole in the data patched.

I’m putting my daily clicks in, but I haven’t cleared a space on the shelf for him quite yet; I still think I have a better shot at getting one via other means. Even after all this time, they still have to have more than just one knocking around the office.

If they are cognizant enough of the demand to estimate the value of the prize at $500, though, I’m becoming increasingly doubtful that they’ll dump them in the NPOD, but one never knows. They haven’t been averse to unloading high-end merch in there in the past.

I don’t take any pleasure in reading the commentary everywhere about how so confusing the Breyer web site is. (Other than pointing out that maybe now more people get my point about the confusing graphics.) Instead of trying to navigate around the site manually, I just visit via the link in the e-mail they send. They get sent to the e-mail address I have to check in on every day anyway.

It would be helpful, though, if the Powers That Be had most of the bugs worked out and the typos corrected before they send the e-mails out.

(And if you’re not getting your e-mails from them, could y’all just call them up and take care of it, instead of complaining about it Every Darn Time it happens?)

Reeves is just trying to generate page clicks, which is all well and good. I’ll start actually clicking around the site when, you know, they start putting up a little more content worth clicking on.

They did post a couple more Bfest specials today - a Store Special Irish Draft "Killarney" in a lightly dappled reddish bay, and Line/Ticket SR "Cheerio", a Glossy Dun Tobiano Pinto Bell-bottomed Shire. Just a couple of days ago I was thinking it was about that time for a few more photos to come out. Yay!

The Shire is the one I was (very) tangentially referring to in my last post about the Web Site Photo Fiasco. The first photo I saw was from a different angle, I think, but I like her even more from this one.

On my want list? Yep, so far. I love the Bell-bottomed Shire; a lot of others do, too. Gloss + Pinto + Vintage Draft mold = Winner! (Not if you listen to the younger set, who seems to think any mold released prior to Silver is "icky" and "unpopular", but I’ve been working on that for Lent, too.)

Don’t know if I’ll go for the Killarney yet. The Ballyduff mold looks wonderful in that color, but the Porcelains make me nervous. It is interesting that they’re putting him in the store instead of as a Line/Ticket Special. Does that mean that the resins from last year were a dry run towards putting the Nonplastic SRs in the store itself, or will they continue to do both?

I suppose we’ll find out in a few more weeks, as other SR pictures get (officially) released.

Betting on the Ponies

I’ve had a lot of "Where am I? What day is it?" moments this week: I’ve essentially either been at work, or asleep, since 3 a.m. Tuesday. (Don’t ask.) Mercifully, I have this evening off, though I plan on spending most of it catching a few more snores before starting it all over again at 3 a.m. tomorrow.

(Blast these early assignments!)

It appears that the Taskin model is going to be a Store Special, after all. I haven’t followed up on the links though, to confirm, so take it with a grain of salt. No confirmation on the piece count, from what I’ve seen, but I expect it to be in the 500-750 range. The most recent Store Specials were 750 pieces, but the Dusty didn’t sell all that well, so 500 pieces wouldn’t be out of the question either.

I haven’t given much time or thought to BreyerFest, otherwise. It is about that time of year when they start peppering us with the PR though, isn’t it? I’m curious to see how they handle this in the post-JAH era. Since I’ll be on this work routine for the next couple of weeks, you guys will probably get the scoop on the latest BF news well before I do.

From what I can see, most of the current BreyerFest speculation seems to be focusing on potential pony-based SRs. A Bouncer is a no-brainer, and the 2004 XMAS SR Highland Pony Piper also a very distinct possibility, especially as the designated "Nonplastic" release.

I know there’s a lot of "hatin’" concerning the Traditional Hackney mold, but I wouldn’t rule him out as a possible mixed/crossbred pony, to compensate for his chunkiness. Most of us would prefer a new plastic Hackney, it’s true, but I think it’s more likely we’ll see one as a new resin in the "Breeds of the World" series, if at all.

(Did you know that the H-R Brookside Stella was among the molds considered for release by Breyer, back in the 1970s? I’m assuming the technical challenges posed by the mold put her out of contention. But oh, if only…)

I wouldn’t object to an SR of the original old Shetland, but I wouldn’t be shocked if they didn’t. No disrespect intended towards the Shetland Pony mold, but I think we’re long overdue for a new mold Shetland, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one shows up in the very near future. BreyerFest? Maybe.

If it’s not, I’m hoping it’s a Dales Pony. There’s a chance they could take the cheap and easy route, and just slap an appropriate paint job on the Piper mold, but I’m really hoping the fact that they specifically name dropped the Dales in the BreyerFest writeup in the last issue of JAH means a new mold is in the works.

You have no idea how much this idea excites me: I don’t know what it is, but I just love Dales Ponies! They most closely approximate my image of the ideal pony: sturdy, sensible, versatile, a little on the big side, a bit shaggy (but not excessively so), who also cleans up well if need be.

If I were a nonclumsy Nonplastics collector, I’d have an entire army of Hadrians.

Getting late (relatively speaking.) Time for bed.

Swap Meets and Holy Grails

When most hobbyists fantasize about their holy grails, it usually involves test colors, vintage rarities, or an ultimate fantasy dream horse done by a hot, in-demand artist.

For me, right now? It’s a job with a desk and a chair. I appreciate all the hours I’ve been getting at the part-time job recently, but a regular schedule with "normal" hours would be heaven right now. The unpredictability is exciting, but it’s hard for me to meet my other commitments, like blog posting and swap-meet organizing.

(And getting a puppy, finally! More on that at a later date, though.)

Anyway, the swap meet/party/model horse get together is a go for May 15th; once I finish up this post I’ll be working on hammering out the rest of the details. It’ll be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., set up beginning at 9 a.m. There will probably be a small, nominal fee for tables to help cover the cost of the hall rental. More details early next week.

Since it’s being done on such short notice, it’s going to be a relatively casual affair; if the response is any indication, though, a bigger and better event may be planned for the future. There’s definitely a demand for small, regional model horse conventions that don’t necessarily revolve around live showing. We’ll see how it goes, and take it from there.

So it appears that the "final" list of Tent Line SRs has been made:

http://www.breyerhorses.com/blog/

Pictures of most of the samples, on display at Equine Affaire this week, have also been circulating; as expected, new photos are starting to change opinions, mostly for the better. I’m not normally a porcelain person, but the level of detail lavished on the Indian Horse "Dances With Wolves" is giving me pause. Wow, seriously wow.

There’s also a mystery horse: a long-tail Lady Phase in what I’m guessing is a really peculiar (yet intriguing) no-spot Appaloosa. It’s not shown in the list of SRs on the blog, so there’s some speculation about her status - is she Tent Line Special, Store Special, or something else?

Radar has been more or less confirmed as the Store Special, but there’s nothing to say that the Lady Phase couldn’t be either. Or maybe she’s an entirely new type of SR classification we don’t know about yet. As for Radar, I’m definitely warming up to him; the close up shots of his sweet face are winning me over.

Has anyone else noticed that Reeves is being very forthcoming with the item numbers this year, too? We even know the item number for the Early Bird Special Opening Night - according to the Facebook page, he’s #711126. Much appreciated, Reeves, really and truly. Keep it up!

More and better posts next week; the work schedule looks a little less hectic.

A Few Words about the G4s

The new G4 Stablemates have arrived - and they look better in person than they do in their photos. What a surprise! (Not.)

At least that's what I’ve been able to gather on the Internet. Since I’m not in the market right now, and they’re currently in short supply anyway, it’s probably going to be a while before I get make the more definitive in-person judgment.

I will be covering the leg and detail concerns some hobbyists have been airing about these new molds in the next week or so, but it’ll be in the context of a larger discussion about the injection molding process. That’s a topic I’ve been meaning to cover for a while now anyway; it’s been sitting on my upcoming topic list, just waiting for the appropriate lead-in.

I know some people are trying to read more in to the limited initial release, with some betting that they’ll get pulled like the ill-fated Play Mat Stock Horse. I’m not getting that vibe; I think any problems they’re having with the new molds are from them rushing them into production, not from anything inherent in the molds themselves.

And for the record, I don’t know exactly what was wrong with the original Play Mat Stock Horse, other than the original shipment also not being up to snuff qualitatively. I hope they’re able to resolve whatever the problem was, because I kinda liked him. He reminded me a little bit of the JCP SR resin "Piper," who is one of the few Breyer Nonplastics I wouldn’t mind adding to my herd in its original form. (The lovely Rose Hambletonian and Tally Ho are among the others.)

I haven’t picked up the original Play Mat Stock Horse yet either. There’s a local toy store that does - or at least, did - have a few of them in stock recently. I didn’t feel like spending all that money on the set, though, and I’m not one of those hobbyists who buys a gift set, takes the horse, and tries to sell off the "chaff" to make up for it. The purist in me likes to keep my sets complete, regardless of what I think of the accessories.

(The Elegance Set breakups I’ve been seeing really boggle my mind - any model I invest that much money in is keeping all the stuff it comes with!)

I know that’s not an option for everyone. The most logical solution would be to replace the models in question with a more common variation of the same mold and sell or give the "reconfigured" set away that way.

The only problem with that is that most charitable organizations won’t accept toys that have been opened. There must be a workaround somewhere; I know there’s been some effort to "pay it forward" at venues like BreyerFest, with the goal of rehoming otherwise hard-to-sell horses with younger hobbyists or potential hobbyists.

I’m not normally a big advocate of PIF (especially how it's been playing out in the model horse community - as an unseemly show of grabby hands) but anything that encourages more people to participate in the hobby is fine by me.

Giselle and Gilen

Darn, picked up another shift, so something short again today...

I'm actually somewhat relieved that I didn't get pulled for Gilen. I have a lot of mixed feelings about the Breyer Nonplastics in general. I am clumsy and I tend to break things: this is why I collect plastics.

I cherish the chinas I do have: I love my Gloss Brown Heather, my beautiful Bay Xayal, and the fabulous Galway Warrior, among others. But except for rare instances like the Galway Warrior, I try to avoid spending full retail on Nonplastics, because it would absolutely crush my heart when the time comes for me to accidentally break it.

I'm about as clumsy as someone can be without qualifying for some sort of disability. I trip over my own feet, fall out of bed, walk into walls, and unintentionally drill holes into myself. I'm so clumsy I once injured myself while READING. So the damage will occur at some point in the future, as long as the model in question remains in my custody.

It's a tragedy to break something regardless of how much I pay for it, of course, but breaking a $10 piece is a smidge less painful than breaking the $150 one.

I suspect that's one of the reasons that left a number of the Connoisseur Giselles unclaimed.

I was rather surprised by the appearance of the Giselles in the sales tent. Connoisseurs in the tent isn't something that's happened before, to my recollection. (I've heard rumors, but nothing substantiated.) At first most of us assumed that these may have been overruns to compensate for broken and damaged pieces, but that turned out to not be the case: they were numbered, and part of the run.

I grabbed one at first, and then put her down. She's pricey, and she's not plastic. As beautiful as I think she is, I just couldn't justify it, on top of all of the other goodies I had sitting in my buy pile. A lot of other collectors thought the same way, since there were still a handful of them left even on Sunday, when the tent pickings are notoriously slim.

She was also not distinctly and overtly glossy, or sporting a flashy pattern, factors that helped the previous Nonplastic Connoisseur Tenacious. Being a brand new mold by a relatively popular artist wasn't quite enough to convince your average Breyer collector that she was worth the investment.

The interest in these molds is there, in plastic: I overheard one Reeves employee give a practiced, and pointedly noncommital answer to the question in the Gallery this year. (And I suspect that was only one of many times they were asked.) I have no idea if or when the Gilen and Giselle will make the transition to plastic. I suspect we'll be seeing the Great Horse Shire first, since the test piece for Party Time was plastic.

If I had been drawn for Gilen, I suspect I would have found myself on the hunt for a Giselle anyway, just to keep the family intact (because keeping him apart from his Mama would just be mean!) And then would have secluded them into the deepest, darkest, and safest part of my china cabinet, away from my awkward self.