Anthem

While awaiting those decisions being made about me (still a work in progress, grr) I spent most of my weekend gorging on Easter candy or sleeping. I also made significant headway on the old tax paperwork, too – it’s on track to be finished by next weekend! (I need to get some office supplies and double check some items now in storage, that sort of thing. You can never have enough sheet protectors and binders in the house, apparently...)

Except for the Stablemates, because they’re Stablemates, I haven’t bought most of the patriotic-themed Decorators. Either they haven’t been executed all that well thematically – bloody red points on blue bodies doesn’t exactly scream “America” to me – or the selected molds weren’t must-haves (I’m not a huge fan of the Clock Saddlebred, for instance). 

But this new model Anthem? I think I dig him. Maybe because he’s more of a personification of American Patriotism than a literal representation: there are no stars, stripes, or actual flags arbitrarily slapped on him. I think that’s where a lot of patriotically-themed artwork falls flat: it’s not enough to simply include the elements, you need to integrate them into a design that makes sense both artistically and thematically.

Either that, or you have to do something so over-the-top that you have to admire the audacity of it. Kind of like one of my old favorites, the BreyerFest 2007 Special Run Times Square, also on the Ethereal mold:

I cannot wait until Reeves finally has the gumption to release a Mini Me of Times Square in a future Best of BreyerFest Stablemates Set!

Anthem is just pretty, all dressed up in that funky metallic pearly automotive-style paint they introduced on the Red Pinto Auction piece Georg last year, and executed on a production run with the Christmas Clydesdales a few months later.

The precursor of the American Flag Series was the 2012 BreyerFest Special Run Union Jack, on a translucent Classic Ruffian. She’s got a few design problems herself – the flag sort of blends into her base color, and she’s got those weird red points – but I was kind of hoping that she’d lead to other “Flag Horses” of other nations, but that hasn’t materialized yet, beyond the American Flag Horses. 

A Brief Interlude with Classic Ruffians

This weekend is full of anxiety. It’s not just the holiday weekend and all the drama that usually brings with it: a couple of big decisions are being made about me, and I’m not going to know my fate until Monday afternoon at the earliest. 

My normal recourse in situations like this would be to go out and pull weeds, but the weather took a brutal turn and is not going to get any better for the next several days, so I’m now going through and cleaning up some old tax paperwork I’ve been avoiding. And being reminded of why I was avoiding it in the first place, oh joy! 

The 2021 papers are almost done. The 2020 papers are… a work in progress. (To be clear, the taxes are done and filed, it’s just the e-mails, receipts and other paperwork that need to be organized to my satisfaction. Even with my taxes, I’m a paperwork nerd!)

Since I am not in a super chatty mood today, I’ll share a photo of something I bought a while back, but haven’t shared until now because other items and other topics got in the way:

She’s a Test or Sample of the Misty II from the #3350 Misty Family Set, the one that included a Black Pinto Swaps and a Palomino Mesteno Foal. One of the reasons I was hesitant to share was because she’s a little on the rough side, and I haven’t had time to clean her up. Most of the marks are in her white areas, thank goodness, so it really is just a matter of time and patience.

She’s not “showable” in the live show sense, though – if you want to compete with Classic Racehorses, it’s best to stick closely to the Loves, and the Swaps and Man o’ War in particular – but the mold is a sentimental favorite, and I already have another Test Color Ruffian, and she could use the company. 

Looking purely at the numbers, I paid more for the Misty II than I did the Solid Black, but I bought the Solid Black back in the mid-1980s. So factoring in inflation, the Solid Black probably cost me more. But she would also sell for more because, aside from an excellent provenance, that photograph is actually a pretty good representation of just how pretty she is in person. 

The whole point is moot, though, since neither one is going anywhere anytime soon.  

Making Plans

The latest Test Color Online Purchase Raffle Ruffian looks more like the 2016 Early Bird Raffle Model Polomar on the Smarty Jones mold than it does the 2011 Early Bird Raffle Model Perrault to me.

I really, really wanted Polomar. So I’ll enter for this girl and hope for the best, even though they’ve upped the price to $1000 now, instead of the measly $850 they were charging before.

(Yes, it’s entirely possible for both models to have been inspired by the same thing, sure.) 

And I’d gladly keep anything that rare I have the good fortune to win. Because that doesn’t happen to me nearly as much as some of you think I do. (Outside of eBay, lately. And thank goodness for that.) 

Because of the shifted deadlines with the virtual event I’m now in full BreyerFest panic mode. Let’s just say things are not going as well as I had hoped?

At least I think I now have all the supplies I’ll absolutely need now. No more wild goose chases for… stuff.

Anyway, here’s the situation with my BreyerFest plans:

Selling: I don’t have that much to sell this year; I’ve been selling stuff online since late February, the flea markets and thrift stores haven’t been open, and I haven’t had the time to go through the collection to look for potential sales fodder, either. Anything I do have for sale I’ll upload to eBay, MH$P, and maybe even a dedicated web page by Thursday night, with all the appropriate links.

Sampler: I also hope to have this up by Thursday night. More on this later, as it’s currently on hold pending a couple other projects.

Official BreyerFest Activities: As far as I know, I am not scheduled for anything special during the three-day weekend. This could change, but I’m not counting on it, either.

Unofficial BreyerFest Activities: I had thought I could do a mini-BreyerFest at home, or even a Zoom Meet-and-Greet or Q & A, but I simply haven’t had the time to set anything up. If anyone wants to help set that up for me – I’m going to be available the entire BreyerFest weekend, so scheduling is not an issue – send me an e-mail.

If anyone wants to just come over and do a tour of my collection, shoot the breeze and eat frozen lemonades, that’s cool too. Vita loves company!

Personal BreyerFest Activities: I don’t know if I’m going to do any of the tutorials – again, not much time to spare here – but I’ll definitely be online in the “BreyerFest” space for a big portion of the day. Doing whatever there is to do, I suppose, aside from shopping and watching demonstrations. Maybe hang out in the Collector’s Club Virtual Tent?

I think that’s it for today?

Oh! I see there is some consternation in the comments about the changes that happened with the Quarter Horse Gelding. I have covered this before, but I will cover it again next time because it’s a neat thing I think every Breyer Nerd needs to know about.

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.  

Derpy Winner

By request, the Classic Ruffian with the derpy markings:

Classic Chicago factory quality control, ca. 1977! Close enough is good enough, am I right?

She’s super-dark with nice shading, too – a bit of light restoration and she’d probably be live show quality. Depending on the judges sense of humor.

Though I do have a small collection of unusual early Love Classic Racehorse variations, she was not something I was necessarily looking for. I did find that lovely variation of the Palomino earlier in the year, but like that girl, this was more a purchase of opportunity.

I heard reports that many of the Icabad Cranes had markings that were similarly askew, but I didn’t see anything particularly eyebrow-raising when I went to pick mine out Saturday afternoon.

And if there was, I might have actually gone with it anyway. Unless it’s something that’s really distracting – or clearly impossible – it’s something I regard more as a neat variation than a true flaw.

Breyer Hat Trick

Just a few notes here before we get to the meat of things today.

First: if your receive a model directly from Reeves that is wrapped in big-bubble bubble wrap, it’s a good indication that the model in question was painted (or in the case of the Koh-i-Noors, repainted) in New Jersey.

I think this fact has been covered here and in other places before, but as it does not yet seem to be common knowledge, it’s still worth noting.

Second: while it is true that the Traditional Black Stallion has not had a lot of Test Colors (he’s just not THAT popular a mold to merit a lot of experimentation) the e-mail for the latest Test Color Purchase Raffle is wrong about another thing: the mold was introduced in 1981, not 1984.

Sham came out in 1984 – and he did come in a remotely similar color as the 1994 West Coast Jamboree model – so maybe that’s where the mistake originated?

I’m not a huge fan of the Black Stallion mold, but the paint job on this Test piece is so beautifully shaded! Chestnuts can be a bit muddy if they are not executed well, but happily that is not the case with this fellow. I’d try to find some way to keep him, if the opportunity arises.  

I was pulling some research data for my BreyerFest paperwork – not going as well as I hoped, but I am still being buffeted by many distractions – and I can’t believe I missed the other significance of two of the Stablemate One-Day releases, the Ruffian and the Man o’ War:

Prior to the announcement of this year’s One-Day Stablemates, the most recent real-life horse who had the honor of completing a Breyer “hat trick” – appearing as a portrait model in all three of the major plastic scales (Traditional, Classic, and Stablemate) – was American Pharoah.

And prior to him? Seabiscuit and War Admiral.

Notice a trend?

Lots of other nonfictional horses have been released multiple times on different molds and in different scales, but having three releases of the same horse in three different scales is actually pretty rare.

That’s because Non-Traditional scale portrait models, outside of racehorses, are scarce in general.

(Fictional ones are a whole other beast.)

Off the top of my head, the only portrait Stablemates I can think of that aren’t racehorses are the Valegro, and most of the BreyerFest 20th Anniversary Stablemates Commemorative set.

Considering how popular the Stablemates scale models have been lately (Stablemates Club, the Spirit releases, Mystery releases et al), you’d think Reeves would push for more Stablemate portrait model releases, but I can also understand the perspective of the horse’s owner: bigger (Traditional) is better!

BreyerFest Blues

With the Koh-i-Noors hitting the streets, it’s probably best that I limit my already-limited lurking time on eBay. I’ve had a lot on my mind the past week or so, and possibly more to come this week; I really don’t have time to add the possibility of unkind thoughts into the mix.

Happier thoughts I will entertain: I think I actually love all four of the One-Day Stablemates! The “Silver Charm” one, most of all:

Pearly, fleabitten, on a mold I’ve been digging, on a horse I actually had the pleasure of seeing during BreyerFest, just the day after he arrived at Three Chimneys? Yes, please!

(My brother is almost as bad a photographer as I am, so the photographs of our meeting will remain unpublished.)

The standard procedure over the past several years has been to offer an assortment of molds in a variety of patterns and colors, often only linked together by their theme-oriented names.

This caught me a bit off-guard: I’m trying to wrack my brain, but I think this is the first instance of actual portrait models being used as One-Day Stablemates?

I do like how, in spite of the fact that they are all technically portrait models of famous racehorses, they managed to sneak a Decorator into their little lineup: the Lexington is essentially a Mini-Me of the Big Lex resin from 2010: http://www.breyerhorses.com/big_lex

They’re certainly getting their money’s worth with the blue paint this year, aren’t they? I find the other blue BreyerFest Special Run Newmarket interesting:

I figured they’d do some sort of “Jockey Silks” Decorator to go along with this year’s theme, but I thought it’d be something that showed up at the Pop-Up Store, maybe on the Best In Show Thoroughbred mold. I am not entirely sold on Newmarket, at least not yet: while I am not as put off by it as many others are, I think it’s one I’m going to need an in-person inspection of before I make a final decision.

(I am also slightly annoyed that they did not go with a more typey Morgan Special Run to honor the role of the Morgan Horse in the development of the Standardbred. But I am an extremely peripheral character when it comes to product development, alas.)

I already know that the complete set of One-Day Stablemates is on my short list; size/space is not going to be an issue, but the budget might be. The only one I am slightly cool to is the Ruffian: the Glossy Bay-Black coloring is great – one of my favorite colors, truly – but the ears on the G3 Thoroughbred mold are a bit too long for my liking.

Surprise - Another Palomino Ruffian!

Well, that is interesting. The Dead Heat is going to have variations, but by color, not finish or mold:

It’s been a while since Reeves let us know about a BreyerFest Gambler’s Choice model ahead of time. The very first one, in fact: the Quarter Horse Geldings in 2009.

Even then they didn’t clue us in on the extra rare ones – the Charcoal, Smoke and Silver Filigree – and this is why I can’t completely dismiss the possibility of other variations (long tail/short tail, or Gloss/Matte) of Dead Heat showing up.

The Traditional Ruffian mold hasn’t come in a lot of lighter colors or dilutes, but she should, because I think she looks darn good in them. It’s a nice a visual antidote to all the darker colors and more conservative patterns she’s been released in so far.

But I can see the Palomino variation is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea – in fact, I see a lot of features and details others may shake their heads disapprovingly at: a Vintage “orangey” hue, unstriped gray hooves, a pearly mane and tail, and blue eyes?

No surprise here: I like her, a lot. Aside from all her weird and funky details, she could be a big sister to my two Classic Palomino Ruffians!

I am unsure if I’ll be penciling her in as a possible addition to my herd: it’s partly the budget thing, partly the size thing, but also because my luck on getting the Gambler’s Choice I want has been rather dicey in recent years.

If they do a 50/50 split, a Chestnut one won’t be that hard to trade, but I’m all about minimizing the hassles of BreyerFest this year.

This is also why I decided to forego the Customs Contest a while ago – that, and the fact that the body I wanted (a Carrick) is still too new and too expensive for me. I just can’t imagine paying more than $10-15 for a body that I might end up ruining completely anyway.

(I’m the same way with quilting supplies, incidentally. Having to pay more than a couple bucks for a yard of fabric practically gives me the vapors.)

I’m happier experimenting with the body box leftovers anyway: I’m currently eyeing a Standing Stock Horse Foal with a broken leg and a dinged up Mesteno’s Mother body as potential victims, when the weather gets warmer.

Both of them came out of that doomed box lot I bought a while back: they’ve already been written off as a loss, and a Mesteno and one of the lesser Hess molds didn’t have much salvage value to begin with. I can mess with them to my heart’s content, guilt-free.

A Tale of Two Ruffian Variations

Might as well discuss these two before they get lost in the shuffle of everything else that’s been coming and going:

You know how you’ll sometimes look at a Regular Run model and tell yourself “If only I could find just the right one…”

This is the story of how I ended up with not one, but two Palomino Classics Ruffians.

The last time I was at Tuesday Morning, pondering those Semi-Gloss Stablemates and the Squishie Classic Haflinger, I also spent a little time looking over a couple of the Classic Palomino Ruffians – aka the #932 Thoroughbred Cross, just discontinued late last year.

I liked the concept of a Palomino Classic Ruffian, but none of the ones I had come across really appealed to me. The ones at Tuesday Morning were very nice; additionally, the packaging was slightly different than the standard Classics packaging, and the assortment consisted of recently discontinued items from very late in their production run – possibly the last pieces produced in their respective runs, making them another possible de facto Special Run.

But like the Haflinger and Stablemates, I left them behind.

Then I found that slightly pearly Palomino one on eBay a few weeks ago, with the unmasked mane and oversprayed tail, and no eyewhites. I was in love.

Because I happened to be in the area and I needed to buy some storage boxes for some of my ephemera anyway, I went back to that Tuesday Morning and bought one of those, too. Obviously they needed each other, and I felt I could justify it because unlike her Traditional-scale sister, the Classics Ruffian takes up hardly any room at all on the shelf.

This is where my lack of attention to the recent Classics releases has come to bite me in the behind. Is my pretty, pearly Ruffian a variation, an oddity, or something else? Her VIN number says she was produced in early 2014, but all the photos of her in the ephemera, and online show masking right from the start.

I have similar questions about the Tuesday Morning Ruffian (whose VIN number indicates a September 2017 production date). Is she different from the bulk of the run, or am I just imagining it?

I fear this may lead to me buying more Palomino Ruffians.

Sometimes oddballs and variations just happen, for no rhyme or reason. Fretting over their origins sometimes gets in the way of appreciating them in the first place.

More Hard BreyerFest Decisions

I really like the latest two Specials announced for this year’s BreyerFest. First there is Old Ironsides, on Strapless:

There have been three other Gray releases on the Strapless mold, including the 2005 Live Show Prize Dapple Gray Overo Pinto, the 2007 FEI World Cup Special, and the 2009 Valvella.

I loved the first two, but they are essentially Micro Runs, and unattainable. The Valvella is more plentiful (700 pieces) but I’ve had a hard time warming up to that release. I love fleabites and the loose mane/tail version of Strapless, so this one might be a no-brainer for me.

The Chestnut Snowcap Ruffian Dead Heat is the second (though she looks more Red Dun to me):

There’s our designated “Racing Appaloosa” release! The Traditional Ruffian mold has also come in Appaloosa a couple times before, both as BreyerFest releases: the 2006 Silver Bay Blanket Appaloosa Raffle Model Windswept, and 2007’s Glossy Bay Semi-Leopard Heartland.

Current speculation is that Dead Heat is the item most likely to be the 50/50 Gloss/Matte Split model, though I am more intrigued by the fact that they “accidentally” released a second photo (now deleted/replaced) of this SR with the mold’s original longer tail.

Allegedly this was a mistake and the short-tail version is the official version, but the fact that the second photo existed at all is interesting.

This means that they might have only very recently made the decision on the tail but had photos of both versions made ready, just in case. Or we’ll be seeing the long-tail version in some other capacity such as a Raffle, Auction, or Online piece.

I prefer the short-tail version, regardless: I am more of an “old school” Appaloosa fan. (One of my “dream” Special Runs is a Few Spot Leopard on the Appaloosa Performance Horse mold.)

Breyer’s first Racing Appaloosa was, of course, the Stud Spider back in 1978. While I wouldn’t mind seeing something to commemorate that mold’s 40th anniversary – a Glossy Re-release, or the original Stud Spider pattern on a newer mold – I’m kind of doubting it.

BreyerFest Portrait Special tend to be of the “Store Special” variety, and they’ve already announced three: the Gloss Foiled Again, Icabad Crane, and now the Old Ironsides.

My only hesitation about the Dead Heat is the size of her. I own only two Traditional Ruffians currently (the original release, and the Goddess Series Athena) because she’s a shelf hog and hard to display properly.

I wish I could more ruthless with my affections as some are – we are not even half way through February, and Reeves is already making things hard for me!

Some Early Speculation on 2018

According to a flier now circulating the Internet, next year’s BreyerFest Celebration Horse is going to be Brass Hat, on the Carrick mold: http://www.brasshat.us

That’s pretty much what I expected the Celebration Horse to be: a former racing Thoroughbred now living a very active retirement. On the Carrick mold!

While it feels a little unusual to get a picture of the prototype this early – nearly two months before tickets even go on sale – it shouldn’t. When you think about all the Special Runs they have to crank out in time for BreyerFest (lately they’ve been averaging about 30 distinct releases, not including the Gloss Prize Models), it only makes sense that they’d get the ball rolling as soon as possible.

Other than thinking about non-Thoroughbred racing breeds – Arabians, Standardbreds, Appaloosas, Quarter Horses, Orlov Trotters, Finnhorses et al – I hadn’t given much other thought to what we’ll be seeing in Kentucky next year, until now.

What would I like?

A Pacer, of course: preferably in a Roan or Tobiano Pinto. Gloss Dappled Black would be pretty sweet too, but I’d take that paint job on almost anything.

I’d also accept a new release of Sarah Rose’s popular resin Hambletonian.

I really, really want an Orlov Trotter of some sort: twelve-year-old me found them so exotic and pretty, and even now I still pine for one. I don’t know what currently existing mold would be most suitable however, and this is one release where I would definitely have to go picky on the execution of the dappling.

While we’re likely to see an Appaloosa in the Surprise SR mix, something that honors or commemorates Stud Spider in some way would be awesome: not only was the real horse a racing Appaloosa, it’s the mold’s official 40th anniversary next year. (Well, technically: the Gift Set was available in the 1977 JC Penney Christmas Catalog.)

A Reissue of the Sham would be fun too, especially if it comes with a Grimalkin on a Companion Animal cat. Sham is popular, the Companion Animals are popular, and the Dally and Spanky set was a big hit this year. And if the Sham comes in the correct shade of Golden Bay, even better.

Alternatively, they could just give us a Grimalkin release on the Kitten mold as the Nonhorse release! Or maybe a “Barn Buddies” Store Special Gift Set featuring one of the cats, one of the dogs, and the Goat.

I don’t know what they’d do for a Quarter Horse release. The first thought that entered my head was a Smarty Jones, since I believe the mold was planned as a racing Quarter Horse in the first place. Put him in a pretty Dilute or Dun, and I would totally be on board.

On the other hand, I could go on forever about potential Thoroughbred releases. Some of the releases I’ve fantasized about include a 12-piece Stablemates set featuring all the Triple Crown Winners, an Ageless Bronze Traditional Man o’ War to commemorate the statue at the KHP, or something honoring the famous Hungarian racehorse Kinscem.

Oh, and I want to see a return of the #36 Racehorse: in almost any color, I don’t care. They could use up whatever bodies they have left knocking around the warehouse, and that should cover the 12 to 15 of us who’d actually want one. (Gold Charm/Gold Chestnut would be great. Just putting that out there.)

The last larger-scale production BreyerFest Special Run on the Ruffian was 2007’s very popular Gloss Appaloosa Heartland. She would be my first choice as the Surprise Special, with either Giselle or Strapless as my second choice.

We’ll also likely see at least one SR on a recent Premier Club release, so I hope that’s True North. I’m not too fussy on the color or finish: I find him adorable and all of the existing releases are utterly unaffordable.

So that’s what I’d release, if I were in charge. Maybe add in a racetrack/companion pony into the mix, and another hunter/jumper for the OTTBs.

Whether or not we get any of this is another matter entirely. My prediction track record (no pun intended) has not been so great lately.

The 500 Club

I had no trouble filling up my shopping cart to get a Glossy Cosette offered on that “Collector Appreciation Day” earlier this week, but I didn’t go through with it. Partly it was because I managed to score something wonderful in my Grab Bag Box:

Any of the four Classics issued for the 2014 WEG would have been fine – the Chestnut Johar, the Bay Frolicking Quarter Horse Stallion, the Black Warmblood Mare, and the Alabaster Classics Ruffian – and all four have shown up in the #1 Grab Bag Assortments.

As my favorite among the four, however, the Ruffian one was something I was actively pursuing at BreyerFest this year. Having her show up on my doorstep helped make up for some of the bad fortune/timing I’ve been having with eBay auctions over the past week.

(I wasn’t quite as lucky with the Sherman Morgan in the lot: just another “normal” Silver Filigree there.)

Both the Glossy Cosette and the 2014 WEG Classics were issued in runs of 500 pieces. Nowadays collectors consider 500-piece Special Runs to be relatively common – heck, anything over 100 pieces, really – but quantity alone is rarely the sole determinant of rarity or value.

I’ve had a number of Classic Arabians on my sales list the past couple of years, but outside of body-box quality pieces, they’ve been a tough sell. The collectors who grew up with them (like yours truly) already have them, and newer collectors aren’t all that into them.

That’s the reason why I took a pass on the original Cosette: there is no sense of urgency. The Matte version has been available to the general public on the Breyer web site for a while now, manufactured in a quantity sufficiently large enough that they were able to gloss 500 of them for the offer. She seems almost as common and familiar as any other Regular Run item.

The way the Gloss Cosette offer was structured – you had to buy a hundred dollars of qualifying items – meant that there will be leftovers. They will turn up elsewhere, maybe even in future Grab Bags that will also come with a bunch of discounted stuff I already wanted!

Like the 2014 WEG Classics. But even though those items were also issued in runs of 500, on molds that are also modestly but not wildly popular, there’s definitely a sense that those models are more desirable – or at least harder to come by – than the Classic Arabian releases, Matte or Gloss, will ever be.

The 2014 WEG Classics were distributed at the event in France, and then disappeared (warehoused, apparently!) You could get them from some sellers overseas, but the shipping was prohibitive for many of us. Some of the WEG Stablemates did make it over here, but the Classics largely did not.

Now that they’re finally letting some of them go in the Grab Bags, and presumably in other places or in other offers or situations, the perceived rarity of the WEG Classics may change. Hobbyists will get blasé about them, too, and then move on to the next newest or hottest thing.

I’ll just keep buying and keeping what I like, rare or not.  

American Pharaoh, et al

I did pretty well this year, sales-wise, but I won’t know how well until I finish unpacking and inventorying. So far I’ve only made it through the miscellaneous stuff (china, ephemera, bodies); the Traditional Plastics I’m saving for a burst of energy sometime next week.

I did better than anticipated, actually, though I think some of that was me being a hotel homebody. I simply didn’t get the chance to wander or shop much. (Something I definitely want to rectify next year.)

As has been mentioned in the comment section here and elsewhere, the American Pharoah model was announced while most of us were away: it IS going to be on the Ruffian mold. Interesting.

The paint job, however, is somewhat different from the auction piece, and has a modified tail. So it is still unique – or nearly so – just very similar to the production item.

That’s one of the reasons why I am so apprehensive about dropping a large wad on any given auction piece; there’s always a chance it could go into production later, as-is, and then you’ll find yourself endlessly explaining that no, really, it is a Test Color! 

Though I actually prefer models like that – and have several in my collection. Why wouldn’t I? They are historical artifacts of the production process!

I also happen to have several because they tend to be cheap, or go for cheaper later on: many hobbyists, especially some of the newer ones, operate under the notion that the only good and/or worthy Test Colors are unique, and nothing else. Even a similar paintjob on a completely different mold is seen as suspect nowadays.

That seems so silly to me. That’s the purpose of a Test Color: to test things. Anything else falls closer to the category of Factory Custom. Factory Customs may be pretty, and generate a lot of money for charity, but they don’t “mean” much else.

Anyway, the flier for the American Pharaoh release is posted in multiple places on the Internet, but I’m not going to link to it, mostly because many of those posts also come with comment sections that consist mostly of people ranting about the repurposing of a old mold.

Sigh. The Internet seems to make everyone an expert at everything, doesn’t it?

There have been many technical advances that have allowed for more complex and detailed molds to be produced. Regardless, injection mold making is not cheap, it’s not easy, and it’s not quick: if it were, we'd be getting a dozen or more new molds every year, not three or four.

Anyone who pontificates otherwise has been drinking too many fruit-flavored malt beverages.

Memories and Golden Ages

Warning: this post starts out as a bit of a downer.

Of course I didn’t get picked for the Chicago Event. Why did I even get my hopes up?

This hurts more than Marshall. Marshall was just a model. Enough money, and you can buy any model. Money can’t buy the experience.

Please, don’t speak to me of wait lists. In the entire history of Breyer wait lists, I have never been picked off of one, and I’m not counting on it now. Even though many said they wouldn’t go unless their partner was also picked, I’m really doubting that’s going to be the case.

I’m not going to lie, it hurts and I really don’t want to talk about it any more, unless my fortunes change.

On a slightly cheerier note, they did announce the American Pharoah model, though they are being coy about the details. Many have suspected that the Dappled Bay Ruffian in the BreyerFest Auction may have been the Test piece for him, and I could see it:

It’s unlikely that they'll use the Ruffian mold, though; I think they just happened to use the nearest available unpainted Thoroughbred mold in a pinch, and Ruffian was it. They’ve done it before; I actually own a few models like that, like my Test of the Pacer Dan Patch – on the Quarter Horse Gelding mold! He was chosen primarily because he, too, had a molded on halter, like the Pacer mold he actually ended up being produced on.

I don’t know anything more about the American Pharoah release than (almost) anyone else, though. I am also a little embarrassed to admit that my enthusiasm for this model is not as intense as it is in the rest of the hobby.

There’s a tendency for people to think the things they experienced in their youth represented a “Golden Age”: movies, sports, books, television shows, music, Breyer models… sometimes it’s true, but sometimes it isn’t.

(The whole “Breyers were better in the past” thing, for instance, just baffles me. Do y’all not remember fuzzy gray socks, sink marks, and seams so rough you could cut your fingers on them? Polka dot dapples? Lizard bi-eyes? The very existence of Khemosabi?)

But anyway, I grew up in what really was, empirically, one of the great “Golden Ages” of Horse Racing, back in the 1970s. I watched Secretariat, Bold Forbes, Ruffian, Wajima, Forego, Seattle Slew, Spectacular Bid, Genuine Risk. I was so hysterical during the Affirmed-Alydar Triple Crown duel that my family actually left me alone in the house during the Belmont. 

What was wonderful about it was that it was a bonding experience with my Dad, who was a huge racing fan in the 1950s – you know, the era of Native Dancer, Swaps, Nashua, Round Table, Bold Forbes, Silky Sullivan, and so on…

I won’t begrudge anyone for being excited about an American Pharoah model. It's just that I've already had my Golden Age of Horse Racing. 

Dapple Grays, Real and Imaginary

First up, I’d be remiss to not mention that Frosty, brother of Flurry is now available - the Classics Shire in his Head Down mold variation, aka Shire Mold B. In other words, pretty much exactly what I was asking for last year when they released Flurry!

Alas, he’ll have to wait until I sell a few more horses and pay off a few more bills. With the sheer number of Special Offers and Special Runs we’ve been dealt over the past month, I suspect a lot of my fellow hobbyists are in the same boat.

There’s another set of recent Special Runs that, to my surprise, haven’t turned up yet in any great quantity online are the 2014 WEG Specials. Seen here:

http://www.normandy2014.com/news/630/the-breyer-company-becomes-an-official-licensee

There are 500 pieces each of the four Classics:

• Alabaster Ruffian
• Red Chestnut Johar
• Black Warmblood Mare
• Bay QH/Frolic Stallion

And (allegedly) 750 pieces each of the four Stablemates:

• Flaxen Chestnut G2 Morgan
• Black G3 Warmblood
• Bay G4 Driving Horse
• Alabaster G2 Warmblood

And an unspecified number of Commemorative Blankets.

Aside from the Special Run overload, the overseas location (France), the selection of molds (Classics and Stablemates) and the palette of colors (conservative, non-spotted colors) may be tempering enthusiasm in the U.S. as well.

Supposedly they are only going to be available at WEG 2014, but the WEG 2010 leftovers were eventually made available to nonattendees primarily via Grab Bags. I'm not counting on a repeat of that scenario, though: there are still several days to go before the event ends, and Grab Bags have evolved into something else entirely since then.

If leftovers do become available to us at some point, I’d like to get one Classics piece and one Stablemates, primarily for the (very attractive!) packaging. I have no particular preferences on the molds, though if I had a choice I’d definitely pick the Classics Ruffian - the closest I’ll probably ever get to the near-mythical Dapple Gray Ruffian.

I say near-mythical because there was at least one sold via Marney in the early 1980s, on that legendary sales list that also featured the Appaloosa Proud Arabian Stallion:

The other 199 that supposedly exist probably don’t; there may be a handful more, only because Tests then (and now) were rarely unique. What I suspect was going on there was a miscommunication between Marney and Peter Stone, or Marney and someone else at the factory she might have talked to about it.

If 200 pieces had been created, some would have shown up by now. There were a lot of 200-piece or fewer Specials released back then: it was almost the standard piece run for SRs in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While many of them are difficult to come by now, they are not impossible as long as you have either the time or money to spare.

I've been looking for that Dapple Gray Ruffian for a very, very long time.

I think it’d be awesome, by the way, if Reeves offered a Dapple Gray Traditional Ruffian at some point in the Vintage Club program, a la Mr. Chips. It would be a nice nod to the Dapple Gray Ruffian rumors, plus I think the Traditional Ruffian mold would look fabulous in it. Either Gloss or Matte would be fine, I don’t care, as long as it's in the same style as the Dapple Grays of the late 1970s and early 1980s: wild and crazy!

Just not for the next few months, though. Everyone's bank accounts would appreciate it!

Gold, Silver and Chrome

My brother was way more into the Triple Crown coverage this year than I was, peppering me with trivia and questions; he was even bragging to people at work that he had met Affirmed.

(He did. With me, of course, at BreyerFest several years ago.)

It’s not that I didn’t care; I had far too many other things keeping me distracted this year, and I didn’t want to get caught up in the drama that follows. I have enough drama in my life right now. (Yesterday’s: Vita running around the house with a roll of pennies. How she got it, and what she had planned with it, we’re not sure…)

When the next Triple Crown winner comes around, we will know: it will be a foregone conclusion before the races are even run.

If there are more Breyer Thoroughbred molds to be made in the near future, I would rather they be on significant historical figures, rather than the hot or fashionable horses of the moment. They’re an easier sell in both the retail and the secondary market; people whose only interaction with horse racing is going to a Derby Day party once a year, for instance, are more likely to know Secretariat than Terrang.

(Even in his heyday, poor Terrang didn’t get as much respect as he deserved!)

In the rare cases when I will tell people about what constitutes a good investment, Breyer-wise, my first suggestion is the early Classics Racehorses. Especially if they’re New in Box pieces without the mold marks. But I'm digressing; I’ll talk about them more in my next post.

For a Stallion, I’d like a new Man o’ War. For a variety of reasons, the Classics Man o’ War mold is no longer available to us; the #47 Traditional Man o’ War, as much as I love him, is simply too old-fashioned and out-of-date for most buyers today.

And dang it, it’s Man o’ War: like Black Beauty, he is so iconic he should be a perpetual part of the Breyer line: Matte, Gloss, Special Editions with bases and tags, Woodgrain, Ageless Bronze…

For the Mare, the painfully obvious choice is Kincsem, only one of the greatest racehorses of all time.

To make her different from some of the more recent Thoroughbred and Warmblood molds, I’d want to see her in a simple standing pose.

Don’t get me wrong: all of these vigorous and more ambitious sculptures are great. I love the Nokota Horse in all his pure twirly awesomeness. But really, there’s nothing more beautiful than a classically-posed Thoroughbred in peak racing condition.

Pretty is Good!

The basement is still chaos, as is almost everything else in my life right now, but I did take time to open up the Athena that arrived yesterday because dang it, I needed to. You’ll just have to forgive the décor:

In keeping with the Art Historical theme I started with the Aphrodite (whose name is Saskia), I’m calling her Artemisia.

(Yes, that's a Hello Kitty alarm clock in the background. Long story.)

She has a few teeny tiny boo-boos, nothing significant or distracting. Everything else about her is exquisite. I saw some commentary in passing that described her as Connoisseur-level: I would not disagree. When Reeves gets things right, they get things way right.

As far as what happens when things go wrong, I am so not in the mood to go there. Originally I was going to write about bell curves and the amplification effect the Internet has on what we perceive as "acceptable" in the model horse world.

But I keep turning my chair around to take another look at her, and all I can think is Ooh, Pretty Horsie! That's pretty much the only level of discourse I can muster at the moment.

The brief flirtation I had with possibly selling her is gone, completely. Someone else is just going to have to go instead. (But who, and when? Argh.)

Size, Shape, and Scale

Wait a minute, I won an Athena? How did that happen? I only entered once!

Dang, there goes my persecution fantasy, straight out the window. And with a release that seems to be pretty popular, too - until they start arriving on hobbyists’ doorsteps, and the magnifying glasses come out.

(I have not even remotely touched any discussion of the Wyatt, anywhere. It’s been a not-half-bad week for me, and I don’t want to spoil the good mood I'm sailing on into a pretty three-day weekend.)

The only other Ruffian I have is the original release (a lucky half-price-at-Marshall’s find). I did have a BreyerFest SR Heartland at one point, but in a moment of weakness, I sold her to a friend who now adores her.

There haven’t been any other easily available Ruffian releases that have really captured my eye; they’ve done some fabulous Test Color Auction pieces that I wouldn’t mind owning, and the Buckskin one that’s a prize in the Open Show this year?  Sigh.

But a lightly dappled Red Chestnut minimal overo is a very nice consolation prize. No complaints!

The only issue I have with the mold is that, like the Running Stallion, the Traditional Black Beauty, and Cigar, it doesn’t fit on my shelves very well. It hasn’t stopped me from collecting these molds - the Cigar and the Running Stallion, in particular - but every one I do add to the collection does accentuate certain storage and display issues.

Speaking of size and space issues, let’s get to the promised topic: the Giant Size Foal-Thing. (I think everyone's calling her "Foalzilla" now? I like my name better, but not everyone is going to get the joke.)

Like the Wyatt, I’ve been trying to step away from the online discussions and evaluate it cleanly, without getting caught up in other people’s opinions. Whether other people like it or not shouldn’t be a consideration in the first place, anyway.

The scale of "Foalzilla" doesn’t bother me: it’s 1:6, rather than the standard Traditional 1:9. As others have pointed out, it’s the scale used by military modelers, and there’s been some speculation that the Foal is a precursor to Breyer’s entrée into that very profitable market.

If it’s one thing that Breyer has never been consistent on, it’s scale. Many of the earlier molds were adapted from a variety of sources, and none of them matched each other in scale. They didn’t even start classifying molds by scale until the mid-1970s, shortly after they acquired the leases for the Hagen-Renaker molds.

While the size may just be an artifact of the resin it was adapted from, "Foalzilla" is still approximately the same size as a Traditional Adult Horse. It might look a little weird standing on the shelf next to your other models, but it’s still going to fit.

Another thing worth considering is the economics of it all: Foal molds sell really well. Because they are smaller in size than an Adult, but require almost the same amount of effort to product, I’m guessing that the profit margin on them is considerably slimmer. Making a larger scale Foal mold that you could ask a Traditional Adult price for makes a certain amount of business sense.

If they sell well enough, other molds in this scale may follow. Or not. The hobby has more or less adapted itself to the 1:9 scale, so if there are any further "Supertraditional" releases, they may be tailored to the military model market’s specific needs and wants, and not necessarily our own.

Sometimes a Foal is just a Foal, and not the death of Traditional Scale models.

Irregularities

Last night was the first chance I had for a good night’s sleep in over a week …and of course, it had to be interrupted by the most disturbing BreyerFest nightmare ever. I won’t go into details - too weird, too personal - except to say that I’ve had to go outside several times today, in the rain, to settle myself.

My "dream life" has always been very vivid; when I was younger I briefly experimented with lucid dreaming, in an attempt to tone down the intensity a bit. With my schedule not getting any better, and with BreyerFest rapidly approaching, I may have to start looking into it again just so I can enjoy those rare occasions when I can afford a decent night’s sleep.

(On the plus side, the imagery has done wonders for my fiction writing.)

I went through my body box the other day, and it blew my mind just how many bodies I actually had. I knew I had a lot, but …yikes! Looks like I might have to change my mind on selling them, yet again.

One of the bodies is a later issue Ruffian. I was sort of excited when I found her a few weeks back: the original release #606 Ruffian is a fairly popular model among hobbyists and nonhobbyists alike. Even thought the "profit margin" wasn’t going to be huge on her, she’d at least be a quick and easy sale. Then I noticed her legs: all chewed up, presumably by a dog.

I didn’t notice them at first because they were rather expertly retouched; I was vaguely aware that she had some "irregularities" when I bought her, but I assumed they were due to the era in which she was manufactured. The late 1970s and early 1980s - despite popular nostalgia - were not the high point of Breyer’s quality control.

I briefly considered keeping her (before I noticed her problems) because she’s a variation: the earlier Classic Ruffians have a very small, lozenge-shaped star that’s a little more in keeping with the real-life Ruffian’s actual markings, while this later example has a larger, more irregular one:

The later piece is also significantly lighter than my earlier ones - much more of a standard bay than Ruffian’s actual dark bay/brown color. She’s very similar in color to the later Lula, who came with two hind stockings and no facial markings.

I don’t know when the star on Ruffian changed; once I got my original Ruffian - and then, a few years later, an early mint-in-box one - I didn’t feel the need to track down any additional ones for my collection. The original mask could have worn out, or got lost, or they decided to simplify things and just substitute one mask for another. They weren’t super-concerned about accuracy or consistency back then.

The difference in color is merely a consequence of a lengthy production run (1977-1990); the longer the production run, the more variations in color you’ll see. The earliest Classic Ruffians do seem darker - and more matte - than later pieces, but that’s about as much as you can generalize about it.

I should be able to make my money back on my dog-chewed Ruffian, even as a body box item. Classic bodies - including the non-Love molds - have been easier to move than most Traditionals, recently.

Here We Go, Again

A sellout in less than five minutes for Be Mine? Looks like the online ordering mode for Web Specials might not be the solution we were hoping for. At least it’s taking the scalpers a couple of hours longer to get them to eBay this time around.

It was kinda nice though, sitting out this round. Even if I really had little choice in the matter.

I totally skipped out on all the Super Bowl brouhaha, too. We don’t "do" football postseasons around here. When your hometown team is the Detroit Lions, well, you know…

I did watch a couple of the commercials. The Chrysler one with Eminem was spot on: no talking smack about the "D," if you ain’t from around here! (They did anyway - I couldn’t believe that folks on some of the forums I lurk were claiming that the shots of Detroit in the commercial were "Photoshopped" to make Detroit look better than it is. Dudes, seriously, "Robocop" was a movie.)

Other than that, I had a nice, quiet weekend. Tried - and failed - to make some cookies (ate the leftover dough.) Finished up a couple of old quilt projects, and figured out how to draft another (a complicated Grandmother’s Fan variation.) I haven’t paid much attention to the horses, other than some board lurking.

I did make one recent acquisition I’ll talk about in much greater detail in a week or so; I want to spend a little more quality time with it before I post anything about it. (And the follow up to the molded-on tack discussion. I haven't forgotten, I just keep getting sidetracked!)

For no reason whatsoever, here’s a picture of one of my oldest and dearest test colors, a Classic Black Ruffian:


I got her at Model Horse Congress in 1986; Bentley Sales Company was having a silent auction for her at their sales booth. My winning bid was $40 - not a huge sum today but back then, and for me, that was a considerable chunk of change.

Yes, I was truly, madly and deeply in love with her. Still am, even if she isn’t all that different from a regular run Ruffian of the same vintage.

In comparison, the Special Run light flaxen chestnut Proud Arabian Mare that the Bentleys sold at Congress the year before went for $11.99. (I should have taken a picture of the box they were literally dumped in. Scary! Thank goodness they were totally cool with handpicking.)

If you did some digging in their factory-fresh dump bins, you could have lucked out and got some tests and recent SRs for even less - $6.00 Traditionals, $3.00 Classics, and $1.00 Stablemates. Most of them were a little dinged - they were straight from the factory, wrapped in a plastic bag and literally tossed in a box - so you really couldn’t complain.