The Unexpected

I unexpectedly got the weekend off, and I didn’t know quite what to do with myself. What is this thing they call “free time”, and what do I do with it?

(I decided to finish prepping a long-delayed appliqué quilt project – something to keep me busy during jury duty this week!)

And since I have a few free moments here, I’ll randomly open one of the “Breyer Breeds” models that I purchase a few weeks back and never had the chance to unpack, because such is my life right now. And the winner is…

There he is, my beautiful boy! (I know the likelihood of you believing this was something randomly pulled from my stack of boxes is slim, but I’m sticking to my story.)

They did a wonderful job with his facial details, perhaps to make up for the fact that he is a solid, unshaded black:

He reminds me a great deal of the Classic Best in Show Thoroughbred release in Solid Black, the popular #935 release that ran from 2011 through 2018, and was even briefly released as a “Special Run” for Pottery Barn Kids in 2012. (As far as I know, the Pottery Barn release is identical to the Regular Run, but I haven’t gotten around to owning or inspecting one in person yet.)

So does that make this Man o’ War a “Maxi Me” of the Classic Thoroughbred, or is the Classic a “Middle Me” of the Man o’ War? Details, details…

I still want a vintage Black Man o’ War (I know, still dreaming) and I am kind of hoping that these releases – except for the Quarter Horse Gelding, naturally – get included in the Collector’s Club Appreciation Event this year. They would all look amazing in Gloss, but a Gloss Black Traditional Man o’ War would be delightful. 

And since we’re talking about Thoroughbreds, am I the only one who wants the current Test Color offering? I have two Sample Cigars – Nosferatu and Aintree, both lucky NPOD purchases – and a true Test Color would make it a nice trio. Plus I love the “Gold Chestnut” variation of Golden Charm in general, and wish this Gold Medalist series had taken off. 

I do remember that nonhobbyist fans of Valegro were both baffled and put off by this Gold Medal release, and the whole concept of Decorator colors in general, which was possibly part of the reason why the series never came to be. 

Valegro vs. Valegro

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Game of Wanting

I put in my lone entry for the True Blue Exclusive Event; as I’ve said before, I’m not optimistic, especially since so many hobbyists are treating it like a Lotto drawing. 

The Traditional for the event – Bondi – is a Light Dapple Gray on the Valegro mold, and it appears to be Chalky as well as Glossy. He’s beautiful and I want him, but that’s not up for me to decide.

I won’t go to the secondary for this one either because the math doesn’t work out for me. It’s a pretty simple equation, really:

Gloss + Chalky + Valegro + Exclusive Event Model = Unaffordable.

The next Premier Club release is a new Fjord Mare named Astrid, and I also love her. I think I’ll be okay waiting for a more plentiful Regular Run or Special Run, though. I don’t want to get too attached to her, because I had my dreams dashed with the previous Fjord release Henry when they made him the 2015 BreyerFest Diorama Prize Truffle.

(Oddly, I wasn’t as upset with the 18-piece WEG 2010 reissue; maybe because I knew I never had a shot at that one?)

The Spring Decorator release is a Flag-themed Translucent Esprit name Old Glory. I actually like him more than most of the previous patriotic horses – no kinda weird bloody red points, yay! – but I’ll probably take a pass on him, too. Too much stuff, not enough room, others love him more than I do, all that jazz. I think I’ll like him more in person, but we’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it.

And finally, there’s this pretty little girl:

Sigh. You know how long I’ve been wanting a black or gray variation of the Appaloosa Performance Horse color? On anything? A very long time. Knowing that this Test Color is going to be out there, and probably not at my house ever, is discomforting.  

Vintage Club Mini Misty and Stormy

Here I thought I was being so clever and prepared today, writing up a post late last night; I log on this afternoon to do some edits and assemble my links and images, and the Vintage Club Stablemates Bonus bombshell drops on us:

Well okay, mostly for you guys. It’s more the timing of it that caught me off guard.

Anyway, what I especially like about this set is how it rather slyly references the second Misty release, the Hagen-Renaker Performing Misty. I’d show you mine, but I don’t have one, because… well, you don’t need to know that story.

The Vintage Club Stablemates release also comes with a super-neat tiny shipper box very similar to the original individual G1 Sears Wishbook releases of the mid 1970s – packaging that was tough to come by and ultra-expensive well before the Stablemates market became so crazy. 

Judging from the reaction I’ve skimmed (however briefly) on the Internet, it’s a bit of an understatement to say that the Mini Misty and Stormy set is going over fairly well.

I am pleased.

In other news… I’ll probably be skipping the Collector’s Club Lucien: I took into consideration that there was a good chance he’d drop today – but I bought my Stablemates Club Priscilla yesterday, regardless.

While I certainly could use a few more Valegros in my life, and I find the pinto pattern on him quite appealing, I am a bit tapped out after my recent spending sprees. Heck, there are still horses that have not escaped the back seat of my car yet.

I am not all that into Buckskin Pintos, either. Everyone has their color/pattern preferences and biases, and when it comes to Buckskins, I prefer mine minimally marked.

I may regret it later, but I could say that about almost any release, really.

I will now go back to the rest of my regularly scheduled evening, which involved me trying to solve a particularly vexing quilt design problem. (Almost got it, I think!)

Customs Contest

An approximation of how I felt earlier this week:

Apologies to whomever this picture actually belongs to, but when I found it on Twitter a few days back, all I could think was: It Me. 

(No worries. Things are looking better now. Well, maybe not the hair, but….)

Anyway, I was doing something boring and adult last week, the kind of task that lets your mind wander. And it wandered up to a really, really neat idea for a Fantasy Custom – of a kind I think could be competitive in the BreyerFest Customs Contest.

Although I briefly contemplated it earlier in the year, I came to the conclusion that competing in that contest was not going to happen this year, for a number of reasons mostly related to time and money. Then they released pictures of the prizes, and I let out a painful yelp:

Dang it. Dang it all to heck! Black Pinto is a huge weakness of mine, and Gloss Black Appaloosa on the Stablemates Valegro is just about the perfect paint job for that little guy.

Black Pintos are a weakness for a lot of people: that’s why it was a staple of the Breyer’s limited color palette in the 1950s and 1960s. Along with Solid Black, Solid White and Palomino: these are the colors the general public actually know and can accurately identify.

Come to think of it, if someone can – more or less – accurately distinguish between Chestnut and Bay, that’s when I know I can talk to them horse person to horse person. (Not always though – some real horse people can also be kinda dumb when it comes to color genetics. But that’s why this hobby totally rules: horse nerds, unite!)

Shortest answer: this custom project is still a nonstarter, regardless of the prizes. I’ve committed myself to finishing existing projects this year using only the (voluminous) craft and hobby supply stash I have on hand, and this particular project would involve buying new supplies and tools.

Once I get caught up on the most urgent projects (basically: quilts, memory boxes, and completely sorting out the gardening mess outside) then I’ll consider pulling out the bodies and playing again.

Splashing Around

Not much to say again, today: yesterday was another washout at the flea market, and most of the week ahead of me will be used to get my BreyerFest paperwork done, because of course I’m behind.

It’s more a matter of finding the time that fussing over content. I’ve managed to make all of my other deadlines for other things throughout the year, so I am feeling surprisingly blasé about it all at this point.

It could also be the Benadryl talking: in lieu of bashing my head against a wall and attempting a Diorama Contest entry this year, I’ve been spending that time making my garden presentable again. It’s something I can look at every day and get some satisfaction out of it without any worries about whether it gets deemed prize worthy.

Things were going great – but apparently I touched something I shouldn’t over the weekend, and now I’m having a rather unpleasant allergic reaction that may require medical intervention in the next 24 hours. (You can actually see the imprint of the offending leaf on my arm!)

Lovely. I just can’t win either way, can I?

On the plus side, I have most of the components of a possible costume entry, so if the paperwork goes well this week, that’ll be what I spend my free time on next week.

Speaking of free time, looking over my schedule for BreyerFest weekend, it doesn’t look like I’ll get much of an opportunity to get any store-related shopping done; all I’m hoping for at this point is to somehow pick up a Gloss Foiled Again and an Ichabad Crane.

Hotel-wise, I have no idea what I’ll seriously be looking for this year. I’ll know it when I see it, I guess. Just like every other year!

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that my favorite of the current crop of Auction Test Colors is the Splash Pinto Valegro:

I was thinking just yesterday that I wanted to see more Splash Pintos, though I was hoping for a more… affordable option. I’ll just have to settle for a Silky Keno or a Pierrot. (Had the latter, and sold it. Not sure why. Just being dumb, I guess.)

The first true Breyer Splash Pinto – one that was specifically designed to look like a Splash – was the Black Pinto Johar in the Eagle and Pow Wow Gift Set from 1995, I beleive? Then followed by the G1 Draft Horse from the JC Penney Christmas Catalog Stablemate Set the following year.

And finally, one additional note: I added a link to Mares in Black to the right.

Due to my work schedule and other commitments, I don’t get to interact with hobbyists face-to-face on a more regular basis. The informal and intimate qualities of podcasts make me feel like I’m overhearing a really great conversation at a live show or in a hallway at BreyerFest.

That’s the only problem I had with the podcasts: I found myself at several points over the first two actually trying to participate in the discussion! As if I didn’t already talk to myself enough…

Being Little

No new models (or other flea market goodies) to report over the weekend. The weather was still miserable cold, and since much of the “company” that arrived on Saturday had not yet departed by Sunday, it seemed like a good idea to sleep in and catch up on my TV time.

I do not know what’s up with the conflicting One-Day Stablemates clues, either. And personally, it doesn’t matter too much to me what molds they end up being, new or old.

Sure, the G1s would have been nice, and I’m not completely discounting them reappearing in some form just yet. But we old farts have to remember that most of those molds are well over 50 years old at this point. Regardless of their physical state, they are both chronologically and stylistically old.

While it is true that longtime and long-term collectors buy a ton of them, One-Day Stablemates are primarily designed for the more casual attendees. Those kinds of attendees prefer newer and trendier molds, whether they are anatomically or conformationally correct or not.

I have become somewhat fond of the sensible, no-nonsense G4 Driving Horse mold of late anyway, so if that really is one of the four, I won’t be disappointed! (The color/finish combo they go with on him is probably moot. Gloss would be nice: he hasn’t had any official Gloss releases, yet.)

Since we’re on the topic of Stablemates, here’s a picture of my Stablemates Club Aiden, with a Pocket Box Cats pack I haven’t opened yet. Taxes took a bigger bite out of my budget than I realized, so those spiffy socks I’ve been aching for will have to wait a bit longer:

His paint job is amazing – something that wouldn’t have been possible on Stablemates even a few years ago – and of course, the box is so cute.

But gosh, this mold seems so tiny, especially when compared to other recent Stablemates releases. It’s almost like he’s his own separate scale.

Now, none of the Stablemates across the different generations are perfectly to the claimed 1:32 scale – either internally to each generation, or across generations. Consistency is hard to achieve when you use multiple sculptors and multiple mold makers over the course of several decades.

But the Valegro/Aiden mold feels so small, I’m finding it a little off putting. My brain wants to “read” him as a pony, but it’s obvious that he’s not meant to be a pony.

I’m not bothered enough to resell him, though: Stablemates of almost any kind, outside of duplicates, rarely leave my orbit. Being little does have its advantages, I guess!

New 'Bits?

The latest Web Special Acadia is beautiful, but I only entered once and did not win. He would have made a lovely husband to my Ruffian Goddess Athena, but it wasn’t something I felt I could justify going all-in for. I still want/need a Valegro, but I’ll have to wait for a more affordable one.

(The BreyerFest release Indu is still a contender.)

There are a couple of stores reasonably close by that are holding Spirit Fun Days in a couple of weeks. (Yes, I know I am lucky to have multiple stores to choose from!) If I’m not scheduled to work that day, I might go to check the new releases. Especially the new Traditional-scale Boomerang mold:

http://www.breyerhorses.com/boomerang-traditional-model 

He reminds me of the pinto in one of the stashes of vintage photos I found last year:

So I could definitely see myself coming home with one sooner rather than later! (Especially if it keeps me from breaking out the paint and epoxy and attempting to customize my own.)

The “Small Sets” in the Spirit line intrigue me also. Here’s the Boomerang one, who (coincidentally) is the nicest of the three new Small Set molds, I think:

http://www.breyerhorses.com/Boomerang-Abigail-Small-Set

So, if I’m reading these details right – 3-inch riders, 4-inch horses – these are basically Little Bits scale? So after all these years Reeves is giving us three new, honest-to-goodness plastic Little Bits/Paddock Pals molds?

Sneaky, guys.

Nevertheless, I approve.

The last “official” Little Bits/Paddock Pal mold release was the Saddlebred, in 1985. Unless you count the Small Mare and Foal with the rooted hair in the same scale who debuted in 1997, but are usually associated with the Ponies line. Or the resin Breeds of the World pieces from 2012 that tend to be lumped in with the Gallery/Nonplastics.

USET Contest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Indu and the Missing Polo Pony

And the final Special Run in the Ticket lineup is a Valegro, in a Dapple Gray paint job designed by Tom Bainbridge:

I have a funny feeling that Indu might be another Chanel or Galahad – BreyerFest Specials that were both quite fine-looking in their early PR photos, but on a whole other level in person.

I haven’t bought myself a Valegro yet – the Regular Run release, the Gold Chestnut one, last year’s Raffle Model Cinza (ha!) or one of the pre-release Samples (that I am pretty sure they still have leftovers of, somewhere).

I want to be more excited about Indu, but I’m trying to reconcile myself to the smaller budget I told myself I had to stick to this year – and hoping the Surprise model is not Legionario!

By the way, I don’t think the Bollywood Surprise is going to be a Polo Pony like everyone else seems to believe. I have a feeling if we are getting one, it’ll be in the form of the Classic Polo Pony and in the Pop-Up Store, since that’s where they’ve been relegating Classics-scale/sized Special Runs.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen the original Classics Polo Pony – BreyerFest 2008’s Patagonia was the last – and there have been only four official releases, total. The original #626 Bay ran from 1976 through 1982, and came with or without socks (the sock-free variation seems to be a bit scarcer). The other three were some shade of gray: Patagonia, the 1994 Show Special Silver Comet, and the 1998-1999 Regular Run release #733 in Dappled Rose Gray.

While I’ll give them credit for making each one of these grays distinctive – something they sometimes struggle with other molds and other colors (Traditional Hanoverians in Bay, ahem) – seeing the Polo Pony in other colors would be a welcome change of pace.

Unless it is the same shade of Dapple Gray as Indu.

That would be fine. Totally fine.

Treasures

I did not take advantage of the Collectors Club Gold Valegro offer; aside from the budgeting issue (tight right now) I’m lucky enough to live in an area where access is not going to be an issue, should the money and space arise come December.

This offer was clearly for people who don’t have that same level of access.

I’d dearly love to buy the new Halloween Special Crane – basically a Mini-Me of last year’s Halloween Horse Ichabod on the Rearing Stallion mold – but again, I gotta watch that budget. I do like that they’re limiting orders to one per account, which was not the case last year. Wasn’t the quantity limit some absurd amount, like 12? Yeah, that was not cool, especially with Foal molds.

Tuesday Mornings, for those of you near them, just got a fresh Breyer shipment in, too – lots of Classics, Accessories, and the pinto Cantering Welsh Pony Smokin’ Doubledutch. If I happen to find a particularly nice CWP there during my work travels, she might be coming home with me. Maybe some of those Pony Pouches too, since I am a bit obsessed with the fabric they are made out of.

(Reeves, if you’re reading, I’d totally make you a quilt for next year’s silent auction if you’d give me a bolt of either fabric, or both. Seriously not kidding.)

The flea market has been really interesting over the past few weeks; I’ve bought a couple of small collections, lots of vintage craft supplies, and some ephemera – specifically, a photo album full of horse pictures, and a batch of photos from someone who (I think) performed and/or participated in rodeos just before WWII.

First, a few of the “rodeo” pictures; I have enough pictures of the pinto to probably have a portrait model done – and possible even the tack, too! Documentation on these photos is pretty light, alas, so I don’t know this blue-eyed boy’s name:

The Photo Album is from roughly the same time period – 1939 through 1946 – but features a greater variety of pictures. There are photos from a trip “out West”, including a visit to the Cheyenne Frontier Days in 1946; several horseback riding photos, primarily of Saddlebreds; and a batch of photos from a day trip to the races – specifically, Lincoln Fields, that later became Balmoral Park:

The documentation on these photos is much better – in my rare bits of free time I’ve been able to do a little bit of research on them and the family. There was also a letter in the album discussing a horse the family purchased during his 1946 trip, with some mention of an article being published about him in the magazine The Bit and The Spur.

What was funny about this album was that, when I picked it up to look at it, the vendor touted the fact that it had a lot of World War II pictures in it – and it does! And one of those photos is interesting enough that I might have to send a scan to a baseball historian. (I’m generally pretty terrible at recognizing human faces, but maybe I might have picture of Yogi Berra during his time in the Navy?)

But it was the horse racing pictures that sealed the deal for me, of course. You just don’t find pictures of someone’s “day at the races” every day – especially in the northernmost Detroit suburbs. I do find harness racing memorabilia on occasion – there used to be a number of Standardbred farms active in the area in the 1950s and 1960s, and racing at the Imlay City Fairgrounds just up the road – but flat track stuff is a little scarcer to come by here.

I have no idea why I decided to pick up that album and go through it; there was no other horsey memorabilia on the table, and no indication that there would have been those kinds of pictures inside. I just opened it up, and there they were, and I knew I had to take that treasure home with me.

Gold Valegro and Gold Chestnut

So in honor of his Gold Medal performance in Rio this year, there’s a 3000-piece Special Run Gold Valegro coming our way in December:

I was expecting Reeves to do something, but I thought it’d be something a little more conventional – either issuing him in Gloss, or giving him some fun accessories, like a ribbon, medal and/or a gold painted base. But this is perfectly acceptable, too!

Although some may or will refer to his color as Gold Charm, technically it isn’t: a true Gold Charm paint job will have white points, a bald face, and four stockings. This Valegro does not.

Breyer’s first two attempts at recreating the Gold Charm paint job – the BreyerFest 1991 Raffle Model Man o’ War, and the 1992 Signing Party Secretariat – also did not come with white points and requisite markings.

They both came with the markings and other details of their original respective Chestnut releases. In fact, they looked like Chestnuts where the Chestnut paint was simply swapped out with Metallic Gold.

They were both labeled as Gold Charms, though, and most hobbyists accepted that terminology. The deviation from the standard paint job was written off as either specific to those releases (they were basically designed as commemorative portraits) or coming from a lack of knowledge/experience. The other three Raffle Decorators that year – Wedgewood Blue Sham, Florentine Legionario, Copenhagen San Domingo – were also not terribly faithful reproductions.

Then in 2013 Reeves put some Gold Foals in some of their Stablemates Treasure Hunt Mystery Foal sets:

http://www.identifyyourbreyer.com/images/5881.jpg

These, too, looked like Gold-swapped Chestnuts. That I found… interesting. Especially since they masked the stockings, but not the mane and tail: making it look like a “Gold Chestnut” was a conscious choice, not an error.

Now we have this Valegro. He doesn’t have any markings – either Valegro’s original ones, or ones uniquely to this release. Otherwise he does have all the hallmarks of being a “Gold Chestnut” like the three releases mentioned above.

So that’s what I am going to refer to him as (and any future releases using this particular color scheme) until/unless Reeves finds a more formal term for it. (The sales flier refers to this Valegro only as “gold”.)

Another good rationale for creating a distinct term for it is that it will also help distinguish it from Breyer releases that have been painted or plated solid Gold without any other distinguishing features, like the early Costume Contest prize Gold Western Horses, and some Stablemates.

The Little Valegro

There is almost always some difference between the promotional pictures of a new model and the actual production pieces, but with the Stablemates Valegro, the differences are starker than most: while the “promo pic” Valegro has hand painted/masked leg markings similar to the real Valegro, the production Valegros have four generic airbrushed stockings.

http://www.breyerhorses.com/stablemates-valegro

Masked markings and finer details tend to be the exception, not the rule, on Regular Run Stablemates releases. Sometimes we’ll see some dappling, or eyewhites, or facial markings, but for the most part that kind of detailing is reserved for higher-end Stablemates releases, like the BreyerFest One-Day SRs, various Holiday-oriented items, and Club and Event giveaways.

Why? It’s probably not cost-effective to put that level of detail into items that will retail in the $3-5 range, individually.

It actually took a considerable amount of time for us to get anything other than a solid paintjob or airbrushed markings on any Stablemates release. Sure, we got Dapple Grays right out of the gate in 1975, but they were discontinued by the end of 1977, presumably because it was difficult to keep those resist dapples in scale.

(Though I think “cornflake” dappled Stablemates would have been kind of cool, personally.)

It wasn’t until 1984 that colors started getting more interesting, and more complicated: that is when we got an old-fashioned Freckle Red Roan in the Riegseckers seven-piece G1 Draft Horse set. Appaloosas appeared in 1992 (the Chestnut Leopard Appaloosa on the QH Stallion, and the Black Blanket Appaloosa on the Morgan Stallion in that year’s Sears Wishbook Stablemate Assortment/Set) and in 1995 we got a Pinto, finally, on the Seabiscuit mold (#5179 Running Paint, in Chestnut Overo – a Regular Run piece!)

Aside from the cost issue, there were also technical ones: in the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, the technology wasn’t there to make the wee little masks necessary to pull off a nicely detailed Pinto, or to do anything beyond splash-spotted (or hand-spotted) Appaloosas.

We have the technology now, but the cost issues still remain. While Stablemates fanatics are not averse to spending 10-20-30 dollars or more on a single release, the vast majority of consumers (who are not hobbyists, or even particularly “horse people”) are.

Cinza and Company

Taking it easy today; the travails of January are over, and a certain financial issue I’ve been grappling with all this month is about to be resolved. I celebrated by buying myself a (very cheap!) horse, but he’s part of an ongoing research project so you probably won’t be seeing or hearing about him for a while.

(Nothing particularly rare, just nerdish. You ought to know me by now.)

So let us discuss the Raffle Model Cinza, on the Valegro mold:

I was expecting a Valegro release for this year’s BreyerFest, but I thought it’d be something a little more conservative – solid-colored, and possibly Glossy. But a Grulla Blanket Appaloosa? Nice!

Although it is labeled a “grullo blanket Appaloosa”, I tend to think of this color (and all its recent permutations) as the updated version of Breyer’s vintage “Gray Appaloosa” paintjob. Another of which is coming soon on the Stablemates Club release Primrose:

There has been a great deal of speculation about the origins of the Breyer color Charcoal; my working theory is that it was likely based on photo references of a Silver Dapple or Sooty Palomino horse that was captioned as a “Charcoal Palomino”.

But what about the “Gray Appaloosa” concept? Where did it come from?

The first Gray Appaloosas appeared in 1959 – on the Old Mold Stallion, Mare and Foal – and variations of the paint job later appeared on the Fighting Stallion and Mustang. It appeared at least a year, or maybe two, before Charcoal was introduced.

My guess would be that, not unlike the Charcoal, it was based on a photo of either a Blue Roan or Grulla Blanket Appaloosa that was labeled “Gray Appaloosa”. Because then, as now, most people tend to focus on phenotype (what something looks like) than genotype (what something is genetically).

It was probably via Western Horseman magazine: Breyer seemed to get a lot of its ideas from Western Horseman back then, and even used it as one of their primary promotional outlets in the years before the introduction of Just About Horses.

Although it has never had the same allure as the Charcoal, it continued to pop up over the years, most notably on the Stock Horse Family in the 1980s (Special Runs on the Stallion, Mare and Action Foal; and as a Regular Run on the Standing Foal) and most recently in a few Vintage Club releases. My personal favorite, though, continues to be the 1984 Appaloosa Performance Horse SR from JC Penney:

Somewhat Surprised

The “surprise” Reeves promised us was a little anticlimactic, at least initially: a “Collector Appreciation Weekend” offer of one free model worth at least 46.99 – basically a higher-end Traditional – with every online purchase over $100 (on selected merchandise, yadda yadda).

I was kind of wondering if the photograph they were using to promote the surprise had provided us any clues, and apparently it did:

If you look closely at the photo, there’s one of those Sample/Prototype Valegros in it; the production pieces have black bases, not clear ones. The hook that’s been getting some people to bite on this deal? Some of those freebies could be something more. From the e-mail:

Your free model could be a beautiful Traditional model, or it could be a NEW 2016 model, or it could be a GLOSSY finished piece created just for Collector Appreciation Weekend!

Well, that’s one possible way to distribute those leftover Valegros!

While I rather doubt I’ll get anything “good” out of the deal – other than the Roan AQHA Horse, my luck on surprises this year has been not great – I took the plunge and bought a bunch of Stablemates and a couple odds and ends off the Breyer web site that I had been eyeing for a few months now.

Depending on how the finances look once I take care of a few bills today, I might go for another shot and get the rest of the Stablemates I want and the “lobster butt” Zodiac horse that amuses me so.

http://breyerhistorydiva.blogspot.com/2015/01/rock-on-lobster.html
 
If nothing else, I get a bunch of stuff I wanted to get eventually anyway, and I will have a nice little stockpile of Stablemates that may come in handy next July, if a certain project comes to fruition.

The hyper-caffeinated real-time thread on Blab was an hysterical and fun way to spend a big chunk of my Friday afternoon, too. (No more Chewy Sweet Tarts for me, ooh boy….)

To heighten the surprise, I’ll wait until XMAS Eve before I open these box/boxes. I suspect a lot of hobbyists may go that route as well, so it may be a while before we know what gets distributed.

Oh, and I would not be surprised if there is at least one more surprise waiting in the wings. Remember, we had three last year, in addition to the Silver Filigree Ashquar: Banff, Glacier and Rolly.

Vanilla, Valegro and Emma

I’ve been casually recompiling my want list – on a notepad next to the keyboard – and I was struck the other day at how random it was. AA Omner and the Black Pinto Picture Perfect Clyde Mare. The Black Stallion “Majestic Arabian” and the Bay Western Prancer “Prince”. Flim Flam and Galiceno Ponies.

Old and new, fancy and plain, “showable” and not. Those sorts of things.

Since most of my spare cash needs to be allocated elsewhere right now, it makes sense that I’m being drawn to what are, for the most part, cheaper and more readily available models. We all need a “horse fix” every once and a while, all the better if it happens to be inexpensive and easily obtainable!

We get so caught up in the models of the moment – this week, the Silver Filigree Croi Damsha Sugarloaf – that we sometimes miss the beauty in older or more common pieces. The ones that end up littering sales lists and eBay, begging for takers.

This is just a roundabout way of saying that I’m skipping out on the Sugarloaf drawing. She’s lovely, but there will be more new lovelies coming in the near future – including the new Fell Pony Carltonlima Emma, who’ll probably be one of my 2016 obsessions. She is being shipped and sold in the UK first, like Valegro and Banks Vanilla.

Pictures of in-hand models here:

http://chestnutridgeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/valegro-emma-vanilla-in-flesh.html?m=1

So cute, so little, so fluffy! She’s like a jazzed up, modern take on the Haflinger Pony, whom she is just a tad bit smaller than.

Banks Vanilla is the first Regular Run release of the Croi Damsha mold, in Matte Alabaster: all three previous Production Runs were Club-limited or Special Runs. Though search engines queries for that one are going to be rather frustrating, and possibly dangerous to your New Year’s-related weight loss resolutions. (If ever there was reason for an ice cream cross-promotion, this model is it!)

I find the Banks Vanilla is very appealing, by the way; I know a lot of people are complaining that the paint job is “too plain”. But I like how it hearkens back to the soft Matte Alabaster paint jobs of the 1970s.

Frankly, I’d like to see more plainer paint jobs than the fancier ones, if only because there’s less room for error, and more room for variation. I also think the sculpting on the mold is strong enough that a lot of shading is more of a bonus than a necessity.

As is the case in every other new release, it’s wisest to wait and see before passing final judgment.

Behold, Valegro

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

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

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

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

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