Little Surprises

I am absolutely, positively not giving any thought to this year’s surprise model – dubbed the “Dark Horse Surprise”. My speculating powers will take a rest on this one. For me, it will be the complete surprise it ought to be.

I will give my yearly caveats, though: it’s not gonna be a Lady Phase, Weather Girl, Othello, or Silver. They were already used in Treasure Hunts and Gambler’s Choices, folks. Move along.

Speaking of surprises, I almost completely forgot that I bought some of those Pocket Box surprise thingies late last year during a shopping binge. They’re still here, and still unopened:

(There is no Cat one because they weren’t available yet when I bought them last Fall.)

I was reminded because one of my local Meijer stores also had some Yowies in their Easter clearance. They were half price, and having heard about how cute the figurines were, I thought I might as well add a few to my discount Easter basket. (Along with a bunch of Cadbury Caramel Eggs: No matter how many times I talk to my local “rep”, I always get shorted!)

Even though I’ve participated in a few of those videos (long story), I still don’t quite get the whole YouTube “unboxing” thing. I understand why opening boxes and packages is a thrill – that’s most of the reason I buy unsorted box lots on eBay and Craigslist – but it’s something I’d rather do or watch in person, not from afar.

Since I now find myself with a tiny little window of extra time here (and April is being April, sigh) I’m going to do a little unboxing post of my own. First, the Mini Whinnies Surprise:

Blue Roan Draft Horse Prince! I love roans, and was hoping for a Draft Horse, so this one’s a win-win. And now, the Pocket Box critters:

The Dogs: Alano Espanol (Spanish Bulldog) and Shar-Pei. I was kind of hoping for the Fox Terrier (naturally) but these are cute enough.

The Animals: Fox and Squirrel. The Squirrel is nice, but the Fox looks like a Corgi puppy wearing dog booties.

The Aquarium: Manta Ray and Barracuda. I like these a lot. Props to the packaging designer for making the matchbox look like a mini aquarium!

And finally, the Yowies:

Western Lowland Gorilla, Chimpanzee, and something called a Gnash. The figurines are very high quality, though I could have done without the cartoon creature.

(The chocolate is largely uneaten because I am well beyond my daily quota; I had heard reports that the chocolate was not-so-great, but I didn’t find the bits I sampled to be particularly awful.)

Will I be buying more of these surprise packages in the future? Eh, maybe.

I do want to get one of the Pocket Box Cats for my archives. That was one of my reasons for buying these bags in the first place.

The Aquarium ones are really well done and look like the critters they are meant to be, so if I ever have to order one or two to round out an online order, they’d be the ones I’d go with. They’ll fit right in with my aquarium furniture collection too, whenever I get around to setting it up properly.

If there are any Yowies left when the Easter clearance hits 75 or 90 percent, I might pick up a few more of those. At that price, I will be able to resell any duplicates at BreyerFest out of my Dollar Table section.

But the rest? I wouldn’t turn them down if they turned up in a gift basket or grab bag, but I’m not going to put any active effort into getting more. The local flea markets and thrift stores do a more-than-adequate job of providing me with little – and sometimes, not so little – surprises life needs.

Filling in the Holes

So it looks like the CollectA line will be operating under an arrangement similar to the Pocket Box animals: certain items (horses, pets, farm animals) are being repackaged/rebranded and sold as Breyer product, with the originating company maintaining the noncompeting lines and items independently.

Both of these moves were done, obviously, to plug holes in the Breyer brand – expanding their offerings in the Micro Mini scale with the Pocket Box items, and making an entrée into the vinyl toy animal market currently dominated by Schleich. 

Like the Pocket Box critters, it’s still a little too early form me to determine how I will handle them. There’s a potential for multiple releases with the CollectA items that’s not available with the Pocket Box items, so I expect I’ll end up treating the CollectA pieces more like standard Breyers, and the Pocket Box pieces more like accessories.  

One thing that’s been largely forgotten in all this is that this is not the first time Reeves has adapted or adopted competing items as their own. In 1986, they gave us the #9900 Breyer Riding Stable set, aka the Pine Lodge Riding School, a play set composed of Britains:

It was a fairly popular item, too, running through 1989 in the Collector’s Manuals/Dealer Catalogs, and available through 1992 in the Sears Wishbook; I still find (usually) incomplete sets around here from time to time. 

It does feel a little weird/wrong to find a Breyer box with Britains in it, though.

There’s nothing wrong with any of these products per se – some of the CollectA horse molds are actually great, and I might be buying some of the Pocket Box Aquarium items, too. But it’ll be a while yet before I can “buy” them as Breyer products.