The Narrative

Way to ruin the narrative guys…

Since this is like the fourth, fifth or sixteenth draw, I’m not sure this even counts as pull from the waitlist anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I am absolutely taking him, but it all seems so anticlimactic now, like being told you can eat that last piece of birthday from a party held three days ago you weren’t invited to in the first place. 

I mean, I will say yes to cake always, but it definitely feels weird.  

There’s been a lot of news in the past several days and I’m not quite sure where to begin; I suppose I should begin with the giant elephant in the room: the Spokes & Spurs Exclusive Event.

Remember how I was telling you how my vacation plans for next year were so completely messed up I had to come up with an alternative to my alternative plan? Not only would this event fit perfectly into the alternative plan I had been cooking up, it is almost like it was planned with me in mind. 

Originally I wanted to go to the Kentucky Derby, but unfortunately so did a couple million other people, and because my back still hurts and I am super-judgey right now, my mind imagines (mostly unfairly, I know) that many who did secure tickets either don’t know one end of a horse from another, or cannot even rattle off three random Kentucky Derby winners off the tops of their heads. Grr, argh….

(If on the slender but not impossible [for once!] chance that the Detroit Lions make it to the Super Bowl, I am not going to stand in the way of people who have been waiting since 1957. That would just feel mean.)

I did not get picked for the ticket lottery, and due to a series of unfortunate events, I did not find out about the public part of the sale until five days after it happened. All that’s left now are infield (drunk people), box seats (nobody I know who wants to go has the money to split one with me), insanely expensive luxury seats, and scalpers (both self-explanatory). So yeah, unless a miracle happens, I will not be attending.  

My backup plan was San Diego Comicon.

(Yes, I can hear you laughing.)  

The backup to the backup plan was Iceland, but since one of my cousins expressed an interest also, that’s going to require more planning and coordination.

Which left me with… the Redneck Roadtrip Redo. My family had a weird, epic roadtrip to the Southern parts of the U.S. in the summer of 1979; it was the closest thing our working class family had to a “real” vacation, and included stops at Graceland, Lexington, Nashville and Little Rock, Arkansas. Other than Lexington – where I got to go to the Kentucky Horse Park for the first time, and met Forego – a lot of the places I wanted to visit along the way were nixed. 

I always thought that someday I’d redo that roadtrip, but do it right. Dig for diamonds at Crater of Diamonds State Park! Take my picture in front of the post office in Gurdon, Arkansas! Actually go inside of Graceland! (Technically it wasn’t even open to the public in 1979.) And other stops Dad didn’t bother to slow down for, for reasons both known and unknown.

(Known: my always impeccably-dressed Grandmother wasn’t going to go digging in the dirt for anything, even diamonds.) 

I had thought about taking this roadtrip the week before or after the Derby, as a way of both avoiding and thumbing my nose at the Derby festivities I will be missing out on, and because life is too short to be hate-watching anything anymore anyway. 

Combining this roadtrip with an Exclusive Event in the middle of it would be perfect. But will it actually happen? 

Delayed Gratification

Yeah, big not-surprise on the Garret here. I’m not even mad anymore, just annoyed. Fine, I’ll take my money elsewhere and buy something else, like (for instance) the Rose Gold Charm Avoriaz, to match my Filigree:

Ah, the good old days, when I could occasionally get picked for 350-piece Web Specials! The new Avoriaz only cost me slightly more than the original, and since I wanted a matched set, buying her was the logical thing to do.

Small correction: I did get Elsa last year, so I am not completely 0-for-everything on the 1000-piece Special Run sweepstakes. I forgot about her because the poor thing is still NIB because I want to display her next to my Hamish, but there’s no room for that right now.

One of the things I’ll be doing over my winter break is a radical reevaluation of a bunch of NIB stuff I’ve stockpiled over the past few years; I’m planning on an absolutely bonkers (SO CHEAP!) room sale at BreyerFest next year with the stuff that doesn’t make the cut.

(Elsa will stick around, though. As will 99 percent of the Stablemates.) 

Yes, I finally got around to watching the Winterfest broadcast; I did skip through the workshop clips because I’m still having a hard time sitting for extended periods of time, and if I do want to watch them, they’re still available through the end of the month.

I am kind of tempted to do a Mari Lwyd on one of my bazillion FAM bodies, but the actual doing of it may not happen until I finish a few dozen more old sewing projects. 

This isn’t necessarily a criticism, but an observation: the inaugural WinterFest felt more like an extended QVC segment, rather than the miniature, Winter-themed online BreyerFest I was imagining. 

I was also little bit bummed they didn’t have any themed merchandise – instead of the usual t-shirts and water bottles, they could have done seasonally appropriate sweatshirts and coffee mugs, or maybe included a little goodie or two with purchase, like a magnet, stickers or hot chocolate. 

(Especially magnets and stickers!)

But it was fine for what it was; for a lot of us hobbyists in the more northern climes, the Winter season is sort of a dead time where we don’t get to do a lot of in-person socializing with our hobby peeps, and online communal events like this are appreciated. 

With that thought in mind, it looks like I’ll be taking the last week of the year off to rest and recuperate (from work, the back injury, just life in general) so I’ll be available to hang out/paint Stablemates/eat cookies/gossip if anyone needs it or wants it – your place or mine. 

Well, maybe more yours than mine – like I said, there are a lot of unopened boxes here that need attending to. Unless you want to help sort with me.

Vacation Plans

Another cleanup day here. First, a couple of customs I’ve been fiddling with:

My problem when it comes to ambitious customs like the Mesteno’s Mother is that I never know when to stop. Will she fall to the same fate as many of my other experiments, like the Quarter Horse Gelding I tried to turn into a Suffolk Punch? I have no idea.

The Classic Quarter Horse Mare – who was that bad, but earnestly done custom I found at a Salvation Army years ago – required less work to get to this stage, but I’ve been doing an insane amount of tiny tweaks on her. Most of them to fix mistakes the original customizer made (like floppy ears, and divots in her butt!)

Second I couldn’t muster up a lot of enthusiasm for the latest Birds of a Feather Web Special Sparrow. I mean, she’s pretty, but there have been a lot of pricey and hard-to-obtain Croi Damsha releases lately, and a Chevaliere doesn’t look likely either. I will not be troubled much if I don’t get her.  

(Though it looks like prices on the Christmas Spice Drops have been dropping, and the Green and Red ones I prefer are the less desirable ones, hmm….)

Most of my free time has been spent getting caught up with my vacation prep – Kentucky and Wyoming will be back-to-back, incidentally, though I’m still working on some of the particulars. 

I decided to go ahead and do a couple of Collector’s Classes at BreyerFest Live. I will probably regret it – I am not a big spender, nor is my luck particularly keen – but since the opportunity is there, and judging at that show is notoriously quirky, it was worth the modest entry fees. 

(Believe it or not, even back in “The Good Old Days”, I never actually won a Collector’s Class. It was all about the Decorators and Glossies back then, and I did not have much of either.)

My BreyerFest sales list is being challenging because, in spite of the fact that I haven’t really bought all that much in the past year, I still have way too much to fit in the car again. I sold so much stuff last year, how is that even possible? 

While I am at it, I might as well tell you my vacation plans for next year, since it’s also horse-related and there’s a slim chance someone out there might be able to help with this one:

I want to go to the Kentucky Derby. 

I’ve never been (no, really!) and it being the 150th Anniversary, well, just makes me want to go even more. Ticket sales are going to be insane, I know, and my odds of winning a chance to buy tickets are about as likely as me winning a Test Color Web Raffles. (Which has been never, so far.)

But I owe it to myself to at least try. 

Broken

Dealing with a lot of petty annoyances over the past few days. First, there was this:

As for what happened to my beautiful big Chocolate Moose… I bumped him. Nothing dramatic at all, I just happened to brush him as I was putting a binder away and ploop! Off popped the antler. 

He is over 50 years old and a lot of the plasticizers in the plastic that keep it flexible have evaporated over time, so it is not a complete shocker. But it’s still a bummer: I spent forever looking for the perfect Chocolate Moose, and now he’s no longer perfect!

Then I caved and bought one of the Deluxe Grab Bags. Yeah, I know the last round of Grab Bags didn’t go over well, but I just got a nice (and not so little!) profit sharing check and the next thing you know, click-click-click. I’m just hoping that there’s one or two things in there worth the gamble; I’m pretty easy to please, so I’m guessing maybe? 

I’m not feeling lucky, just optimistic. Spring is just around the corner, you know.

I’m not so optimistic about the latest Birds of a Feather release Magpie:

It’s in that beautiful Gloss Midnight Blue-Black color I love so much on my Omega Fahim, but it’s been a while since I’ve been picked for something. But you can’t win if you don’t play, so…

More annoying is the fact that the e-mail for Magpie (and the last several e-mails from Breyer, in fact) have ended up in my Spam folder. While actual Spam… has not. Oh, except for the VIP ticket e-mail that was completely redundant. That’s some messed up spam filter you got going there, Yahoo!

Rolling my eyes at the Cleveland Bay Paddy Sample Breyer put on eBay, too: at the price (over $1000 already, really?), and the preponderance of commenters on Facebook who had no idea that this model was actually released over ten years ago. 

It’s just depressing: I know that history is not everybody’s thing, but when a significant (and/or very vocal) subset of hobbyists can’t be bothered to either read or do 15 seconds of research before commenting, it makes you question your life choices.

And finally, and darn, someone just listed a beautiful old Julie Froelich model on eBay – on a Running Mare, no less! As much as I’d love a vintage Froelich, that’s not going to go cheap. Sigh. 

That’s one thing I do need to add to my BreyerFest shopping list this year: Vintage Custom fixer-uppers. I’ve been enjoying the process so much with that Black Stallion mystery custom that I wouldn’t mind adding one or two more to the craft table. 

The Box

Still no Tahoe, which should come as no surprise. Elsa has arrived, and guess what, I am totally dorked out about the box she came in:

The Big Poodle is on it!

I know it probably means… nothing. The Big Poodle – as opposed to the Small Poodle, which has had a few releases since its rediscovery in the 1990s – has been out of production for nearly fifty years now, longer than any other animal mold other than the German Shepherd (who is damaged, and not functional), the Modernistic Buck and Doe (who are just plain weird). 

I suppose the In-Between Mare still counts as the Queen of All This: she was out of commission for nearly 60 years before she came back. 

The Big Poodle was in production, in one color or another, for about 15 years. It was officially released in 1958, but it was also for sale in Christmas catalogs and magazine advertisements by late 1957. Which would have made some sense back then: Poodles – both as pets, and as decorative accents – were very much a thing in the 1950s. If the mold was ready for production in time for the upcoming holiday shopping season, why delay the release and miss all those potential sales?

Especially since their first attempt – the mold now known as the “Small Poodle” – failed to find a market a couple years earlier.

By the 1970s, Poodles were no longer as popular as they once were, and with the looming oil crisis making Cellulose Acetate hard to come by, the Poodle mold was one of many things that ended up getting the axe in 1973. Anyone who has owned a Breyer Poodle or two knows that they are pretty hefty – usually scaling up at around a pound. 

For comparison, the Proud Arabian Stallion – one of the hottest new molds of the early 1970s – comes in at a rather svelte 11 ounces. In other words, you could make about three Proud Arabian Stallions for every two Poodles!

But anyway, I was momentarily excited by the possibility that the Big Poodle might return – if you’ve been to my house, you know I have a lot of these big boys – but the economics of it are probably just as unfeasible now as they were in the early 1970s.

Stranger things have happened: I don’t think most of us (even me!) expected the IBM to return. 

(The question is… when next? LOL’ing if she turns out to be this year’s XMAS surprise…)

(Honest, though, I’m just as much in the dark as you all.)

Elsa and Other Madness

Just a general head’s up here, guys: I’m not in a mood to put up with anyone else’s nonsense for the next week or so. I’m not singling out anyone in particular – everyone in my orbit is being undelightful to be around, and I am going to be charitable and chalk it up to the season, both holiday and weather. 

The darkest times of the year sometimes bring out the darkest parts of us all. 

Go get yourselves some sun lamps, go for a walk, go fire up the Dremel drill and cut up a random body in your body box. Just do something besides getting yourselves riled up over something you read on the Internet. 

(In case you’re interested, I’ll working on an old string pieced quilt top this weekend, whenever I’m not toiling away on a work project.)

I like Elsa. I think she’d make a lovely companion to my beloved BreyerFest Celtic Fling Special Run Angus Bull Hamish. I would still have preferred any other animal (especially since she was already used for another Holiday Animal Special Run in 2017, the Gold Charm Eldora and Sol), but Breyer Cattle collectors are nothing if not devout and loyal buyers:

I do not care that they’re making 1000 pieces of her. I am uninterested in her future resale value: that’s not how I roll. If Reeves thinks they can sell 1000 of her, that’s their business. If they discover that they’ve made a mistake, they’ll eat the loss, learn the lesson, and move on.

I didn’t think they’d sell nearly 500 pieces of that black and gold polka-dotted Bighorn Ram, but they did. I didn’t get picked, and I know I wasn’t the only one. (I’m good, guys: I have no burning desire for one. Bunyan, on the other hand…)

Elsa is prettier, and glossy, and on a Cattle mold, so I understand some of the mathematics behind the decision. I am not keen on the price, but I suspect that they did not have enough bodies lying around since the last time they used her in 2017, and firing up an infrequently used mold is not cheap. (And also not something you do for a few hundred pieces.) 

If the increased production numbers manage to suppress the urges (or profit margins) of potential flippers, more power to them. It’s depressing enough to see so many people so willing to cough up such enormous sums of money for certain rarities (like the Ponies and Palm Trees Centerpiece Afgana, ugh.) 

Even though I’m pretty good at securing rarities myself, I also have resources and a knowledge base that is not typical of most hobbyists. 

I’d rather more people get what they want, rather than the same handful of collectors not only getting what they want, but dictating the market prices for the rest of us.

Dog Shaped, Dog Themed, or Just a Dog?

Ah, my head’s all messed up today! I had to do a double shift on Saturday, go to a wedding shower on Sunday, and deal with Daylight Savings Time on top of all that. And then the devastating news about Duran Duran… 

Today is still Monday, right?

At least I know I am not alone. This week promises to mess with the heads of all of us. I am kind of nervous about a potential Breyer Hall of Fame announcement, and might actually be mad if they don’t get in this time…

I didn’t bother entering for Kalahari; aside from trying to avoid any extraneous hobby purchases until the end of the year, I prefer dog-shaped Breyers to dog-themed ones. 

Speaking of Breyer Dogs, I’ve seen both the White Boxer and the Test Color Benji on eBay, yes. I’d love either (or both!) but their listing prices are a little out of my comfort zone. 

It’s become rather obvious that the White Boxer is not quite as rare as we thought it was, so I harbor a faint bit of hope I’ll randomly find one somewhere. 

Oh, and I’ve also seen that BreyerFest Test Color Donkey on eBay too. While it meets all my necessary criteria – it is a verifiable, documented BreyerFest Auction piece from before 2000 – the price is way too high, and I already have a Test Color Donkey anyway. 

For the record, I’m willing to go as high as $1200 to $1500 for an early BreyerFest Auction Test, but cheaper is always better, and I am not concerned about it being live show quality or not. I’d also prefer a mold I don’t already have a Test Color in, but I’m not going to turn down a Traditional Man o’ War or Trakehner if the price was right. 

I might be picky, but I am not stupid. 

I have a pretty busy week ahead of me, so that’s all for today, folks. 

Out and About

FYI: when the pharmacist says that the Shingles vaccine might kick you in the butt for a day or two, believe them! 

I don’t exactly have a lot of spare time right now, but most of my Friday had to be slept away: my body decided staying awake was not an option. Today I’m just mildly nauseous and have a slight headache: in other words, just your typical Monday, if it didn’t happen to be Saturday. 

This also arrived on Friday and was entirely predictable:

They don’t appear to have sold out yet – either they made more than they usually do of the Classic Gambler’s Choice Web Special, or since it’s a mold made last century nobody but us old farts want it anyway – so I’ll bide my time until the remainder get sold by other means. 

Earlier this week I was in the vicinity of another Tractor Supply that was even less well stocked than my local store, which only served to remind me just how rapacious my local co-hobbyists are. Just two lonely Snowbirds and a Zeke were left!  

Then I thought I’d take a chance at the local Dollar General that I hadn’t gone into in the past couple of months, and found these babies:

Yay, (the) cheap Stablemates! Someone had already swiped the Saddlebreds, but that’s okay: at least I found something. A win is a win, and I am taking it. 

I mean, cripes, even the Stablemates Sets at both Tractor Supplies – which are just early releases, not actually Special Runs or anything – were nowhere to be found.

(Yes, I am aware of the VIN numbers on the TSC releases kinda-sorta make them an exclusive variant, but the road to collecting Stablemate Variations is paved with madness.)

Like Johann, I am going to wait until the entire situation is less ridiculous. The Unicorn sets will be available everywhere eventually. And according to the Breyer web site, display cases of the standard, non-VINed version of the blind bags they sell at TSC will be in stock on the web site soon, so I will go with that as my XMAS present to myself this year, whatever series it happens to be. 

Will I get a chase piece? I’d love to finally get one of those ultra-rare metallic ones, but I am not counting on it. 

Whatever. I’ll just be happy to get a danged box. I don’t have the time to worry about it.

The Bluest Time of the Year

You have no idea how much the wholesome conversation contained in the post previous delighted me! 

As much as I would like to continue it, extended philosophical discussions about the intersection of two of my favorite pastimes will have to be put on pause: I’m now entering my money-making season (both online, and offline) and my spare time is not plentiful.

Speaking of money, some of that as-yet-unmade moolah has already been spent on a Johann: 

I have a feeling I’ll be getting one of the lesser-desired ones – will it be the Appaloosa, or the Palomino? – because that’s how my luck runs. While it does not matter to me (because I do WANT THEM ALL), it would make life less of a hassle if I could get one of the more desirable/expensive ones out of the way first.

While making a post office run earlier in the week, I swung by the local Tractor Supply to see if they had gotten in their Christmas goodies yet, and they did – with the Stablemates predictably absent. Although I don’t have any plans of buying anything from Tractor Supply this year, I rather liked the Future Farmers of America Benefit Horse Blue: I’m not a huge fan of the Geronimo mold, but that shade of indigo was very attractive.  

It reminded me quite a bit of the color of the Curio-sized Resin #9132 Lexington they released at BreyerFest in 2010, except with some added cross-hatching to mimic the FFA corduroy jackets.  

Close up, though, the cross-hatching looks more like scuffs or flaws in the paint, and I imagine a few years from now collectors will assume that they are, the same way many now assume the single eyewhite on the Five-Gaiter Special Run Wil Shriver is, or the black birthmark on the #817 Abdullah release of the Trakehner.

Will I be buying Blue? Unless they go on deep discount, probably not. I have other blue-colored things to buy first, like the third and final Jól: my recently purchased (and extremely affordable) Clear one still resides in his shipping box at the foot of the bed. Maybe tonight, after I get some sleep...

Strawberries

Considering I haven’t been picked for one of the Birds of a Feather Series since the very first one – and sold it at cost to a friend anyway – I am not quite sure how this happened:

Dumb random luck, or did the Universe hear my pitiful tale of woe and compensate me somehow? (Spoiler: it’s the former, not the latter.)

Aside from all the drama from the past couple of weeks (I’m on my third food-related injury this month: it’s nothing but microwaveables for the next several days!) I do really love the Bristol mold, and yes I will definitely be keeping him. 

I just wish there were more readily available examples of him in his “loose mane” look: the 2018 BreyerFest Raffle Model Jackpot,  the 2019 Best Customs prize Leap of Faith, and the 2020 Seattle Soiree Redmond are all essentially unobtainables.

(Why, why do Redmonds have to be so expensive? He’s so darn pretty, urgh!)

Anyway, I have no illusions about completing the Birds of a Feather Series collection like, ever. The only one of the previous releases I’m actively seeking out is the Crane, because I love the Emerson mold, and because of his relatively “plain” paintjob I think he’ll be one of the kinda-sorta affordable ones in the not-too-distant future.

Unlike, say, the Silver Goldfinch. Why is something they made nearly 400 pieces of priced in the $1000 range? (I know it’s a Silver, but get a grip, people!)

One series I have been thinking about completing – or at least leisurely collecting as I find them at reasonable prices – is the Berries Ponies Series. I picked up a very affordable Strawberry at BreyerFest, in fact:

(Coincidentally, I just picked and ate some teeny-tiny Alpine Strawberries from my garden. They were way easier to grow from seed than I imagined, which makes sense because you will need about fifty or so plants to make anything with them.) 

While the Croi Bramble and Bouncer Bilberry aren’t going to happen any time soon, the Juniper, Honeysuckle and Persimmon all seem achievable. I’m in no rush, though. It happens when it happens.

Robin and Nestling

I’ll just say it was a rough weekend, and leave it at that! On the plus side, there was homemade chocolate cake that was freaking amazing…

You probably won’t believe me (something I’m used to, but let’s not dwell) but I’ve been a little obsessed with the Running Mare and Foal lately. I’ve been shopping around for the 1984 Sears Wishbook Running Horse Family Set to replace the set I had and sold years ago, and for a 2009 Fun Foals Collector’s Event Running Mare in Dappled Liver Chestnut that’s technically/allegedly an unmarked Appaloosa, but so beautifully painted I give that bit of weirdness a pass. 

And the Just About Horses Anniversary Appaloosa, mostly because the JAH included in the set has an article I wrote in it, and I kinda-sorta need it for the archives. (The Mare herself isn’t too shabby either!)

So I was kind of delighted at the reveal of the latest Birds of a Feather release Robin and Nestling, on the Running Mare and Foal. They look very similar to the 2014 Web Special Run Mare and Foal Set Vixen and Blitzen, except that they’re Glossy, and possibly Chalky? 

Even though they’ve bumped up the runs on these Web Specials to 500 pieces, and they’re Vintage molds, I’m still not expecting to get picked for them. To be honest, I’m not expecting to get picked for anything anymore. That’s just how the market is right now: if that goofy Christmas Bighorn Ram didn’t happen for me, nothing will.

It’s not entirely a bad thing: I’m still pretty behind with the paperwork for all of last year’s new (non Web Special) arrivals, so getting caught up on all that, and sorting out some of my more questionable purchases (and getting a few of them sold) is a bigger priority. As is getting ready for a live show, getting the garden ready for Spring, finishing two applique projects, cleaning the basement, and finishing my taxes. 

(That’s just this week’s plans, except for the selling part. That probably won’t happen until April, at the earliest. Sigh.)

The Chase Never Ends

Blizzard + A Job Cannot Be Done Remotely = Snow Day! Whoo-hoo!

I slept in, made Chocolate Chip French Toast and finished another quilt top that had been a thorn in my side for years. (No more!) I also took a picture of my new beautiful thing I thought I would never have:

I was tempted to cuddle him like a teddy bear the night that I got him, but realized that was probably a bad idea – not because of what he’s technically worth, but because he really is shaped like a brick paver and not all that huggable, really.  

But alas, the chase never really ends, does it? There’s always another grail, or another oddity or rarity on the horizon. I flaked out about a week ago and forgot to bid on a Polled Hereford Bull Nightlight on eBay, and there’s a Woodgrain PHB Lamp on there right now at a price that bigger than my entire travel budget this year, and I plan on travelling quite a lot

(Which consists of two conventions and three live shows, so far.) 

Of all the rarities, oddities and the like, the Lamp is the one I worry least about. Like most of the Ranchcraft Lamps, they were purchased by nonhobbyists fifty some odd years ago, so the possibility of finding one “in the wild” is quite tangible. It’s certainly a stronger possibility than finding Micro Runs, Test Colors and scarce but affordable Special Runs on Craigslist or a local estate sale, outside of the Chicago area or maybe northern New Jersey.

(There’s a Mosaic on our local Craigslist who periodically gets relisted at $1000. Uh, okay…)

Marshall is currently residing on my very crowded nightstand, though I’ll definitely be rearranging things around here so I can admire his beefy, glittery loveliness on a daily basis.  

Another Inconsequential Thing

This is not the model I was talking about in my previous post; this was something I bought last week because the price was excellent and I (slightly) regretted not buying it when I was actually drawn for one, back in the good old days when getting drawn for Web Specials didn’t feel like a near-impossibility:

I had almost completely forgotten I had bought Goji until it arrived on my doorstep Friday night. (Yeah, it was THAT kind of week.)

Now that we have the new Fjord mold Astrid, and the new Stablemates Fjord Lyric, what little popularity the original “Henry” Fjord originally had has begun to dissipate. I totally missed out on the discussion as to why he was deemed less worthy to begin with, and at this point I’m not even sure I want to know why. 

The hobby has a way of making inconsequential things seem so important, when they’re not, really. (Says the person who has written over 1500 blog posts about… plastic horse history.)

In spite of his lack of star power, the mold still has a couple of unattainables: the 2010 WEG rerelease of Henry (only 18 made) and the 2015 BreyerFest Diorama Prize Truffle (28 made). 

The others are not so hard; I think all I am missing at this point is the 2014-2015 Regular Run release GVF Sjokolade? I’m not in any hurry. 

Time has a way of turning the tables when it comes to popularity, though: for years many hobbyists bemoaned the fact that the only Friesian available to most of us was the Jeanne Mellin Herrick mold. Now that we have several (indeed, it almost seems like too many!) Breyer Friesians to choose from, the old JMH Friesian has come back into its own, again. 

I’d eventually like to get more of the Berry Ponies series, though a few of them (the Bouncer Bilberry, and the Croi Bramble) are probably out of my reach. Maybe Strawberry, next? The Hackney Pony is another mold hobbyists don’t have an overly high regard for. 

Yeah, it’s a chonky, unrefined little thing, but I still love it for all sorts of reasons, including the fact that I might have had a very small hand in getting it produced in the first place.

Incidentally, I rather like the BreyerFest release of Astrid with the long mane, named Rapunzel:

The shape of the new mane is a little goofy, and distorts the true contours of her neck the same way Giselle’s mane does. But a cute, roany pony is hard for me to resist, and I’ll definite consider her when the time comes. (So many excellent SRs to choose from this year, so hard for me to decide!)

Food For Thought

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When Worlds Collide

I was definitely in the mood to forget my troubles and watch a giant gorilla and a giant lizard duke it out on the big screen TV over the weekend, but right in the middle of Svengoolie’s presentation of the 1962 Toho production of King Kong vs. Godzilla – during the “viewer mail” section of the show – up pops a MIB Breyer Apparition.

While this didn’t completely surprise me, because I’ve long believed that the model horse hobby is just another subset of the SF/Fantasy fandom anyway, there’s nothing quite like suddenly being confronted by a three-foot-tall Breyer horse in the middle of a Godzilla movie. 

(The segment was then followed by a Covenant House commercial, which also made me go hmm…)

Incidentally, my Brunhilde is here, and good golly, she’s a beauty:

Other than a little sloppy paint on her orange(!) tail ribbon – a super-easy fix – I have no complaints, at all. She almost makes up for not getting a Midas. 

Okay, not really, but she’s still a very pretty distraction. I’ll just have to rearrange a few models here so I can enjoy her on a daily basis.

What continues to be remarkable to me is the fact that there will still be several hobbyists who will still insist that there’s somehow been a decline in Breyer’s production quality since the 1970s. 

As someone who bought her first models in the 1970s, an era riddled with foggy gray stockings, heavy overspray and seams so rough that the flashing could actually cut your hand, I can only roll my eyes and wonder what they see that I did not.

As much as I love my #124 Bay Running Mare – my near-perfect semi-gloss one with the eyewhites – Brunhilde’s prep and paint work are still technically superior, and no amount of nostalgia can change that.  

My box of Vintage Club goodies has also arrived, but I’ll save opening that for Black Friday, because I think I may need it by then. I have no preferences regarding Nugget: whatever color I get, I get. Though it’s been a while since I’ve gotten a Copenhagen in the Decorator Gambler’s Choices, I guess?

Information about the 2022 BreyerWest just popped up on the Breyer web site, and I’m in a good enough spot in my life to do a little research about possibly attending. I doubt it’ll happen because that’s just an incredibly awkward time of the year for me to get away (who would take care of my seedlings?) but it’s nice that the possibility exists.

Brunhilde

I went out of my way to be online today to buy the Brunhilde – the Fall Collector’s Club Web Special Wixom, in Dappled Bay – only to find that it was delayed a day due to Internet Issues. 

So now I have to rearrange my schedule again tomorrow. I suppose it’s better than the alternative – missing out entirely – but this entire month for me has been nothing else but a series of scheduling rearrangements, and I’d really rather not anymore.

When I first heard about Brunhilde, via scans of Just About Horses from hobbyists lucky enough to receive theirs early (FYI: mine arrived yesterday; I still haven’t opened it yet), I was initially unimpressed, but the notion of a relatively plain Bay Wixom has grown on me, and I found the portrait shot of her in the PR e-mails rather captivating:

So yeah, I think need one. All of the other Wixom releases I actually like are well into my unaffordable range anyway, and I’m still a little cheesed off that they didn’t make the 2003 Pink and Yellow Tie-Dyed BreyerFest auction piece a real-life Special Run, because I would have bought that one so hard. 

I am not normally a huge fan of the color pink, but I love the combination of hot pink and yellow so much I’ve actually designed a couple of quilts around that very color scheme.

I did think it was a little weird that they named this Wixom Brunhilde: I thought this was a name that they’d specifically save for a Special Run for next year’s BreyerFest, since it’s closely tied to Germanic folklore, specifically the Nibelungenlied. 

Though considering how the Nibelungenlied was appropriated in the mid-twentieth century, I could understand Reeves being a little nervous about tying it to a German-themed BreyerFest. Context is everything!

Thriving in Chaos

Oh dear: 

https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/west/crime/2021/05/07/four-arrested-after-fight-target-brookfield-victim-accessed-gun-concealed-carry-permit/4995203001/

Although I’m a good shot, I’ve had a couple of years of fencing lessons, and I can more than hold my own in a knife fight (I think), I am not getting in a physical altercation over a model horse. 

Other than a few possible elbows thrown in the NPOD during the heat of the moment – done more to protect myself than my acquisitions – the only time I recall actually getting physical in pursuit of anything was when I intentionally stepped on a guy’s foot at the flea market. 

And that’s only because he literally stepped in front of me at the last possible moment, as I approached a vendor’s table to scoop up some early Silver Age DC Green Lanterns for cheap. (Gil Kane issues, man!) 

Aside from him totally deserving it anyway, I could pass it off as an “oops” moment because (a) I have very big feet, and (b) the jerk really did nearly knock me over. 

But seriously, seeing multiple people casually mention that they’re only entering the drawing for Crane, the latest Birds of a Feather release, strictly for the money is kinda depressing. That means my odds of getting one as a person who just wants one to have one are significantly diminished. 

There are already two unobtainable Emersons – Noir, and the Pinto variation of Rocket – and I don’t want Crane to be the third. But my hopes are not high.

Even though I am – technically – one of those people you may have heard about who is actually coming out of the pandemic in significantly better financial shape than when I went into it, I am not throwing more of that money into the collectibles market. 

(It’s a long story and you know I don’t discuss personal details like that on the Internet, but I basically did a lateral move that has paid off very well for me.)

My budget for that nonsense is pretty much the same as it has always been, even if the targets themselves have had to change.

Since my tastes are pretty eclectic, this has not been much of a problem. But it does feel strange that I just upgraded a somewhat scarce vintage Woodgrain in my collection for less money than an average Slyder is going for. 

I think it’ll be a better investment in the end, too, but that’s a secondary benefit. 

Tapping Out

I was having a pretty good birthday until I got home and found out about this:

No, not this one either. I don’t even know what to say any more. 

I do not live on the Internet. I am not on Facebook. I am telephonophobic and only use my phone when absolutely necessary; in fact, most of the time I don’t even know where it is. 

(FYI: I did get a new phone for my birthday; we’ll see how that goes.)

It wouldn’t have mattered anyway because I was literally on my way to work while Slyder dropped; even when I do manage to remember to have my phone on me, I never answer it in the car because I am not that great a driver and I can’t afford the distraction.

The only bit of luck I’ve had was the BreyerFest VIP Ticket drawing, which was a good thing because the way the remainder of those tickets were sold I wouldn’t have been able to get one. 

Oh, and Puffin, but she was passed along to someone who wanted her more. 

But this release was something I was actually looking forward to; the Special Run Gunner has been a lower-end item on my grail list for a while now (price, it’s always about the price) and I was excited about the possibility of something in this mold in glossy. 

Look, you know I’m a diehard: you’d be hard pressed to find someone who lives a more “Breyer Life” than me. 

But I’ve just about had it with this Collector’s Club nonsense. I’m tired of clicking on links and only seeing the “Sold Out” tag. It’s just like those wait lists I hear about that I’m pretty sure are also almost entirely imaginary. 

If you’ve almost lost me, you’ve definitely lost others with far less patience and access.

I have a life beyond the Internet and there’s no way I am sacrificing any part of it to play this game.

The money I was allocating for this has already been spent elsewhere. (No, not a guitar. Not yet.) 

Whether I bother clicking on any other Collector’s Club Exclusive Offers going forward remains to be seen, especially since the entire exercise this year has been almost entirely moot anyway. I’ll just save my cash and splurge on something vintage instead. 

Glossy Chalky Buckskin

The first thought that came to mind when I saw in-hand pictures of Goldfinch was: holy cats, this is My Girl all over again.

The 2016 Vintage Club release My Girl, on the Cantering Welsh Pony, came in three colors: Gloss Bay, Gloss Palomino, and Gloss Alabaster. When I opened the shipping box and discovered that I had received the Alabaster – my third choice – I was slightly crestfallen. 

I think Gloss Palomino is a highly underrated vintage color, and who doesn’t love a lovely Gloss Honey Bay? But Gloss Alabaster can be hit or miss, depending on its shading, or lack thereof. And as far as shading goes, the initial pictures of the Alabaster My Girls showed a definite lack.

Then I opened up her actual box-box, and fell in love with Glossy Chalky Alabaster. 

I think I kind of love Glossy Chalky Buckskin, too.

If I don’t get picked from what’s going to be a very small waitlist – because people are definitely willing to put themselves in short-term debt if they know they can make an almost-immediate profit – I’ll just have to let it go. 

I have a little too much stuff anyway. 

That’s what I keep telling myself, but there I was at the toy store after I got my first COVID shot Saturday, trying to persuade myself that I really didn’t need Obsidian.

I did manage to walk out of the store horse-free. This time.

(In all seriousness, though, if I do start buying seriously again, I think I’ll start with the homely little Standing Stock Horse Foal. Not a lot of demand, not a lot of rarities, not a lot of Test Colors, Oddities or Whatever.) 

Silver Basecoat Blacks

[Head’s up: the next week is going to be coo-coo bananas for me, so if I disappear for more than my usual 2-4 days, I just want to let you know I am (probably) not dead.]

Turns out I did have a few moments to spare yesterday so I opened up my Lafayette after all:

Nice! I am pleased.

When they mentioned “silver basecoat” in the original notification e-mail, I assumed that meant that Lafayette would be the same silvery black color as Summer Solstice, Gwendolyn, and the Weather Girl Thunderstorm. 

I own all three of those models – I like them enough that they’re all a part of my display collection – so I was perfectly fine when that did turn out to be the case. I was lucky enough to get a Lafayette without any significant condition or box issues either, and that’s good because I don’t have time for any of that right now.

People are very quick and not at all discreet when it comes to expressing negative opinions on the Internet about any darn thing, so it appears that my opinion (currently) seems to be in the minority. 

Apparently he’s not black enough? Weren’t folks complaining not that long ago that they didn’t like solid black or near-black horses? Stuff like this is why I buy what I like and try not to get too caught up in the opinions of what other people like. 

Personal preferences are personal preferences. Nobody should be shamed or bullied for liking or disliking something on an aesthetic level. 

I’m a visually-oriented person, so trust me, I am judging people’s aesthetic choices all the time, especially when it comes to clothing. And sometimes I do find them wanting. 

But I do so internally. The only time I tend to verbally comment on anybody’s apparel choices is when I am either envious, or it looks really great on them and I think they deserve the compliment for their good taste. As long as as it meets all of the the legal definitions of acceptable attire, it’s none of my business if they think they look great in magenta.

(Nobody looks good in magenta. Okay, almost nobody.)

Anyway, I’ve liked popular things that have become unpopular, I’ve like unpopular things that have become popular, and every shade in between that.