It's Just an Expression

I haven't made much progress yet on my New Year's resolution to take better pictures for online photo showing, but I'm starting to remember some of the things that judges used to look for back in the mail-in photo show days.

One thing I remember quite clearly is that judges like to see the expression on your horse's face.  Of course, equine expressions are based on much more than merely the face -- the way a horse holds its head, the tension or lack thereof in its body, the position of legs, and the action of its tail all contribute to the overall expression of a horse's mood.  But model horse judges particularly like to focus on the face in halter photos, and in headstudies it's absolutely essential to capture the horse looking as real as possible.

This can be a challenge with some horses.  Scratching horses, grazing horses, rolling horses, and sometimes even reining horses often hold their heads in such a way that it's quite an art to take a decent picture of them.

What I find particularly interesting, though, is how a horse's expression changes depending on the scene you set it in.  Take, for example, this North Light mare:

Ignore the obvious toy-horse-on-the-floor look of the photo.  Just look at the horse.  What do you think of her expression?

To me, she looks a little bit ticked off.  While not flat back, her ears are pointing backwards, and her head is partly lowered and craned back, as if she's keeping a wary eye on the photographer.  Her legs seem stiff and tense, and her tail looks like it might be flipping back and forth in annoyance.  Her whole attitude just seems to be saying "Don't come any closer -- I don't trust you."

Now look at her again with the North Light foal she was released with:

Same horse-on-the-floor setting, but the mare is now in a slightly different orientation vis-à-vis the photographer so you can see more of the breadth of her brow.  With the foal in place she now appears to be looking at the foal rather than the picture taker, and although her ears and tail are still in the same position, they now appear to express contentment and maternal absorption in the moment -- a concentration on what's happening right now as opposed to what might be going to happen.  Overall, she seems to be saying "This is all I care about, right here, right now."

Same mare, same lack of setting, but the scene has changed and so has the expression.  In a way it goes to show that we see what we want to see when looking at a model horse.  Certain scenes bring with them certain expectations -- a horse with its hindquarters coming around to face us we see as a threat; a mare with a foal we see as a lovingly bonded relationship. 

So with photo showing, your horse's expression can be just what you make it.  The trick is finding a way to make it the best that it can be.

Creature Comforts

The bulk of my Breyer 2019 Collectors' Club Appreciation (CCA) Days order arrived a little while ago.  Since I didn't order very many horse-shaped objects I didn't think I'd end up blogging about it, but now I think perhaps I have a few observations about this year's swag that might be worth sharing.

The real focus of my order was on the creature comforts -- now that we're well into winter I'm constantly looking for feel-good comfy and cozy items to help me cheer up and make it through the season.  It's somewhat ironic that my model horse stable name is Winterplace Stables since I really hate winter.  However, the name partly reflects my acknowledgement that, although I hate winter, I live in a place where the winters can last as long as seven months.

So I was quite pleased to see this year that Breyer had added a toque and a scarf to their line-up of themed apparel.  When it came time to place my CCA order, though, I opted against ordering them, reflecting that I already have a closet full of scarves and toques and don't really need any more of them.

I opted instead to purchase the 70th Anniversary coffee mug and the 70th Anniversary fleece throw.  And I am more than pleased with both of them.

The coffee mug appealed to me because I have a small collection of horse-themed coffee mugs, including mugs from Spruce Meadows and the Kentucky Horse Park.  This one is a very nice size -- slightly larger than most but consequently easier to use since the handles are larger and longer.  It's nicely finished both inside and out, and while I wouldn't trust it in a dishwasher for fear that the logo might wear away, I'll certainly be using it for many coffees and teas henceforward.

The throw looked snuggly from the website pictures, but it's unbelievably soft in hand.  I was surprised when I opened it up to find that it was only printed on one side -- all of my previous fleeces have been two-sided -- but looking back now I see that Breyer's other fleeces have mostly been one-sided as well.

I also chose the fleece because I was eager to add something to my collection that featured the multi-coloured "tiles" being used as a motif for much of Breyer's 70th anniversary swag.  I briefly considered, therefore, both the notebook and the beach towel before settling on the throw.  I didn't really have any use for either a blank notebook or a beach towel, and it looked to me that while the patterns are slightly different on each of the objects, the throw had the largest pattern and therefore the greatest variety of pictures.

I don't know it that's true or not -- what I do know is that my throw features the silhouettes of 48 different horses.*  The dates in the boxes behind them are difficult to read -- I've heard that they're supposed to represent the molds' original issue dates, but that some of the dates are wrong.  If so, that's too bad, because the throw-as-archive is a neat idea.  If you don't have a good book to curl up with as you snuggle up and sip your tea, you can always read your throw -- it's a covering and a chronicle all in one.

*For the record, although the throw features 8 rows of 7 horses each, the first and last rows are identical and one space in the second-to-last row is taken up with the 70th anniversary logo.  Of the horses featured, horses released since the turn of the century are vastly over-represented as compared to horses from prior decades.

Long Term Love Affair

Although members of the Hagen-Renaker (H-R) Collectors' Club are sworn to secrecy about a number of issues, there' a thread going on right now on the Hagen-Renaker Collectors Cub Group Facebook page that I think will be okay to talk about here.  I hope so anyway, because this blog post is my response to this particular thread.

The question being asked of H-R Collectors' Club members is: Which H-R has been with you the longest?

This is not just about horses of course -- the H-R that you've had forever could be anything from a hand-painted butter plate to a DW (Designer's Workshop) dog.  But most Collector Club members are model horse fanciers, so horses make up the majority of the responses.

It's also not necessarily about the first H-R you ever got -- if it's not still with you then it doesn't count.  It's not about the oldest piece in your collection either -- if you still have both an H-R mini you bought new in 1980 and a DW H-R you bought second-hand in 1985, the mini is the one that's been with you the longest, even if the DW has been in existence for a longer time.

So, given all these rules, I've determined that the H-R that's been with me the longest is the A-323 Western Pony.  I bought him in 1989, when I was just starting my collecting career.

A-323 Western Pony.  I show him as a Sec. A Welsh Pony "Cader Chippit" (he had a small eartip chip when I bought him).

This was the period when I was doing a lot of learning about model horses, and realizing all the near misses I'd had with opportunities to collect Breyers and Hartlands before I really knew what they were.  When I found out about  H-Rs I had that same sense of "oh dear, I once had a opportunity to buy some of those and I let it pass me by."

There was a card shop I used to visit occasionally that had a small display of H-R minis, right on the front desk.  They didn't have a great variety of horses, but one that they did have was the H-R miniature Circus Pony (sans plume) that ran from 1980-1983 in four harness colours: purple, green, dark red, and pink.  For at least two years I would regularly go and ogle those horses whenever I visited the store, but I never bought one, and the reason I did not is the same reason that has held me back from buying so many horses I've found attractive over the years -- I couldn't decide which colour to buy.

A friend of mine has a fantastic solution to this problem:  when she can't decide between two or more horses, she'll just buy them all.  When buying second-hand this often results in her getting a discount for bulk buying, and in any case buying both or all of the horses under consideration gives her more time to decide if she really only wants one of them, thereby enabling her to sell the rest.

The only catch with this method is that you have to have the money to buy more than one right up front, and that of course is not always the case -- not for me and not for my friend.

Anyway, after I realized that those Circus Ponies I wished I had bought were the kinds of H-Rs I should be looking for, I decided to take up the hunt again.  That original card shop has since closed, but it was part of a chain so I started to check out others in the chain to see if they, perhaps, had H-Rs too.  

Most of them did not, but at last I found one store with a few H-Rs (all discontinued, although I did not realize this at the time) and one single solitary horse -- the reissued Western Pony (1979-84).

I hadn't been counting on buying a horse with tack, but when you can find only one you take what you can get, and the pony itself was quite attractive under his trappings.

In the end, I'm so glad I did buy him.  He's been with me for over 30 years now, and I've always felt lucky to have been able to buy him new when he was already 5 years discontinued.  It took a long time for us to get together, but our story marks a great start to a long term love affair.

Going Wild

In honour of the History Channel's launching of a new show about wild horses (The Wild Ones, premiering January 20th in Canada), I decided to spend a little bit of time in my blog today talking about the wild ones in my collection.

Next to the Shetland ponies I'm obsessed by, wild horses in general and mustangs in particular have always been favourites of mine.  That being said, they're kind of under-represented in my collection -- I'm not quite sure why.  A long time ago I sold off my Breyer Classic Mustang Family (the one based on the Maureen Love sculptures).  I don't think I've ever owned the Traditional Semi-Rearing Mustang, and although some people might count his companion, the Fighting Stallion, as a mustang, I've only ever had one Fighting Stallion (since sold) and he didn't seem particularly mustang-like to me.

Of course, when you're talking mustangs you could just be talking about feral horses of absolutely any breed.  Fortunately the trend these days has been towards preserving mustangs with historic backgrounds -- like the Spanish mustangs promoted by Bob Brislawn, the Mesteño herd of Kiger mustangs illustated by Rowland Cheney, and the Pryor Mountain families captured by filmmaker Ginger Kathrens.

This reminds me that Breyer has also come through with support of these herds.  Bob Scriver's "Buckshot" was based on one of Brislawn's favourite horses, Cheney was invited to translate his 2D sketches into the 3D classic-size Mesteño series for Breyer, and Kathrens' beloved "Cloud" and his family have all been portrayed by a wide variety of molds over the years.

Additionally, Breyer frequently pays tribute to feral horses rehabilitated through the work of the U.S. federal Bureau of Land Management  (BLM)-- all you have to do is look for one of the distinctive BLM freeze brands on your model to see if your horse is one of those.

So Breyer has given us a lot of mustangs, but I think the ones I actually like best are the Stablemates.  Not all of them were originally molded to be mustangs, but several of them fit the mold quite nicely.

One of several "Rivet"s in my collection.

One of my very favourites of the newer molds is "Rivet," originally released in 2013 as a Breyerfest single day ticket special.  Aside from the decorator releases, most of the colours Rivet has come out in would make good mustangs.  Although Breyer has, in fact, released Rivet as a mustang once or twice, for the most part he's just been a generic plastic horse doing a sort of non-specific movement.  He might be humping his back as a prelude to a buck, about to burst into a wild gallop, or simply descending into a river or dry ditch.  But to me he's a lovely little mustang full of 'tude, no matter what it is that he's doing.

H-R Specialty piece which I've named "Wild Horse Annie" (the mare) and "Mustang Bill" (the foal)

Next to Breyers, I suppose the larger part of my mustang herd comes from Hagen-Renaker (H-R).  Besides a reissue "Butch" (or classic mustang foal), I have a couple of mustang specialties and miniatures from H-R.  None of them show particularly well, as sculptor Maureen Love tended to emphasize the wild and wooly mustang as opposed to the conformationally correct, but I'm quite taken with them all the same.

Speaking of wild and wooly, I suppose I should mention "Stormwatch" here.  Surprisingly, it's not one of my favourite molds, and while I wouldn't turn down a bargain basement clinky "Stormwatch," the resin just isn't my thing.  I know I'm in a minority opinion here, but the thing that bothers me most about "Stormwatch" is the thing that others love about him -- his wind-whipped mane and tail.  For some reason, all that hair looks too gossamer-fine to me.  I'd rather see him all tangled and matted with burrs and breaks, instead of looking like he'd just stepped out of the bath.  But that's just the way I see it and not the way that thousands of "Stormwatch" fans do.  Now, to give him his credit -- the rest of the sculpture is everything I'd want in a mustang.  And in the end, his having a bad hair day has probably saved me a few hundred bucks.

I do have two Peter Stone mustangs in my collection.  I like the original mold by Candace Liddy very much, even if I haven't always liked the factory-customized ones.  My two are both on the original mold, but I only would have added one of them to my collection had it not been that my first Stone Mustang was a mistake.  It's a long story that probably deserves its own blog post, but suffice it to say that Stone somehow managed to mangle my mustang order in such a way that I could not possibly hold it against them.  Lesson learned, there.

Fortunately for me, the various model horse manufacturers never seem to tire of launching new mustangs on their unsuspecting fans -- consider Breyer's new "American Dream (2019),"  and Stone's Pebbles (2016) and Chips (2008) rearing mustangs, all launched comparatively recently.  It's a development in the model horse world that I'd like to see go on and on and on and on.

Because wild things, I think I love you.

Give Me a "C"

"Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie

Why does a chicken ...?  I don't know why.

Ask me a riddle and I reply,

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie"

-- from Winnie-the-Pooh or The Hums of Pooh by A.A. Milne

We've now arrived at the letter "C" in our alphabetic exploration of some of the model horses in my herd.

One of my very favourite "C" horses is "Cottleston Pie," a second-version Beswick "Stocky Jogging Mare" in basic Beswick bay/brown.

"Cottleston Pie"

It probably seems to be a silly name for this particular horse.  It is, of course, a nonsense name.  There is no such thing as "Cottleston pie" although the words do suggest a savory pie such as cottage pie or shepherd's pie, and some enterprising foodies have come up with recipes for "Cottleston pie" on their own.

And then there's the problem with the "Pie" part.  Even I, occasionally, regret having used this name on this model when I really should have followed Velvet Brown's example and saved a name with "Pie" in it for a piebald horse. 

But then, the Beswick "Stocky Jogging Mare" and I have never really been on the same page.

The first Beswick I ever bought for myself was a palomino third-version "Stocky Jogging Mare" in an eyeball-searing orange that really made her stand out from all the others on the shelf.  Or should I say, really made "him" stand out?  For some odd reason, I've never been able to see the Stocky Jogging Mare as a "mare" in any of her incarnations.  Every time I look at "her" I see a very pleasant, willing gelding, thus a "him" rather than a "her."  And I just can't seem to change that impression in my mind.

I can see the "stocky" part in this version, but not the "mare."

For years, I didn't even know that "Stocky Jogging Mares" versions one and two even existed, but once I saw pictures of the earlier two I figured that was it -- I never expected to see one in real life.

Which brings us to "Cottleston Pie's" story.  It was a cold March day in 2008 and I was meeting a group of friends downtown to go to a theatrical performance.  I got to the meeting spot way too earlier, so I decided to while away the time (and get out of the wind) by browsing around an antique and collectibles shop in the area -- in fact, just across the road from where I needed to be.

As I normally do, I searched the store for equine collectibles -- books, pictures, figurines -- it didn't really matter what.  And there, in the showcase beneath the cash register, I saw him -- the second version Stocky Jogger.  I knew right away what he was but still could hardly believe my eyes.  I asked if I could see him and looked him over carefully.  As far as I could tell he was perfectly mint.  But the best surprise was when I asked his price -- the sellers weren't charging very much for him as he had no backstamp so they could not guarantee that he was, in fact, a Beswick.  But I'd seen older Beswicks before, and I was convinced that he was.

They wrapped him up in a bit of newspaper, put him in a plastic bag, and away I went to meet my friends.  None of them were model horse people, but I told them I'd just purchased a rare object and needed to be extra careful with it.  With very little wrapping and no protective box, he seemed impossibly fragile to me but there was nothing I could do about it -- the show was about to start and I had no time to get to my car and pack him safely away.  So he nestled carefully between my feet throughout the whole performance (I did NOT get up for the intermission) and then came home with me to be ogled gleefully the rest of the night.

(Beswick experts on Facebook have since confirmed my suspicions that he was the real deal.  Of course, no one can say for sure without actually handling the piece, but while I'm not an expert I have enough experience to be convinced myself.  It's not at all uncommon for Beswicks of this period [1941-47] to lack backstamps.  It's just one of those things that makes Beswick collecting so intriguing.)

So how did "Cottleston Pie" get his name?  He pretty much named himself -- the name was just there in my head before I even became aware of it.  Part of it may have been because I found him "across the road" from where I was supposed to be -- as A.A. Milne puts it in Pooh's "hum": "Why does a chicken ... [cross the road]?  I don't know why."

It also may be that I was humming this little tune to myself as I floated out of the store with the plastic bag in my mitts.  I don't have a clear memory of doing this, but it wouldn't be unusual for me -- as a child I had an LP record that had most of the "hums of Pooh" on it and I know them all so well that I quite often break into one or the other of them at the drop of a hat.  "Cottleston Pie" is a whimsically happy "hum," and my favourite verse in it is the one about the chicken (there are also verses about flies, birds, and fish).

At any rate, despite all the things that are wrong about this particular name for this particular horse, it just seemed to be the right name for him.  Why? 

Ask me that riddle and I'll reply, "Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie."

No Foal Like An Old Foal

It struck me the other day that there was something I really missed about Breyer's newest crop of foals:  it's the opportunity to buy them as individuals, as opposed to in sets.

Back in the day, this used to be the primary way one acquired Breyer foals.  Even though they were produced to be members of a "family," it was only rarely that you could get them boxed together with a parent -- that kind of thing usually only happened with Sears and J.C. Penney special runs.

Breyer's earliest foals can still be purchased individually today -- up until they were discontinued at the end of last year the Action Stock Horse Foal "Van Gogh," the Clydesdale Foal "Shadow,"  and the Running Foal "Milo" from the Best Friends Collection were available as stand-alone horses.  But just try purchasing a new Lipizzaner Foal (2017) without a hanger-on,  either "Gilen" or the Performance Lipizzaner Mare.  It can't be done.

The same can be said of the Andalusian Foal (2015) and his mama, and "Le Fire" (2002), who is never seen without "Susecsion." I very much fear that the Welsh Foal, "Cadell," (2019) is going to go the same route, even though Breyer used to sell the tinier Traditional foals like "Sea Star" (1980) and "Stormy" (1977) as stand-alones.

The reason I miss these stand-alone offerings so much is that they were so much more affordable than buying sets of horses.  You also got more variety in the stand-alones, as the foals did not have to be made to match a parent.

The real oldies -- the Proud Arabian (1956), the Family Arabian (1960), the Running (1961), Grazing (1965), Lying (1969), Clydesdale (1969), Scratching (1970), and Rough Coat (1978), Standing (1983), and Action (1984) Stock Horse Foals, as well as the Quarter Horse Yearling (1970) and Saddlebred Weanling (1973) -- were routinely sold as individuals.  The only foal of that era to always be sold in a set was the Suckling Foal (1973), who, admittedly, looks kind of goofy without his Nursing Mare.

Old foals from three different painting eras -- '60s (Running), '70s (Proud Arab), and '90s (Rough Coat Stock Foal)

Aside from reissues of the older molds, the only Traditional foals that have been sold outside of sets in recent years are "Amber" (1997), "Ashley" (1997), and "Gilen" (2009).  

This seems odd since, although we are well past the foal bonanza years of the '60s, '70s, and early '80s, Breyer has still managed to come up with seven new Traditional foals in the past two and a half decades.  With all those new bodies hanging around, it seems like it must be merely a marketing decision that has kept them from being released as individuals, much as their predecessors were before them.

Unlike the earlier foals, all of the new ones are expressing their individuality in another way -- by being initially released under given (as opposed to breed) names, including:  Amber (Morgan), Ashley (Morgan), Le Fire (Arabian), Gilen (Warmblood), Corazon (Andalusian), Selene (Lipizzaner), and Cadell (Welsh Pony) -- the last three all debuting as Premier Collection horses, and Gilen as a Connoisseur Series horse.  Now it may be that many of these are just too recent to have had their day as stand-alone individuals yet, but I wonder ...

It's impossible these days to buy Classic foals as individuals too, although the old Classic Arabian and Classic Quarter Horse foals were initially released on blister cards for individual purchase (1973/75-82).  How I would love to be able to buy the new curly-tailed Stock Horse Foal, or the sweet little Haflinger foal on blister cards!

The Little Bits/Paddock Pals horses never had foals, unless you count the similar-sized hairy Young Rider horses, the fantastical Wind Dancers, or the Corral Pals foals, and of those only the Corral Pals are/were made outside of sets.  

Stablemate foals, old and new, have never been available outside of a set of some kind either, whether that set includes other foals, adult horses, barns and accessories, or simply a keychain attachment.  The one exception might be the Stablemate Scratching Foal, which was available as a stand-alone porcelain for a limited time.  

Similarly, none of the Mini Whinny foals have been offered alone either -- despite the advent of blind bags, the foals have always been offered as at least a pair, and often as part of much larger sets.

I say it's time for the young ones to break out on their own again.  For a time, I actually considered collecting only foals -- it's one way of keeping a collection small (in all senses of the word) but still getting a good representation of breeds.  Wouldn't work for performance showers, but it might have worked for me. 

Alas, that time has passed.  I still love the little ones, though, and happily make shelf room for them when I can.  They don't take up a lot of real estate, and their appealing aspects more than make up for the space they take.

The Acronym Cometh

Well, it's January and suddenly that can only mean one thing: time to prepare for NaMoPaiMo!

I say suddenly because this is a fairly new occurrence in my life.  NaMoPaiMo, or National Model Painting Month (a.k.a. February), is only three years old itself, but last February was the first time I ever participated in it.

Two years before that (2017) was the first ever NaMoPaiMo and, while I did hear something about it at the time, I assumed (mistakenly, as it turns out) that it was something just for hobby artists, not for untalented enthusiasts like myself.

It was only when I looked into it last year, after reading about it in Jennifer Buxton's "Braymere Custom Saddlery" blog, that I discovered that it was a month for everybody to experiment with simple customization, regardless of skill or experience.  There are sometimes "prizes," but NaMoPaiMo is not a competition -- if one is lucky enough to get a NaMoPaiMo prize it's for participation, not for artistry.  What you are pretty much guaranteed to get, as far as I can tell, is a little congratulatory post from Jennifer if you're able to complete your project and post its picture online.

These congratulations are not nothing.  They're heart-warming, sincere, and a tremendous boost to the self-esteem.  I received one last year, and it gave me the warm fuzzies for days afterwards.  Sometimes, a little recognition is all we need.

A line-up of possible NaMoPaiMo victims victories.

In anticipation of participating this year, I've been piling up a bunch of likely-looking bodies to attack with brush and pigment.  I have quite a selection, but I think my official NaMoPaiMo horse will end up being the Paint-and-Play Warmblood Unicorn, as it is the one I have the firmest plan for.  The others, with a little luck, may end up being my "I also did this" horses -- depends on how I handle my time and what else pops up during the month to distract me.

The candidate most likely to succeed proceed.

Being the language nerd that I am, I initially had a bit of an issue with the NaMoPaiMo acronym -- I felt that it really should be International Model Painting Month, or InMoPaiMo, to be accurate, since model horse hobbyists the world over have been known to participate. 

However, I know that the acronym was inspired by the NaNoWriMo acronym, for National Novel Writing Month (a.k.a. November), which began in 1999 as a way to encourage those of us with a novel in our heads to get the words out of our heads and onto a piece of paper.

I've toyed with the idea of signing up for NaNoWriMo from time to time, but never really found a fully-formed novel bashing around in my head waiting to get out.  But the point is that NaNoWriMo, like NaMoPaiMo, is actually an international event as opposed to a strictly national one. 

Which, now that I come to think of it, gives me a way to justify the "Na" in NaMoPaiMo.  As NaMoWriMo recognizes, a nation is not only a country.  In fact, by definition a nation is more than a country -- it's a community of people who have something in common, whether that's a love of writing or a love of model horses.  That's why we can talk about a nation of couch potatoes or a nation of activists.

When we use the term "national" we tend to think of things pertaining to our own country:  a national anthem, a national flag, a national government, or a national park.  But as a nation of model horse enthusiasts we have our own national identity and national icons, regardless of the country we call home.

So, long live NaMoPaiMo -- where model horse fanciers of the world unite!

We have nothing to lose for our pains.

Updates and Downsides

In case you were wondering, I finally decided not to enroll in any of Breyer's specialty clubs this year.  The unicorn mini Alborozo in the Stablemate Collectors' Club was the last straw -- I simply could not take the chance of ending up with that one and "Chroma" as well.

I also opted for the regular Collectors' Club membership as opposed to the deluxe -- the price of the mini Fighting Stallion was just too much for me, particularly as I don't like him in palomino all that much anyway.  So, resolution-wise, I'm off to a pretty good start as far as Breyers go.

On the downside, the final total of new horses to enter the stable in 2019 was 78, although I'm including in that count whatever Collectors' Club Appreciation horse I get, which won't actually arrive until 2020 and which is technically free anyway.  Aside from the Breyer Christmas Zebra, the other last-minute additions were all Stablemate size, and included pieces selected to reach the Collector's Club Appreciation redemption limit and a stowaway Stablemate added to my final three Stablemate Collectors' Club horses to make the most of the shipping charge.

I got the gold-striped Christmas Zebra, by the way.  This is super-cool as there is a kind of partial albinism that results in zebras having pale gold stripes.  I can't find an "official" name for this colour; I've seen it referred to as "golden," "blonde," "leucistic," and "white."  But in any case, it's the only decorator colour offered on the Christmas Zebra that could also conceivably be a natural colour.  Bonus for me!

"Illusion," my golden zebra

I have to admit, I was surprised by Breyer squeezing in a last-minute Collectors' Club special with "Ambrose" on the Geromino mold at the end of 2019, but I managed to resist that one.  It's not so much that I had an issue with the price (I did, but I do understand it as it reflects both the cost of having horses hand painted in America and, possibly, Breyer/Reeves' desire to test what the market will bear).  It's more about the fact that, while he's a beautiful horse, he just struck me as "overdone."  I mean -- extensive appaloosa spotting, including the shoulders and legs, plus dapples, plus pearling -- it's all a bit too much for me.  I would have been happier with the appaloosa markings and traits alone, without the dapples and the pearliness.  But that might be just me.

Anyway, since I'm not doing any Breyer specialty clubs this year, I've decided to join the Hagen-Renaker (H-R) Collector's Club for 2020.  I'm rapidly running out of room for chinas on my shelves, but I don't believe the H-R club has any mandatory purchases -- just tempting offers.

My ambitions for this year, as for the year before, include continuing to adjust my collection through selective downsizing, and pulling back on the plastic consumption.  Other new goals involve going through my collection of manufacturer catalogs and other ephemera and filling in the holes where they exist, sorting out my tack and props and choosing what to keep and what to sell, photo show judging for the first time in a long time, and getting better photos to enable me to participate in photo showing as well.

Working on close-up photography.

It sounds like enough to keep me busy, particularly since life is always interrupting hobby pursuits with much more serious business.  However, when that happens, it's always good to have the hobby pursuits to look forward to again.

I hope you're looking forward to whatever 2020 holds in store for you.  Any resolutions you'd care to share?  Feel free to let me know in the comments below.

Holiday Horses (and Zebras Too)

Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the weeks leading up to both offered model horse collectors a wide variety of special seasonal horses to choose from.

New this year were the red- and green-coloured mini clearware Winstons from Copperfox Model Horses.  As far as I can tell these "Coppercubs" started selling on Christmas Eve and were all gone in record time.  That's a good start for the new Copperfox 2.0 company.

Image courtesy of Copperfox Model Horses

The new Hartland company was putting out a number of glitter-dusted 3D-printed mini horses in a variety of molds for at least a month prior to the big C-Day.  Unfortunately, the bodies themselves still look like they could use a little sanding and finishing, as do almost all of Hartland's 3D-printed products.  Hartland did, however, also offer a couple of injection-molded plastic Tennessee Walking Horses with the Christmas glitter treatment, for those who like a more finished look.

Image courtesy of Hartland Horse & Cowboy Company

Stone Horses, as usual, went all out for the holidays -- particularly with their smallest Chip size horses which came in a variety of colours and snowflake patterns.  They also did a set of candy cane-inspired Chips, but with striping only on the legs as opposed to the whole body.

Image courtesy of Stone Model Horses

And last but not least, as everyone probably knows by now, Breyer's Christmas Day Collectors' Club offer was a quintet of candy-striped zebra mares, with red, green, blue, gold, and solid black variations.  Oddly, this year's offering does not seem to have been as popular with collectors as the offerings from previous years were.

Image courtesy of Breyer Model Horses and Identify Your Breyer

It just goes to show how out of step I am with the collecting majority that this year's Breyer Christmas offering was the first one I've really liked since 2017's clearware Bouncers, and the very first I decided to actually buy.  Yes I know, my last post was all about how difficult I still find it to accept some decorators.  That was pretty much the main reason I didn't bite on the Bouncer -- I loved the jewel-like clearware colours but couldn't wrap my head around the Christmas bell motif on his side.  With this year's Zebra it was much easier -- no weird patterns, just weird colours, and I happened to find them all attractive in their own way.  No matter which Zebra I get, I'm going to be happy.

Hope you have a Happy New Year too!