Sometimes The Only Way Out Is Through

Hey guys, still alive – though not doing much kicking, understandably. Having good days and bad days; hopefully more good than bad moving forward, once the new meds finally kick in.

And if not, Mom’s been crushing it with the vanilla milkshakes.

The worst part of this whole situation is the fact is that I can’t get anything done. I finally have a perfectly legitimate excuse to quilt to my heart’s content, and I can’t, dammit!

And speaking of that, If I haven’t gotten back with anyone, I apologize; I really do appreciate all the cards and plants and letters. Especially the cards and letters – y’all know how much I love ephemera! And feel free to drop me a note anytime. I read everything. 

If you were wondering what my hypothetical BreyerFest selections are, they should be pretty obvious:

As far as Limited Editions go, it’s: Blue Zeus and the Best of BreyerFest Stablemates. Blue Zeus because he’s a Blue Roan Fireheart and the actual live horse I’m basing my Mesteno Custom on. 

The Stablemates are a no-brainer: Stablemates were the first  models I bought with my own money back in the Dark Ages. I am also pretty keen on the mold matches: they are uncannily on point this year, though one is also pretty darn obvious. (I can only imagine what kind of ruckus would have been kicked up if they didn’t pick the Fighting Stallion for Kick Up Your Heels.) 

I think Flowers, the 2021 Raffle Model Bonheur on the Loping Quarter Horse, is probably my favorite here. Such a pretty shade of Chestnut!

Special Runs: I Will Survive (Quagga), and either Fight Song (Pinto Lipizzan) or The Edge of Glory (Ashquar). In spite of my declaration to the contrary, it looks like at least one of my selections this will be chosen purely on sentiment alone. And partly because it’s unavoidable at this point: sometime the only way out of a difficult situation is through.

Shape and Texture

Not a great weekend, but I did get most of the quilt batt stuff sorted out and a very preliminary showstring put together. Just a few additions, a few subtractions, and nothing fancy-fancy or exotic: as much fun as it is, I don’t have time for the documentation that would involve. 

Plus I found out last week that we’re all on mandatory overtime at work for the time being, which means it’s not even a matter of finding the time. There is no extra time to be had! 

I did have a few moments over the weekend to open up a few packages that have arrived over the past several weeks (don’t get me started!), including an extremely affordable Blue Christmas Zebra! 

I don’t have the complete set yet, because (as I hope you all know by now) I am a very patient cheapskate. Because the Coal is completely off the table for obvious reasons, all I need now are the Green and the Gold. (I know he is not perfect, but neither am I, so it all works out.)

(I’d like a Cave of Lascaux, too, but I’m not holding my breath on that one either.)

Another recent arrival was a little more pricey, but it was about that time of year for me to buy my one really expensive thing, and this was it: 

Although the #971 Horned Hereford Bull was manufactured in Woodgrain through 1964, he is not particularly easy to find. I suspect that his production run numbers were low because the rough texture of his coat made him difficult to paint; the only other Breyer model with a similarly bumpy surface that made it into Regular Run production was the Large Poodle, who ran – probably not coincidentally! – the same years as the Bull. 

Other models with textured surfaces that eventually came out in Woodgrain – including the Polled Hereford Bull, the Buffalo, the Elephant and the Donkey – were all likely Special Run items of extremely limited quantities.

(I’m not 100 percent sure on the Elephant, but let’s not get into that discussion today.)

The Poodle is slightly easier to find, and cheaper too, but that’s because there are fewer Breyer Dog collectors than there are Bull collectors. And those Bull collectors are why I’ll probably never be able to complete my Walking Horned Hereford collection: there ain’t no way I am ever paying $1500 for a Bunyan, full stop…

Behaving Yourself

No surprises here – I got Peppermint!

This is totally fine, since the plan is to acquire all the acquirable ones eventually anyway, and pretend the Licorice/Coal doesn’t exist. Unless it magically does, somehow.

(That is the story I tell myself.)

But the other Zebras can wait: January’s agenda includes culling the herd, finishing my collection inventory, wrapping up the last of my BreyerFest memory boxes, and figuring out how the new sewing machine works. Along with all the other usual resolutions that come with the New Year.

The Seattle Soiree information is up (the page accessible to Collector Club members only, sorry), and so is the picture of the Event Model, Redmond:

Ooh, pretty! He’d make a very handsome companion for Chesapeake, assuming I get picked.

Speaking of this, forewarned is forearmed: Reeves is not making any exceptions this year in terms of tickets: if you name a partner in your entry and you get picked, either both of you go or neither of you do.

If you can’t guarantee that your partner can and will come, you have the option to enter by yourself.

End of story. No exceptions, no substitutions!

They have made exceptions before on a case-by-case basis in the past, but after some of the shenanigans that happened with recent Events – hobbyists attempts to “sell” their Plus One slots on Model Horse Sales Pages(!), and a rather brazen attempt at theft at the Scottsdale Event – they’re drawing a hard line.

And I honestly can’t blame them.

As much as I’d like to think that my co-hobbyists are all awesome people who would never do something so unseemly, I know this is not true. Heck, I’ve had some hobbyists confess in completely casual conversations to things that gave me pause.

Rules are created because people can’t be trusted to behave themselves.

Corrections as of Tuesday January 7:

The cancellation policy has changed – or at least been clarified (again). If the guest cancels or cannot attend, the originally drawn attendee can still go, but they cannot replace their guest with another guest-to-be-named-later, and the guest’s ticket will not be refunded. 

The gist of the post still stands: just get your nonsense together before you enter!

Christmas Candy

Well, so this happened today:

… and I figured as much from the clue in the e-mail from yesterday that mentioned “a sweet treat!” So it was a little anticlimactic for me when the sale finally went live around 11 a.m. Eastern – though I punched the buy button pretty hard, nevertheless. 

What I wasn’t expecting from this little bit of Breyer fan service was not two, but five(!) different colors, including a solid black “Licorice” serving as this year’s magical lump of “Coal”:

As someone who actually likes the stuff in real life – I go through the bags of assorted taffy at my local Family Farm and Home store looking for the ones with extra licorice pieces – naturally I would love the Zebra version. But that’s not my decision to make.

I do want them all, but since I only have one account at the moment, and some minor medical stuff coming up early in the next year (nothing to worry about, guys, just some long-delayed maintenance/upkeep), I’ll have to put off getting the rest of them until at least mid-year.

It might also be partially dependent on whether I am chosen for the Seattle Soiree Event or not. Even though it’s on the other side of the country and plane tickets would have to be involved, it appears otherwise… both financially and logistically feasible.

I know there is some concern that the mold itself isn’t that popular, and the price isn’t merited. In regards to the former, the zebra patterning is more complicated than the original version, and for the latter, consider that the 2015 BreyerFest Special Run Caves of Lascaux – a run of 650 pieces – is neither cheap, nor easy to find.

So, who’s next on my XMAS wish list?

This should be obvious: the original #81 Standing Donkey.

She’s only come in various shades of Gray and Bay. She’s come in no true Glossies, and no Decorators except the almost-impossible-to-find Woodgrain.

And to add an extra level of difficulty: how about adding the original baskets?

The Inevitability of Zebras

It was a strangely quiet day at the flea market today, though I still managed to find a few good bodies and a slew of cute china miniatures. My dollar table stuff was absolutely decimated at BreyerFest this year; while I don’t make much money off of that kind of stuff, I like having that kind of “finger candy” around for the more budget-minded shoppers.

Sometimes you get just as much satisfaction buying a dollar mini as you do a $150 Web Special, you know?

Speaking of such, the BreyerFest leftovers are now up on the web site, for your shopping pleasure. Everything is available except the Surprise, the Haute Couture, and now (apparently) the Ganache.

I had been considering the Ganache myself, but I’m glad that that decision has been taken out of my hands, since I’m not really in a physical position to handle anything beyond Stablemates right now. In fact, most of my weekend was spent trying to get the inventory under control. (Still not ideal, but I’m not stubbing my toes on anything anymore!)

I would not have hesitated over a Caves of Lascaux, but none of the Pop-Up/Souvenir Store items – nor the Stablemates (rats!) – are available either, apparently.

While I had rationalized to myself that the Caves of Lascaux wouldn’t be that difficult to obtain, I knew by the Wednesday night of BreyerFest week that it wasn’t going to happen.

I thought the piece count was low, but judging from the demand Reeves probably could have doubled the run count and still sold out. I had no idea of the pent-up demand for this mold – and I don’t think Reeves did, either.

To make a long story short, though, we will be seeing more Zebra releases in the very near future.

In the past, anytime we’ve had a situation where an out-of-production mold returns to production with a low-number Special Run, more and/or larger runs tend to follow. Because the bodies are already there: knowing something of the production process as I do, it is financially impractical to run an injection mold with a piece count as low as 650.

The Web Special Polled Hereford Bull Marshall was a case in point: we hadn’t seen that mold in production since 2004. While it was certainly possible that they had 40 or so of those Bull bodies tucked away in the warehouse somewhere, it was also not a surprise that the mold returned to the Regular Run line a year later.

Whether these soon-to-be Zebra releases will take the form of a Web Special, Christmas Special, or a Regular Run item I couldn’t say.

I will say that I’m rather fond of the notion of a Silver-striped Christmas Zebra; a not-so-implausible idea, considering that they gave us a Wedgewood Blue Pronghorn Antelope last year.  

Chilling Out Over Lascaux

It figures that the one year I genuinely don’t have time to do any actual shopping at the Kentucky Horse Park - outside of my ticket times, and those might be a challenge to redeem too - Reeves decides to spring something on me that I’ve been begging for for years. Behold, the Caves of Lascaux, on the Zebra mold:

Between this, the Art Nouveau, and whatever the Stablemate is going to be, the Souvenir Tent is killing me! Someone on Blab recently nicknamed the Pop Up Store/Souvenir Tent the "Tent of Despair" - that sounds about right! Especially for me, this year.

I’m counting on some factors work in my favor this time, though.

First, this item is not a surprise, in any sense of the word. Surprises of any kind tend to create a feeding frenzy. The flea market mentality kicks in: Buy first, ask questions later.

Second, it’s not Silver Filigree. The mere existence of a Silver Filigree anything makes hobbyists crazy. The Zebra is just another Deco.

Third, it has decals/stenciling on it: while I don’t have an issue with them, many hobbyists would have preferred an unadorned Primitive Dun. (I tend to think that this is Reeves’s way of reserving that concept for a different Special Run or Series down the road.)

Fourth, it’s not someone or something like Misty. Aside from being the sentimental favorite of so many, last year’s Misty release also harkened back to the first Raffle Model, the Gold Florentine Misty. There’s not a lot of history or sentimentality attached to the Zebra mold.

Fifth, it’s the Zebra mold. While it has been out of circulation for ten years, and except maybe for me hobbyists haven’t been clamoring for its return. Honestly, there’s more of a desire among a certain class of hobbyists (the ones who like weird stuff) to revisit the Modernistic Buck and Doe, than the Zebra.

Sixth, the odds are that the piece count will be on the higher end, not the lower. Whenever a mold that’s been out of production for a while - like the Zebra - reappears, it means one of two things: either the piece run is going to be on the larger end, or there will be other new items on the same mold in the near future. It’s not cost-effective to drop and run a mold for just a few hundred pieces.

(Of course, that raises the possibility of a small run of Lascaux, with other small runs to follow. For the sake of my rationality, I am choosing to ignore it.)

Seventh, even though the Silver Filigree Misty "sold out" last year, the release reappeared on the web site sale of BreyerFest Leftovers a few weeks after the event, anyway.

So those are all the reasons I’m trying to convince myself to go about my BreyerFest business and chill out about the Caves of Lascaux release.