Ghosts of Breyerfests Past

Well, I'm actually pretty glad that I jumped on Breyer's Collector Club Grab Bag this year.  They didn't exactly sell out right away, but they were sold out within six days and the bag that I ordered (#3) sold out even earlier than that.

Just as in 2016, I happened to choose the bag that was actually the best for my tastes.  I know, more or less, what was in all the other Grab Bags now, and if I had to choose between them I would still have chosen #3.

Most of the stuff in Grab Bag #3

There were a number of differences between the 2016 offers and the 2020 ones.  In 2016 the bags included Breyer tack, props, and Christmas ornaments.  In 2020 the bag is almost all horses, with the exceptions of the Enchantmints Music Box and the 2020 Breyer Calendar that appeared in each bag (at least one of which I will be giving away).

In fact, five similar items appeared in each of the four bags.  Every bag contained one Breyerfest 2018 "Hands Down" Stablemate, one Series One Mystery Stablemate Blind Bag, one Series Two Mystery Mini Whinny Blind Bag, a 2020 Calendar, and a Music Box (any variety).

The Music Box did surprise me a bit, as I would have thought that Breyer knew its Collector Club audience tends to skew to an older demographic.  But perhaps they were thinking of parents and grandparents who might have a child to regift the box to.  At any rate, with a retail price of approximately $25 to $30 U.S., it does take up a significant chunk of the value in the bag.

The Music Box was, indeed, the only thing that really disappointed me in my box, and that's ironic because I was actually looking forward to getting another one.  I got one in a previous holiday-themed Grab Bag, and I have found it very useful for holding my Mini Whinnies all in one place.  However, my current box is full to overflowing, so I was hoping to get another horse-themed one to add to it -- even the unicorn or the pegasus box would have done.

Unfortunately, I got a Ballet Shoes Music Box.  I had a ballerina music box as a small child when my parents were still hoping to make a dancer out of me.  That never happened, and the sight of a ballerina music box now brings back unhappy memories of me fighting my parents on the subject of dance lessons.  But this Enchantmints box is bigger and deeper than my old one, so I might hang onto it anyway.  I sure would have preferred the similar Butterfly Music Box though.

The most noticeable change between the 2016 Collector Club Grab Bag and the 2020 one is in the number of Breyerfest horses included in the bags.  In 2016, I got one Breyerfest set (technically two horses, but boxed together so they count as one).  In 2020, I got four Breyerfest horses.  In fact, I think most of the other bags got four as well (the possible exception being bag #2, which had at least three).

My ghosts of Breyerfests past included: the 2018 "Hands Down" already mentioned, the 2017 Celebration Horse "Nazruddin," the 2016 Special Run "Namid," and the 2013 Pop-Up Store "Nocona."

My Ghosts of Breyerfests Past

I love all of them, and I think they'll all be keepers.  If I happen to get a glossy "Khalid" as my May Collector Club Appreciation horse, I'll have to decide whether I want to keep both or sell either "Nazruddin" or "Khalid," but that's a decision for another day, if I even have to make it at all.

"Nocona", too, is not generally my sort of decorator, but I suspect he's going to grow on me as I have a real fondness for the little Rearing Horse.

Other horses in my bag included the just-discontinued "Protocol" set, the 2019 Horse of the Year "Malik," the unicorn "Serafina," the Spirit Riding Free "Boomerang and Abigail" small set, and the 2017 Stablemates Collector Club "Zahrat."

In fact, "Zahrat" and the 2020 Calendar are the only two items in my Grab Bag that I already have.  But "Zahrat" is a beautiful glossy Arab, so I don't think I'll have any trouble selling him, and the 2020 Calendar will be given to one of my friends who will appreciate the pretty pictures.

I added up the retail prices of all the items I received in my Grab Bag and it came to approximately $319 U.S.  The Breyerfest Celebration Horse actually has no retail value, but Breyer is putting a value of $50 U.S. on this year's Celebration Horse, so that's the figure I used.

Since the bag itself cost about $150 U.S., I got a slightly greater than 50 per cent discount on all my stuff.  Even if you factor in the two items I might give away (which together retail at approx. $40 U.S.) the value of my goods remains $279 U.S., which is still significantly more than I paid.

So am I happy with my 2020 Collectors Club Grab Bag?  You betcha!  It was a real bargain, a nice surprise, and just the kind of pick-me-up I needed right now.

Now to find the shelf space I need ...

Getting Together

Ever since I started collected model horses I've noticed that the true hallmark of the hobby is the way it connects people.

Anyone can sit at home and gather a collection, but what fun is that?  The fun is in sharing your collection, or your knowledge, or your talent, or all of those together.

I was lucky in the early days in that I was able to attend a live model horse show (an in-person gathering of collectors aimed to bring people and the best of their collections together in an atmosphere of equal parts fun and competition) almost every year.  Yes, I had to travel a bit to get to the shows I wanted to attend, but I've always loved road trips so that was no problem.  I especially like road trips with a car or van full of like-minded friends who didn't mind taking detours to haunt antique shops we spot en route and who could talk model horses all day long.

Between live shows there was also snail mail.  Before my first live show I didn't really know anyone in the hobby, but after that show I got the names and addresses of all the participants and wrote a note to each.  This started some of my best friendships and began to fill my mailbox, which previously contained mostly bills, with lovely long letters and, in time, various self-published hobby newsletters and magazines.

This used to be me. Image courtesy of tenor.com

This is how we got together back in the "old days" -- through mail and through the occasional live show.  It wasn't long before a group of us found another way to get together, with semi-regular meetings at one and other's houses to share the information we'd each acquired about where to buy model horses and what new issues might be coming along next.

And then the Internet came along.  This opened up the hobby to allow a virtual get-together of hobbyists worldwide.  Snail mail dwindled and finally trickled to a stop, save for packages containing model horses acquired through purchase or trade.  But my circle of "friends" expanded enormously, and news of new releases exploded in my Inbox.

I still love in-person get-togethers, whatever their excuse: showing, workshopping, trading, show 'n' tell, or even just good hobby gossip.  They're the cream in a collector's coffee.  But now, when I can hook-up with virtually any hobbyist any time, anywhere, I find myself addicted to all things model horse-related in our online world.

In times like these, when we've all become unwilling shut-ins waiting for the pandemic to pass, I value my Internet connections all the more.  We may be social distancing, but we are not really socially isolated.  We can still shop, and gossip, and chat, and create, and share our discoveries and accomplishments, and find comfort in our cyberspace companionship.

No, perhaps it's not as great as getting together in person, but it's so much better than it might have been had we not established all these cyber connections.

We hear a lot these days about people being so addicted to computer platforms such as Twitter and Instagram that they're losing touch with reality.  Well, we're all in touch with reality now and one of the things that's helping us face it is the ability to communicate instantly with each other provided by those platforms and others.  Snail mail remains slow, long-distance phone calls are pricey, and travel can be impossible or unaffordable for many, but computer communication is quickly becoming commonplace.

So let's get together in that common place and celebrate the fact that, despite the necessity for social distancing, we are not alone.

Up For Grabs

I was bad again.  And I'm very happy about it.

Earlier this week Breyer suddenly announced that they had an assortment of Collectors Club (CC) Grab Bags for sale.

Image courtesy of www.breyerhorses.com

As a big fan of Grab Bags, I've had my share -- 2018 Luck O' the Irish, 2018 Fourth of July, and 2014 Happy Hallowe'en among them.  Only once before have I ever bought a Collectors Club Grab Bag, but I can say right now that of all the Grab Bags I've received, the Collectors Club one had the best stuff.

Often, these bags contain Breyerfest leftovers.  My 2016 Grab Bag contained the classic Mancha and Gato set, which was the one thing I coveted most from Breyerfest that year.  So I was waiting impatiently all last year for a 2019 Grab Bag to come out -- and it never happened!  Rumour had it that all the goodies at that Breyerfest were sold out, except, perhaps, for Pepper.  Could that be why there were no CC Grab Bags last year?  Or had they just decided to stop doing CC Grab Bags, which they have a perfect right to do?

My 2016 CC Grab Bag Swag

The timing of this year's Grab Bag is interesting.  It's well before Breyerfest, so it can't contain any Breyerfest leftovers unless they only just dug some up from last year.  That seems like it might be possible to me -- I think I spotted a few boxes with the Classic RCMP horse for sale in the pictures I've glimpsed from BreyerWest.  Ironically, that is the set I crave the most from last year's Breyerfest -- although I think I liked pretty much all the goodies they came out with last year, so it would be difficult to disappoint me.

The CC Grab Bag is pretty expensive, but as is the case with all Grab Bag selections the total value of all the goods you receive is approximately twice the price you pay, so you're in effect getting everything at half-price.  However, in this time when the economy is tanking so badly I had to think twice before I put in my order.  Borders between Canada and the United States are officially closed now, but mail and parcels are still getting through.  And, honestly, I really need a "pandemic pick-me-up" right now.

No matter what I get in my Grab Bag, I'm sure I won't be disappointed.  In 2016 I only received two things that I wasn't sure about keeping -- a Holstein Cow and Calf set and a sorrel AQHA 75th Anniversary horse.  I managed to sell the cattle off right away, and while I still have the AQHA horse on my sales list it's not because I don't like him -- it's just because I already have an AQHA horse from the initial four releases, and it's not a mold I particularly want to conga.  However, if he fails to find a home and I somehow miraculously find more shelf room, he'll definitely join the herd.

Still waiting to be freed.

I might have waited to see if the economy would recover a bit before I went ahead and placed my order, but the phrase "Limited Quantities" kind of freaked me out, given how quickly Breyer has been selling out of things lately.  However, from what I've read on Breyer's Facebook page, it seems like a lot of collectors are passing on this deal, at least for now, because of economic worries.  In 2016, though, they made so many bags they ended up selling them outside the club after the CC offer expired, so perhaps I need not have panicked.

But for now I'm really glad I rejoined the Collector Club this year, even though I'm not part of any specialty clubs.  I wasn't exactly expecting to have a large influx of Breyers this year (remember my resolution? -- not so many Breyers!), but then this happened.

So I was bad and I'm not regretting it one little bit.

Give Me an "E"

We're now up to the letter "E" in our alphabetical tour of my collection and you might be surprised to learn that I had a good number of "E" horses to choose from.  Ever since the days when I decided to have each letter of the alphabet represented by at least one of my horses, I've concentrated on amassing names beginning with some of the tougher letters -- usually vowels and those found in the tail end of the alphabet like "X", "Y", and "Z".

Today's "E" horse is one you may have seen before if you're a regular blog reader.  It's the dapple grey Stone Sporthorse, from 1997-1998.  The Sporthorse was an adaptation of an earlier Chris Hess piece, called "Breakaway," by D'Arry Jone Frank.  I think it's a lovely, simple sculpture of a slim but athletic little jumper.  Mine was purchased in 1999, just after this colour was discontinued, and so she comes from the later production period when the original heavy resin base was replaced by the lighter, more versatile wooden one.

"Eep!" a dapple grey Stone Sporthorse

Her name is "Eep!" (exclamation point included).

"Eep!" got her name in a funny sort of way.  Years ago I had a friend from out of town staying with me for a day or two and while she was visiting I did a bit of work on my computer which, at that time, was a little Mac Classic.  Among the sound effects available on the Mac Classic was a tone called "Wild Eep"  My friend requested that I play this for her and when I did she doubled over laughing.  Laughter is, of course, contagious, and soon I was making my computer go "Eep!" over and over again while we laughed until tears were running down our faces.

Then I got inspired.  I had my dapple grey Stone Sporthorse and I had not yet named her.  Clearly, she was meant to be "Eep!"  Perhaps the sound represents what's going on in her mind as she tackles the jump, or maybe it's what's going on in her rider's mind.  At any rate, "Eep!" she had to be.

As far as I can tell, Stone hasn't offered any Sporthorses for sale since 2015, and that one was a mule (albeit a rather nice mule). Such a pity!

I still love "Eep!" and the memories she brings with her of my friend and I laughing like hyenas over a silly little computer sound. That little Mac is long gone, but "Eep!" goes on forever.

Itty Bitty North Lights

One of my most recent impulse buys was a small collection of itty bitty North Light ponies.  I'd never actually seen of these in person, but I was aware of their existence.  Ironically, though, I'd never really desired to add them to my collection until this set came up for sale.  There was just something about them ...

My impulse buy

I've never seen the North Light minis on an official price list, but the unfinished North Light website lists them as Micro Minis, which would mean that North Light was doing micros before micros were a thing.  The website lists 15 different micro horse and pony sculptures, of which I now own six.  I don't really see myself trying to collect all 15, but there are a couple more I've seen that I might add someday, for the right price.

Lying Foal, copyright 1979

Like any other North Light sculpture, the date incised into the base or bottom of the micros indicates only the date the mold was first sculpted and copyrighted, not the issue date of any particular model.  However, even from my small collection I can tell that North Light began making micros almost from the start.  My oldest sculpture, the Lying Foal, is dated 1979 and the newest, the Welsh Mountain Pony (in grey) is dated 1983.  With North Light Micro Minis, the breed name is also incised into the base.

Welsh Mountain Pony (hard to see in the glare of a flash), copyright 1983

I've also found evidence in Internet sales ads to show that the North Light micros continued to be released after the business became North Light@Wade in 2005, although the few samples I've found have been North Light dogs rather than horses.  They made a full range of micros over the years, including cats, dogs, and birds, so this is not too surprising.

Exmoor Pony, apparently hock-deep in soil

The micros are not as detailed as the larger North Lights.  All of the horses on bases kind of lose their hooves and lower legs where they meet the base.  It looks rather as if they rose up out of their bases rather than being set down upon them.  However, the wee little guys do have a charm all their own.  I particularly like the standing ones, who remind me of little toy soldiers standing at attention. 

New Forest Pony in his soldier stance

In any case, I'm glad I followed my impulse and brought these little guys home.  They take up very little space and add to my collection of micros, most of which are not actually on display.  Also, these days anything North Light is usually hard to come by.  Chancing upon a bunch of these little guys for sale was a bit of luck that I just could not pass up.

Dala Daze

There's a horse-shaped object (HSO) out there somewhere with my name on it, but I haven't found it yet.

For many years now, I've wanted to possess an authentic Swedish Dala horse.

Image courtesy of theswedishwoodenhorse.com

Dala horses are simple, wood-carved horse shapes traditionally painted a solid colour (red and white are the most popular colours) and then bedecked with a fanciful painted saddle and breastcollar (called a kurbit) and various floral and graphic designs.

The Dala horse is as much of a Swedish icon as IKEA and ABBA (Swedes seem to like "shouting" at people with their all-caps brand names).  Originally created as homemade children's toys, the Dala horse really caught the attention of the international marketplace at the Paris Exhibition of 1937.  Their popularity led to the mass production of Dalas, and they can now be found worldwide, particularly in shops dedicated to Scandinavian arts and handicrafts.

I love this image of a re-imagined Dala horse on a building in New York City.  Artwork by Shai Dahan, photo by Kelevyam, image courtesy of Wikipedia.com

Dala horses now come in a bewildering variety of sizes and decorations.  Some of the very best can be linked back to known artists, and many Dala collectors devote themselves to buying and showcasing a single artist's works.  Almost everything you ever wanted to know about Dalas can be found at this excellent website: http://www.dalahorse.com/.

Over the years I've had many opportunities to buy an authentic Dala horse, but I have not yet found the one that really "speaks" to me.  Even though I'm only looking for a small Dala horse, it turns out that authentic ones can be comparatively expensive, and the larger Dala horses or those from famous artists can run into hundreds of dollars.

The main thing that has kept me from acquiring an authentic Dala horse, though, is my own indecisiveness.  Faced with such a variety of colours and decorations, I could never seem to decide which horse I wanted to bring home.  As a result, I am still authentically Dala-less.

I do, however, have two pseudo-Dalas to serve as place holders for the real thing.  One I acquired years ago -- I think it was in a gift shop in North Dakota, but it might just as easily have been during one of my city's own Folklorama festivals -- a celebration of all the different cultures in our city held every year in August.  Anyway, my pseudo-Dala is a blank, wood-carved horse very much in the Dala tradition, except for the fact that he's been sculpted into the shape of a Norwegian Fjord.  I find him totally charming and hope to eventually get a Dala the same size so I can display them as a pair.

The second pseudo-Dala was purchased more recently after a particularly frustrating session of online shopping during which I still failed to find the Dala that was meant for me.  Although I could not find the right Dala, I did find a remarkably cheap one.  Or perhaps not so remarkable, since it's not a true Dala at all but a Made in China copy of a Dala horse.

I knew what it was going in, but it was so cheap I could not resist, and I thought it would do to satisfy my cravings, at least for a while.  Tinier than my Dala-like Fjord, it is a pretty cute little HSO, but definitely not as well-painted as any of the true Dalas I've ever seen.

And so the search continues.  Someday I'll find "my" Dala horse.  Until then, there's the thrill of the chase.

Blind Spots

Blind bags have caused quite a controversy in the model horse world since Breyer introduced their first collection around 2013.

It all comes down to this: on the anti-blind bag side are those who like to see their horses before they buy them and those who only want to buy certain molds from each blind bag set.  On the pro side are those who like to be surprised with a horsey gift (even if it's a gift they bought for themselves) and those who don't mind getting duplicates that they can resell or repaint.  Somewhere in the middle are those who like to fondle blind bags in an attempt to find the molds they really want (usually the "chase" or "rare" pieces).  These folks only want certain molds, but they also enjoy the challenge of trying to figure out where those molds might be hiding.

I've been hearing lots of complaints about the number of Breyer's blind offerings from the anti crowd, and a few gleeful approvals from the pros.  The in-between group are mostly silent on the matter -- they've found a way of dealing with blind bags that works for them, as long as they do their shopping in person.  In general, the in-between crowd joins the anti chorus when the blind bags are offered as web specials only, like the Christmas and Hallowe'en stablemates of the past couple of years.

Now CollectA (but not Breyer by CollectA -- at least not yet) have gotten into the blind bag act with a new blind bag miniature horse collection.

You may already be familiar with the Breyer by CollectA mini dinosaur blind bags which were added to Breyer's line-up this year.  The new CollectA mini horse blind bags are very much the same, with the same "augmented reality" benefits.

CollectA Horse Blind Bags -- image courtesy of collecta.biz

"Augmented Reality," as described by Breyer, requires you to "[d]ownload the App from the App Store or Google Play to watch each of the 12 [figurines] come to life with Augmented Reality!"  This is apparently designed to work on all tablets and mobile devices, and involves scanning the information card included with your horse.  I don't own any devices capable of scanning, so "augmented reality" is not for me.

The horses being offered in these blind bags are exactly the same minis that are offered in Breyer by CollectA's Box of Mini Horses (item # A1109), so if you've already purchased a box and are not looking for any extras, the blind bags are probably not for you.  Perhaps in time they'll offer the minis in different colours, but for now it appears that all the horses in the bags are the same as the horses in the boxes.

Breyer by CollectA mini box -- image courtesy of breyerhorses.com

However, if you haven't bought the box and enjoy the surprise of the blind bag horse, it's probably worth hunting down these little guys.  Given that Breyer already offers them in one form, I don't know if they'd be interested in discontinuing the box and adding the bags, but they are readily available through other shops where CollectAs are sold.

I did notice, though, that the Breyer by CollectA dino box is currently out of stock on Breyer's website, while the Breyer by CollectA dino blind bags are being heavily promoted.  However, the dino box has only 10 mini dinos while the blind bags have 12, so technically the two offerings are a bit different.

Anyway, as I've mentioned before, there's no telling what Breyer is going to do next.  They're like the "blind bag" of model horse manufacturers -- and you either love 'em or hate 'em for it.

Year One

It's now officially been one year since I started writing this blog.

It's actually been easier and a lot more fun than I initially imagined.

My first worry when I started the blog was that I would soon run out of things to blog about.  That's why I decided not to make it a specialist blog, just about Breyers, say, or about Clinkies, or Hartlands -- although those are the three kinds of model horses I probably know the most about.  Instead, I thought I'd give myself leave to muse about whatever aspect of the hobby caught my fancy at the moment, although I hoped to be able to impart some useful information while doing so.

A  real Dust Pony -- image courtesy of tumblr.com. The blog name is actually a play on the word "dust bunnies" as in "I don't have dust bunnies; I have dust ponies."  It also refers to my OF plastic horses who usually stand around under a "protective" coating of dust.

At first I wasn't sure how often to blog, but it didn't take long to settle into my current schedule of two new posts a week -- one on Wednesday and one on Sunday.  That gave me enough time to think of a topic, take or round up any pictures I needed to illustrate it, and to write, edit, and proofread before publishing.  Like most authors, I still find that some errors creep in, no matter how diligently I edit or carefully I proofread.  Typos happen.  No one is immune.

There have been days, though, when my self-imposed deadline was approaching and I was completely out of ideas.  Looking at some of my favourite bloggers, I've noticed how many of them fill the "no inspiration" days with snippets from their lives outside of the hobby.  I love this stuff too, but my life outside the hobby is pretty boring, and unless I wanted to turn this into a "model horse/let me tell you what my cat did today" blog, that still left me without much to say.

I did pick up some pointers from other bloggers though.  Many of them regularly highlight a model from their collection as part of their blog.  I could do that too.  I still didn't want to make this a "just about Breyer" blog, so I tried to think of a way to highlight models that would draw on all aspects of my collection.  An alphabetic tour through my collection seemed like a good solution, and it was one that could be repeated over and over as long as I had enough horses with names beginning with each letter of the alphabet to keep it going.

My forays into sing-alongs illustrated with Breyer horses sort of came out of nowhere.  I wanted to do something original (or at least something I hadn't seen before) and I always seem to have various songs playing away in the background of my brain.  One day it just sort of struck me that Breyer had probably produced something to symbolize many of the lyrics of my favourite songs, and so the sing-along blog was born.  I revived the idea around Christmas time so I could have a couple of blogs ready to go when I would be too busy with holiday stuff to sit down and write.

My other initial fear when I started this blog is that no one would read it, but fortunately this has proved not to be the case.  I'm still hoping that the blog will gain a greater readership over time, but I've really loved all the comments and positive feedback I've received so far -- I read every comment I get and try to reply to them when I can.

And just to show you what model horse nerd I truly am, I leave you with this tidbit.  The other day a friend of mine gave me this card:

This was not for the blog's birthday, but for mine, which was just over a week ago.  

It's a lovely card, but when I saw the tiny little clothespins and clothesline on the front I immediately thought "I am totally going to cannibalize this card and put the clothespins and cord into my box of model horse performance accessories."  This despite the fact that I no longer live show and have not yet attempted to photo show in performance.  What can I tell you? This is who I am.

NaMoPaiMo - Over and Out

Well, NaMoPaiMo (National Model Painting Month) 2020 officially ended yesterday, and I sort of managed to make my goal of painting at least two horses this year.

Horse #2, a Stablemate G3 Cantering Warmblood, was kind of a last-minute project, but in spite of that she gave me much more trouble than Horse #1, the Lucky Charms-inspired Stablemate unicorn.  Probably just goes to show that nothing worthwhile can be accomplished by rushing (at least not by me).

Horse #2 started out to be a zorse -- a zebra/horse hybrid -- but at first I thought she had too few stripes and I added a few more until suddenly she had too many stripes and any attempt I made to fix things after that only made things worse.

So I decided to paint her mostly black, leaving some of the original brown basecoat showing to achieve a sort of sunburned black effect.  However, the effect I got was disappointing, probably because I hadn't really studied how to achieve a sunburned black before making this last-minute decision.

I figured she needed something to visually distract from the disaster her coat had become, so I took the time to research a few black overo pintos and then added some strategic white blotches to my poor black horse.  This time the result looked a whole lot better.

Anyway, after three incarnations and three paint jobs, I was willing to throw in the towel on this horse, at least for now.  So I took her picture, posted her as an "I Did This Too" horse on the NaMoPaiMo Facebook pages, and christened her "Triplet," for obvious reasons.

"Triplet" a Pinto Sport Horse

Seeing the picture, though, I am now less satisfied with what remains of the sunburned black effect and am considering painting it out.

So Horse #2 was definitely not as much fun to paint as Horse #1.  Next year, I think I'm going to stick to one horse and perhaps set myself a different challenge -- maybe painting on a larger scale, or learning how to paint dapples, or trying a really complex colour.

For now, though, I'm happy to put down the paintbrush for a little bit.  I still have other horses I want to paint, but just at the moment I have too much "life" stuff to do to really concentrate on hobby fun.  Which, of course, has not prevented me from making a few impulse buys during the past week or so.  I'll tell you more about them when they get here.