Priceless

One good thing about the massive amounts of snow in the yard? All that reflected light means it’s been a good time to unyellow horses! The Little Man (Palomino Stock Horse Stallion) that I was considering selling is looking almost nice enough to keep now.

As I’ve mentioned before, older Palomino paint jobs are notoriously fugitive: they change with exposure to heat and/or light. Breyer Palominos tend to turn honey-brownish - often attractively so - while many Hartland Palominos turn lime or chartreuse green. Which, depending on your taste, could also be attractive.

The Yellow Palominos of the 1980s? Apparently not that fugitive. Three months might not be enough to effect a change, true, but so far my Little Man is just as painful to look at now as he was back in December. (Whether this is a good thing or bad thing? You decide!)

A Bay Fighting Stallion I picked up in a box lot a while ago, however, is still an unpleasant shade of Cigarette Orange. My lack of photographic skills, for once, are doing him a great kindness:

He was cheap, is relatively common, and is not in the bestest shape anyway; once a few other projects are out of the way, he may become another restoration test subject.

I do have a little bit of guilt about that: he does have footpads, no USA mark, fully modeled and shaded boy parts, and has some pretty nice shading overall. I’d be perfectly amenable to selling him as is to someone who’d look past his relatively minor imperfections. (Postage plus a nominal amount to cover fees and stuff?)

Speaking of, I noticed on the Breyer Calendar of Events that they actually listed - in addition to the usual Fun Days and Live Shows - a Swap Meet! Alas, it was in Missouri, so it’s not something I would have been able to attend, being in Michigan and having to work.

http://www.breyerhorses.com/calendar?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=1937

I do like that Reeves is tacitly supporting something like this. Not everyone wants - or is able - to show, and many don’t have the financial means (or fortitude!) for bigger events like BreyerFest. Sometimes all we want to do is hang out with our fellow oddballs and talk horses.

Heck, that’s a huge chunk of the appeal of BreyerFest. The shopping is great, but confabbing with a bunch of people who sort of "get me"? Priceless.

Sure hope it’s something that catches on. I don’t see why it couldn’t, since it’d involve far less prep than a live show: just some space, some tables, and some refreshments. I wish I could do another one in these parts, but I’m not sure it’d be feasible with my schedule.

I’d be more than willing to pitch in, though! Especially on the refreshments part. 

Swap Meet Stuff

Well, that week could have gone better. A lot better. More health problems to deal with - not me, but for everyone else. Even Sherman (my station wagon) is acting up - though I’m hoping the "check engine" light is just him going all Drama Queen on me again, and not something requiring serious mechanical intervention. (Not something I can afford right now.)

(And yes, my car's name is Sherman.)

One week to go before the big Swap Meet thing. I finally finished compiling my saleslist - way bigger than I expected - and I’ve been dragging all my BreyerFest room decorating supplies out of storage. I’ll be making some other arrangements tomorrow - snack and supply shopping, inquiring about party trays, etc. All the usual panicky, last-minute stuff.

I might not even get a chance to actually sell any of my stuff in the end, but that’ll be okay, if everything goes modestly well. The model horse hobby needs events like this, and if we can pull it off, that would be awesome. And if so, it could even become a semi-regular event, and spearhead future community-building efforts - you know, all that stuff that got discussed in that thread on Blab back in December.

Oh, the details: It’ll be Saturday, May 15th, at the Romeo Community Center, 361 Morton Street, Romeo, Michigan, across the street from the baseball field. (If you’ve been to Detroit Rock City Live, it’s the same location.) It’ll be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; if you’re coming to sell and need to set up, we’re allowed in the hall at 9 a.m. There will be a small table fee to help recover part of the cost of the hall rental and supplies. If there should be - heaven forbid! - any extra cash from that, it’ll get donated to charity. (I’m not anticipating it, but you never know.) Table space is limited, so while a reservation isn't necessary, it might be a good idea.

Shoppers and the general public will be allowed in at 10 a.m. There may well be some non-hobbyist foot traffic, as Romeo will be having its annual Victorian Festival that day as well. (So, you know, behave yourselves!) We have to be out of the hall by 5 p.m. If anyone wants to keep the party going, my house is literally less than a half mile away from the Community Center, and anyone who wants to peruse the collection or take a look at the reference library, they’re more than welcome. (I’ll try to make the house "presentable.")

That’s it for today. I have the whole weekend off, so I’ll try to get in another actual Breyer History post in there somewhere. It looks like we might have some decent weather on Sunday, so there might be a flea market report in the near future, too.

(BTW, nobody in the picture above is for sale. It's just a group shot of a random corner of the house; that's what it looks like after I did the major culling.)

Swap Meets and Holy Grails

When most hobbyists fantasize about their holy grails, it usually involves test colors, vintage rarities, or an ultimate fantasy dream horse done by a hot, in-demand artist.

For me, right now? It’s a job with a desk and a chair. I appreciate all the hours I’ve been getting at the part-time job recently, but a regular schedule with "normal" hours would be heaven right now. The unpredictability is exciting, but it’s hard for me to meet my other commitments, like blog posting and swap-meet organizing.

(And getting a puppy, finally! More on that at a later date, though.)

Anyway, the swap meet/party/model horse get together is a go for May 15th; once I finish up this post I’ll be working on hammering out the rest of the details. It’ll be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., set up beginning at 9 a.m. There will probably be a small, nominal fee for tables to help cover the cost of the hall rental. More details early next week.

Since it’s being done on such short notice, it’s going to be a relatively casual affair; if the response is any indication, though, a bigger and better event may be planned for the future. There’s definitely a demand for small, regional model horse conventions that don’t necessarily revolve around live showing. We’ll see how it goes, and take it from there.

So it appears that the "final" list of Tent Line SRs has been made:

http://www.breyerhorses.com/blog/

Pictures of most of the samples, on display at Equine Affaire this week, have also been circulating; as expected, new photos are starting to change opinions, mostly for the better. I’m not normally a porcelain person, but the level of detail lavished on the Indian Horse "Dances With Wolves" is giving me pause. Wow, seriously wow.

There’s also a mystery horse: a long-tail Lady Phase in what I’m guessing is a really peculiar (yet intriguing) no-spot Appaloosa. It’s not shown in the list of SRs on the blog, so there’s some speculation about her status - is she Tent Line Special, Store Special, or something else?

Radar has been more or less confirmed as the Store Special, but there’s nothing to say that the Lady Phase couldn’t be either. Or maybe she’s an entirely new type of SR classification we don’t know about yet. As for Radar, I’m definitely warming up to him; the close up shots of his sweet face are winning me over.

Has anyone else noticed that Reeves is being very forthcoming with the item numbers this year, too? We even know the item number for the Early Bird Special Opening Night - according to the Facebook page, he’s #711126. Much appreciated, Reeves, really and truly. Keep it up!

More and better posts next week; the work schedule looks a little less hectic.