Memories and Golden Ages

Warning: this post starts out as a bit of a downer.

Of course I didn’t get picked for the Chicago Event. Why did I even get my hopes up?

This hurts more than Marshall. Marshall was just a model. Enough money, and you can buy any model. Money can’t buy the experience.

Please, don’t speak to me of wait lists. In the entire history of Breyer wait lists, I have never been picked off of one, and I’m not counting on it now. Even though many said they wouldn’t go unless their partner was also picked, I’m really doubting that’s going to be the case.

I’m not going to lie, it hurts and I really don’t want to talk about it any more, unless my fortunes change.

On a slightly cheerier note, they did announce the American Pharoah model, though they are being coy about the details. Many have suspected that the Dappled Bay Ruffian in the BreyerFest Auction may have been the Test piece for him, and I could see it:

It’s unlikely that they'll use the Ruffian mold, though; I think they just happened to use the nearest available unpainted Thoroughbred mold in a pinch, and Ruffian was it. They’ve done it before; I actually own a few models like that, like my Test of the Pacer Dan Patch – on the Quarter Horse Gelding mold! He was chosen primarily because he, too, had a molded on halter, like the Pacer mold he actually ended up being produced on.

I don’t know anything more about the American Pharoah release than (almost) anyone else, though. I am also a little embarrassed to admit that my enthusiasm for this model is not as intense as it is in the rest of the hobby.

There’s a tendency for people to think the things they experienced in their youth represented a “Golden Age”: movies, sports, books, television shows, music, Breyer models… sometimes it’s true, but sometimes it isn’t.

(The whole “Breyers were better in the past” thing, for instance, just baffles me. Do y’all not remember fuzzy gray socks, sink marks, and seams so rough you could cut your fingers on them? Polka dot dapples? Lizard bi-eyes? The very existence of Khemosabi?)

But anyway, I grew up in what really was, empirically, one of the great “Golden Ages” of Horse Racing, back in the 1970s. I watched Secretariat, Bold Forbes, Ruffian, Wajima, Forego, Seattle Slew, Spectacular Bid, Genuine Risk. I was so hysterical during the Affirmed-Alydar Triple Crown duel that my family actually left me alone in the house during the Belmont. 

What was wonderful about it was that it was a bonding experience with my Dad, who was a huge racing fan in the 1950s – you know, the era of Native Dancer, Swaps, Nashua, Round Table, Bold Forbes, Silky Sullivan, and so on…

I won’t begrudge anyone for being excited about an American Pharoah model. It's just that I've already had my Golden Age of Horse Racing. 

Make It So!

The costume is just about done – a few minor details to finish – as is the paperwork and the packing. However, my attempted diorama is looking tragic, which is not the look I was going for. If it doesn’t start looking better by tomorrow, I’m going to toss it into my closet of diorama traumas past.

(Some individual parts of it are actually really cool, but those parts just aren’t fitting together. Bummer.)

I’m trying not to worry about it too much: my plate is already looking quite full this year. Aside from the Costume Contest, I’ll also be Volunteering, and participating in the wedding that will be happening at the Hall of Champions at the Horse Park Friday afternoon, just before the Auction. (Everybody is welcome! Come as you are!)

Speaking of the auction, my favorite piece this year has to be the Dappled Dun Stretched Morgan. I have no pretenses of actually owning him, especially since he seems to be going over pretty well all over, but a girl can dream for about a week, right?

I sure hope that’s a “True” Test Color for an honest-to-goodness production run in the very near future! It would look grand on almost anything.  I haven’t been the biggest fan of some of Reeves’s more recent attempts at Duns – the Lonesome Glory Tinseltown immediately comes to mind – but with this guy, maybe they’ve finally made the technical leaps necessary to pull it off.

I gave some brief thought of it being the Volunteer Special this year (and thus attainable) but last year’s Volunteer Special was Matte-Finished, Solid and Realistic, too. As I theorized earlier, this year’s will likely not be all three of those things.

They didn’t put the Volunteer Special in the auction last year, either.

But just when we think we’ve sussed out the rules, they change them up on us. Last year I thought it unlikely they’d use a model with a base, but they up and used the Show Jumping Warmblood. Go figure.

It is worth noting that Stretched Morgan releases have been in somewhat short supply lately. Other than the Vintage Club Halo in 2013, the only other Production Runs since 2000’s Raffle Model Showboat (26 pieces) have been the 2008 Exclusive Event A Night at the Oscars (4 pieces) and the 2012 Early Bird Prize Bennington (3 pieces).

Everything else has been Auction Tests.

In other words, we are due. 

Common Praise and the Walmart Mestenos

Some sad news on the passing of Rowland Cheney, best known in our corner of the world as the sculptor of Breyer’s Mesteno series:

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/lodinews/obituary.aspx?n=rowland-hal-cheney&pid=175193846

I had seen the story on the news about the plane crash; I had no idea that it would later turn out to be model-horse-related.

The Mestenos were not received warmly when they were released in the 1990s, but they’ve grown in popularity since then. A lot of that has to do with their wide availability and the wealth of fascinating (possibly experimental?) colors they were issued in as a part of the Walmart Wild Mustang Series.

As hobbyists, a lot of us get caught up in tracking down the oldest, rarest, weirdest and prettiest things, when it is common-as-dirt models like the Walmart Mustangs that are the real foundation of the hobby.

We start collecting with what is available at hand, and what is available is usually the most common of any given item. That’s just how the odds are: if there’s 490 pieces of one, and 10 of another, you’re simply more likely to find the former than the latter.

Sometimes we get lucky and stumble across the rarity, but often we only find out about it in retrospect. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bought something at the flea market because – ooh, it’s a Breyer and it’s cheap! – and a few days or weeks (or years) later I discover that it’s something else – in happy cases, something even better.

Actually, when I’m out horse hunting, I like to think of every model I run across as unique, and in possession of a special and/or secret history. If the price is right and it doesn't seem particularly rare, that's generally my rationale for buying it. 

If it sticks around long enough, I’ll either discover that history – or by staying here a while, add to it (via provenance).

Time to get back to the BreyerFest prep.

Roots

Lots of news the past few days…

If you haven’t heard by now, the BreyerFest program was released earlier this week; if you download it now, though, you’ll notice the auction page is missing.

Apparently, in the first iteration of the PDF, all they did with that page was cover it with an opaque white picture box, and on some computers it wasn’t always the first item on that page to load – thus revealing all the auction models, even the “mystery” ones.

I won’t reveal them here, but you shouldn’t have too much trouble locating them…elsewhere. (Think of it as a Treasure Hunt!) All I’ll say is one of them fits with some of the recent speculation of who the Surprise SR might be.

The program also revealed that the piece counts for the two known “souvenir shop” Specials – Art Nouveau (500), and the Caves of Lascaux (650). I was expecting Lascaux to be a bit higher; I am not thrilled with that, but I’ll deal. There doesn’t seem to be a Souvenir Shop Stablemate listed in the program, but I’m not counting it out, yet.

The Sweet Home Chicago promos went up on the Breyer web site too. While it is a one-ticket-per-person deal as we suspected, it’s by drawing and not first-come, first-served. The model is a Vintage one – the rearing Traditional Mustang – in a very modern paintjob, a beautiful matte silver bay:

My luck on these kinds of drawings has been pretty spotty, so it’s another thing that’ll have to go in the “can’t worry about it” file. The only thing working to my advantage here is that a lot of hobbyists aren’t willing to travel alone, if need be, if their pre-arranged partners aren’t also selected.

Except for a few rare cases, I have almost always traveled to model horse events alone. I don’t want to get too deep into the personal details here, but it’s just been easier that way; most of my closest model horse friends are not physically close, and my other friends and family are beyond disinterested.

One time I did pick up someone locally it did work out great, but most of the time it’s ended up feeling awkward and weird. 

Some people are kvetching that this set-up is not fair to couples, but look: there’s no way to make everything fair all the time for everyone. Many of these Exclusive Events were pairs-only, and disadvantaged the singletons.

And let’s be honest, here, it’s about time there was an event that catered to us lonesome oddballs. That’s how hobbies get started: it’s when these lonesome oddballs find each other, and make a second family from it.

For an event that celebrates the founding of one of the companies that helped make this hobby exist, it only seems appropriate that the event would harken back to the hobby’s roots. 

(And really guys, take my scary roommate stories with a grain of salt. Most of them aren’t even in the hobby anymore – or likely to even enter for such an event.)

Foiled Again

In case you didn’t get that e-mail a few days ago, there is/will be another Special Run for Stablemates aficionados to hunt down. They hid it at the bottom of the promo e-mail for the new Pacer release Foiled Again:

Don’t miss out on a special Stablemates Version of Foiled Again available at the Hambletonian! For a day of family fun, visit Harness Racing’s Greatest Day, the $1 Million Hambletonian Day. Breyer’s special edition Stablemates version of Foiled Again will be the kid’s giveaway item, Saturday, August 8, at The Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, NJ. Visit The Hambletonian at the Meadowlands for more information.

The link should be active. What it says:

Giveaway: 2015 commemorative Hambletonian baseball cap to adults and special commemorative kids gift - a limited edition Foiled Again Stable Mate (with paid admission, while supply lasts).

(Yep, that’s how they spelled it.)

There was a similar promotion for the Hambletonian’s 75^th anniversary back in 2000, but in that case, it was just the Regular Run Stablemates Standardbred in Red Roan, with a specially printed sticker slapped in the center of the rosette portion of the packaging. I’m not even sure if that Reeves had any involvement with it, beyond filling the track’s order. 

Those are not that hard to come by, and not too expensive, but I think that’s largely a function of the fact that it is just a slightly repackaged Regular Run item. That’s part of the reason why I haven’t gotten around to adding one to my collection yet.

A Special Run item of a well-known racehorse that Breyer is cross-promoting may be a different order of thing.

I’d love to get one – a limited edition Stablemates Standardbred? Please and thank you! – but I am not physically a child and I can’t take yet another day off from (paying) work for horse business. I’ll just have to hope that they are plentiful enough to not be too expensive later on in the year.

The Stablemates from last year’s WEG are hovering around the $25 range, which isn’t too bad, considering especially since they were sold overseas. (Expensive for me is anything over $30 for a single item.)

Actually, I am a tiny bit fearful that some of the surprises that await in the Ninja Pit this year will be of the Stablemates variety; perhaps some of those leftovers from the 2014 WEG, and maybe even some of the Highland Pony keychains that caused a bit of a stir at Toy Fair the year before last.

Darn it, just when I was thinking it was safe to start dipping my toes back in the Stablemates pond! Another thing I have to tell myself not to worry about…

The Mysteries of BreyerFest

Well, I finally had my official "BreyerFest nightmare" last night, and it was a doozy. All I remember of it now is that it involved Polar Bears and the color purple. I vaguely recall that the resolution was a happy one, too.

I will take this as a good portent.

I haven’t been giving much thought to what the last two "mysteries" of BreyerFest - the Surprise Special Run, and the Volunteer Model - will be. I’ve been too busy dealing with other things to give them much thought.

Last year’s Volunteer Model - a Liver Chestnut Show Jumping Warmblood - was Matte, Realistic, a Solid Color, on a more modern mold: chances are that this year’s model will be something that is at least not one of those things, if not more. The model from the year previous - the Gloss Palomino Clydesdale Mare - was also a Solid Color, so something Pinto, Appaloosa or even Dappled seems a safe bet.

For the "Quelle Surprise" Special I am hoping for something that could pass for a Selle Francais - like Giselle, Gem Twist or even Newsworthy - but a few hobbyists have mentioned the Esprit and the Make A Wish/Justadream molds as a possibilities, and I could see that, too. The latter, especially: like the Roxy Surprise from a couple years back, they could switch up the manes and tails.

What’s important here is that it has to be a mold that hasn’t had a lot of previous releases, and hasn’t been done as a Surprise Special OR as a Treasure Hunt item, either: that would rule out Silver, Lady Phase, and Othello. (Seriously, what colors are left for them?)

Other than the usual assortment - at least one each of Appaloosa, Solid, and Pinto - and the Glosses, they might throw in an additional surprise to the surprise, like a Silver Filigree, Charcoal or other Deco. That went over pretty well last year - in spite of some of a few glitches - and with the upped piece counts, there ought to be at least one true "rarity" in the bunch.

While I don't think a half Matte/half Gloss Special is likely this year, I wouldn't rule it out. (If so, can it please be the Red Bay Pinto Totilas Enchante? Gloss Bays are sort of a thing with me now!)

As for the additional Mysteries that will lie within the Ninja Pit of Death, I am not even going to try and speculate. This is not for a lack of ideas, but of desire: I have other commitments that will keep me out of the Pit this year, so for the sake of my sanity I’m going to avoid even thinking about it.

Plus, the last time I wasn’t able to make it there, they dropped those "Home Decorating Show" weighted models and the super-rare German Stablemate Special Run sets, both of which haunt me still.

I’m trying to comfort myself with the thought of being able to sleep in a real bed on Thursday night, but it’s a small comfort.

So help me though, if something in there turns out to be purple, or a Bear…

Hey Sailor

While everyone else is squeeing over the horse itself, it’s the box that the latest Vintage Club release Running Stallion that’s getting me all excited:

They brought back the gold foil sticker, seen only on the earliest examples of the "White Picture Boxes" from ca. 1973. Like, coincidentally, this Black Appaloosa Running Stallion example I sold recently:

The only slightly bothersome thing about the newer box is that the "picture window" is too big. In the originals, the picture window was cropped in such a way to accommodate the identifying mold and color text, or sticker.

It also just looked better, aesthetically. As my art school instructors were so fond of beating into our heads, white space is a design element, too. Don’t be afraid of it! White space improves readability by allowing you to focus on the most essential elements of the design.

Too many designers and artists feel like they need to fill up a page or image area, when all that does is create a lot of visual clutter that you feel obligated to read.

It’s not just about the box: the Breyer web site has a similar problem. Even though the site is relatively "flat" - theoretically, you don’t have to click more than a couple times to find the page you are looking for - finding them in those long lists of hyperlinks and images can be a challenge.

More is not always better.  I'd be willing to click through an extra page or two if it didn't mean staring at a single page for five minutes trying to figure out which one of the fifty-plus links will take me where I need to go.

My Running Stallion is quite nice, by the way. No significant issues - other than a slight roughness on a couple seams, similar to some of my original Running Stallions from the 1970s. Unlike those Running Stallions, though, my "Sailor" stands just fine, even on carpeting! Though I've been lucky in that regard: most of my vintage Running Stallions are not tipsy, at all.

(Maybe because, like the Stretched Morgan, I've found so many over the years that I've been able to pick and choose. Another long story, that one.)

I am please that I got the Wedgewood Blue - my favorite vintage Deco color! But I would not have been unhappy with a Gold Charm, either. From the pictures I’ve seen online, Reeves did a stellar job with the Gold Charms this time around.