Good Things, Small Packages

Well, the waiting is over.  At least, part of it is.

Being an international member of Breyer's Stablemate Collectors' Club teaches one patience.  We only get two shipments of Stablemates -- one in June and one in December -- so we have to wait a bit to learn what our horses are going to look like.  This year's shipments will be even more mysterious than usual as there are three unknowns:  whether you get a glossy or matte Fiero, which of the gambler's choice Highland Ponies you will get, and what colour the Irish Draught will be (as well as what the horse will really look like, since so far all we've seen is a silhouette).

Fiero, Greyson, and Gwenevere with the Vintage Club Pacer sticker they were shipped with.

For me, the first mystery has been solved -- I got a glossy Fiero.  I'm very pleased with him, but truth be told I had no real preference between the matte and the glossy.  The pictures I'd seen of each both looked good to me.  I do think a gloss finish, especially the heavy gloss Breyer is using these days, adds an extra layer of protection to the paint job, so for that I'm grateful.

The Gwenevere is just as pretty as I'd been led to believe, with a very striking pearly mane and tail. Those old G1 Stablemate molds are pretty worn, but the Morgan Mare still looks quite decent, although her mold stamp with the old "Breyer Molding Co." text is all but obscured on mine -- I would never have been able to read it if I didn't know what it was supposed to say.

It was fun to finally get my fingers on Greyson, and I really get the "young racing thoroughbred" vibe from him.  He's a very skinny little guy, just like many of the 3-year-olds you see taking on the Triple Crown races.  I only wish he had pointed ears rather than rounded ones.  One feature you often see in thoroughbreds on the post parade are excitedly pricked ears.  If the sculptor had just added that tiny bit of detail, it would have contributed quite a bit towards adding a touch of personality to the horse.

Liberated and re-christened as "Boy Wonder" (Greyson), "Sangria" (Fiero) and "Mamma Mia" (Gwenevere)

It's no secret that Breyer is going with the cute little boxes again this year.  I've liberated all my horses so I can look them over, but there's no denying the attractiveness of those teeny packages.  Interestingly, according to the VINs on my boxes, the horses were all created in the order of their release: Fiero in November 2018, Gwenevere in December 2018, and Greyson in March 2019.  Makes me wonder if the spotted drafter Priscilla, which is due in the next batch, will turn out to have been created this year or stockpiled from last year -- after all, she was previewed back at the end of 2018.

Well, I won't know for sure until December, I guess.  This next wait is going to be a tough one.  I suspect that the Irish Draught will be the final issue, in December, so I'll find out all about it around the same time that American collectors do.  However, it's going to be hard wondering which Highland Pony will be slipped into my pack.  Fortunately, as was the case with Fiero, I have no clear preference in ponies so whatever I get will be just fine with me.  

But it's going to be so frustrating not to know!

Sticks and Stones

Stone Horses -- the range of model horses started by former Breyer employee Peter Stone after he left Breyer -- are peculiar things.  A lot of people have some very strong opinions about them:  either they're the best thing since sliced bread and precious beyond pearls, or they're the most hideous creations ever made and not worth what you pay for them.  People like to cast sticks and stones at things they don't approve of.  It's very likely that the truth, as always, lies somewhere in between.

Stone Horses perpetually puzzle me.  I was lucky enough to be in there at the beginning, in 1997, when the company was just getting started, and I was initially enthused about the idea that these were intended to be "Model Horses for Real Horse People" and "As Real as the Horses Themselves" which seemed to promise realistic horse replicas, all in scale with one another, painted in realistic colours.  And initially they were just that -- the First Editions of most of the early Stones were portraits of actual horses, and the follow-ups came in natural colours.

An early Stone Morgan

However, the emphasis on realism didn't last long.  First there were Stones, and then there were Precious Stones -- model horses in gem-like colours.  The Stone Company simply could not resist (and who can blame them?) riffing on the word "stone."  Thus, their first newsletter was known as the Equilith (literally "stone horse"), and when they began to introduce new smaller scales they called them Pebbles and Chips.  Collectors then turned the Chips into the equivalent of potato chips -- betcha can't buy just one.

For plastic ponies, Stones are indeed eye-poppingly expensive, but this is probably because of the company's determination to remain a home-grown product -- cast and decorated in the state of Indiana.  American workers must be paid American wages, and the cost of production trickles down to consumers via the cost per item.  This is not to say that some of the prices may not be artificially inflated -- I do believe that Stone Horses are continually testing what the market will pay.

However, the introduction of Stone Horses did introduce a kind of market competition that worked out well for the model horse fancier:  to put it simply, Stone's techniques upped the stakes of the game.  No one could deny the superiority of the Stone's paint jobs to Breyer's factory output at the time before Stones.  After Stones, Breyer simply began to paint better.  Similarly, Stone's use of hobby artists to sculpt, design, and sometimes even decorate their horses, may have provided the prompting Breyer needed to search further afield in pursuit of equine sculptors after their experiments in turning over sculpting duties to a series of flatwork artists fell on the market with a resounding thud.

A One-Of-A-Kind Stone Horse

My problems with Stones really amount to my sense that Stone offers too much of a good thing, like ruining a dessert by serving you a massive portion of it.  Take factory customizations, for example.  At first Stone offered a few limited options to switch out manes and tails, change gender, tweak an ear or move a neck on a basic model.  Now they will do almost anything you or they can imagine to a given sculpture.  Some of the manes and tails they have come out with are ridiculous -- blowing about as if the horse were standing in the midst of a tornado, or reaching lengths that would be impractical even if you could get your horse to grow such a heavy head of hair.

Design-wise, Stone has also gone overboard with fantasy paint jobs.  Breyer has its oddball holiday horses -- for Halloween in particular -- but also for Christmas, Valentine's Day and the Fourth of July.  Stone has holiday patterns for New Year's Day, Valentine's Day, the Super Bowl, St. Patrick's Day, Spring, Easter, the Fourth of July and other Americana, Summer, Shark Week, Autumn, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Winter and Christmas.  They have horses with horns, horses with bird wings, horses with bat wings, horses with insect wings, insect legs, rabbit ears and deer antlers.  It's all just too much.

Getting back to the Stone prices -- because they specialize in one-of-a-kinds (OOAKs) and very small limited edition runs, they have very few opportunities to make a profit on a popular horse.  Hundreds may like a particular OOAK, and thousands get enthused over a run of 25, but that only gives Stone fewer than 26 opportunities to make money on their creations.  This must inevitably result in higher prices that will be paid as demand is sure to outstrip availability.

But while I can rationalize the price of the average Stone horse, that doesn't necessarily mean that I approve.  As a result, although I've seen many Stone horses that I like and admire, I don't necessarily feel a burning need to own them.  As Stone has changed over the years, so too has my interest in them.  When they first came out with large runs and realistic colours, some even available in retail stores, I was content enough with those.  As Stone started producing more and more special runs, though, it became increasingly apparent that more care was lavished on the finishing of the specials than on the ones you could buy new in box.  But then special runs started to be produced in ever-decreasing numbers, making them harder to get.

My first Stone Design-A-Horse

The solution, for me, was the Stone Design-A-Horse program.  If you don't want any factory customization on a body and you can be happy with ordinary (although well-executed) horse colours, ordering a Design-A-Horse if often cheaper than buying anything else on the website.  You give up the instant gratification of buying a ready-made horse, but you get the opportunity to create the horse that you want, which may end up being an OOAK -- you never know.  They're technically not OOAK, but they're certainly the next best thing, and available at only a fraction of the price.

Whether or not you approve of Stone's way of doing business and its focus on enticing the collector of the weird, exotic and/or rare, they do offer a number of options in a variety of price ranges.  Yes, if you compare Stone Chips to Breyer Stablemates, and the Traditional-scaled models of both companies, the Stones are vastly more expensive.  But Breyer does not offer routine customization of the Design-A-Horse sort -- currently, the only way you can get a factory customized Breyer made to your own specifications is to indulge in the Ultimate Breyer Experience -- a $5,000 trip that includes a hotel stay and a tour of the Breyer factory, along with your custom-painted model packed in a customized box featuring your own write-up about the horse.  That's a lot more than some people want or can afford.

Plastic to plastic, comparing Breyers to Stones is a bit like comparing apples to oranges, or maybe sweet maraschinos to  sour cherries.  One is a treat that reminds you of ice cream; the other isn't for all tastes and you have to be prepared to work around the stone.

Foalish Pleasure

I recently made a trade for an old Designer's Workshop (DW) Hagen-Renaker "Fez" -- the lying Arabian foal -- when it suddenly occurred to me how many DW foals I actually have.  Until very recently I only had one DW horse and no foals at all.  Now I have five of them!

H-R "Fez" photo by former owner
 

Two are vintage pieces: the new "Fez" and a "Roughneck" Morgan foal that I bought from the Renaker Family Trust estate sale.  One is current: the "Rascal" Specialty Shetland foal.  And two are pieces I had custom-glazed at the Renaker factory through their DW Reissued Horses offer: a black "Sherif" Arabian foal and a palomino "Butch" Mustang foal.  "Sherif" and "Butch" are better known to Breyer collectors as the Classic Arabian Family and the Classic Mustang Family foals.

H-R "Roughneck" and Made in Japan copy

I couldn't say which one I like the most.  The "Fez" is not something I was really looking for, but it's a lovely old piece to add to my collection.  The "Roughneck" is special because of his connection to the Renaker Family -- he was either an unsellable second or a sample piece.  

 H-R "Rascal" and family -- Gaston, Gigi, and Gavroche

"Rascal" appeals to me because of my well-known weakness for Shetlands.  While piebald would not have been my first choice for colour, when I decided to buy him I did so because I knew I would end up kicking myself if I didn't.  He also has a bit of a story associated with him -- he was shipped to me from Triple Mountain Model Horses in Maine, but he and his family took a side trip to Paris before being redirected to Canada.  That's why all three of them have names from French literature: Gaston (stallion), Gigi (mare), and Gavroche (foal).

H-R Reissue "Butch" and "Sherif"

And then the "Sherif" and "Butch" were custom orders:  I purposely chose black and palomino because historically these two foals were never released in those colours.  Although not "true" customs since I was not able to request white markings or other details, I suppose you could call them "factory customs."

All in all, it's a sweet little group of foals and I'm quite pleased to have them.  Hagen-Renakers sometimes drive me crazy because they are so delicate it seems like they snap if you look at them sideways -- I have a whole boxful of broken minis damaged by my own clumsiness or that of my cat that are probably not worth restoring, but are too good to toss.  My new old "Fez" actually has a repaired ear, but it's been so well done that you can't really see it.  The rest are mint and I'm going to try to keep them that way.

As long as the cat co-operates, of course.

Round and Round We Go

By one of those odd coincidences that often happen in life, I recently learned two interesting facts about carousel horses.

First, courtesy of Laura J. Rock-Smith, who created this year's Breyerfest silent auction "Alter-Ego," I learned that carousel horses are decorated differently on each of their two sides.  The side that shows -- the one meant to tempt customers to mount a carousel horse (called a "romance" side) -- is usually elaborately decorated while the side that faces inward, towards the center of the carousel mechanism (the "non-romance" side), is usually decorated less elaborately.  All the same pieces are there, in the same colours, but the carving or molding is plain, without the intricate work you see on the showy side of the piece.

Secondly, I learned while watching a documentary on old amusement parks on PBS (the Public Broadcasting Service) that carousels in North America turn counter-clockwise to enable the right-handed majority to more easily grasp the brass rings that were once dispensed along the edges of the carousel, while carousels in Europe turn clockwise because equestrian etiquette demands mounting on the left (near) side of the horse.  According to my admittedly scanty subsequent research, Australia seems to have both clockwise and counter-clockwise carousels.

My one and only carousel horse

This got me thinking a lot about carousels.  I don't collect carousel horses (yet), but I can certainly see the appeal of a carousel horse collection, whether the horses involved are replicas of real carousel horses or objects of the sculptor's imagination.

Breyer has a very attractive selection of porcelain carousel horse ornaments (and one lion), released once per year since 2000.  They've also released a large porcelain carousel horse, and a Little Bit carousel horse and unicorn that have become highly desired collectibles since their initial release.

Hallmark Carousel Horse*

Other companies have well-known carousel horse lines as well.  Hallmark, like Breyer, was for a time releasing a new carousel horse every year (I'm not sure whether or not they're still doing this).  And whatever Hallmark does, other ornament makers, like Lenox, are pretty sure to do, so a lot of them have their own line of carousel horses to rival the Hallmark offerings.

Lenox Carousel Horse*

Similarly, the Franklin Mint has a series of carousel horses in its line, and as the Franklin Mint does, so does the Princeton Gallery.  Porcelain manufacturer Cybis, also brought out a collectible line of carousel horses and other animals, meant to rival the works of other porcelain studios like Connoisseur of Malvern, but not quite coming up to the mark.

Cybis Carousel Horse*

Franklin Mint Carousel Horse*

*Images courtesy of replacements.com

Princeton Gallery Carousel Horses 

(image courtesy of bonanza.com)

When I was a kid, we called carousels "merry-go-rounds," which led to a lot of disappointment and confusion whenever I was told (by someone outside the family) that we were going to a park that had a merry-go-round only to find one of those spinning platforms with bars on it that I think are also called "playground roundabouts."

I don't know whether the term "merry-go-round" for "carousel" was a regional thing, like the differences between "pop," "soda," "soft drink," and "tonic," but that was certainly what my family called the amusement park ride with the bobbing horses.

What I do know was that as a child I was very fond of a bouncy little tune called "Horace the Horse (on the Merry-Go-Round)" so using "merry-go-round" for "carousel" was not unique to my family.

In fact, there is an organization called the National Carousel Association whose newsletter is entitled The Merry-Go-Roundup.

Of course, carousels feature other animals besides horses, but being a horse-shaped object collector, it's the horses that intrigue me the most.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I can envision how nice a collection of carousel horses might look ...

Somebody stop me now!

Retail Resins

Artist resins are, of course, not the only resins out there.  There are also what the North American Model Horse Showers Association (NAMHSA) calls "factory resins" and I call "commerical resins." Another appropriate term might be "retail resins."

NAMHSA defines the factory resin as "a mass-produced model in its original state as released by the manufacturer."  NAMHSA defines an artist resin as "a casting of a unique work. Artist resins may be finished by the original artist or by another artist; may be altered from the original casting; may have sculpted or hair manes and tails."  

For me, the primary difference between an artist resin and a commercial resin is that commercial resins are always sold painted and ready to show, while artist resins are more often sold as blanks, to be painted by somebody else.

There are some exceptions.  Both the Trail of Painted Ponies and the Horse of a Different Color offer blank resins for their fans to customize and both Copperfox and Stone have been known to sell blank resins to customers as well as releasing the molds in finished plastic.  But on the whole, the commercial = finished / artist = unfinished rule applies.

Now, while I only have five artist resins, I have many more commercial resins in my collection.  I have a Trail of Painted Ponies horse and a Horse Whispers foal.  I have four Breyer resins, a Castagna mare and foal, a Stone Critters pony, and eight North Lights.

North Light horses have their fans and their detractors.  They are probably an acquired taste, but once you acquire it you'll never shake it -- which can be a bit of a problem, since North Light is no longer in business.

When I was younger it was actually possible to buy North Lights at a book store here in town, but these were early North Lights and while I admired them, I didn't initially love them.  I was very into attending live shows then, and they just didn't seem to have the stuff to stand up in the show ring -- the lighter horses had very weedy-looking legs, and the heavy horses had prominent eyes that seemed to pop out of their heads.

My first North Light, a Shetland Pony

The first North Light I bought I got from a dealer (Laura Pervier of Lone Wolf Star) at a live show -- a Shetland pony whose cute factor outweighed any conformational flaws he might have had.  He actually didn't have much in the way of flaws anyway.  Over time, the North Light sculptors honed their craft, toning down the pop eyes and beefing up the structure of their horses and ponies.  All North Lights still do, to some extent, have very broad brows, but now it looks good on them.

North Light Nursing Mare and Suckling Foal

So what happened to North Light?  I'm not exactly sure.  As giftware, their animals always seemed to be in competition with similar Border Fine Arts sculptures, but the Border Fine Arts sculptors specialized in creating scenes -- pairing their horses with riders, drivers, dogs, cats, hens and what-have-you.  North Light specialized in stand-alone horses.

Whatever happened, the company ended up being sold to Wade Ceramics in 2005 and the horses moved from being crafted in the British potteries district to being mass-produced in China.  Perks that the older company offered -- like customized colours and special collectors' issues -- dried up, and the variety of molds on offer was drastically cut.  Then Wade ceased production of the North Lights altogether in 2009.

North Light Arabian made in China

There is some evidence that a couple of foal molds were also released as United Design Stone Critters, but Stone Critters were sold to a company called Encore sometime around 2010, and no North Light designs have surfaced since then.

Like the first generation (G1) Breyer Stablemates that have the date 1975 stamped on them, the dates that appear on many North Light horses indicate only when the mold debuted and not when a particular model was produced.  Some, if not all, of the molds that were later produced in China have an additional "Made in China" sticker, and while that doesn't indicate a precise date of creation, it does help you narrow it down to a few years.

Although North Light may have gone the way of the dodo, there are still plenty of other commercial resins out there for collectors to acquire, both new in gift shops and through mail order, and second-hand through all the usual sources.

For those who aren't artistically inclined, or don't have the budget to afford an artist resin, commercial resins can offer a nice alternative.  You just have to be selective in your shopping, and buy only what speaks to you.  If it's an acquired taste and no one else seems to have acquired it -- so what?  As long as you love it, it's a bargain at any price. 

Resin Resistance

I think I mentioned once before that I don't have a lot of artist resins in my model horse collection.  I currently have five.  The maximum I've ever had (as far as I can remember) is seven.

You see, I have a complicated relationship with artist resins.  Although some of them are the most drop-dead gorgeous horse-shaped objects that I have ever seen, for some reason I seldom find myself yearning to own one.

In part, I think it's because it kind of seems wrong to me to own a beautiful artist resin and not show it.  I'm not an artist of any sort, but I sort of feel that if an artist is going to go to the trouble of making a beautiful sculpture and then having it reproduced in a highly detailed resin, that artist wants those resins to go forth and spread the word about that artist's talent.

I could be completely wrong about this.  After all, equine artists who have their sculptures cast in bronze probably aren't hoping those bronzes will go out and win show ribbons.  They probably just want to make a beautiful thing that someone else will also find beautiful, and will take into their home.  The same may be true of resin horse sculptors for all I know.

Another reason for my resistance to artist resins, though, is a matter of cost.  It's not that I think resins are overpriced -- I don't.  Considering the amount of time and talent poured into their creation, they're probably a pretty good bargain.  But when artist resins first hit the hobby, I was not making very much money and couldn't even afford a customized model (known at that time by the clunky moniker "R/R/H," meaning "remade [repositioned], repainted, and haired").  There was no way, therefore, that I could afford to both buy a blank resin and then commission an artist to paint it.

I also couldn't really wrap my head around the difference between a repainted plastic horse and a painted resin horse.  If I bought an R/R/H horse I could be confident that it would look like no other model horse on the show table.  But before people began to customize resins, all resin bodies in a particular run looked alike -- only the paint jobs made them different from one another.  It just didn't make sense to me.

And finally, I wasn't convinced about the stability of the medium.  Plastics will age, but model horses made in the 1950s were still in good shape 30 years later.  Resin was new, and unproven.  Who knew how long it would last?

Idyyl Art Highland Pony

  
It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the first two resins that joined my collection came in the form of raffle and contest prizes.  The first was one of 25 Highland Ponies created by Karon Grieve of Idyyl Art.  He came to me pre-painted, so keeping him was a no-brainer.

Animal Artistry Arabians

My second resin was the miniature standing Arabian foal by Donna Chaney of Animal Artistry.  She came to me as an unpainted resin, but she didn't require much prep work and I had a friend who loved painting who agreed to paint her for me at a very reasonable price.

EquinArt Miniature Donkey

Next to arrive, many years later, was a cute little Gulliver donkey resin by Candace Liddy of EquinArt.  I bought him as a finished piece, directly from the sculptor at a live model horse show.  More recently, I got a finished Animal Artistry miniature trotting Arabian stallion in a trade, providing my foal with a father.

Laf'n Bear Shetland Pony

The last to arrive was a little Netzky Shetland pony by Lynn Fraley of Laf'n Bear.  I've long been a fan of Lynn's work and I'm a sucker for Shetland ponies, so when the chance came to get a finished one I went for it.  To tell the truth, I'd rather have a "clinky" Netzky, but finding one of those little girls for sale at any kind of affordable price is a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack.

As far as I can remember I've only had two other resins residing briefly with my herd:  Laurie Jo Jensen's LJ Round Robin and D'Arry Jone Frank's Mozart.  I got one in trade and gave the other away in a trade, but I really did like them both -- just not enough for them to stay.

Would I add another resin to my herd?  I wouldn't rule out the possibility completely, but if I did it would probably come in the form of a contest or raffle prize.  I never actively shop for resins, but there are a few I like floating around out there, and if I happened upon one at the right time and in the right place, you never know.

Never say "never," right?

Chasing Rainbows

An odd thing happened to me earlier this week.  I opened up a Breyer blind bag and found a "chase" piece -- one of those that are packed in one out of every four boxes.

It's odd because this has never happened to me before and I'm a big fan of blind bags -- I like the surprise.  But in all the blind bags I've purchased over the years, this is the first time I've ever found a chase piece inside one of them.

And there have been a lot of chase pieces over the years.  I might be missing some, but the Stablemate chasers have included a silver charm mini Alborozo, a greeny-gold Friesian, a pink Icelandic, a blue Endurance Arabian, a copper filigree Django, a gold Rearing Andalusian, a war painted Mustang, a blue mini Alborozo unicorn, an orange and black dappled mini Magnolia unicorn, and even a gold Scrambling Foal (in a Mystery Foal surprise pack).  Mini Whinny chasers have included a silver filigree Running Thoroughbred, a pink filigree Jumping Morgan, a green filigree Cantering Thoroughbred Mare, and a gold filigree (or florentine) Show Stance Drafter.  That's a whole lot of chase pieces that have somehow eluded my grasp.

Of course, I'm working at a bit of a disadvantage here.  There's no store nearby that I can get to where I can fondle the blind bags in person -- as a lot of collectors are known to do -- in hopes of making out the shape of the chase piece.  I'm not sure if I'd do that even if I could, anyway.  As I said, I like the surprise, and I'd be concerned that the rubbing of the bag would damage the finish of the horse -- both my own rubbing and the rubbing of all those who have come before me.

So it's been both out of necessity and out of preference that I've been buying my blind bags from distributors who promise not to manhandle any blind bags before shipping.

The oddest thing - a Spirit Series 2 "chase" piece!

 
Some of the chasers, too, are issued only to special distributors in the U.S.A., like Walmart and Cracker Barrel.  With a little inventiveness -- calling in favours and such -- I could probably get my hands on some of these, but I still wouldn't want to have my blind bag pre-fondled by my buyer, and there's no way I can guarantee that that wouldn't happen, particularly if that buyer was also looking for chase pieces.  So I've never set my heart on having that blue Arabian from Cracker Barrel or the orange and black unicorn from Walmart.

I hadn't actually set my heart on getting any particular chase pieces at all, as all but one are fantasy "new decorator" colours, and although I'm fine with them now, I still prefer realistic colours in general.

The one piece that is not technically a fantasy or decorator colour is the Series 2 blind bag Spirit chase piece, featuring Spirit nearly covered in war paint.  While it is true that the amount of paint on him seems excessive, it's actually remarkably close to the war paint Spirit wore in the season two finale of the Netflix series Spirit: Riding Free.  There are some minor differences between the model and the animation, particularly around the face -- on the show, Spirit had much more elaborate red rings around his eyes, three stripes as opposed to a solid swoosh over the bridge of his nose, and both nostrils ringed with red.  The purpose of the war paint overkill was to disguise Spirit so that Lucky could ride him in a race.

Spirit in war paint - Image courtesy of DreamWorks TV

So despite the fact that the Spirit Series 2 chase piece is a portrait of a cartoon horse, it's the most realistically-coloured chase piece of the lot (eyebrows notwithstanding).

Now here's where this week's discovery of a chase piece hits maximum oddity:  the war paint Spirit was the chase piece I found.  Although I wouldn't scorn any of the others if I were to find them, the war paint Spirit is actually the one I like the most.

How's that for a surprising bit of luck?

A Classic Act

Since everybody's talking about the Breyer mid-year releases announced this week, I thought I might as well throw my reaction into the ring.

On the whole, I'd say it's a pretty impressive lot.  There's nothing there that I need to add to my collection, but I do appreciate the fact that there's finally a bay Bristol for all those who have been lusting after him.  The miniature horse set is cute with the little personalized jump, and the mule -- though not my kind of mule -- has a really complex pattern that Breyer should be applauded for attempting (and from the pictures, it looks like they did a good job).  The portrait horse, Kentucky, has already been previewed on the Breyer website, so no news there.  And the Hallowe'en horse is the sort of decorator I have not come around to liking yet, so no thrills there for me either.  The translucent Stablemate unicorns are cute, though.

The new Classic rearing Mustang, "American Dream"

I am, however, most excited to see two new Classics horses joining the line-up.  I've been very pleased over the past few years to see a new Classic mold joining the herd every year with the Horse of the Year series, and even happier that they're being rolled into the regular line-up right after their debuts.  But this year has really brought us a bonanza of Classics with the new Arabian, and now a new Brabant and a new Mustang, all from different artists -- Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig, Mel Miller, and Maggie Bennett respectively.  

Classic is my favourite Breyer scale, and despite the fact that I've only added two of the new molds (Liam, as Gato, and Bella in her original release) to my collection, and I don't anticipate adding any of this year's three newbies, I'm still so happy to see the expansion and refinement of Breyer's classic-scale horses.

"Dupree" (meaning "from the prairie") my Saddle Club Prancer and one of seven Duchesses in my Classic herd.

Over the years my own Classic collection has expanded and contracted as my collecting interests have changed.  I used to have all of Breyer's pre-classic Classics (horses not originally promoted as being in classic-scale, like the Rearing Stallion, the Bucking Bronco, the Polo Pony, and Hobo) but I scaled that back to just the Rearing Stallion and the Bucking Bronco, letting the horses with the stands go.  I also used to have all of Maureen Love's Hagen-Renaker mold Classic family sets, but ended up saving only the foals from the Quarter Horse and Arabian families.  The Maureen Love Thoroughbreds have come and gone several times over in several incarnations -- today I have two of my original TBs (Silky Sullivan and Terrang) plus some more modern incarnations of Terrang (as Seabiscuit and Coeur de Lion) and Man O' War (as War Admiral).

Probably the oddest thing that has happened to my Classics collection, however, is my accidental "conga" line of Duchesses.  I never had any intention of collecting multiple iterations of that mold, but I like it a lot and I've just found that I like a lot of the colours she's been released in.  The result: accidental conga.  Looking them over now I see that I have: the Trakehner family mare, the Model Horse Play and Activity Set horse, Wild Blue, the Western Horse and Rider Set horse, the Lisa and Prancer Gift Set horse, Mancha, and Cheyenne.  That's seven of 28 releases (excluding the flockie) -- not a huge conga, but not a tiny number either.

I do really like the new mid-year rearing Mustang, so I might cave in and buy him at some point, but for now I'm pretty happy with my collection as it stands.  I'm grateful to Breyer for continuing to tempt me, however.  If nothing else, I am loving this Classic act.

I Got You Babe

When I first clapped eyes on the new 2019 regular run horses coming from Breyer, the ones I coveted the most were the Best of British Thoroughbred and Hackney foals.  I've been avoiding the "Gilen" foal for years as he just looks too tipsy to me, but I thought that making the "Lipizzaner" foal into a Hackney horse foal was a stroke of genius.  That foal really does look like a Hackney to me, and it's not very often that we see them portrayed in the foal stage.  So despite my reservations about Gilen, the Best of British foals catapulted to the top of my "must have" list.

Recently, I got an opportunity to purchase them at a discounted price -- it took no more than that to twist my rubber arm.  I put in my order and home they came.

Billy Boy and Georgie Girl -- my two newest foals

Unfortunately, I was immediately disappointed by my little Hackney girl.  You see, somewhere between the factory floor and the toy shop shelf, my little Hackney lost part of her left ear.  It's perfectly painted over so it wasn't a shipping break -- it was just a factory imperfection that somehow escaped quality control.

And that's the major disadvantage of shopping via mail order as opposed to shopping in person.  I used to get teased about the amount of time I would spend comparing new-in-box (NIB) models on the rare occasions that I had an opportunity to shop for them in person, but all that scrutiny was meant to avoid factory flaws and therefore disappointment.

It's not such a big deal now that I no longer show my models, but still, when I really like a mold I'd like to have the best example I can find on my shelf.  With mail order shopping, except in the rare case of a few retailers who specialize in reaching the hobbyist crowd, what you're sent is what you get.  And I got a flawed model.

Ironically, the "Gilen" Thoroughbred foal is perfect, although he was not the one who sold me on the set.

Irish Thoroughbred foal a.k.a. "Billy Boy"

In fact, I was actually surprised at how much I wanted this set, given that I'm not particularly enamoured of a lot of sculptor Brigitte Eberl's foals.  I like cute foals, and Brigitte tends to prefer gangling, gawky youngsters.  Admittedly, every young horse passes through this stage, but it's not my favourite stage of horse development.  And while Brigitte is certainly capable of sculpting cute (I adore her Classic Haflinger pony foal, for instance), a lot of her foals are, in my opinion, just plain homely -- like the Roman-nosed Breyer Traditional Andalusian foal.

The Lipizzaner/Hackney foal has a bit of a Roman nose too, but it's not quite as pronounced as the Andalusian's.  In theory, I should be able to take a flattering picture of my little girl -- except that she's missing the tip of an ear.

Hackney horse foal a.k.a. "Georgie Girl"

This sort of factory flaw has actually plagued me before when buying Breyers.  Both my Ichilay Indian Pony and my Steel Dust Proud Arab Mare (both long since sold) came to me with partial eartips, both painted over at the factory.  Properly sculpted, equine eartips are a work of art, but they are apparently a detail that Breyer does not overly concern itself with.  However, with Breyer's new crop of sculptors, the artistry of ears is getting better.  Where Chris Hess might have contented himself with a slight indent, a sculptor like Kristina Lucas Francis traces all the sweeping lines of the expressive equine ear.  Breyer's horses are constantly improving in terms of realism -- and that's something I'm happy to support.

In the meantime, I'm still fairly happy with my two new babies, despite the initial disappointment.  No, they're not perfect, but they still knock the socks off Breyer's old Family and Running Foals.  And they're mine.

Never mind the missing eartip, little Hackney foal.  I got you, babe.