Kings and Queens

Tosses two more bodies back into my project box, waves goodbye to my Diorama Contest dreams.

I’ve just completely run out of time for them. I just have too many higher-priority projects to do between now and BreyerFest to be able to spend any more time necessary to complete them. 

My “clever” idea is turning out better than I expected, too. The only comfort I have with it is that if I take my time with it, maybe it can be salvaged as a Customs Contest entry for next year.

The other one, I dunno. It’s more of a craft project than an actual custom, but it involves solving a technical issue that’s running headlong into my poor spatial awareness skills. 

Think about it this way: I have an easier time folding a map than actually reading it.

Sigh.

(And another thing: I don’t want to hear anybody tell me they’re bored. Unless you can come over sometime this week and weed my flower beds, I just can’t even with you people right now, okay?)

Since I’m short on time, again, here’s another picture of another recent purchase: a Glossy King! No, not a vintage Bay or White Fighting Stallion (I wish!), but the Stock Horse Stallion from the Collector’s Club Appreciation Sale:

He wasn’t the most popular choice among the Glossies offered that year, but I still thought he was pretty neat. Like the Glossy Bandera, I was hoping to find one at a not-unreasonable price, eventually. And that eventuality was last week!

I’m not too keen on the long tail, though. I’ve never been a fan of the whole “short mane/long tail” look that’s so popular in the Stock Horse world: it reminds me too much of mullets. 

I don’t care that they’re back in style again, nobody looks good in a mullet. Not Superman, not David Bowie, and definitely not horses. 

UPDATE: I just did a slapdash, ten-minute mockup of the second diorama, and it looks like I’m being a drama queen. I just may have the time to finish this one after all. I’d still rather go with my clever idea, but that would necessitate the invention of a 36-hour day. In other words: toss it back in the box, Andrea. The Sampler is not going to write itself!

Glossy Stock Horses

In case you were wondering, I did participate in the second round of the Collector’s Club Appreciation Sale; I still wanted everything that was left in my cart (minus the sold out items), and the teases that they gave us for the second batch of Glossies – Integrity, Khalid, and even the Stock Horse Stallion King – were all perfectly acceptable.

I couldn’t pass up that Spirit Jersey, especially since it was in that familiar shade of purple (sorry, “Deep Lavender”) that I found so appealing on the Unicorn Zenith. I had been shopping for a new oversized pullover, and since this one was actually cheaper than most of the ones I had been considering, I would have bought it (and the socks) by the end of the year, anyway.

I might even buy a second, if/when the larger sizes go back in stock.

Incidentally, as the Breyer web site states, it’s true that the Stock Horse Stallion has rarely come in Gloss: aside from a few stray Tests and Raffle pieces, the only Production Runs that comes to mind are the 2008 BreyerFest Live Show prize DZ Weedo, and the Gloss version of the 2009 Web Special Summer Solstice, who showed up in the NPOD later that same year.

The Gloss Summer Solstice, in particular, was mostly unnoticed and/or outright ignored when he was “released”, but you don’t see much of either of those Glosses on the secondary market anymore.

It’s not really a surprise that he – or any of the other 1980s Stock Horse Family molds – have had many Gloss releases. Very few Glosses were being produced in the heyday of the Hess Stock Horse Family in the 1980s, and by the time it became a thing again both Breyer and the hobby had moved on to newer and more glamorous molds.

Typical of Chris Hess’s later work, the 1980s Stock Horse molds also have a less “polished” finish than both their predecessors and successors, which doesn’t really lend itself to glossing, though I think it looks perfectly lovely on both the Summer Solstice above, and the King below.

The second round of Glosses aren’t scheduled to ship until the beginning of May – close enough to my birthday that I’ll simply treat it as a de facto birthday present, regardless of who I get. And it’s the thought that counts, right?

Good Enough

It just occurred to me that the two items I ordered late last week – the Vintage Club Weather Girl Grace, and the Stablemates Club Finn – are both Gambler’s Choice items. I just paid out a decent chunk of money and I have no idea what I’ll be getting.

Out of the 12 different possible combinations (three of the Grace, four of the Finn) that is.

And you know what? I’m fine with that. I grew up during the “picture box” era of Breyer collecting – pre-1985 – and most of the time you had no idea what you’d actually be getting inside that box. It wasn’t just a solid, opaque cardboard box either: they were shrinkwrapped too!

(Handpicking? Hah!)

Breyer was in something of an experimental phase with retail packaging in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Prior to then, toy stores generally kept out display pieces, and you had to ask the clerk to bring you your selection from their backstock.

By the end of the 1970s, most stores – toys or otherwise – had switched to a self-service mode as a cost-saving measure, which necessitated a move to more decorative and informative packaging.

The history of Breyer packaging is, of course, much more complicated than that, but I don’t have the time or the mind to deal with the intricacies today. Another day, perhaps.

Aside from the packaging issues, a lot of the time you couldn’t trust the catalogs or manuals, either. Case in point: the Stock Horse Stallions from the 1981 Dealer’s Catalog:

Well, okay, I am still a little mad about that one: I want that minimally-marked Black Pinto San Domingo, dangnabit! I probably have a slightly better chance of acquiring one of the numerous Stock Horse Stallions Tests, like this one:

Seriously, there’s like a bajillion different Black Pinto Stock Horse Stallions out there, and I like them all better than the pinto we actually got, but that just might be a “wanting what you can’t have” thing. Or that I’m always up for another Test Color or Oddity, no matter the mold or color. I already have two Stock Horse Stallion Tests, and don’t really need another.

But back to the original point: everyone has gotten very spoiled since the advent of display boxes. We can be picky now, instead of later!

However, the ability to be pickier isn’t necessarily a good thing, especially if we find ourselves becoming so picky that nothing less than perfection is good enough. And since perfection is an arbitrary and abstract concept, what happens is that eventually, no model is ever good enough.

The perfect is the enemy of the good. 

I’m not saying y’all should accept a substandard model, but sometimes, life is easier and a lot less stressful if we just accept that everything comes occasional ding or flaw, whether we like it or not.

Getting My Circadian Rhythm Back

Effective this week, there will be a change in my work schedule that may or may not affect my posting schedule here.

I’ll also be curtailing my online sales activity, and probably not doing much shopping beyond obligate club purchases and incidental finds. (Which is kind of a bummer, since many of the Duchess pieces I “need” decided to show up on eBay this past week.)

There’s some remodeling going on here and stuff is still everywhere, and will likely be for the next couple of months. To be honest, it’s stressing me out more than it should. No need to add anything more to the pile of things that already can’t be dealt with.

(I can’t believe I once harbored thoughts of being a “completist”. Silly me.)

As I’ve intimated here before and elsewhere, there are some things I want (and need!) to accomplish by the end of the year, and this change to my schedule will help with that.

One of those things will involve monetizing the blog, eventually and slightly. I want to have some merchandise – the usual t-shirts and swag, but also want to make some reference and research materials available for purchase. (A Sampler Omnibus, Marney’s photo album, some article collections, etc.

I’m also thinking about starting a Patreon account, but that notion is strictly in its exploratory phase right now.

So, long story short, if my postings get a little haywire over the next few weeks – multiple postings over several days, or no postings for nearly a week – don’t panic. At the latest, I’m hoping everything will be straightened out by the end of October.

And then you will (i hope) get more of me on a more regular basis. For better or worse!

In the meantime, here’s a not-random picture of a Test Color; I was looking up something else entirely, and ran across what might be Marney’s original reference picture for that Test Color Mahogany Bay Stock Horse Stallion I purchased from The Horse You Want at BreyerFest few years back:

I cannot remember if I posted this or not, but in my slightly addlepated state I think it is neat to see it again, whether it is the first or second time.

(His name was Darrell.)

The Newest Old Gray Mare

You can also count me among the unimpressed with the Breyer Cyber Monday sale. Free shipping is great, but since I’m lucky enough to live in an area that affords me the luxury of handpicking, it’s not that big a temptation for me personally.

I thought they would have pulled out one or two moderately interesting “new” things to spice things up a bit, unless they’re saving them up for Grab Bags. They did come out with some pretty decent Grab Bags in early December of last year – featuring BreyerFest Specials, the French WEG Classics, Zodiac Series Classics and some of the Holiday Mare and Foal sets.

So my little “fun money” fund remains intact for now. Good.

Here’s a picture of the other Warehouse Find/Reissue I purchased along with the Bluegrass Bandit – the Stock Horse Mare in a particularly carbonated version of Dapple Gray:

There are no obvious flaws on her I can see, beyond the ones inherent to the mold itself and the Resist Dapple painting technique.

I have a slightly higher than average fondness for the Hess Stock Horse Family: they came out in the early 1980s, at the peak of my early hobby “career”, and they made up a significant percentage of my purchases then. I didn’t realize how much of a fondness I had until I was reorganizing my boxed models over the weekend:

That’s just a small portion of the Stock Horses I have – most of them are not boxed. Then, as now, boxes weren’t that high a priority for me. These boxes may look a bit rough, but what is important is that all the models in those boxes are top notch examples of their respective releases. And not going anywhere, either. (A few of the later arrivals, maybe…)

I just realized that I have Tests or Oddities of three of the four Stock Horse Family members, but none of the Stock Horse Mare yet. Hmm. I’ll have to keep that in mind, should the opportunity ever arise.

And it should, eventually. If any vintage Test Colors are “easy” and/or inexpensive to acquire, it’s the Hess Stock Horses. Marney’s albums and ephemera is full of them, and this one is a particular favorite of mine:

I often wonder where she is, now. 

Lucky

Here’s a picture of the Marney Test Color that I spoke of earlier, that I bought from the Black Horse Ranch sale booth at the Horse Park Sunday afternoon. I was taking one last look-see at what was left – to pick up another Appy Performance Horse, maybe, or a foal of some sort – and here this guy was, sitting nonchalantly on the table, like he was no big deal:

At first glance he looks like a basic, run-of-the-mill Bay Stock Horse Stallion, with gray hooves. The gray hoof variation is somewhat uncommon, though classifying it as “rare” might be a bit of a stretch. 

But he’s not that guy.

First, he’s Mahogany, not the Brown or Red that’s more typical of a Bay SHS. He also has an elongated, masked star and shaded (ahem) boy parts.

He’s not a Preproduction Test for the Bay release – the mold marks say otherwise – but I could see him being a possible Test for the Special Run “Sam I Am”, that is a very similar shade of Bay.

Or he could be something that Marney just whipped up on a slightly subpar body she pulled out of a cull bin one day. (He does have a few minor molding issues.)

I do consider myself lucky to have found him, and recognized him, even when my BreyerFest was essentially lost. Yay, me!

Speaking of losses…

Nope on Milky Way, and nope on the Chicago waitlist. The former is only a slight annoyance: the Bluegrass Bandit mold is very popular right now, and other hobbyists wanted her more than I did. She’s a cutie, but I can live without her.

But the latter hurts more, if that’s even possible.  Rejected twice: now I feel like I have cooties.

In the abstract, I do understand that I have had an otherwise enviable hobby “career”, and a collection that would have many of you Googling my address if a meteor were to take me out tomorrow. (Good luck getting past my brother, though: he’s been to BreyerFest and he works in retail.)

I’ve been to 25 BreyerFests, I attended three Model Horse Congresses. I own a few dozen Test Colors, and I know – or have at least met – most of the major players in the hobby, some of them before they were famous. Some of the things I’ve done or experienced are the stuff of hobby legend. 

I knew Marney. I met Chris Hess. I consider Linda Walter a friend. Peter Stone has left me voice mails. I had a private tour of the Breyer factory in New Jersey. Breyer once came to my house.

Some of my models and ideas have been translated into Breyer releases. My name has graced multiple issues of Just About Horses. I’ve been interviewed, photographed, and (so I’ve been told) appeared in at least one Breyer video.

I was the original Ninja, and once first in line for the NPOD. I wore a cape to the Horse Park, and tromped around the Covered Arena in six-inch high vinyl platform boots. I’ve won everything at least once.

And this year, I officiated my roommates’ wedding, in the presence of two Kentucky Derby winners.

I acknowledge all this is awesome, and am grateful – and so lucky! – to have had such experiences.

But in spite of all that, I can be – and still am – disappointed by the outcome of recent events. I have a competitive spirit, and not one to rest on my laurels. And I am also not the kind of person who will tell you that I am fine, when I am not. 

No Ordinary Bay

Yes, I am aware of the Web Special Polled Hereford Bull Marshall; as I told a friend of mine, it’s almost as if Reeves designed a Special Run specifically to punk me. (Glossy Black? Splash Spot Appaloosa? On the Polled Hereford Bull?) Throw in a $100 Gas Gift Card and a box of fancy chocolates, and that's all the Christmas gifting I need right there.

But as my time is short (again!) today, I’ll just stick to what I originally had planned: that minor variation that has recently captivated me. Here he is!

The Bay Stock Horse Stallion - with gray hooves. Terribly exciting, isn’t it? (Feel free to roll your eyes.)

The Back Story: earlier this year, an auction for a similar Bay Stock Horse Stallion entranced me. I had been vaguely aware of the variation, but I hadn't really paid much time or attention to it, until I saw THAT one. I was amazed what a difference gray hooves made in "dressing up" an otherwise pedestrian Bay.

The hooves on the earlier one were so dramatically light that it did not go unnoticed by others. I don’t think I ended up even being the first underbidder on that auction. The price wasn’t super crazy, but it seemed expensive for a Stock Horse Stallion who wasn’t a Test Color or super-scarce Special Run.

Since then I had been looking for another, with varying degrees of intensity. The very few that I did find were either overpriced or in subpar condition. I spotted this guy in a modestly priced group lot; his hooves aren’t as light or as neatly painted as the one who obsessed me previously, but the price and condition were right.

The gray-hooved version is a later, rather than an earlier variation. The earliest Bay Stock Horse Stallions had the B mold mark, and this one has a smooth, buffed area where that mark used to be. I have no idea if the gray hooves were just one of those things they did just for the heck of it, or it was an "end of the run" variation they did to boost sales.

I haven’t spotted this variation in any Breyer ephemera; all the ones I’ve seen so far have had solid black legs, all the way down. I haven’t had a lot of time recently to do deeper research, so I may well be wrong.

FAS Yellow

I’ve barely been home the past three days, which is what I expected when I took a gander at the work schedules last week. I have tomorrow off, but a dentist appointment is involved, so it doesn’t really count. Plus I have another round of packages that I have to get out of the house tout suite.

I’ve finally started doing that herd culling I've been mumbling about for months now. With flea market season rapidly approaching, I forced myself to make the time for it. Outside of a couple of box lots I bought primarily to resell, though, I haven’t had too many new additions to the herd since BreyerFest, mostly because of the space (and time!) issues.

My criteria this go round is: If I don’t absolutely love it, or it doesn’t have some personal or historical significance, it’s gotta go.

The issue being that I love a lot of things, and as a kinda-sorta historian, I can find significance in almost anything, if I look long and hard enough. One particularly hard decision, for instance, was this guy:

It’s Little Man, from the Kelly Reno and Little Man Gift Set. I ultimately decided to cull him because he’s a little on the yellowed side, and I’d like to upgrade to a NIB set in the future anyway.

Heaven help me, it’s the color that’s most appealing to me: I don’t know why, but that hideous acid yellow Palomino colorway from that time period (early to mid-1980s) has been fascinating me of late.

(Let’s call it, for the sake of expediency, FAS [Family Arabian Stallion] Yellow, after the model who’s best known for it. The actual term I use for it isn’t exactly family- or Internet-friendly.)

I have this wild fantasy of a Vintage Club offering in this most eyeball-watering of colors, though I’m not sure who would get the honor of wearing it. Especially since most molds in the 1970s and 1980s - either as a Regular Run, or a Special Run - ended up sporting it at one time or another. Even molds as unlikely as the Pacer, the Belgian, and the Bell-bottomed Shire have already had their turn. (And I have them all! Mwah-ha-ha!)

Vintage Traditional molds that haven’t come in this color yet include: Man o' War, Trakehner, Stretched Morgan, Shetland Pony, Legionario, Appaloosa Performance Horse, the Clydesdales, Galiceno, Proud Arabian Stallion and Mare, Justin Morgan, Scratching and Lying Down Foal, Sham, Smoky, Stock Horse Mare, Stud Spider…

(Not including known Test Colors. Some of them came in different shades of something Palomino-like, like Stud Spider, Sham and the Shetland Pony. I am talking about FAS Yellow. My cut-off date for "vintage", BTW, are molds in production/conceived pre-Reeves, ca. 1985.)

As you can see, it’s not a huge list, and a number of these molds have already been utilized - or will be utilized - in the Vintage Club. Plus, the fact that FAS Yellow is probably one of the least-loved (to put it politely) of vintage colors means that it’s highly unlikely we’ll be seeing it on an new release any time soon, unless it ends up being one of those targeted mini Special Runs, like they did at the last Vault Sale. I can only imagine the reaction that would engender. (I hit refresh how many times to see THAT?!)

So I’ll just have to keep on dreaming about that FAS Yellow Man o’ War, Morgan or Trakehner. Though if I do, somehow, end up with a shot at a "Design a Test Color" thingie, I am so doing that. "She wants WHAT? Are you sure?"

The SHM at TSC

Our local Tractor Supply finally got their Holiday stuff set up; in the past, they’ve been among the first to get the goodies in, but not this year. I had no plans on buying anything - hello, painfully-tight budget - but I did want to inspect the goodies for, you know, research purposes.

The Ranch Horse "Popcorn" was way nicer than I expected him to be; those dark, muddy promo photos did him no justice at all. In terms of chestnut paint jobs, I still prefer the SR Easy Jet, but I wouldn’t turn a Popcorn down if he just happened to end up in my mailbox or under the tree this XMAS.

He’s unnumbered, except for the export serial number mumbo-jumbo, so I assume he’s an open-ended run (limited to orders, not to a set quantity.) That doesn’t necessarily mean that there’ll be more of him than the limited-to-quantity exclusives; indeed, there might be considerably less, considering that sales haven’t been all that great on some of the more recent TSC exclusives. Popcorn’s nice, but I don’t see him generating the extra sales that a tie-in like John Wayne or Bonanza would.

Stores might be order less, and stock up on items with quicker movers. Like maybe those Classic Stock Horse Families? Boy, those sets are nice. (And more of the Tail Up Foal! Yes!)

Man, it was really hard not walking out with the Prince Plaudit one. I like how they mixed it up and included all of Breyer’s different Appaloosa paint techniques in that one set: you’ve got splash spotting, airbrushing and masking. A nice, subtle nod to collectors there, I think.

When I walked out of the TSC today, though, it was one of the other SRs that stuck in my mind - Templeton Thompson’s Jane, a Stock Horse Mare who comes in a rather nice shaded chestnut, too. She also appears to be another open-ended run; I’ve been told that she’s another TSC exclusive, but you know how it’s been with some of these farm-store SRs lately.

While the Stock Horse Stallion does have a few deficiencies, he’s not completely unattractive as is, especially with the right paint job. The Mare, on the other hand, well I … the nicest thing I can say is that the potential is there. I know it because I’ve seen it: several years ago at Model Horse Congress, D’arry Frank had an amazing custom of a SHM for sale I would have bought in a heartbeat, if I hadn’t been a destitute college student at the time.

What amazed me was that she wasn’t a "drastic" custom - and this was back in the day when that word actually meant something. Just some corrections, a slight head tuck, legs moved slightly, and she wasn’t just pretty, she was beautiful. Beautiful enough to make me actually flip over the price tag and take a look, even though I knew she wasn’t anywhere in my league, financially.

Yeah, I know, it’s D’arry Frank we’re talking about here - one of the few customizers who could make a Khemosabi live show competitive. But when you see something like that, it makes you realize that every model horse is beautiful - or at least has the potential to be.

I have no idea how well Jane will sell; she’s clearly another item that’s geared towards the non-hobbyist portion of the model horse buying public. Ironically, she might end being more "rare" than the Popcorn, though it’s more a matter of time and space, than numbers. Something I’ll talk about in greater detail in my next post.

Pinto Stock Horse Stallions

As you can tell, I haven’t been very motivated lately. It’s not just the WEG thing. It’s October, and October’s never been a good month for me: an unusually high percentage of my friends and relatives who have shaken off the mortal coil have done so in October. (So far, so good, but there’s still a lot of October to go.)

We’re entering the slow time of the year for the part-time job, which means less income - to cover the same amount of bills. More actually, because of the dental emergency. (Just got a friendly "reminder" to pay the remainder of that. By this Friday, I hope.)

Because of the money situation, I wasn’t terribly motivated to buy anything at the flea market today, beyond a few grocery items and a new squeak toy for Vita. There were things to buy: some nice bodies, and a herd of hilariously funky flockies that someone had enhanced with glitter and rick-rack. I don’t normally go for flockies of any kind, but the fact that someone went out of their way to "customize" them did bring a bit of a smile to my face.

So what have I been doing? Finishing up old business, putting some way-too-distracting craft projects in storage, filing and reorganizing. I’m a bit behind in updating my research notes, so I’ve put a bit of a hold on the library visits until I get caught up. I need to focus on the newer stuff anyhow; while I may be on the verge of finally untangling the greater mysteries of the 1950s, the past couple years’ worth of releases are mostly a blur. (There were what, like 60 some items for WEG, alone? Sheesh.)

One recent release I do plan on buying when the money situation sorts itself out: that awesome JC Penney’s Two-Horse Set - the one with the Bay Smart Chic Olena and one of the coolest-OF-pinto-paint-jobs-evar Stock Horse Stallion.

Most of the Stock Horse Stallion’s previous pinto releases have been pretty blah. The LSE "Dallas" was pretty sweet, and I love my Sam I Am, but all of the easier-to-get Pintos? Total snoozers.

I can remember being a little surprised - and a tad bit disappointed - when my original Black Pinto Stock Horse Stallion arrived on my doorstep in early 1981. I had ordered him based on the photos I had seen in the Collector’s Manual I had received from the Bentley Sales Company:


Him, I found exciting. I love black pintos - and a minimal, mostly black one? Perfection! In fact, everywhere you looked in 1981, you found a different Black Pinto Stock Horse Stallion. Here’s another one, from the 1981 Alden’s Christmas Catalog:


Marney might have designed that one specifically; she had photos of both sides of one an awful lot like it in her photo album:


Also exciting? The San Domingo test from the 1981 Dealer’s Catalog. I’m not a huge fan of San Domingo, but I thought he looked freaking amazing in an airbrushed minimal black pinto:


Clearly the mold itself wasn’t ready in time for the photo shoot for the Dealer’s Catalog, so the next best thing - the San Domingos - had to be substituted. The stores placing their initial orders wouldn’t have been overly concerned that the final product varied somewhat from the Dealer’s Catalog; while I wouldn’t say that it was an expected occurrence, that sort of thing happens enough to not be that big a deal. Most toy buyers at that time wouldn’t have noticed, or cared, that the molds or the patterns didn’t match. They ordered black and white spotted horses, they got black and white spotted horses. No biggie.

Now the Collector’s Manual, that was a different situation: that was going straight into the hands of hobbyists and other consumers. While the hobby, and the model horse market in general, was not as sophisticated as it is now, the difference would have been noticed. And commented on, either to the toy store, or to Breyer itself.

Evidently the shoot for the Collector’s Manual was put off long enough to get some actual Stock Horse Stallions in there. The paint jobs weren’t finalized by then, but at least it was the right mold. Breyer would get a slew of whiny letters (including mine) about the catalog paint jobs not matching the production paint jobs, but not in the same quantity, or intensity, that a San Domingo subsitution would have brought.

As for the wide variety of pinto patterns, I’m not sure what was up with that. I do know there was a genuine dispute over the pattern, partly stemming from the fact that Peter Stone apparently didn’t know (at the time) the difference between Overo and Tobiano. But did each version represent the actual, viable production item at the moment of that photo shoot, or were they just whatever random test pieces they happened to have lying around?

If any of these early test pintos happen to turn up in the near future, I’d certain consider pouncing on them, regardless of my current financial stake.

UP! with Summer Solstice

I see the sourpusses are out in force again, complaining about the latest Web Special Summer Solstice. So predictable.

Sourpussing isn't unique to our little hobby, you know. It's endemic to most tightly knit, mildly obsessive online communities. Here's an extremely topical one: I've always been a big animation fan, and one of my regular Internet bookmarks is the site Cartoon Research, run by Jerry Beck, a cartoon historian of some note. His blog is frequented by a lot of professional animators and people who are really, really into cartoons.

www.cartoonresearch.com

The comment threads there are infuriating, hilarious and eerily familar. The consensus there is that Pixar's glory days are in the past: they haven't made a “good” film since, oh, Toy Story 2. Ratatouille was a bore, and Wall-E a total failure. The general consensus on UP! so far is fairly positive, but there are already a few naysayers trying to suck out all of the joy. (And they'll probably succeed, since the same thing happened to Ratatouille and Wall-E.)

No, really. I'm not joking. Go check it out for yourself and see. (Cartoon Brew is the blog section.) Some of the most successful films of the past decade, written off as less-than-worthy by the “experts.” Seeing the same kind of nonsense going on in other communities sort of puts it in perspective – and explains why I can't muster more than an eyeroll and “whatever” combo anymore whenever the negativity gets rolling anywhere in the online model horse community. Criticism is one thing: balloon popping is quite another.

I wouldn't mind buying a Summer Solstice – I've been jonesing for Breyer to do a dapple black special or regular run item for a while now. It's a hard color to photograph decently, though, so I'll wait and see what they look like before I commit the money to it. I still have a lot of bills to pay, in spite of the recent influx of cash, and I'm just being cautious.

He has that whole mullet thing going on too, though his new tail is decently modeled at least. But I do love my spotless DZ Weedo, and I think Reverend Happy would like a pasture buddy. The price I paid for my Weedo versus the Summer Solstice isn't that different, and I suspect the piece counts aren't that different either, so the combination of price and quantity seems okay to me. (There's quite a funny story about the Reverend's name, but I'm not feeling particularly funny today. Another day, another day.)


The fact that they used the same blanket and spot pattern isn't a turn off, either – they all used to do it all the time, back in the day. Those pattern templates don't come cheap – even the new and improved ones. I find it refreshingly “retro.” (I know, I know, mullets are also retro, but not in a good way.)

And I haven't gotten a new something – a new anything, really – in quite a while, except for things I've needed for work (food, clothing, gasoline.) I was quite literally asleep when the Music Cities went on – and then off – sale. I logged off the Internet, went to bed for a couple of hours, woke up, logged back on, and discovered what I missed.

I know the economy is in the toilet and all that, but the crazy speculation going on with those Zippos has pretty much caused me to write off ever getting one, at least in the near future. I counted 25 Music Cities on MH$P at one point, which is insane when you consider that (a) that's out of 200 pieces, (b) that's not counting the private sales, presales, and the sales yet to be when Reeves finally ships the rest of them out, and (c) it's a mold that is allegedly not all that popular.

Whatever. Another day, another horse to complain about.