Vail revealed! Also Wintergreen!

 Well, we have a reveal for the hint in last month's newsletter - it's Vail, this year's Winter Decorator! Behold: 

As many people thought, it's on Totilas, and it looks like the popular Benasque color is making another comeback! I entered, naturally - my Totilas collection needs the newest release (and I'm still smarting a little over not being drawn for Benasque). Good luck to everyone entering! 

In other news, my Wintergreen has arrived! 

What a cutie! Actually, now that I think about it, it's kind of weird that the "sky" on this model is such a deep green - is the snowy treescape about to be hit by a tornado? Or a nuclear bomb? Maybe I'm overthinking this. 

I don't remember if I noticed the clear swirls in her green area before, but they're a nice touch. 

Like I said before, I like how the tail fades to clear at the end, along with her lower legs. Very nice effect! Her quality is pretty good, too - I didn't see any major flaws. Another worthy addition to the collection! 

Virkie and Kid's Club Harper!

 More good news today, readers! My Virkie and the new Kid's Club Harper have both arrived! For a wonder, they both came on the same day despite Virkie being ordered a day earlier. I'll start with Virkie - behold! 

That's right - I got the splash! He's pretty - I almost wish I hadn't sold off my G2 Shetlands. 

I like the lighter paint effect on the ends of his mane - it almost makes the model look translucent, though it really isn't. 

Sorry for the photo being slightly out of focus - I was trying to get a closeup of his face. Anyway, he's definitely pretty cute! I didn't see any major flaws, so now I'll have to see if I can find a buyer. 

Next, here's the Kid's Club Harper! 

She's a beautiful color! I love Breyer's grays. 

She doesn't have too many flaws, aside from a weird flat spot on the back of her right front foot, which looks like it's missing some paint as well. 

Sorry for this one being out-of-focus as well. She's a really nice color! I'm happy to add her to my collection. 

That's it for today - hopefully we get more exciting news soon, like a reveal of the last Premier Club release for this year! 

Uh oh, a new Kid's Club model I have to have

 Attention, readers! The Deluxe Kid's Club has a new model option - behold, the Grey Sporthorse! 

Darn it, that means there are two new Harpers I have to buy. She's pretty, though! To find her, mouse over the Breyer Kids tab at the upper right corner of the website, and you'll be able to select the Kid's Club - Grey Sporthorse from the dropdown options on the right side. I'm excited to see this one in person - and my daughter will probably appreciate the rest of the club stuff. 

Holiday Ponies coming soon!

 Good news, everyone! Breyer has added this year's holiday collection to the Coming Soon area of the website! Check them all out here. But here they are! 

Firstly, here's Nimbus, who we saw at Breyerfest:

Next, the resolution of that sneak peek in last month's Collector Club newsletter! 

There was some speculation that the sneak peek was the Clydesdale Mare, so it's good to see her show up along with the Clydesdale Foal! And some astute viewers on Facebook have pointed out that the mare has the same pattern as Pepper (minus a few spots) - Breyer does like to reuse patterns sometimes, so it's cool to see this one in a different color! 

Next is the Pony Snow Day playset, with the Norwegian Fjord mold in a really nice gray dun color. He's pretty! And the little snowman is cute too. 

Next we have Mittens, the adorable...mushroom tobiano pony? Well, that's what the website says. No pictures of him without the blanket for some reason, so I can't really judge whether he looks mushroomy or not. Edit: Mushroom is a recognized color in miniature horses, apparently. Good to know! And good to see a new release on the Shetland Pony. 

Lastly we have Wintergreen! This one would make a nice companion to last year's Neva and Black Forest. She's cute! Gonna have to add her to the collection along with Nimbus. I like how her tail fades to clear instead of white. I'm excited about these new models - hopefully they're available to order soon! 

More TSC Additions and Hope!

 Good news, everyone - my other TSC order has arrived, as well as my Hope horse! Let's start with the TSC set: 

As you can see on the box, this is the Desert Paint Horse Family on the Classic Black Stallion, Harper and Classic Morgan Foal. 

I plan on selling the stallion and foal, so they're still in the box. But here's some shots of the Harper:

I really like her color - she's chestnut, but has a metallic or some type of sheen to her coat, which I found interesting.

I'm still hoping to get my hands on those new mystery unicorn foal sets, as well as the Alborozo from the blind bags - with any luck I'll find those soon.

I wasn't terribly impressed with the eyes on these - it's a little hard to see here, but they're basically just glopped-on black with no detail. Somebody cheaped out there; that happens a lot with Classics though. 

Anyway, let's move on to Hope! 

Her color is much more interesting than the promo photos made it look - she has a purple sheen over most of her body except the mane and tail, which have a blue sheen. Cool! 

Pretty similar to last year's Raider in the Stablemates Club, actually.

I really like the blue sheen, but I really liked it on the Omega Fahim models as well, and I'm partial to blue anyway, so I may be biased.

I also liked the box design for this release - no plastic to be seen! Even the ties holding the model into the box (like the old touchability boxes with a slipcase over top of it) were paper rather than wire or plastic. Let's see more of that, please! I always feel a little bad throwing empty Breyer boxes in the recycling bin, not knowing if they bother to recycle any of it (presumably the inserts are recyclable, but I don't know about the plastic fronts?). 

Anyway, another great release from Breyer, and it's always good to see a new release on Bouncer.

Let's hope we get some exciting announcements soon! I feel like we're in a bit of a dry spell, news-wise. 

TSC planogram has leaked!

 Good news everyone! In addition to the recent Stablemates Blind Bag news, this year's Tractor Supply planogram has shown up on Facebook! Behold: 

So, in the upper right corner we have what looks like a bay American Dream/Freedom Series Rearing Mustang, and it looks like the Classic American Quarter Horse Foal in black is in there with him. On the row below them is a couple of Snowbirds and then what looks like, "Blue," on the Geronimo mold, as some kind of special run for FFA. Below him are a black pinto Zippo Pine Bar or "Zeke," a dapple gray Latigo or "Ashton," and a dunalino long-tail Lady Phase as "Jolene." Below them are the Phantom and Misty set, a new set that appears to be some kind of pinto Classic Black Stallion, Classic Morgan Foal in black pinto and a chestnut Harper, and then Chocolatey. On the bottom shelf there are a couple of styling heads and a Breyer Farms barn I'd like to see up close to see what (if any) models come with it. Whew, that's a lot of stuff! 

Fortunately, I don't need any of it except the new American Dream set and the Classics family set with the Harper. Blue looks pretty attractive, though - but I'm biased toward blue things anyway. Let's hope these new offerings don't take too long to show up at our TSC stores! 

Featured Model - 11/2/2019, Goblin

Hello and welcome to another edition of Featured Model, the weekly blog event where I pick a model from my collection, give some stats on it and provide commentary about it. This week's model is...Goblin!



This spooky mare was the Halloween Classic model for 2017. She's item #712230 on the Harper mold sculpted by Sommer Prosser. We never got word on how many were produced, as has been happening more and more with a lot of special runs.

While the reaction to this girl was mixed, I think she's fun - mostly because her "goblins" remind me of the "Aaahh!! Real Monsters" TV show that aired on Nick back in the day. And I like the contrast of the purple and pearly white/green on the rest of her. Plus, she has snake eyes! Creepy.

As for the Harper mold, she's had a lot of use since her 2016 debut, but we haven't seen her at Breyerfest yet. Could 2020 be the year? We'll find out! I also wouldn't mind seeing her as some type of collector club special run - maybe not as a gambler's choice, though.

I'm not going to lie; I've been getting tired of doing Featured Model posts every week. Last night, however, I looked through some of my back issue of JAH trying to find an old article about the In-Between Mare, which gave me an idea about possibly replacing Featured Model with something called, "Featured JAH," in which I would pull out old issues of JAH and scan the cover and some of the inside pages, then feature those instead of my models. I feel like there's a lot of hobby information that gets posted over and over again due to the constant influx of new people in the hobby; so, I wonder if reposting some of those old articles would help that information permeate into the hobby. Let me know your thoughts!

Featured Model - 8/17/2019, Serendipity

Hello and welcome to another edition of Featured Model, the weekly blog event where I pick a model from my collection, give some stats on it and provide commentary about it. This week's model is...Serendipity!



I picked her for this week because she's just so pretty! I love her color scheme. She's item #97267 on the Harper mold sculpted by Sommer Prosser. Serendipity was (or still is) a Walmart exclusive item for this year. No idea how many of them were produced, but probably in the RR range.

I wasn't that into Harper at first, but she managed to grow on me over time. Sommer has posted that she was inspired by the old Ginger mold, which I believe has been permanently retired due to damage to the mold. But Harper makes a good replacement!

Like I was saying earlier, I love Serendipity's color scheme. That combination of blue/pink/purple has been everywhere lately, and there are so many other molds I'd like to see it on! Hopefully we get something someday. Or maybe I'll win the lottery and then manage to win the Design Your Own Breyer silent auction - wouldn't this color look great on Othello? Or Ethereal? Oh, the possibilities!

As for Harper herself, I don't know where we'll see her next. She's already in the regular run line in three different places, so I don't foresee her getting another release there unless something else gets retired. Maybe a gambler's choice special run next year? Or something at Breyerfest? She's already been the Halloween classic, so I don't expect to see her there. Some type of gambler's choice would be fun, though - tired as I am of blind bag-related stuff.

Featured Model - 3/16/2019, Heroes of the West Harper

Hello and welcome to another edition of Featured Model, the weekly blog event where I pick a model from my collection, give some stats on it and provide commentary about it. This week's model is...the Harper from the Heroes of the West set!



IDYB has this model listed as a grulla, but she looks gray to me, so that's what I'm going to call her. The Heroes of the West set debuted in 2017 and is still being produced in the regular run line. It's item #61098 and this model was issued on the Harper mold sculpted by Sommer Prosser.

Interestingly enough, both adult horses in this set are mares, and the light gray is on the Amelia mold, which was the first mold used for the Classics Horse of the Year series back in 2014. The foal, on the other hand, is a mostly-black Hansel, which was a tad frustrating since he's appeared in black two other times. The Harper herself is quite attractive - she looks good in gray! (Or grulla, or whatever color she's supposed to be.) I wasn't that big of a fan of hers at first, but she grew on me pretty quickly.

Harper's been a relatively popular mold since her debut in 2016 - popular with Breyer, at least. She's gotten no shortage of use, including being used as 2017's Halloween Classic model, a Tractor Supply special run, multiple regular run releases and even a unicorn! I don't know where she'll turn up next, but maybe she'll get some kind of website special run this year.

I found Serendipity!

And no, I'm not talking about that crappy movie! I found a Serendipity unicorn in the wild!

Isn't she pretty? I was cruising Brickseek a couple of days ago and happened to notice the Sarafina/Serendipity SKU had been restocked at our local Walmart. We aren't getting the Series 2 unicorn blind bags (or anything else) so I hadn't been expecting to find a Serendipity here, but I was pleasantly surprised to find two on the shelf! So one of them came home with me.

I'm not thrilled about how close the tip of her horn is to the edge of the box, though. You can see scratches in the plastic above where the horn has been coming into contact with the plastic. Fortunately there weren't any rubs in her paint, but I'm sure they won't all fare this well.

Anyway, here she is out of box!



Have I mentioned how much I like the color scheme they used on her? She's not rainbowy, but the box describes her mane and tail as "candy-colored," and I can agree with that. I love it!



I may just be a sucker for those colors used together, but either way I think she's great!



Quality-wise, she's pretty good - I didn't see any paint flaws at all, though she does have some spots of extra plastic here and there that should have been washed/ground off. All in all, though, she's very nice for a $15 Classic.

The existence of this model makes me wonder if we'll see another unicorn Harper in the future? Skyler and Sarafina were both preceded by slightly different unicorn releases on those molds, so I'm hoping we get another unicorn Harper as well. I'd definitely buy her!

Featured Model - 8/18/2018, Daydreamer

Hello and welcome to another edition of Featured Model, the weekly blog event where I pick a model from my collection, give some stats on it and provide commentary about it. This week's model is...Daydreamer!



I decided to feature Daydreamer this week because, like Mason, she was a new release for 2018 and I never got around to showing her on the blog when she first got here.

Anyway, I think she's really nice! She's definitely different. As you probably already know, she's item #62053 on the Harper mold sculpted by Sommer Prosser.

I like how she's white on the lower legs, which looks like clouds, and the white then fades upward into the clear blue on her neck and head. Blue is my favorite color, so I may be slightly biased here, but whatever. It's a little disappointing that the cloud, rainbow and sun are all one big decal, but I suppose it would have been too labor-intensive to paint it by hand (well, that and you just know there'd be some godawful mistakes).

Here's her other side, for comparison!



Something that doesn't show up very well in the photos is the glitter on her mane and tail. It's hard to see in the photos, but you can definitely feel it when you touch her! Did I mention I like how her tail transitions from blue to white, too? She's a pretty one. I'm not as crazy about her hoofs suddenly being blue again, but I suppose they wanted them to stand out and not be white like the rest of her legs.

She's definitely pretty, though! Breyer has definitely been coming out with some nice Classic decorators lately. I can't wait to see what they come up with next!

Breyerfest Blues and Loot

It's hitting me again - the Breyerfest Blues. I always feel sad after Breyerfest is over; it's my favorite event of the year, and it always seems like I spend the whole year waiting for it to be here, only for it to be over in what seems like 3 seconds. This year's Breyerfest went especially fast, what with volunteering and the costume contest and 9 special run line tickets and...yeah. But here are the fruits of my labors!



Because of how busy I was, I didn't have much time to shop the Clarion, nor were there really a lot of things I wanted to buy (I'd been hoping to find a Zebra, or a chestnut pinto Pop the Cork, or Crepe Suzette, but I guess it wasn't meant to be). My sales weren't the greatest either, which didn't help the situation.

But anyway. Here are some random photos of other purchases I made. I'll start with Celestine, this year's Holiday Horse:

Normally my husband buys the Holiday Horses for me as my Christmas present, but I took my only trip through the Breyer Store on Sunday morning and there were only three Celestines left and well...one of them accidentally ended up in my hands and went through the checkout with my other stuff and now I have a Celestine. Don't worry, hubby will find another horse to buy me for Christmas. Isn't she pretty? I can't get over how beautiful she is.

Here's a CHIN purchase; a glossy Harper!

I found this model in someone's hotel room at the CHIN, but I'm guessing it originated in the NPOD. According to people who did this year's NPOD, Breyer finally got wise about the more limited releases and had them all listed in a binder for people to go through and decide what they wanted to buy, rather than the knock-down-drag-out free-for-all of previous years. Glossy Harper was one of the entries in the binder, so that's why I think this one started out in the NPOD. Her price wasn't too much of a markup from the NPOD price, so I'm happy with it (and her).

Finally, check out these two Juleps I got from the special run line. One of them is much darker than the other!



It's a little less obvious in the photo, but the dark one is on the right. Normally I don't really go for variations, but that dark one is definitely going to stay with me. The other (and her foal) will be for sale later on. But the dark Julep is especially pretty, I think. She almost looks more metallic than the light one, so I'm sure she'll look nice on the shelf next to Celestine.

That's all I've got for now, but eventually I'll be posting all of my purchases (from Breyer directly) with commentary, as well as up-close photos of various previews that haven't been released yet. Stay tuned!

Unexpected Tractor Supply SRs!

So, there are a couple of new, unannounced special runs showing up at Tractor Supply stores across the country. One is a rich, dark bay Clydesdale Mare named Alba, and the other is a new (Classic) America's Wild Mustangs set featuring the new Harper mold in "sandy bay" and the Trotting Stock Horse Foal in grulla. Behold!



My husband stopped at our closest Tuesday Morning on his way home from work yesterday, and voila! They had the new special runs.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to have him take a picture of the Clyde Mare, so I don't have a photo of that one. Fortunately, Identify Your Breyer has us covered!

I think she's gorgeous! I no longer collect the Clydesdale Mare, though, so I didn't have my husband grab one. I think she looks like a matte (and more obtainable) Del Mar! Gorgeous.

As for the mare and foal, of course I had to have the Harper. Color me surprised at her description on the box, which says she's "sandy bay." I know there are some shades of bay out there that can look like buckskin, but I'd swear this girl is really a buckskin. Oh well. Here's a closeup of her face!

She was pretty nice with regards to quality - no box rubs or any other major issues, though I did notice she's got some extra plastic on the end of her nose, and her muzzle isn't painted all that well. No biggie! And here's a picture of the foal.

I'm going to sell him, so I left him in the box. Nice color, though! He manages to be grulla without looking exactly like all of the other grulla models Breyer has done over the past couple of years.

These releases kind of beg the question of whether these are the usual TSC special runs, which usually debut in the fall. Will we get two more models later this year, or are these it for the year? If the latter, it's at least nice that we didn't have to wait until August to find out about them...but gives us a couple fewer things to look forward to in the latter part of the year.

Oh well! Not only did we get a nice surprise, but I managed to get my hands on the model I wanted the same day I found out about it, which doesn't usually happen. Now I just have to get Day Dreamer, and my Harper collection will be more-or-less complete!

Yes, Collectors, There Is A Santa Claus

Breyer finally got their rears in gear and released the information for the 2018 new releases - it's a Christmas miracle! Since there are too many photos to post here, I'm going to direct readers here. But, here's the release I'm most excited about!

 
Yes - a regular run Ashquar, and I love his color! Just what I wanted to see next year! Exciting. He's a portrait model, so I wonder if we'll see the real horse at Breyerfest next year.

 Here's another one that makes me happy:



UNICORN YASMIN! Whoo! She's never, ever going to fit in my photo tent, though - it was hard enough to fit Yasmin and Kaalee in there for their photos! I guess I'll worry about that later.

I'm also super excited about this one:



CARINA AS THE HOLIDAY HORSE AND IT'S PEARLY AND BEAUTIFUL AHHHH!

Too bad I have to wait a year to get her. I'll have to console myself with the knowledge that this year's holiday horse, the palomino Totilas, is hidden somewhere in our apartment and I get to open him in less than a week. Yay!

Moving on to the Classics, check out this one!



It's the 2018 Classics Horse of the Year, and I really like him! At first dumb me thought he was a TWH, but he's a Saddlebred. Oh well, I still like him! No word as to who the sculptor was - I thought he looked like a Prosser piece, but evidently it wasn't her. It's a mystery!

In the slightly-less-excited-about-but-will-still-buy group is, uh, this one:



Kind of a weird idea, but it looks like something that would appeal to kids. The design reminds me of wallpaper border or something. Think about it - you could put up a single shelf all the way around a room and line it with these models instead of border for your wallpaper. It could totally work! Waste of money, though. But she's cute and I like clearware, so I'll pick her up at some point.

Well, that's the Trads and Classics I'm most excited about. Let's look at some Stablemates!



Wha? Officially-sanctioned Suncatcher Stablemates? Sommer's been doing the workshop at Breyerfest for years, but I never expected clearware Stablemates to show up in a painting kit for some reason. Genius! I'll probably get a kit just to leave unpainted, but I'm tempted to paint some of them just for the fun of it.

We also got a new blind bag assortment (groan):




Whoever came up with the idea for blind bag stuff (in general) needs to get punched in the face. Sure, they're addictive and fun, but it's impossible to stop at just one and you know it's just a gimmick for companies to sell more stock. Why have everything neatly labeled as to what it is (and only sell some of it) when you can do the blind packaging, throw in a rare piece and sell all of it? It's genius and diabolical at the same time. And this time only one in four boxes has the rare "copper florentine" chase piece.

Clearly they learned from the Spirit blind bags, where most people (I assume) just bought the whole box at once to get the models they wanted. I'd do that this time, but each box has three of each model, which makes an entire box cost almost $100. Sheesh. I preordered eight of the single bags; if I'm really lucky, I'll get the ones I want in one swoop - I only collect four of the molds, so those are...somewhat decent odds, I guess.

Oh well. On to the next exciting thing!



That's right - the shrunken Brishen is making yet another appearance, and this time he's a Brishencorn! I gotta have him.

There are a lot of other new releases for 2018 to drool over, but this post is getting long, so I'm going to wrap things up. Let's hope we get lots of other exciting new reveals this week!

Goblin is here!

Greetings, readers! It's been a pretty slow news week so far - hopefully we see something exciting tomorrow! But it looks like the Sugarmaples are in stock and shipping now, including mine - yay! My Calavera has been waiting for Sugarmaple to come in stock before it shipped, so they're both on their way to me now. The Markus models are also starting to show up in stores, but I didn't buy one, so I won't have photos of him. In the meantime, though, my Goblin came!

There have been a lot of comments on the Internets about how these models don't glow, but it seems like the ones that do glow aren't as bright as the ones we're used to. I haven't had a chance to test mine out to see if it glows, but I'm assuming they probably all have the dim purple glow I've seen in photos.

I really do like her, though! Even the weird snake eyes, which I suppose I should have expected for a model named Goblin. And the monsters are just as cute as they were in the promo photos!



Unfortunately, she's a little lacking in the quality department. Nothing really terrible, just dings and paint blobs here and there. The monsters are stenciled on, fortunately, so at least we don't have to deal with wrinkled decals. I really like her purple color, too! All in all she's a unique and pretty model and I'm glad I bought her!