Risk Assessments

Like everyone else, I’m a little gobsmacked by the final selling price of the Sample Paddy, and making side eye at some of the Samples sitting on my shelf, like my Nosferatu, that sweet BreyerFest Aintree with the handpainted battleship gray hooves, or the one that (I think) would probably bring the biggest bucks right now, the Wedgewood Brighty Nugget:

An extra 2K in the bank account would not be unappreciated! 

But this situation also gives further lie to the currently accepted wisdom that the market is on a bit of a downturn. The people who had the money to spend on thousand-dollar Alborozos still have money to spend… on other things.

There was a little more going on here than just that, obviously. First and foremost is provenance: there is little reason to doubt that a model purchased straight from Reeves is not what it is advertised as. 

Some of the things I’ve seen advertised as Tests or Samples lately – models that are very clearly just minor variations, or very obviously Shrinkies – do make me wonder about my fellow hobbyists. Do the sellers genuinely think their items are what they claim them to be, or are they pushing the truth envelope and gambling on low-information hobbyists to make the call in their favor?

(I’d rather not believe the latter, but I also know better!)

The other big thing going on here is that the Cleveland Bay mold has been having its moment since BreyerFest, when it was revealed to be the Rotating Draft Surprise. And, of course, it was a St. Patrick’s Day themed model whose auction closing date was on St. Patrick’s Day. 

As I mentioned above, I already have a lot of Samples, so this one was no temptation. I even have a Sample Cleveland Bay somewhere (the 2012 BreyerFest SR Tunbridge Wells, if you are curious.) The provenance might be shaky on some of mine, but I’ve also not spent much more than store retail ($35-70) for them either. 

They were within my acceptable level of risk, and I recommend anyone else also aspiring to add a Sample or two to their herds to also assess their risk levels, and plan accordingly. 

It should come as no surprise that the Sample Brighty is on my Collectibility show string short list; the Breed documentation is finished, and I’m hoping to finish the Collectibility part tonight. 

And in closing, it should also come as no surprise that I was not picked for Magpie. I suppose that means I should now order my Vintage Club Secretariat. Will it be a Gold Charm? I wish, but probably not!

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.  

Valegro vs. Valegro

Here’s a side-by-side comparison you won’t see very often: a production Valegro next to its Central Park prototype variation:

(Yeah, I know. I can’t believe I have one either – and I clung to it a little more tightly after I saw how much Reeves auctioned one off for back in July for BreyerFest. But I digress.)

Aside from the prototype’s transparent base and the lack of the ribbon, there aren’t obvious between the two. (FYI: there’s no significant size difference: the production Valegro is just slightly heat warped, presumably from storage. He was purchased secondhand in a box lot.)

The differences between the two paintjobs are a little too subtle to photograph, but are much more noticeable in person. The prototype version has a more matte, almost textured finish. It’s something I have observed on other samples and prototypes, but I’m not sure if it’s due to differences in the painting technique or in the way the model’s surface was prepped for painting in the first place.

Whenever I see an argument break out on the Model Horse Internet about Alabaster, Aged Gray, and other mostly White-colored models, it’s one of my bugbears when hobbyists assume that the translucent white areas of modern Breyer models are raw, unpainted plastic. 

Anyone who has actually seen a factory unpainted model in person would know this is not the case. In fact, I’d argue that these kinds of models are even more highly prepped and finished that more painted ones, because there are fewer opaque pigments to camouflage any flaws inherent in the plastic itself.

But anyway, off my soapbox and back to the Valegros in hand. 

The markings are more finely rendered, and the hoof color and detailing are a little different. The eyes are more tightly painted also, though the quality of any given model’s eye detail depends more on what kind of day the painter of your model is having than anything else. There’s also a small gold Breyer logo imprinted on the belly of the prototype.

There are some differences in the mold, as well. Details are a little tighter and cleaner in spots, and you can even faintly see the nails in some of the hooves, though I suspect this is something that still there in the mold, and it just gets wiped away during the factory painting prep. 

And finally, the most obvious? No mold mark! I actually squealed a little when I discovered that little detail. You know I’m such a dork for things like that.

Sometimes a Cigar

Video done. Thank goodness.

As far as horse stuff goes, I got nothing today. I kind of feel like I do the week after BreyerFest: I am all horsed out. I just want to eat pudding and shop for guitars. (This is not a metaphor for anything. That’s actually what I’ve been doing.)

Honestly, I’m not quite sure what to do with myself now. I mean, I have plenty to do, but I guess I just want to spend some time savoring the momentary absence of a deadline. 

Anyway, here’s a picture that didn’t get used in the video: my Sample of the Halloween Horse Nosferatu, on the Cigar:

I know lots of people were disappointed with Nosferatu, expecting him to look… more like this than the “fuzzy bats” we actually got. That’s part of the reason why I didn’t buy him – but didn’t take a pass on the Sample when he was offered to me in the NPOD some time later. 

He was issued fairly early in the “new masking” era, and I suspect he was intended to be much more cleanly masked like the first Halloween Horse Skullduggery, and then plans went sideways. 

That happens a lot more than you might imagine in product development, and not just with model horses.

His shading is really remarkable in person, but the two times I’ve taken him out to show he’s barely been acknowledged, much less placed. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that Cigar’s status as one of the cool or popular molds has long since passed. 

That’s fine – more for me!

I do need to pick up a few more of the Halloween Horse Series, eventually. When prices are less insane and the house is a little more decluttered. 

Crash, Burn, Reboot and Taima

My brother thought he was being helpful updating my computer for Virtual BreyerFest, and now I no longer have Microsoft Office on my main computer right now. Great, another problem to deal with…

It also puts a kibosh on the diorama thing I was doing. Long story, won’t go into it: basically if everything had gone according to plan, it would have been done on time, but dealing with this mess (and others) means that I won’t.

I don’t have the time to stress out about it. I could theoretically get it done on time, but I would rather finish tit at my own pace and for my own pleasure; if I rush it, it will not turn out the way I want it to anyway.

I’ll just have to refocus/redouble my efforts on the photo show instead. (Ha!)

I also plan on redoing some of my previous non winning entries, strictly as art/display pieces. Since I’ve invested a great deal of time and energy into them already, I might as well finish the job, because there’s too much of me in them to simply throw them out.

(This is also an issue with me and customizing: by the time I’m done with one I’m too darn invested in it to part with it.)

I wasn’t too keen on doing the video portion of it anyway: while I don’t have any anxieties about speaking in public or appearing on camera, I do not like “watching” myself. That part feels very, very wrong to me.

Which is also why I haven’t done anything on YouTube yet, though I suppose at some point it is going to be inevitable.

Anyway, here’s some compensation for my rantings today: here’s my Sample/Prototype Taima, and his photograph from the Just About Horses issue he was featured in back in 2010.

I purchased him in the NPOD a while back when getting Samples and other such goodies involved secret handshakes and passwords. Later on, I had a hunch and decided to check out his original offering in Just About Horses and… the spots matched!

I would have been happy even if he wasn’t, because I have a fondness for the mold, being part “Buffalo” myself.

FAMs as PAMs?

Several years ago I acquired a Matte Dapple Gray Family Arabian Mare in a Body Box lot. She was missing a leg and half an ear, but I didn’t care:

I knew there was at least one other Dapple Gray Family Arabian Mare like her out there, and where there are two, there are usually more. I assumed that she was either a Salesman’s Sample or very early production piece of the Proud Arabian Mare, produced before the Proud Arabian Mare mold was ready for full production.

I also assumed that meant there had to be at least a few Mahogany Bay Family Arabian Mares out there too, either sitting unnoticed in someone’s collection, or passed off as a simple variation of the Bay.

(Any Matte Alabasters that would have/could have been produced would have been virtually identical/indistinguishable from the original Matte Alabaster FAMs, save for a little extra body shading, perhaps.)

So it wasn’t a complete surprise when a Mahogany Bay Family Arabian Mare showed up – on eBay, of course. What was odd about it was that it came with the original White Cardboard Picture box, and a not-quite-matching Bay Proud Arabian Foal.

Oddballs and obvious Samples have turned up in retail boxes before, especially the enclosed cardboard ones of the 1970s and early 1980s. It might have been done to round out the production quota for the day, or (according to a rumor I heard from Marney herself) to give the hobby community a few little surprises to go hunting for.

But if these Oddball Mares were Samples or simply very early production items, you’d expect to find them with Corrugated Shipper Boxes: the Proud Arabian Mare debuted in 1972, but the retail-friendly White Cardboard Picture Boxes didn’t appear until 1973.

A random thought occurred to me a while back, now bolstered by this Mahogany Bay Mare and her box: what if these Mares were straight-up goofs? What if – like so many hobbyists – one of the factory painters simply confused the PAM mold with the FAM mold?

If so, it was obviously a mistake that was caught early. This is a darn shame, since I have grown rather fond of Mahogany Bay as a color.

I had the strange misfortune of actually finding the Mahogany Bay FAM auction very shortly after it was listed, and fumbled around the page for a few anxious seconds desperately looking for the “Buy It Now” button that was not there.

So I will simply have to be content with my three-legged mare…

Being Stubborn

Normally I have no issue with offbeat mold choices used for BreyerFest themes, but this Duende Special Run Straight Bet is rubbing me the wrong way:

I have nothing against the mold itself, per se, other than being not overly thrilled about getting another Andalusian/Spanish type Traditional mold, when so many other breeds and types continue to be unrepresented (Akhal-Teke), or underrepresented (Morgans).  

The hobby’s initial reaction to the Duende mold was fairly predictable: the promotional pictures showed a model with a paint job that simply wasn’t possible from a large-scale production standpoint, molding issues aside.

(I have no idea what is going on with their current mold making issues, other than they really need to address it ASAP.)

Duende does look nice in Glossy Liver Chestnut, I’ll give it that. In any other situation I would be all over this guy. But it’s just so obviously a pander and a marketing push for a new mold, forced to fit into a theme.

You guys have so many molds and possibilities to work here, Reeves: if it’s one thing you do not have a shortage of, it’s molds representing breeds and types that are regularly used in racing events – flat track or otherwise. Thoroughbreds, Standardbreds, Arabians, Quarter Horses, Appaloosas – and even Mules?

Okay, now I’m moderately excited for a Special Run Brown Sunshine. Speaking of, here’s my Sergeant, and his NPOD Sample Brother:

As you can see, there’s not a lot of difference between the two – the production piece is slightly warmer and pearlier than the Sample, but the rest of differences could be chalked up to normal day-to-day production variability.

These are the only two Brown Sunshines I have currently. I would not mind another. (But what color? Hmm.)

The Duende is only one model out of a line up at least two dozen, so I’ll give it a pass; it’s not that big a deal, really. Work has been leaving me short of sleep this week and I am a bit crankier than normal, which might be affecting my initial reaction.

Didn’t I promise myself to buy less stuff this year anyway?

More About Iridescence

I had a perfectly lovely day today – had a last minute work reschedule that actually gave me the day off, so I spent it doing (mostly) fun stuff, including a bit of horse shopping.

(Yes, I know I am extremely lucky that I can go horse shopping at multiple stores. I’m telling you folks, if the possibility of coming to the Metro Detroit area comes up for you, let that be an enticement.)

Here’s the thing I’ve been meaning to show you all for a while: a Poodle with an iridescent collar!

It’s a little hard to capture in a photograph, but basically it’s a red color with a translucent layer of gold iridescence on top. It’s 100 percent Original Finish, and came out of that Chicago collection with all those other odd and mysterious models that were probably factory Oddballs, Tests, Samples and Whatnots.

Since the only early, pre-Reeves models that I know about that have any factory-original iridescence on them are the Kittens – released in 1966 – and all of the models in that collection date to 1966 or before, the logical assumption is that they are somehow related.

A test of the paint before production for the Kittens? A test after production of the Kittens for possible use on the Poodle? Or someone just getting silly with the new paint at the factory one day?

The seller never provided any more context, so it’ll probably remain a mystery.

The funny thing was that when I purchased him (paired with a White one) he didn’t appear to be anything out of the ordinary: the effect is hard to capture in photographs, and the seller obviously didn’t know there was anything different about them in the first place.

Needless to say, I was extremely pleased when I pulled him out of the shipping box back in March.  

On the flip side, he was supposed to be an upgrade of my other green-eyed Poodle, so now I had to make room for another. I think I have enough Black Poodles now to form a sled team...

USET Contest

Back in 1980, Breyer ran a subscription contest for Just About Horses, with different prize levels resulting in different awards. For fifty subscriptions, you got a Test Color!

In retrospect, it seems like a pretty fabulous deal: subscriptions to JAH at the time were a mere dollar. So you could have gotten your own personally designed Test Color for a mere fifty bucks! And at least one person did:

But of course, this was 1980: the average retail price of a Traditional Breyer Horse, according to a Bentley Sales Company flier dated May 1980, was $6.99. (FYI: for Classics, it was $4.99, and Stablemates it was $1.79. I know, I know…)

I didn’t enter this contest since most of my friends who were into live horses or Breyers at the time already had subscriptions, and my friends or relatives who weren’t wouldn’t have appreciated me asking.

Five years later, I managed to make it to Model Horse Congress for the first time, and acquired my first Test Colors. While I didn’t get to design them, they did cost me considerably less than fifty dollars. (Several of them combined, even. Again, I know…)

I have acquired many more Test Colors since then – so many that I’ve even had the luxury to sell a few – so the appeal of this kind of prize is no longer as strong as it used to be.

While I have had some ideas translated or incorporated into Breyer releases over the years, I’ve never had a Test Color designed by me for me. I simply can’t afford the “Design a Test” auction at BreyerFest, and the other opportunities have never really panned out.

But yesterday I got that e-mail from Breyer about the fundraising contest for the United States Equestrian Team Foundation - “to increase awareness of equestrian sports” – with the top fundraiser getting a “a custom Breyer® model” and “a framed Rio Olympic poster signed by the entire 2016 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Equestrian Team.”

(That “custom Breyer model” being, of course, a self-designed Test Color under another name.)

This time around, I’ll go for it. The cause itself is a worthy one, and it doesn’t involve me annoying my family or coworkers into getting a subscription for a magazine they wouldn’t ready anyway. Even if I don’t “win” this contest (unlikely anyway), it’s still a win for USET.

All this means in the short-term (until the end of the contest in early June) is that I’ll have a link off to the side, and have a few more posts focusing on past and present Breyer USET releases in the interim. I’ve written about Breyer USET models a lot in the past – most recently during my trip to attend the Chasing the Chesapeake event back in October – and it shouldn’t surprise anyone that I have even more to say about the subject.

What was funny was that while I was reading through that e-mail I was fixated on the illustration of the prizes:

The picture that they so helpfully labeled “sample model” is actually one of those Sample Valegros that I am slightly obsessed about! I’d be just as happy with one of those as with any Test Color I could design, though I wouldn’t turn down a Test Color, if the opportunity arose.

It’s also worth noting – and most likely, a coincidence – that that first Breyer contest with a Test Color prize took place the same year that Breyer’s USET Gift Set debuted.

The Box

I’ve been coughing up a lung for most of the past two days (my annual Spring cold came a bit late this year, bleh) so I don’t have much energy to do anything except comment on a photo Reeves posted on Facebook today:

I’m not quite sure what Reeves is doing by posting this picture now. While these cleanouts are something that they do on a somewhat regular basis, they haven’t so blatantly “advertised” it before.

They did an archive room cleanout a few years ago; we knew because they solicited hobbyists to come in and assist. Although we didn’t know for sure the items getting cleaned out would be in the Ninja Pit, if you were paying attention, it was a safe assumption to make.

It was a scarier than normal year in the Pit, especially when everyone saw the boxes and did the math.

For many years now they’ve intimated that they wanted to tamp down the enthusiasm for the early Friday morning line, though they have done only minimal or nominal effort in that regard. Although I don’t ever want to see it completely eliminated – people are going to line up, regardless, and there should be a least a token something for the faithful’s efforts – they need to do a little bit more than just passing out numbers and holding back a few goodies for later.

Posting a picture like this is definitely not going to help. Unless they have other plans, like Blind Bag Purchase Raffles or Grab Bags or something.

Just toss in a little card or letter congratulating the recipient on their “Archive Room Escapee”: Reeves makes money, collectors get a Sample with bombproof documentation, nobody gets a shuriken to the forehead, everybody happy….

(This could all be moot, though, if they’re just tossing them in the regrind bin. I don’t think they’d be that intentionally cruel.)

Semi-Gloss Buffalo

Another recent addition to the family:

A Semi-Gloss – or Glossy, depending on who’s looking – Buffalo, with pink hand painted nostrils and lips.

He has a few condition issues, but he’s got a great provenance: he (and his brother) were a part of that odd stash of models from Chicago that sold on eBay a little while ago. Back when most of them were still being listed in smaller batches or even individually – and thus somewhat affordable to the likes of me.

All of the listed models appear to have been manufactured prior to 1966/7, and from some of the oddities and anomalies that were visible in the photos – and later in person, via my purchases – it’s apparent that this collection was that of a former employee or jobber.

These were not your run-of-the-mill mid-1960s Breyers!

These Buffaloes have all the indicators of being really early releases, including the absence of a USA mark and the Semi-Gloss/Gloss finish. Since the Buffalo debuted in 1965, it is most likely that they are simply first-batch runs, but the circumstances in which they were found raises the possibility that they might be Photographic Samples, Salesman’s Samples or even (though most unlikely) Test Colors.

The more time I spend examining my purchases (including a Jumping Horse and a couple of Poodles) the more I regret not upping my bids on the ones I lost. Clearly there was an interesting story here I would have loved to uncover, but the seller was either unwilling or unable to offer more.

And certainly I couldn’t afford more – especially the giant lot that was thrown together after the first batch, consisting of all the previously unpaid lots and a Donkey sporting a yellow(!) Elephant’s Howdah tossed on top: a gold-plated maraschino cherry on one of the most expensive sundaes ever.

Auctions like that make me wish I could somehow structure a small hobby history syndicate to keep the collection in situ long enough to research, photograph and document it, before releasing it back into the wild.

It wouldn’t work for a number of reasons (trying to imagine the custody battle over that Donkey alone, yikes!), but the history that gets lost when collections like that are sold like that keep me up at night wondering what if…

Repeating Themselves

Well, there’s my first must-have for this year’s BreyerFest, the Store Special Repeat the Beat:

That’s exactly the color I’ve been hoping for on the Bluegrass Bandit mold! It is very similar to another recent roan paint job that I was very fond of, the Classics #931 Bay Roan Quarter Horse:

In its rather short life, the Bluegrass Bandit mold has already made three other appearances as a BreyerFest Special Run model: 2011’s Translucent Under the Sea, 2013’s Store Special Lady C, and 2014’s Store Special Champagne Wishes.

True, it is a bit unusual that a mold that’s only been around since 2008 is now making its third appearance as a Store Special, but Bluegrass Bandit mold has become unusually popular over the past few years; I’ve been trying to add to my tiny (2 piece!) collection, but the prices keep getting in the way.

While it is also true that a Tennessee Walking Horse has little to do with the India theme, I suspect the real horse’s guest appearance at BreyerFest this year may be a not-so-subtle nudge in the effort to get the soring ban finally implemented.

Like the recent Christmas Horse Esprit Bayberry and Roses, Repeat the Beat’s tail lacks a white basecoat; because Samples are usually depicted in these early promotional pictures, it’s too early to tell if this is idiosyncratic to this particular Sample, or a detail that will make it into the final production pieces.

It may see a bit odd, but I do like it, since it adds a hint of translucency to the tail itself. But I’ll be fine with it, either way.

The Fell Pony Emma

I’m just having the hardest time focusing on anything right now. I don’t know if it’s a consequence of the weather or this cold that’s been aggravating me for the past several days, but I’m beginning to get really annoyed by my inability to get anything done.

So today I’ll take it easy on the blog front and just pause to admire a recent acquisition, the Chasing the Chesapeake Special Run Emma, Black-Eyed Susan:

She was the only one of the Event SRs that made me panic a little bit; all the Special Runs were lovely, but I felt a burning need to bring the little Emma home.

I probably should not have worried. She had the highest piece count (76) outside of the Mason, and most were hoping for the popular Brishen Sagamore Rye (60) or the scarce Shire Testudo (50). If I was going to get one of the not-a-Masons, it was going to be her. With my luck, though, nothing is ever a guarantee...

The mold only came out about a year ago, so there’s not really much to say about it from an historical perspective.

Just about the only little tidbit I can add is that a Sample of the original black Carltonlima Emma was used as a table decoration in the Tailgating Tent at the Chesapeake Event. She was looking pretty rough, so I doubt most even gave her a second look. (Except me, because I am me.)

It seems obvious to me now that, duh, that’s what some of the Samples knocking around the Reeves office end up doing: they become table decorations for events, public and private. So keep that in mind the next time they post pictures of a party or event that they participated in.

(I’m still pining for one of those Cremello Belgians they used as centerpieces at some equestrian book event a few years back. Old Goliaths from the warehouse, or something else? Argh!)

She’s small, shaggy and adorable, so I doubt I’ll be able to keep my little Emma collection complete for long. While I think it’s more likely we’ll see the Galiceno Pony instead of the Emma as a BreyerFest SR next year, India was a British colony. I’m pretty sure there’s going to be at least one British-themed piece to commemorate that.

And Emma is a very British little (Fell) Pony.

So, maybe.

Sugarloaf and the Gray Areas

When I heard that the Christmas Silver Filigree might have been leaked on eBay, and that its name was Sugarloaf, this is the first thing that came to my mind:

http://www.heyquilty.com/blogs/?p=789

A nineteenth century quilt block pattern! (You know, I do have a bit of leftover “Silver Filigree” fabric I made for my BreyerFest hat last year, hmmm.)

Anyway, it was getting to that time of year where we speculate about the year-end special runs Reeves dumps on us, including the Silver Filigree. Although there’s a possibility that this “Sugarloaf” might be a rejected concept, it fits all of the usual parameters: it’s a relatively popular and very new mold with big hair.

(The Icelandic is a possibility, too, but with mold’s release as the Flagship Special Elska, it seems a little less likely.)

There’s been some discussion about the ethics of buying models like these (the vendor also has a translucent lavender Traditional Running Mare) that appear to be prototypes/samples of models yet to be.

It’s one thing to buy prototypes/samples of models that already exist or have (at least) been announced; models that clearly appear to be of things yet to be … are out of my personal comfort zone.

I’ve bought things of questionable provenance – both intentionally, and unintentionally. I bought several models from the notorious “newtoymens” dealer on eBay (though none of the super-pricey ones: out of my league entirely there) and I also purchased the Sample of the Pottery Barn Kennebec Count.

One of my rationales for buying them was that at least they were being sold after-the-fact: they weren’t revealing any special secrets or upcoming releases. While there were rumors of where these models were coming from, there had been no official confirmation, either.

The Kennebec Count was a liminal case: rumors had been going around that the Special had been planned, but canceled; a short time after the Sample appeared on eBay, it was officially released.

Everyone’s comfort zones in these ethical gray areas are different – and not necessarily wrong. We’re not really sure what the situation is at the factories in China that are allowing these pieces to come to market. They could have been gifts or compensation of some sort. And what constitutes ethical behavior in China – especially regarding knockoffs and antiquities – is another issue entirely.

There’s also the possibility that Reeves has already given the security issue some thought, and determined that either the positives (publicity) outweigh the negatives (element of surprise). Since it’s also something that happens with other toys and collectibles manufacturers there, they might have considered this risk a part of doing business in that part of the world.

That’s all speculation: I don’t know.

All I do know is that I’m more excited at the possibility of Traditional scale Horse Crazy release (which is what I’m assuming the Running Mare thingie is/might be) than the Sugarloaf, oddly enough.

I'm all for more Silver Filigrees, but how long has it been since we’ve had a Traditional Translucent production run, anyway? It feels like forever. The entire Running “family” would be wonderful candidates for that kind of treatment.

Behold, Valegro

Something quick – working early tomorrow, and then the (shudder) dentist – but it’s definitely worth your while today. Behold, Valegro:

These are pictures of one of the handful of Valegro samples/prototypes that made it into the hands of a few attendees invited to the Central Park Horse Show for a tea with Charlotte Dujardin; one of these lucky recipients has graciously allowed me to repost these pictures for us to drool over.

Apparently he’s one of “approximately 20” pieces, not all of whom were distributed at the show:

It’ll be interesting to see where the rest of them show up. (Raffles? Live show prizes? Web drawing? NPOD fodder?)

As for the rest of us mere mortals, we’ll have to wait until December (at the earliest) for our opportunity to get our hands on that beautiful piece of plastic horseflesh.

Consolation Smoky

Weekend plans did not go as planned because a slightly fluffy dog of small stature decided to (a) take a romp in the weeds in the wooded area behind the house and then (b) get cuddly with me shortly afterwards.

Hello poison ivy, my old friend.

I’m pretty sure it was revenge for putting her on a diet earlier this week. ("No more marshmallows? I’ll show you!") Mission accomplished, Vita.

Since antihistamines make me very groggy, not much work of any sort got done, other than a pleasant but uneventful trip to the flea market: just a few odds and ends and a Clydesdale body to add to the body stash. That was fine by me: I’d rather have more money coming in than going out right now.

It seems as good a time as any to introduce you to the Reissue Smoky Sample that I mentioned in passing earlier. He’s significantly different from the original issue, on a number of fronts:

The first thing that I noticed – that I truly didn’t see before – was the complete absence of the Rocking R brand; I believe the Tractor Supply Special Run Nevada Joe Sterling was the first brand-free release, in 2002, but mine is currently unavailable for inspection.

The stockings are cleaner and more distinct, the hooves are a slightly different shade of gray than the body color, and the blaze has been shortened and cleanly masked. The body color is more richly shaded than the Regular Run #69 Smoky, too, who ran from 1981 through 1985.

He bears very little resemblance to that original Smoky, in truth. Considering my fondness for models of that era (my personal “Golden Age of Collecting”) I wouldn’t call the Reissue better, just different. But in a good way.

While in some ways I think of him as my “consolation sample”, the more I look at him, the happier I am that I rescued him.

Seeing Things

Here is Glacier, with his older and more conventionally handsome cousin:

There’s no VIN, and the detail put into the painting finishwork makes it pretty obvious that the Glaciers were U.S. made. I especially like the subtlety of the eyes: dark brown with a large iris and black eyeliner. They give him a dark and mysterious look, like he’s seen things.

I had been toying with the idea of using him as trade bait, but I think he’s staying. He’s got stories to tell me, man.

Some hobbyists were a little overly concerned about the sample in the promotional picture having what looked like a bent leg. I knew that wasn’t going to be the case with the actual production pieces because experience has been telling us, over and over, that you really can’t go by the photographs Reeves sends out to the world.

You wouldn’t think it would bear repeating at this point, but it does. I’ve noticed that even Reeves is starting to put "actual production may vary from prototype shown" in the fine print of some of their offers now. It’s something that should have been in the fine print since forever, but I’m accepting the improvement as an improvement, and moving on.

Though I think it would be awesome if they did do raffles/drawings for some of the actual prototypes, in addition to the semi-regular raffles/drawings for everything else. Aside from being really cool models to have, in general, they already come with a ready-made and easily acquired provenance you can use to trump the local live show competition. (The model in your documentation? That’s mine.)

It would reduce my chances of acquiring more prototypes in the future, but as I slowly go through another slight herd reduction, I have to accept the reality of not being able to have them all, anyway.

As for the echoing refrains of "Why can’t all Breyer models be of this quality level?" It’s not primarily a matter of old techniques vs. new, or U.S. manufacturing vs. China: it’s a scalability issue. Quality is much easier to control when you’re dealing with 40- or 50-piece runs, and not runs in the hundreds or thousands.

I think that’s the number one issue with the Premier Club. A Connoisseur-quality club with an unlimited membership cap sounds good at first, until you realize Reeves had a hard enough time with quality control with the original 350-piece runs on the Connoisseurs.

Quality control on the Vintage Club has been somewhat better, but the piece count is lower - 500 vs. 750+ for the Premier Club - and the paint jobs are less complex, and therefore harder to mess up. There are still some Vintage Club issues, particularly the lack of fidelity to the original paint jobs, caused partly (and ironically) by better quality control: the "imitation" overspray on Running Mare and Foal Salt and Pepper being the most amusing example of that.

There’s no way to completely eliminate flaws and errors in anything that’s mass-produced, even in relatively small runs. Things can get better - they can always get better - but perfection? Rarer than a Wedgewood Blue Antelope.

More About Texture

You could say that I’ve developed a bit of a texture problem, myself. Though mine is more an issue of surface flaws, rather than paint. Trying to get six weeks of weeding and pruning done in six days? Not a good idea, especially with allergies.

Most of the examples brought up in the comments relate to issues of surface texture or finishing, rather than paint texture. The Lying Down Foal’s pimples, for instance, were the result of a flaw inherent to the mold, and existed regardless of the quality of the paint job. Other molds - like the Proud Arabian Stallion, Sherman Morgan, John Henry and the Trakehner - have had some of their earlier surface roughness buffed out of them.

Then there’s the issue of mold stick. The surface of a mold is a lot like the surface of household cookware: until it is properly cured - either through extended use, or the application of nonstick compounds - stuff will stick to it. This may result in a rough surface texture to the molded piece - sometimes subtle, sometimes not. Mold stick was a much bigger issue in the 1970s and 1980s than it is today: back then, it wasn’t uncommon to find pieces that looked like someone had pulled a melted pot scrubber off sections of it. When I see mold stick on newer pieces, it’s more a matter of a very slight roughness where a roughness normally isn’t. You might not even see it, except in raking light.

As I mentioned before, paint texture issues have been around as long as there have been Breyers - not just the runs, drips and unevenness that I mentioned previously, but all manners of oddness. That’s why I tend to be hesitant in immediately ruling something inauthentic. I can’t say that I’ve seen everything, but I’ve seen enough to make me pause a bit before passing judgment on a questionable model. 

For instance, I can remember back in my Model Horse Congress days (the mid-1980s) that Marney offered some of us a Test Color model whose paint job was tacky - as in sticky, not in poor taste. (I think he was a solid Chestnut Buckshot?) I took the opportunity to touch him, and she wasn’t kidding: he felt like he was covered in spray adhesive.

She said it’d harden up eventually, but I was a little hesitant: properly formulated Breyer paint dries very quickly. We’re talking seconds or minutes, not days or weeks. I passed him up because I feared there’d be another condition issue with it down the road, not to mention short-term problems with dust.

(Note: this was a few years before the Shrinking and Oozing were even on our radar.)

I’ve also run across a few models that - at first glance - looked like they were touched up after they left the factory. Paint that should have been smooth and airbrushed on appeared to have been applied thickly, with a paintbrush. Closer examination revealed that they were 100 percent factory authentic.

Generally I’ve handled these on a case-by-case basis, because most of the time that’s what they turn out to be: atypical bits of factory weirdness. This is why authenticating models in person is preferable to photographs-only. Just because it looks fake doesn’t necessarily mean it is fake. 

Most Test Colors and Samples that I own, or have owned in the past rarely had any textural issues beyond the ones related to the surface itself. This fine-grit-sandpaper feel is a relatively new development, and most likely related to the shipment of production overseas.

Not every newer Sample has it, but enough of them do that I’ll now have to incorporate it into the "authentication matrix" in my head.

Paint Texture

Paint texture is not a thing most collectors of Original Finish models give a lot of thought to - unless there’s something wrong with it. If the paint doesn’t feel right - it’s rough, sticky or uneven in some way - it’s usually a good indication that the model has either been altered one way or another, or is not even Original Finish at all.

That assumption is generally correct. Whether a model is Gloss, Matte, or something in between, the paint itself should feel smooth to the touch. There are a few exceptions to that rule. The Gloss finishes on early Western Horses, Ponies, and Old Molds are often uneven, and may even have drips and runs. On more recent models with more complex masked markings, you might feel a raised edge on masked markings, especially if the paint job itself involved multiple layers of paint.

A couple of recent additions to my herd have complicated the issue a little further. The first you might already be familiar with - it’s the Sample of the Tunbridge Wells I found last year:

The second is another Sample - this one of the Reissue Azhar - that I picked up at BreyerFest this year:

The texture is not immediately visible, but it is noticeable once you pick them up: they’re both very slightly rough to the touch. It’s not unpleasant - trust me, I’ve picked up a few models I wish I never had - but it’s definitely not what I was used to, or expecting. It's like an extremely fine grit sandpaper.

With the Tunbridge Wells, I thought at first that it might have been a feature of the paint job itself - it’s a Roan, after all - but I wasn’t 100 percent sure, and it felt kind of weird asking people to touch their horses for me. So I waited until BreyerFest this year, when I could grope the models in question to my heart’s content.

They were all smooth, or at least much smoother than mine.

I didn’t get a chance to fully unwrap the Azhar down in Kentucky, so I wasn’t aware of his texture until I came home. I don’t have one of the Reissues or the original to compare it to, but the texture is almost identical to the Sample Tunbridge Wells.

He is also very slightly metallic - the same level/quality of sparkliness seen on some of the more recent Gloss Finishes such as the Glossy Mariah’s Boons from a few BreyerFests back, something that I dubbed "The Tinkerbell Effect".

I have no idea if it is a feature on all of the Production Run and/or Reissue Azhars or not. The original Azhar wasn’t on my radar, and I’ve been trying to be good about not buying all of the Reissues (I will cave in and buy a Smoky, eventually.)

Both pieces are undeniably authentic. I still have the bags and wraps they came in, straight from the NPOD, itself. I have several other Samples, including one of another Reissue, and I can't recall feeling anything out of the ordinary.

So anyway, now we have to add more exceptions and more qualifiers to deal with when authenticating things. 

Desirability is Weird

I just spent about an hour on the phone with Paypal trying to resolve some crazy issue that apparently came up today. I think it’s fixed, but you know, it’s Paypal. So I’m trying real hard to think happy thoughts right now, in lieu of eating massive amounts of ice cream.

This model’s presence in my office definitely helps:

The 2012 Passage to the Pacific SR Like Thunder, on the Rejoice mold. It’s another Early Friday find, and one of my favorites this year.

I thought the model was pretty enough in pictures, and since I have the start of a nice collection of Rejoices going here, I thought I’d take a chance on one. When I opened it up a few days ago (finally, I know) I was surprised and delighted at how captivated I was by this model. Crisp masking, delicate shading, clean and precise hoof striping: there’s lots to love here.

There’s going to be some shuffling in the display collection to keep this beauty out in the open.

I’ve noticed that at least one person is claiming that the Like Thunders found in the NPOD were Samples, It’s possible that one or two Samples might have been mixed in the boxes too; my Sample Kiowa was found mixed into a box of standard issue Kiowas. But all indications I see - backstamps and bag labels - point to most if not all of them being the unsold/unclaimed leftovers, instead. It took a while for all of them to find happier homes; there were several to be had, and they were priced around (or a touch higher) than current market value.

We’re so used to assuming that all of these Exclusive Events are going to sell out that we sometimes forget that at least one didn’t.

It did seem weird to me that these models - a Special Run of a mere 200 pieces - floated around the sales area for a while, while Store Specials three to four times that number in quantity (or more) were being so fiercely fought over. Sure, the price differential had something to do with it, and there’s the thrill of the new (with the Novelisto D being a Brishen/Laredo mashup). And Silver Filigree driving collectors mad in general.

(Would you believe I still haven’t actually seen a Silver Filigree Misty in person yet? Sigh.)

Desirability is such an odd thing.

Rejoice is also a mold that’s a bit of an acquired taste. Her proportions are a little cartoonish, and that skinny tail of hers bends and breaks easily, causing tipping issues. When it comes to more recent Gaited molds, I wouldn't say that hobbyists actively dislike it, they simply happen to prefer the Clock Saddlebred, or the various Stablemates more.

It is worth noting, though, that the Madison Avenue (the Buckskin Rejoice) seemed to be one of the better-selling Reissues at BreyerFest this year; it is also possible that they had fewer to sell, and couldn’t restock. I didn't notice because I spent most of my time in the Reissue selection of the store distracted by those magnificently shaded Smokies. I still don’t know how one DIDN’T come home with me.

Another weekend off coming up, so a few more posts coming sooner, rather than later.