Batting .500

In a note almost completely unrelated to the rest of the post, I am mildly shocked that the Zombie Snowman Classic Rearing Mustang Neva is sold out. I am not so enamored of him that I have to buy one at a jacked up price elsewhere on the Internet, though.

Speaking of…

Well, I was half right: they made 1000 of him:

I mean, yeah, he’s pretty, but let’s not kid ourselves here: even though they made 1000 of him, the aftermath of this drawing is going to be Marshall (the notorious Micro Run Polled Hereford Bull) level ugly. I would not be surprised if several hundred of them end up getting listed for sale within the first hour or so of the drawing.

Some will sell because many hobbyists can’t be patient, thus ensuring that the cycle will continue on, ad infinitum. 

Look, most of my life I didn’t have the money to not be patient, and I’m not about to change. Plastic horses are frivolous things, and life goes on perfectly well with or without them. (Or so I tell myself.)

There are way too many Silver Filigree releases – some of them nigh unattainable – for me to be a completist at this point, so I am not going to get too worked up if I don’t get drawn for Tahoe. This is very likely: I don’t usually get picked for the “popular” ones, though I did get Zugspitze last year somehow. So I don’t have a lot to complain about, really? 

I’ll just put my entry in, and worry about it when the time comes.

Since I don’t plan on being online too much in the next couple of weeks – I’m planning to staying as offline as possible through the end of the year to get some real-world things done – I’ll probably miss most of the drama, thankfully. 

Though I may stream some Star Trek stuff over the holiday break while I finish prepping that massive hexagon quilt project: I received a year’s subscription to Paramount Plus as an early Christmas present, and I’ve heard so many good things about Strange New Worlds…

This week I’m trying a new sleep schedule to improve my productivity. It worked out great yesterday, but day two has been some tough sledding. I think I’ll hit the sack a couple hours early and try it again tomorrow.

Food For Thought

I just found out I’m getting the whole weekend off, and I don’t know quite what to do with myself. Bake Christmas Cookies, maybe? Take another shot at the Poppyseed Roll? I think I figured out what I did wrong with the last one....

Speaking of food, Reeves really is going all-in on the “German Food” thing with the One-Day Stablemates:

https://www.breyerhorses.com/blogs/breyerfest-blog/breyerfest-event-stablemates

You’d think the Mini Me Emma “Brezel” would be my favorite, but I’m kind of digging the licorice-themed Hanoverian “Lakritz”: Glossy Dark Dappled Gray with multicolored ribbons based on the German flag? Sold!

While you will not find a bigger booster of licorice than me – there’s currently half a bag of licorice taffy in my car, because if I brought it into the house it would be an empty bag of taffy – I’ve always thought of licorice as more of a Scandinavian thing. Including it here is not a stretch in the same way the Spanish Fighting Bull Special Run Le Taureau was for the French-themed BreyerFest, but it’s up there.

I would have gone with something like Strudel, Pumpernickel, Stollen, or even Pfeffernusse. But hey, not my call. 

Anyway, I’ve grown rather fond of the G4 Hanoverian mold and I even have a body in my Stablemate stash that I’ve been trying to find an idea for, for a couple of years now. I’ll be getting some carbide scrapers and a mini handheld jigsaw for Christmas, so next year, maybe….

Another FYI, for those of you out of the loop: due to technical difficulties, the drawing for the Winter Web Special Zugspitze is being held off until Monday. 

Since I’ve already emotionally distanced myself from the rest of the “Silly Sales Season” Specials, this glitch is not affecting me personally one way or another. I did enter and I will check, because Silver Filigree, but I’m not getting my hopes up. It’s just not worth it at this point.

I have to admit, though, that this Special Run’s name has been the source of a great deal of amusement to me. Whenever I hear the word “Zug”, I immediately think of a local Detroit “landmark” Zug Island that (trust me) nobody thinks of as a vacation spot. 

(Though they are looking into eventually rehabilitating it. I hope so!)

And while German is certainly a very expressive language – it’s given us wonderful words like Schadenfreude and Backpfeifengischt – it is not particularly beautiful, no matter what one of my former employers once said. 

(That dude had some… issues. I’ll leave it at that.)

The Naming of Colors

On one hand, I think I’ve finally found the colors on the Eberl Andalusian Mare and Foal that finally do it for me, with the Winter Web Special La Molina and Masella:

But on the other, it is highly unlikely that I’ll ever be able to complete the family with a Duende Benasque. 

Eh, I’ll enter anyway and see what happens. If I get them, great! 

If I don’t, I’ll just sit back and watch the trainwreck that the aftermarket sales will be. Since the piece count is 450 (as opposed to the usual 350) on this set, I’m hoping not very, but I’ve seen some frankly very scary prices on eBay lately so I am not that optimistic.

(In case you were wondering, I didn’t even try for that White Boxer.)

It’s interesting that they appear to have settled on the name “Blue Filigree” for Masella’s color: that seems awfully generic and mundane for a color that glossy, iridescent and color-shifting. 

Unless they come up with something better (Glossy Metallic Heliotrope? Dappled Iridescent Cyan? Purple Monkey Dishwasher? Or my personal favorite: Blue Raspberry Snowcone!) I’m going to keep calling it Benasque Blue. 

There is logic and precedent to this: the “Sorrel” color that originated on the #52 Five-Gaiter is often referred to as “Five-Gaiter Sorrel” when it appears on other Breyer releases. (Yeah, Breyer tried rebranding it in the 1970s as “Honey Sorrel” when they put it on the Bell-Bottomed Shire, but that did not stick.)

Speaking of, I’ll close today’s brief post with a picture of my semi-gloss Sorrel Five-Gaiter with eyewhites who also did nothing at the BreyerFest Photo Show this year. I bought him years ago in a box lot on eBay with a mint Sorrel Family Arabian Foal; this is one of the reasons why I presume that the Sorrel Family Arabian Variations are from the early 1960s, and not the later. 

That’s all for today, folks!

High Anxiety

Got the Silver Filigree Callahan I wanted, yay!

The detailing on the tail ribbon is amazing, and other than a few tiny bits of roughness in the gloss that can be felt, but not seen, I have no complaints about the Callahan itself.

But seriously, Reeves, we need to talk about the box.

I had heard that a higher percentage of boxes for the Callahans were arriving in less-than-optimal condition. While I have had my share of bumped and bruised boxes over the years, I haven’t had all that much to complain about.

But alas, not today. Fortunately my Callahan was fine; nevertheless, the only anxiety I should have felt today in opening the box should have been about what color I was getting, not how many pieces the model might have been broken into.

Do better, guys. 

Anyway…

This is what happens when I skip a day at the flea market:

I stop at the Salvation Army on the way home from work the next day and buy a ton of G3 My Little Ponies. And I don’t even collect them!

The cashier who rang me up gave me some serious side-eye, so I told her “they’ll make great party favors!”

In reality, I bought them for the BreyerFest stash – not that I need any more stuff, necessarily, but I do need the right kind of stuff, and I had a pretty good response the last time I brought some.

I did feel a little bit guilty about buying them, not really knowing that market or collecting that item per se. The tiny bit of research I did today didn’t indicate anything particularly rare in the lot of 19, but I’m not aiming to make a big profit, regardless.

I tend to see stuff like this as a way to bank some trip money ahead of time. Other people start a vacation savings account for their trip: I buy models to sell, even if it’s only a slight profit. Those slight profits tend to give me a better return on my investment than a bank savings account, too.

And it was kind of relaxing to clean them up and sort them out in between doing less pleasant things yesterday; I haven’t had much “grooming time” with the Breyers lately, other that the Memorial Day Weekend Dusting Project that for reasons I will not go into was not relaxing in the least.

Callahan, and Waiting It Out

I didn’t buy Fletcher, or Griffin, or Starlet, and I managed to bypass Koh-i-Noor the second time he was offered, too. But the Callahan? He finally broke me:

Bought one so fast I forgot to pull down the web site images and data! Oops!

My excuses, this time: I had some money in the PayPal account, and I still didn’t have a Classic Head Down Shire B here yet. All the versions of that mold that I do like I can’t afford at the moment, and since I like all three of the colors they were offering, it seemed like the logical thing to do.

However, I sold my Pamplemousse a while ago, and I was never drawn for a Silverado; since I do still have my Silver Snow, that’s the Mini Me I’m hoping for.

I’m with a lot of people here: I do kind of wish Reeves would slow down the pace of all these offers. 2018 is beginning to feel a bit like 1984/5 – another time period where we were being barraged with one Special Run after another.

It was both harder, and easier back then. It was harder, because we had neither social media nor the Internet to keep us informed. You had to rely on your own hobby network – and monthly hobbyist newsletters – to find out about the Special Runs in the first place.

There were not quite as many mail-order retailers as you might think, so there’d be a good chance you might already be on the mailing list of a company who had, or was going to get, a Special Run soon. News and the mail traveled more slowly then: whether you got the sales list on time, or even found out about these Special Runs in time was the bigger worry.

It was easier back then because even though the piece runs were smaller – sometimes significantly so – it’d still take a few weeks or months for most things to sell out. You had the luxury of time – not a lot, but enough to take a deep breath.

The hobby was smaller back then, too. Less competition!

We had our profit-takers and flippers, too, but the problem wasn’t as widespread. There were some examples of quick sellouts, demand that vastly exceeded supply, and a couple of instances of people buying multiples for resale that profoundly warped the market.

Prices for some of the in-demand SRs remained high for while, but the Internet quickly cured that. There are still some – like the Buckskin Adios, or the 1984 G1 Stablemate Draft Horses – that command the big bucks, but most SRs of years past aren’t all that expensive or difficult to find anymore.

And that’s going to be the case with these newer ones, too, no matter how popular a mold may be now. Some go up and stay up, but most go down eventually. Or at least become less hotly contested.

If you couldn’t get one, and can’t afford the aftermarket now, just wait it out a bit. Something new will come along, and people will sell something old to buy something new.

Gray and Silver Linings

Ah, so many new lovelies being thrown our way this week!

The Silver Filigree this year is Bobbi Jo, which was a bit of a surprise for me; I was expecting someone fluffier, like the Icelandic:

Reeves keeps up with its tradition of stylistic inconsistency with Avalanche who, unlike the past few “lacey dappled” Holiday Silver Filigrees, is more of the “plated and polka-dotted” variety, best represented by the 2003 BreyerFest Raffle Proud Arabian Stallion Saturday Night Fever (and Foal Born to Run):

http://www.identifyyourbreyer.com/images/SatPAS1.jpg

I still have a feeling we’re going to see the Icelandic in some form this season, though. As a Christmas surprise, maybe? The Holly and Ivy went over fairly well last year, so I am fully expecting something popping sometime around the actual Christmas holiday.

While the issue of mold popularity with the Silver Filigrees is a moot one – I can think of very few molds that wouldn’t sell out, if released in Silver Filigree – the Bobbi Jo mold has become insanely popular over the past year. My single token entry for Avalanche will probably have even less of a chance of hitting its mark than it normally does. But I’m fine with that.

Then there was the Crystal and Crispin, the Holiday Mare and Foal set on the Grazing Mare and Foal:

http://www.breyerhorses.com/crystal-and-crispin?__wwbt=978.819.27.2.1#readmore

So I guess “Holiday Mare and Foal Sets” are really are an official thing now, on top of all the other Holiday/Fall/End of the Year Specials?

If I have any money to spare for one of these sets by the end of the year, it’s still likely to go to last year’s Thoroughbred Mare and Suckling Foal “Eve and Claus” first. Nothing against the Grazing Mare and Foal, I just have a personal preference for Roans over Grays. Usually.

And finally the Brick and Mortar SR Glorioso shipped to stores this week, too:

I saw some in one of my local stores on Wednesday, and for the first time in a while, an off-the-shelf model knocked my socks off! Though to be honest, I had a pretty rough time at work that day and anything with four legs and a tail was a welcome sight…

But seriously, Glorioso is easily my favorite of all the Fall releases so far. The initial photos – Reeves’ and other hobbyists’ – didn’t did anything for me one way or another, and while I do like the Andalusian mold, it’s not an must-have for me. (Other than the lavender-tinted variation of the original release. Someday, someday.)

Until I saw him in person: the Grulla color is well-executed – shimmery and silvery without being too metallic – and it looks great on him. I would have bought one then and there if I could, but other obligations are awaiting my next paycheck.

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.

Original States

Before I forget, here’s my Banff:

As others have pointed out, he still has the "B" mold marks on his horns, 30 or so years after that experimentation with different plastic ended. But they did remove the U.S.A. mark in the meantime!

The difference there is that the B mark was originally for internal inventorying purposes (keeping two incompatible plastics from mixing) and may still serve a function in making sure the separately molded horns go in the right slots during production. The USA mark was to comply with import/export laws. Reeves might have run afoul of the government if they hadn’t removed it.

(Speaking of the removal of the USA marks in general, it is so weird for me to see newer hobbyists refer to models with USA marks as "older"! Well, technically, I guess…)

Since the Family Arabian posts have been going over so well, here’s another: how about a look at a matching set of FASes, from that fascinating ca. 1959-1962 collection I bought a little while back?

The Charcoal and Palomino Family Arabians didn’t debut until either 1961 or 1962; the 1959-1962 ephemera gap leaves the exact date up to debate. Although Palomino had been a part of the Breyer color palette from the very beginning, Charcoal didn’t debut until ca. 1961, appearing on both the Fighting Stallion and the Rearing Mustang.

Breyer’s Black Pintos prior to 1961 did come with white manes and white/partially white tails. Unlike the Charcoals that followed, the black paint on the Pintos tended to be unshaded, or at the very least undifferentiated (no black or blue undertones).

What’s interesting about the simultaneous appearance of the Palomino and Charcoal (aka Charcoal Palomino, on some early mail-order sheets) is that they both used the same mane stencils/masks. All of the other colors manufactured on the Family Arabians/Old Mold Arabians didn’t need them; the only other masks they did use on the Arabians prior were the facial markings for the Bays.

The near side of the neck is plain, by the way, with none of the extra stenciled tendrils or hairs that show up on other examples. The outline of these stencils did change significantly over the years, especially on the near side; other hobbyists have done a better job of tracking those changes, though.

What I like about these guys - and part of the reason they're sticking around - is that they likely show us the "original state" of the stencils. At least until further research proves otherwise.

You know how that goes.

Banff and Other Not Brown Buffaloes

Well, there’s that last crazy-weird-awesome special of the year I feared: a Silver Filigree Buffalo?!

I want to be ridiculously excited about Banff, but after what happened with the Polled Hereford Bull Marshall, I have to temper my excitement just a bit. Even if the piece run this time is 300, not 40.

It’s true, according to the e-mail Reeves sent, that most previous Buffalos have been some shade of brown. Even the two nominal Decorators - the Connoisseur Tortoiseshell Taima, and the Ranchcraft Woodgrain - were brownish.

The only established releases in not-brown (outside of Test Colors) were in white, or nearly so: the #380 Tatanka from 1992-1993, and a very low piece special run made possibly as a tie-in or promotional item for Dino De Laurentiis’s 1977 film The White Buffalo.

If the posters and online reviews are any indication, it’s basically Jaws in the Old West - starring Charles Bronson and an animatronic Buffalo. Sounds like my kind of film!

These older special runs are grayer - almost Smoke - and don’t have the red handprint that the Tatanka has.

There may have been a Post Production Special Run of the Tatanka made in 1995, to commemorate the birth of a real white buffalo in 1994. The details about that SR are a little sketchy; all we know for sure is that they don’t have handprints either, and are probably hand-numbered.

The Tatankas used to be one of those hot must-have items that regularly commanded three-figures on the secondary market. He’s still pricey (for a Buffalo) but not unreasonable for a scarce nonhorse mold. The two handprint-free SRs, early and late, I can’t judge: they are so scarce that I can’t remember even seeing one for sale recently.

As for the alleged "Bronze Glo" Buffaloes - Bronze-colored Buffaloes that may have been a part of a paint test/experiment in the 1970s - I am about as skeptical as I am of the Mobil Red Pegasi. While a few of them may indeed be the real thing, some (if not most) are not.

I’ve seen too many "Bronze Glo" models claimed to be real for all of them to be real, unless it was one very large bucket of paint that Peter Stone and Chris Hess were playing with that day in the factory. Stranger things have happened, but fakes (innocent and intentional) happen, too.

As with anything claimed to be exceedingly rare, caveat emptor.

Chamonix

Nailed it! The next Web Special, Chamonix:

Silver Filigree Ashquar! Interesting little detail worth noting: the hooves are a different color than the ears and muzzle. Silver Filigrees haven’t been consistent on that point: just as often as not, the head and hoof colors match - most recently on the BreyerFest Silver Filigree Misty.

I’ll be entering every day - my Mont Tremblant needs a boyfriend - but doubt I’ll get him. As with most low-run Silver Filigrees, speculating will likely be an issue with this one. I won’t be heartbroken if I don’t get pulled for one. It’s not like he was a Kitten, a Khemosabi, a Polled Hereford Bull or a Traditional Man o’ War.

(Again, I want to reiterate: it was an educated guess, not the result of any insider intel. I’m just a little better than most at reading the signs. Making a ton of predictions also helps.)

In other news, per the Just About Horses that are just starting to show up, I was also partially right about the imminent reappearance of the Western Horse: there’s a shiny Appaloosa one named Glitterati being offered next year to celebrate the Western Horse’s 65th anniversary.

I thought the mold would show up in the Vintage Club first, but I am on board with this as well. Plus, I think he’d make an excellent model to use for a hobby outreach campaign.

Organizing a "National Model Horse Day" campaign has been in the back of my mind ever since a coworker mentioned National Clown Week back in August. (Yes, she's a professional clown. Not scary at all, either!) If clowns get a week, surely this great hobby of ours is worthy of a day, right? I wouldn't have to be Breyer-specific or anything like that, just a day to publicly celebrate and advocate for the hobby that gives us so much pleasure.

"National Model Horse Day: Because everyone does deserve a pony!"

Okay, off my soapbox now.

The BreyerFest Celebration Horse will be a Bay Roan Ardennes, on the Roy mold. Most of us were expecting something Drafty - likely a Percheron - so an Ardennes is a pleasant surprise. I don’t have my copy of the JAH yet to judge the quality of the paint job, but I’ve been hearing good things.

It’s nice to see more warm fuzzies about the selection of the Roy mold than I expected on Blab. He’s not one of my favorite molds, personally, but I’ve always believed it was partly because he’s had such a bland lineup of paint jobs over the years. The recent BreyerFest Special Run Radar showed just how much a pretty paint job can mend. 

But I’m sure we’ll be hearing plenty to the contrary, too. I find it so baffling that some hobbyists are willing to bail on the event based on a the very first release - sort of like bailing on a concert because you don’t like the opening act. While we’ve had both beauties and clinkers over the years, the event hasn’t been exclusively about the "Celebration Horse" for years.

And finally, it seems like the Maureen Love article in the JAH is mostly a tease, and noncommittal on the return of the Hagen-Renaker molds. I’ll have to wait and read it myself to see if I can discern anything more from it.

Crinkles

I never did get around to introducing you to the Silver Filigree Misty I got during the Great Post-BreyerFest Silver Rush:

I call her Crinkles, because she reminds me of the aluminum foil that both my Grandmothers saved and reused until it crinkled to bits. Oddly, the white plastic underneath the silver paint seems shinier and more sparkly than the silver itself, but I think it’s an effect of the textured surface than any trick of the paint.

With all the Special Runs they’ve been throwing at us willy-nilly this Fall, it makes me wonder if we’re getting at least one more: this time, another Silver Filigree. Silver Filigrees are not quite a Holiday Web Special tradition, but it’s happened enough that collectors can be forgiven somewhat for thinking it is:

2008: Othello - Silver Snow
2010: Esprit - Alpine
2011: Weather Girl - Mont Tremblant
2013: Brishen - Aspen

It’s interesting to note that these molds were all relatively "new" when their corresponding Silver Filigree Special Run was released. Yes, I considered the Othello "new" then: while the mold existed in Nonplastic form much earlier, the mold made its Plastic debut in 2007 with the popular Christmas Horse Wintersong.

The most likely candidates for a possible Silver Filigree Special would be newer molds like Latigo, Ashquar, or Carrick. However, Carrick is a Tractor Supply Special (Travis); Ashquar is a Flagship Special (Sahran); and Latigo was just announced as a Collectors Club 2015 Web Exclusive (in Palomino Pinto, named Tallulah).

As we’ve seen with the Goffert and Carrick molds this year, though, Reeves isn’t squeamish about putting out multiple unrelated Special Runs from the same mold in rapid succession. For some reason Ashquar seems like the most likely candidate among the most recent mold releases; he’s only had the one release (Sahran) since his debut last year.

But we’re speaking of hypotheticals; I haven’t heard anything concrete. In fact, I haven’t heard anything at all about anything, but I haven't been online much lately. It may well be that Reeves might think we are Silver Charmed and Filligreed out after BreyerFest, and is currently plotting something else.

Or nothing at all.

Actually, I’d love to take a breather and not have to worry about any more Specials of any kind for the rest of the year. Silver Filigrees or otherwise.

Don't think that'll happen, though.

Spotty, or Speckly?

Neither one of the Silver Filigree Sherman Morgans turned out to be a Silver Charm, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have a decision to make about variations:

Spotty, or speckly?

There’s never really been any consistency with the Silver Filigree paintjob since its introduction in 1993, on the Proud Arabian Mare. Some, like the PAM, have a "plated and spotted" look; others look more like the "Wild Dapple Grays" of the late 1970s that just happen to be Silver instead of Gray. Most of them, lately, have looked like my more speckly fellow - finer and smaller resist dapples against a silver background.

Other than the smaller runs - like the Proud Arabian Stallion "Saturday Night Fever" and Foal "Born to Run", BreyerFest Raffle items from 2003 - there’s been no consistency within the runs themselves, as my two Shermans demonstrate. I saw a third (on Blab?) that was so finely speckled he looked almost like a Freckle-style Roan (pretty!)

A quick survey on eBay suggests that the "spotty" ones appear to be the most common of the variations of Celebration available, though that conclusion might be a result of selection bias. Hobbyists may be keeping the variations they like more - or selling the ones they like less.

Which one is the most rare (other than the Silver Charm) doesn’t matter to me personally. I think I’m going with the spotty one, just because he makes me smile every time I look at him. I wouldn’t mind keeping both, but that can’t happen, at least not now.

Silver Nuggets

Just a drive by today. I have to get up at an unheavenly hour tomorrow for work. Good gravy, I hate going to bed before the sun sets!

Looks like it’s a busy week for BreyerFest News.

BreyerFest tickets are finally shipping, and they’ve replaced the Saturday Concert Thing with a "Gala of Horses" show instead. The Beatles impersonators were a clever idea for the British theme, and worked, but last year’s concert? It seemed like a bit of a stretch to me.

(Let us not speak of this year's "Tonka Fun Zone". I love a dump truck as much as the next girl, but really?)

I was kind of hoping for a special, silverplated and boxed Stablemate for this year’s Anniversary - as a complement to the original 25th Anniversary G1 Saddlebred from 1975. (Which I don’t have. Someday, maybe. Sigh.) They went with Silvery Stablemates as the One-Day models, instead: a Silver Filigree G2 Morgan, a Silver Charm G3 Arabian, a Silver Appaloosa G3 Jumper, and a Silver Tobiano Pinto G3 Stock Horse.

I don’t have time to fiddle with the PhotoShop today, so here’s just my favorite, the Pinto Stock Horse, named Glimmer:

The rest can be seen via this link: http://www.breyerhorses.com/bf2014_tickets_landing. You have to click on any of the Single Day icons to view them in all their glory.

It’s interesting, by the way, that they’re selling tickets by the day, rather than as a generic anyday pass. They have been having issues recently with running out of the One-Day Stablemates well before the end of the event, so perhaps this is a part of the solution?

Since the legions of Stablemates completists buying up complete sets are a significant part of the problem, one of my solutions would be to package a few hundred complete sets and sell them during the event - in the Tent Store, or the Anniversary Shop. Those would be pieces in addition to whatever piece count they deem necessary for One-Day purchasers and walk-ups.

I mean really, it’s not hard to sell off excess Stablemates. If all else fails, they could just convert whatever excess there is into keychains or Christmas ornaments, right?

I’d love a complete set myself, but I think I’ll take a pass this year and save some for the last-minute attendees instead.

On Shermans, Past and Present

Felt a bit weepy earlier this week, but in a good way: I got a letter from the organization that I donated Sherman (my late car, the Saturn Station Wagon) to, and they ended up selling him already, and for way more than I expected. Aside from the bigger tax credit, which is nice, it was good to hear that someone saw that much potential in him.

Have a happy second life, Sherman.

Another Sherman entered the scene this week - the Silver Filigree one just announced as part of the SR lineup for BreyerFest. I’m not as into the Sherman Morgan mold as some hobbyists are, but he looks fabulous in that color, and I still don’t have an example of the mold with the newer tail yet.

I did find myself inexplicably drawn to a Rose Gray Baxter I found on eBay last week while shopping for something else. I wouldn’t mind the Gloss Bay QVC release, either, but I’m always either just missing him or getting sniped.

While I’m glad to see their photography skills are improving, is it just me or is that not the worst Photoshop clipping path, ever? I thought the Warehouse Find Chestnut Halla/Bolya picture looked bad: poor Shermie looks like he’s melting.

I can do better in five minutes with a ten-year-old copy of Photoshop and a cludgy mouse (Drawing tablet and stylus? Feh, for amateurs!) As could a substantial portion of the hobby, and possibly Vita. Baby steps, I suppose.

So I pulled the trigger and bought the second ticket. My first choices will be Gossamer, Sherman, and at least one Surprise. Second choices will include the Bears and the Appaloosa Carrick. There’s still one more Line Ticket item to be revealed, and the Surprise potentially being something I’d rather not deal with (cough Silver mold cough) so it could change.

(Not the Gossamer though. That one’s non-negotiable.)

Some of the Anniversary store items are starting to be leaked, too - the Plushie, the Crystal Alborozo, a Decoratory "new" Classic that basically a plastic version of the Sir Buckingham mold, and a Pink G3 Highland Pony covered in sprinkles that I Must Have. (A Cupcake, with sprinkles! Gah!)

There’s another obvious thing for you: individual Stablemate Store Specials. They could make at least a thousand of those, and sell ‘em out. I could see it as a good item for tourists passing through the Park on actual vacation who might want to get their kids a little memento of the event, without committing to something bigger or more expensive.

Not realizing, of course, that Stablemates multiply, and grow, and the next thing they know the family’s computer has some strange new bookmarks and there are printouts of the newest Web Specials just sort of sitting casually on the kitchen table in the morning, and….

Stablemates are the hobby's gateway drug. So cute, so little, so seemingly harmless.

Mont Tremblant, Etc.

In retaliation for the kind of crummy day I had today, I ate most of a large bag of M & Ms. Probably not the best move on my part, but it really was the best choice of solutions I had available to me.

I also opened my Fall in Love today; he’s very nice. A couple of odd little flaws, but nothing to freak out about. His masking is very clean, and he has just the right amount of shimmer in his coat. I’m not quite sure where to put him yet; the odd shape of the Nokota Horse mold makes it a little difficult to accommodate on a shelf.

The name of the SR Mont Tremblant Weather Girl suggested to me the kind of vacation "the right kind of people" take during their winter break. So I was fully expecting the announcement of the lottery/drawing to happen over the Christmas weekend, with the winners being notified on the first day after the holiday (as just the thing to blow your gifted moolah on!)

This weekend? Okey-dokey.

The piece count on her is interesting - 350, instead of the 150-200 piece runs we were assuming were (going to be) the norm with the revamped Web Special program. It may still be the case, with Mont Tremblant’s upped piece count due to the overwhelming demand the Silver Filigree special runs have had in the past. I don’t think it’ll affect the resale value too much, either: the run is still (technically) quite small, and the demand for Silver Filigrees (and Weather Girls) is still quite high.

The announcement of a "gift horse" drawing - in the form of a 100 piece gloss SR for The War Horse, on the Foundation Stallion mold - is a very pleasant surprise. I may be indifferent to the charms of the movie itself, but not to a super-limited glossy Foundation Stallion.

I wonder if they’ll be making gifting a semi-regular thing? (Hmm. Limited Edition pastel-colored Stablemates in Easter Egg packaging, for Easter? I could go for that!)

Lost in the hubbub surrounding the special runs was announcement of the resolution of the international ordering problems on the Breyer web site. Remember when everyone was getting all righteously indignant about this last month?

It gets fixed, and nobody seems to notice or care, presumably because they’ve all moved on to the next outrage. Which I’m guessing is Thrillseeker, based on the length of that thread about it on Blab. (I didn’t get drawn for one, so my interest in that discussion has been fairly minimal.)

Speaking of, it seems that Reeves has finally decided on making its presence known there as "NewBreyerHelper." They haven’t formally said as much, but it does appear to be someone using the editorial we in postings about matters pertaining to the web site today. An interesting development, to say the least (I wonder how many "friend" requests they’ve gotten by now?) I’m guessing it’s part of a run up to the "forum" Reeves has mentioned in passing on the new web site.

I’ve got holiday projects to finish, so toodles…

Silver and Gold

I’ve been occupying most of my spare time over the past three days to spring cleaning, primarily of the outdoor gardening kind. It was messier than I imagined, but isn’t that how most cleaning projects are? Another day or two and I should be ready to start planting and rearranging things.

In the process of raking, weeding and pruning, I completely forgot that the Equine Affaire was this weekend. Not completely completely, I guess - it just got pushed down the list of things I needed to worry about. (Today’s list: "What inedible thing did the dog eat today?" "How much did I lose by on today’s eBay auctions?" and "Where on Earth did my brother hide the chicken taquitos?")

I hate feeling so apathetic about Steppin’ Out; I’m more than willing to be a fool for love over many things, but the Esprit mold is not going to be one of them.

The BreyerFest-related news coming out of the Equine Affaire was pretty exciting: two more Special Runs were announced! A Decorator Bluegrass Bandit "Under the Sea," and another Gambler’s Choice piece called "Spun Gold," on a mold-to-be-named-later.

The Bluegrass Bandit is a blue translucent piece done in what appears to be the same style/technique as the Pink Ribbon Andalusian, except with ocean/mermaid motifs, I presume. (The one available picture is a tad unclear.) I can’t imagine her not being popular, considering how well received Translucents like Gala, Carnivale, and Tortuga were. (Reeves has decided to call them "Clearware," but I’m going by my preferred term, for now.)

The "Spun Gold" SR is a bit more of mystery: we don’t know the mold, and we’re not sure of the color, either. The copy on the signage says "One mold has been transformed into three different strands of gold!" so the popular line of thinking is that they’ll be three different shades of gold - white, yellow and rose - in either Golden Charm, Florentine, or some combination thereof.

I think it’s just as, if not more likely, to be an iteration of what we had with the previous Gambler’s Choice, but all in Golden Charm: solid, pinto, and appaloosa. If there are going to be surprises within the surprises - as there were with the Quarter Horse Gelding, before - I think they might go with either Florentines (to keep with the theme) or Silver Charms/Filigrees (to keep with the history.)

I also think it would be darn funny if they went with the Silvers, because for the first time in the history of ever, Silver would be worth more than Gold.

I have no idea on the mold they’ll be using for it. The first two thoughts that come to mind are "vintage" (that’s what they went with before) and "pony" (because Rumplestiltskin was an evil little gnome.)

Heck, maybe they might go with one of the molds celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, as I mentioned in a not-too-previous post? All three of those horse molds - the Fighting Stallion, Mustang or Five-Gaiter - have already come in Golden Charm, and the Fighter has come in a couple versions of Golden Charm Pinto, so I don’t think it’s very likely.

So here’s the tally so far, on Line Specials:

711127 Aurora (Porcelain Unicorn)
711128 Gruff (Mountain Goat)
711129 Under the Sea (Bluegrass Bandit)
711130 Once Upon a Time (Show Jumping Warmblood)
711131 Wish on a Star (Big Ben)
711132 Jasmine (Weather Girl)
711133 Hansel & Gretel (Black Forest Ponies)
711134 Spun Gold (Gambler’s Choice)

The grumps among us will say otherwise (because they always do!) but this is a darn nice lineup. Except for the Unicorn (duh, breakable!) I would not be unhappy with any of them. I am so not unhappy with them, in fact, that I’m actually thinking about buying another ticket. At full price.

Gratitude, and the Social Graces

I was going to talk about molded-on tack and the Quarter Horse Gelding today, but since another matter came up in comments of my semi-annual "poor-pitiful-me" post, I will address that instead, before it becomes something it isn’t.

Yes, by some very odd circumstances, I did end up with two Diamond Jubilees. A very dear friend offered to get me one from one of her local stores, and I accepted. There was a gap in our communications over the matter, and for a period of a few days I assumed that something had gone awry with the deal.

In that brief interregnum, another dear person offered to get me a Diamond Jubilee, and fearing the first had been lost, I also accepted her offer. As you may know, my personal life experiences have taught me that back-up plans are a very, very good thing. I didn’t want to turn down the second offer, because I felt if I did, that would guarantee the first deal would collapse as well.

(That’s just how my life seems to work. That’s also how I ended up in the financial situation I’m in right now, but that’s not something I'm going to discuss here.)

The second Jubilee will be going to another good friend and customer who had also experienced a great deal of difficulty in acquiring a Diamond Jubilee. Part of my motivation for looking for a Diamond Jubilee was to find him one, too: on more than one occasion, his generous purchases have gotten me through some tough times. I wanted to find him one as an expression of gratitude on my part for being such a great customer.

As for gratitude, I must confess that I am very, very bad at the social graces of giving and receiving it. Wherever the blame lies - in nature, or nurture - it’s irrelevant. I acknowledge it as a personal failing, and I’ve spent a great deal of time in trying to overcome it. If I have failed to acknowledge my gratitude to any one of you, please know that no personal slights were intended. I am grateful - very grateful - for everything the hobby has given me. I just have a very hard time saying so, sometimes.

I had some reservations about making the Liminality post, but in the end I decided to click "Post" because I knew that some of my fellow hobbyists could sympathize with my plight. The hobby, as an entity itself, is not real good at acknowledging or validating the contributions of its members, except (in so many cases) after they’re quite literally gone.

And should be it for the mopey-dopeyness, until my annual "they rejected my BreyerFest Volunteer Application, again," post in late May.

Liminality

One of my favorite holiday films is the 1947 classic The Bishop’s Wife, starring David Niven, Loretta Young, and Cary Grant. It doesn’t get the same amount of airplay as A Christmas Story, but it always turns up on the TV at least once in the season, and this year it was on Christmas Eve on TCM.

Cary Grant’s character Dudley, an angel, has been sent to provide guidance to a bishop. The bishop (David Niven) more or less dismisses him as a meddler, so Dudley occupies himself with taking care of the needs of the bishop’s wife (Loretta Young,) who is being neglected because of the bishop’s obsession with building a cathedral. In the process, Dudley begins to fall in love with her. In one beautiful sequence, Dudley - whose true nature has not been revealed to anyone but the bishop - finally confesses his love to her, in the most roundabout fashion possible:

I'm tired of being a wanderer. I'm tired of an existence where one is neither hot nor cold, hungry nor full.

I can sympathize - not in being a semi-divine creature capable of working miracles, but of feeling trapped in a strange, liminal state. It’s sort of how I feel about my rather singular status in the hobby: in it, but not of it. Neither well known, nor unknown. Influential, but rarely acknowledged.

Most of the staff at Reeves knows me, or knows of me. But on the flip side, I still get hobbyists asking me for references, or questioning my authority on topics I sometimes, quite literally, wrote the book on years ago. (Ever have a conversation with someone, and realize they’re talking about you in the third person? The first time it happens, it’s funny. The third through seventeenth time, it isn’t.)

Part of it stems from some personal issues: I’ve been on tenuous financial grounds for some time now (partly by choice, partly not) and because of this, I’ve been unable to pursue projects that would have made me a more "visible" personage in the hobby.

The structure of the hobby is also to blame. I don’t quite understand the hobby’s tendency toward rigid hierarchies: a small handful of hobbyists are designated as BNPs within their respective categories, with little room for anyone else in the Treehouse of Awesome.

(You see it not just in what I do, but in every aspect of the hobby. It’s particularly bad in the realm of customizing: you have a tiny handful of designated "superstars," but everyone else? You’re lucky to get more than body price for the pieces you labor over.)


The arrival of my Diamond Jubilee - on Christmas Eve, naturally - really drove the point home. I had briefly considered entering the Diamond Dreams Contest, but aside from the logistical issues, I’m not sure that I could. My stories and my "voice" are known quantities, familiar (if not immediately recognizable) and therefore dismissable.

Ironically, the more anonymous prize model competitions of BreyerFest are still somewhat open to me, and I’ve had a little success there. But, like Dudley, I tire of being stuck in this strange state of being, especially as the New Year approaches.

Flying Green Unicorns!

Will I be getting the latest Web Special, Alpine? Maybe. You know how I am when it comes to Silver Filigrees. It’s the fact that it’s a telephone-only sale that’s making me hesitate: I’m somewhat telephone-phobic. The sale isn’t until Tuesday, but the thought of spending a couple of hours hitting redial is already giving me the heebie-jeebies. (Yeah, I’m not a very happy camper on HIN Reservation Day, either.)

I’m also a little annoyed by it - not that it’s another super-limited Silver Filigree, but that it’s another super-limited Esprit. Another one, really? Great. That means is that we’re in for several days of hobbyists dismissing him as an "easy pass," and then attempting to buy one anyway to resell to the people who really do want one.

Personally, I was hoping for a Decorator Mountain Goat. Now there’s a mold we haven’t seen in a while - since 2005, to be precise. But could they sell 250 Decorator Mountain Goats? Alas, probably not.

I don’t think they could sell 250 White Moose, either, but that was the speculation du jour on Blab today. Seriously - a White Moose? I love the Moose mold myself, but I can’t imagine them making a white one. Yeah, they exist, but what would be the rationale for making one - aside from a slight association with Christmas, or cuteness?

If you’re looking for an idea that might have some genuine selling power to it, a White Stag would be a better choice. Google "White Stag" or "White Deer" or even "White Hart," and you’ll see what I’m talking about. A "White Stag" would be a natural for next year’s "Fairytails" BreyerFest theme, especially as the non-horse item for the Line Specials.

I doubt they’d do it. One, they already sorta did one for the BreyerFest auction back in 2007: hobbyists kind of get annoyed when a "test color" becomes an actual production run. (Even though that used to be the whole point of test colors.) Two, breakage issues with the tines would be a nightmare, especially if they’re bubble-wrapped and bagged like most Line Specials. I imagine the inevitable Unicorn SR is going to be trouble enough.

Oh, and if you’re going to do a little more research on mythical or legendary horse-type things, do yourselves a favor and check out the awesome Táltos Horse. Here is how he’s described on the Wikipedia (via the page on Táltos, or Hungarian shamans):

The táltos always had a horse, frequently appearing in Hungarian folk tales as a white stallion with wings. However, the Táltos Horse always had jade colored skin, causing them to be mocked by everybody. It is said in myths, that only the táltos could see the real powers hidden in the horse.

When they met, only the táltos could ride the horse, and it was always "flying like thought". This way the táltos is able to meditate (révül).

The horse can have a unicorn horn and wings, visible to the táltos during meditation (révül). The unicorn horn signifies the horse's special spiritual power, as it is a single horn that grows straight out of the brain. The wings define the ability to fly between the three worlds of Hungarian mythology. The táltos horse could have "gold hair", and also eat hot cinders.

Doesn’t he sound like something straight off of a Dethklok album cover?

I know it’s Wikipedia, and therefore of dubious veracity, but dang it - a jade green flying unicorn that eats fire? Now that would be one badass BreyerFest SR.

Rambling

The Samplers are done. The Look-a-Like Contest entry would be done, but the darn paint won’t dry in this humidity. And the costume contest thingie? Looks like I’ll be doing a lot of that work at the hotel; fortunately, that should be mostly embellishment at that point (depends on how well the sewing project goes tomorrow.) Can’t pack the vehicle, since it’s going to be hotter than the bottom of a skillet for the next two days.

If I had time to sleep, I doubt I’d be able to. Sigh.

Apparently they did remove the word "enigmatic" from the Boxer entry on the Facebook page, which is nice, though they didn’t correct the date, so I’m not going to chalk that up as a win in my column. Especially since they’ve posted a couple of real winners since then - Susan Prosser, really? Who on Earth has been posting these entries lately?

Is it sad that my first reaction upon seeing the picture of the Diamond Jubilee model in the BreyerFest program was Oh great, a half dozen more misspelled threads about ‘Silver Filagree’s on Blab. If you can learn to spell Appaloosa and Trakehner, you can learn to spell Filigree!

I also take slight issue with the entire "60th Anniversary" concept, because we’re not entirely sure if it’s true or not. Breyer might have been manufacturing horses for MasterCrafters by 1950, but the entity known an "Breyer Animal Creations" may not have come into existence formally until 1952 or 1953 - the earliest known mention of it is in the Boxer announcement in that 1953 issue of Playthings we’ve been discussing. "1950" has a nicer ring to it than "1953" though, and they’ve been going with the 1950 date for so long I doubt most hobbyists would even notice if they did discreetly change it.

It is a Silver Filigree, so I’ll likely be buying it. The piece count isn’t too low, so I’m not too worried about a quick sellout. They made 2000 of the Autumn last year, and I just found a couple of lovely examples at one of my local toys stores just last week, sitting on the shelves with all of the other regular runs, for a regular run retail price.

If the cash situation is not bad coming out of BreyerFest, I might go back and get one of those Autumns. It’s not that I’ve necessarily had a change of heart over the remodeled version of the Sherman Morgan mold; I’ve just decided that, for research purposes, it’s probably a good idea to have at least one example of every mold or significant mold variation around.

At least, that’s how I’m going to rationalize any purchases in the near future.

(And speaking of mold variations - that test Gem Twist with the remodeled mane and tail - hubba hubba!)