Enter Sandman

Darn it, lost another post to a power outage! I was only a couple of paragraphs in, but I totally lost my mojo on that one. 

I spent most of the weekend going through all my assorted ephemera, looking for my old live show paperwork. I found most of it, but a lot of the names and identities of the unplaced horses are still missing. Since they technically don’t “exist” in the live show system (such as it is) it’s not that big of a deal. Other than the fact that it’s going to take some time to re-create, and time is one thing I do not have in abundance.

While I am generally of the opinion that no good comes from keeping things in the closet, some of the other paperwork I discovered along the way should probably stay there. At least until the rest of the participants are no longer with us.

Reading through some of it was reassuring, in the sense that it showed me that my memory is better than I thought it was. Some of the things I remember seemed a little too wild or bizarre to be true, but apparently not!

No, you’re not going to get anything more out of me than that. Like I said, some of these folks are still in the hobby, and may not even remember the incidents involved, themselves. 

It is also worth noting that the hobby has always been kind of… dramatic? Social media is simply amplifying what has always existed. The bigger issue is that people are marinating in that media environment all day, and mistaking it for reality.

But back to the matter at hand. You really can’t really rely solely on your memory: the brain tends to edit and reinterpret things to fit our biases, often without us even realizing it. That’s why documentation is so important in the first place: people can change their minds, but a piece of paper cannot. How you interpret that documentation is another matter, but I’m probably going a little too far into the semantic weeds here.

But let’s go back to reality: I am super excited about the next Vintage Club release, Sandman!

I know a lot of people were wondering when he’d finally show up in the Vintage Club, and I was quite pleased that he finally came to fruition. The documentation I did for him was probably my favorite among the batch I did for the Vintage Club this year. 

(Sorry, no clues on the others. I’m suffering just as much as the rest of you. Just in a different way!)

We haven’t seen the mold much in recent years, aside from the Warehouse Find that was a re-release of the original Smoky, and the 2012 Passage to the Pacific Centerpiece “Surf’s Up” in Florentine that I want dearly but I’m not willing to sell my car for it. 

(The shading in his mane and tail slay me every time I see one. Argh!)

So anyway, I’m going to be scarce for the rest of the month, as I attempt to get my act together for the show on April 2. Today is Stablemates Excavation Day!

Tractor Supply Time

Another good day at the flea market: a #327 German Shepherd, some vintage Classic bodies, and a Tractor Supply Nevada Joe Sterling from 2002 – who isn’t minty-mint, but he has nice shading and was a relatively low number (74/5500), so I couldn’t pass him by.

Low numbers on hand-numbered Special Runs don’t really mean anything, per se; metal molds don’t deteriorate over time like ceramic molds do, and they don’t keep track of them that way regardless. (The 74th piece numbered is not necessarily the 74th piece out of the mold, or the 74th painted.)

A low number is just a nice little plus, like a cherry on your sundae. 

I already have a mint, low-number Nevada Joe Sterling (97/5500) that I bought locally; I can’t recall if any of the other Smokies were of similarly low numbers, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case. It’s been my experience that most models bought locally tend to stay local, though this has been gradually changing over time, with the Internet et al.

I was at my local TSC yesterday, incidentally, and they were just setting out the stocking stuffer bins, which (I’ve found) go up a few weeks before the rest of their holiday merchandise. I was able to sneak a peek at some of the shelf labels for potential Stablemates, and found them: the Paint and Play Unicorn Assortment, the Surprise Paint Kits, and the Mystery Unicorn Blind Bags.

But which Unicorn Blind Bags? The Walmart ones with the Black and Gold Florentine Magnolia, or the standard Regular Run assortment with the Navy Blue Alborozo?

This is important because of what happened last year, with an unusually high number of Copper Florentine Chase Piece Djangos turning up in the TSC assortment.

I’m fine with either – the local hordes cleaned out most of my local stores of both Unicorn assortments. (Though I did have a chance at a Magnolia, walking away from a full and unopened box in a rare moment of clarity.)

The speculation about the Traditional pieces is focusing on more recent molds – from the past 15 years, that is – with my cohort coming to the conclusion that the Smarty Jones and the Brishen are two of the most likely candidates; with Flash, the Marwari, and the Andalusian also being in the running, though slightly less likely.

Personally, I’m also keen on the Giselle, Bluegrass Bandit, and Bouncer – but that’s not intuition or deduction talking, that’s me just liking those molds and wanting to see them in new and attainable colors. (Especially Bouncer: he is about due for a new release!)

Buckskin Smoky Variation

The Web Special Calvin has reappeared on the Breyer web site, confirming my suspicion that he didn’t sell out. I didn’t think he’d reappear until BreyerFest, though, so there must be enough of them left to make it worthwhile to relist.

I’m tempted, but not that tempted: my financial focus has been on getting ready for the flea market season, opening (weather permitting) in a few short weeks. While I have no reason to believe it to be an expensive season this year, it never hurts to be prepared, just in case!

Since I’ve sort of been focused on Buckskins of late, here’s an interesting variation of a later Buckskin release I picked up a long while ago:

The standard version of the #997 Shenandoah – a Collector’s Edition piece from the first half of 1997 – has a bald face and pinked ears, and isn’t that different from the Bald-faced Buckskins of the 1960s and 1970s. Well, it is a little bit different: his points are blacker, and he has a sock, and there is more gray shading on his face.

But did you notice what makes this guy extra special? There is no bald face!

It would be easy to ascribe this to a case of excessive overspray, but it appears intentionally done here. It is possible that overspray did happen, but the painter made the decision to “fix” it with a little extra paint, rather than toss him into the cull bin.

Unlike the original #69 Smoky, this release is not known for its variations: I can’t recall seeing any others like him, when I’ve made the effort to look. Neither he nor his second-half-of-the-year partner release Remington are all that rare, it’s just not a mold that’s in much demand.

I’ve been mulling over selling him, mostly because he’s a shelf hog. But I do love my yellowy Breyer Buckskins, and the likelihood of me ever running across a Test Color or a Surf’s Up – the Florentine Exclusive Event Smoky, and one of the few Smokies that does command some serious cash – is pretty slim.

So for the time being, he’s staying.

Literary Aspirations

The book sale on Monday was better than I expected – I ended up doing a nice little “restock” on my own sale books and added a few to the personal collection, including an older (but not a first edition) copy of Tschiffely’s Ride. It’s kind of beat up, and without a dust jacket, but I can live with that:

I know it’s still in print, but I’m a sucker for older editions: they tend to be cheaper than newer editions, and just as sturdy, if not more so. Chances are if I hadn’t picked it up, it would have gotten tossed into someone’s “decorative book” pile anyway, and that weirds me out to no end.

I’m not as averse as some are to using books in crafting (the “altered book” movement) but the idea of buying books strictly as decorative objects is not something I will ever be (or need to be!) into. If I’m going to have “pretty” books on the shelf, I want books that I would also want to read or find useful.

Another book in that stash was a more recent copy of Will James’s Smoky. I only bring it up here because I’ve been meaning to get the illustration that Chris Hess clearly modeled the Traditional Smoky on, because it’s not one easily found on the Internet:

(Not the best quality, I know…)

As to why Chris selected this pose and not the others, I’d suggest taking an online looky-loo at some of the other original Will James illustrations from the book: this pose was probably one of the easiest to adapt to injection molding!

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.

Hey, It's Smoky!

Feeling a little bit under the weather today; I haven’t had a day off in a while, and I think it’s starting to catch up with me. I did take an extended nap this afternoon, after a quick snack of rice crackers and Vernor’s Ginger Ale, so I’m feeling a bit better now.

Fortunately nothing major - like a last minute Buried Treasure or limited Web Release - happened while I sleeping off whatever came over me this morning. That already happened earlier in the week with the latest batch of Warehouse Finds/Reissues: I came home from work in a less-than-pleasant mood, stayed offline for a while, and when I did log back on - bam! - more Reissues, some of them sold out already.

I did pick up the Missouri Fox Trotter in Palomino, and threw in the Clydesdale Mare I had been mulling over for a while, to make the postage charge more palatable. The original release of the Fox Trotter - Southern Sunrise - was a model I had been interested in acquiring before, but almost all the ones I had seen previous had bland and undistinguished paint jobs with odd pink undertones.

The Reissue looks like it might be more to my liking. The Hagens I found earlier this week were fun and welcome, but nothing beats the New Horse Smell of a freshly unboxed Breyer!

The only Reissue that I missed that bothers me (just a bit) is the Smoky. That was a surprise - both his reissuing, and his popularity. I had not gotten the impression before that he was that much of a "fan favorite" among hobbyists. He’s in an awkward, not-shelf-friendly position, and there haven’t been a huge number of releases of the mold lately.

The most recent was a small group of Florentines raffled off at the Passage to the Pacific Event in California in 2012.

While some of the enthusiasm over his latest release may be more a matter of its scarcity, he does have his fans. I have a couple of friends who are diehard Smoky collectors, and I have a number of them myself: both variations of the original, an unnumbered Ageless Bronze Durango, and the Buckskin Shenandoah without his bald face.

I had at least one Flocked Unicorn at one point, and possibly more, because Bentley Sales had so many of them they were practically giving them away. I’ve long since sold them (cheaply, and with no regrets) because I have issues with Flockies. Those glassy-eyed stares make me shudder.

There is one rare Smoky that I do truly covet: the mold was used to test the original, funky Blue Roan Appaloosa paint job for the Buckshot mold. I don’t know how many were made - not more than a handful, if the case was typical - and the one piece whose location I do know of is very, very beloved by his owner.

From the reference photo floating around, the Smoky Reissue has more shading than the Regular Run, and more neatly airbrushed socks. The first version of the Smoky that the Reissue duplicates, the one with four stockings and dark gray points, tends to have a lot of overspray issues.

If he’s as nice as the photos make him out to be - and so far, that really has been the case with the Reissues - I’ll hold out hope that a few more turn up at BreyerFest.

If not, life goes on.