Mini Salem is here!

 Good news, readers! The trade has been completed and my Salem is here! Behold!

I was too lazy to go upstairs and take a pic with my full-size Salem, so you'll have to take my word for it, but this guy is a pretty good mini version. 

I didn't notice any quality issues, despite all his little details. Me-yow! I can't wait to line him up with the rest of my Icelandics. 

That's it for today, but my Antonia is supposed to arrive tomorrow! Woohoo! Horatio shipped today as well and is supposed to arrive on Saturday. Sheesh, CCG has really stepped up their game! I hope this means Breyer gave them a good verbal spanking after all the issues with the Breyerfest shipping. 

More Spooky Stablemates!

 Good news, everyone! My second Spooky Stablemates order arrived - behold the results! 

Score! I got the mini Apparition, the only one of the three I wanted! 

And another Cornelius! I do like the little guy, but don't need two or them, or one of them. I'll figure out what to do with them later.

What a handsome guy. I don't have the full-size version of him, so it took a minute to realize exactly what the markings were supposed to look like. Looks like they did a pretty good job miniaturizing the design. 

They were both pretty good quality as well, no major flaws that I noticed. I hope everybody else managed to get what they wanted as well, or is able to trade for what they want. 

In other news, my Traditional and Classics models are now all unpacked (except my Breyerfest purchases), though not all are on the shelves, because I ran out of shelf space (again) despite my husband building two new shelves. Fortunately, there's room for another shelf in the room, so we'll have to get that taken care of this weekend. I haven't unpacked any Stablemates yet because I want to wait until I have all the bigger models arranged on the shelves the way I want before I start putting Stablemates up there. But I like the way things are looking so far! It's good to see the models I bought over the past year on the shelves with their buddies, though. So I'm excited to get that last shelf built so I can finish unpacking and also get my Breyerfest purchases unpacked! I'm looking forward to seeing all those Stagecoach Surprise models with the rest of my Hamiltons! 

All's well that ends well

 Good news, everyone! My second and final Spooky Surprise Stablemate is here and...I got Mini Samhain! Woohoo! 

She's got some small flaws, unfortunately, but I'm just glad I got the other one I wanted. Yay! 

I'll be happy to add her to my Stablemates herd. My only small complaint is that her tail ribbons aren't painted. Really? You put all that detail in her paint job, but left out the tail ribbons? Bleh. But that's a pretty small nitpick, like I said. 

Also, this year's Pony for Christmas release, Kohl, is now available to order on the website! 

Finally, some new arrivals!

 Greetings, readers! It seems like it's been forever since I got some new models in, and I had a long, not-so-great day at work today, so it was nice to come home and find some boxes waiting for me! I'll start with my Spooky Stablemates box - only half of my order came, though. I've seen a lot of reports of people not getting all the Stablemates they ordered and like...can we be done with the CCG shipping company now? Just give them the boot already. Anyway, here's the Spooky Stablemate I received! 

Sorry for the not-so-great photo. It's mini Mischief Night! Huzzah! One of the two I wanted. Such a cutie! I missed out on the last time this mold was used (Roo, for last year's True Blue event) so I'm happy I was able to get this one. 

My other new arrival was...Constantia! Check her out! 

Her photos were great (well...not these photos. My apologies), but in person she's just stunning. She really looks like she could spring to life and trot away! 

Her box was minorly crushed, though, which did some damage to her personalized box, and then I managed to rip one of the tabs off while trying to get it out of the shipper box, which peeved me a bit, and then I started inspecting her and well...her quality really isn't the greatest. Bits of paint stuck in her finish, fingerprints, scrapes, the works. Bleh. Not sure if I'll bother trying to get a replacement - maybe a customizer with a nicer one would be willing to trade. 

She has such a great face. There's also something about her paint job that looks a bit weird - I don't think it's a flaw, but some areas of her bay color almost look like they have a greenish tinge. You can kind of see it around her eye in the above photo, but she has it in a couple other places as well. Just kind weird-looking - I haven't seen anyone else post about it, but maybe it's just gone unnoticed? Who knows.

Anyways, I hope my other Spooky Stablemate ships soon. I can't believe Breyer hasn't given CCG the boot yet - it seems like ages since they started screwing things up and you'd think their contract would have expired by now. 

Spooky Surprise sweepstakes!

 Heads up, everybody! Breyer is giving away 18 of the latest Spooky Stablemates blind bags! 

18 lucky winners will receive one of these bad boys. I already got the one I wanted, so I'm not going to enter, but if you're still looking, this might be your chance! Good luck to everyone entering! 

A wild Halloween shipment appears!

 Good news, everyone! My Halloween order arrived today. Behold - it's EEK! 

I've seen a lot of reports of these models with broken or damaged legs, but fortunately this guy survived his trip to my doorstep. 

I like his subtle green sheen, and the intricate little spiders in his pattern. I've seen a lot of complaints about the spiders too, but fortunately they're all pretty nice on this one. 

He does have an oddly warped left hind leg, but I can deal with that. 

Next, the single Spooky Stablemate I ordered arrive as well...so check it out! 

That's right, the drafter...just the one I thought I'd get. Fortunately, it's the only one I wanted, so I'm happy with it. He does look like a pumpkin patch under the night sky, though it looks like someone went a little overboard with the glitter.

I thought about ordering that Thriller hoodie, but if I had, I suspect I'd still be waiting for my order to ship, so it's probably best I didn't order it. 

Lastly, here's Thriller himself! In the interest of full disclosure, he did arrive a few days ago, but I thought it was fitting that all my Halloween models arrived around the same time despite massive disparities between when they were ordered.

His green tint is much more apparent than EEK's, which I like. I'm also a fan of his Bride of Frankenstein hair! 

I like the details in his bones underneath the skin, too. Appropriately ghoulish for this time of year! 

That's all I have for now - let's hope we have more exciting news and reveals soon! 

The 2020 Halloween line is now available!

 More good news, readers! Breyer's 2020 Halloween offerings are now available to order...like this rat-tastic Classic! 

His name is Ratsputin...a bit of a mouthful, but plays on words are always fun, right? Fortunately (or not), I don't collect this mold, so I don't need to buy him. Which is good, because, well...I mean, I don't really have anything against rats per se, and wouldn't mind having one as a pet, really, but...rats? Bleh - it just makes me think of dirt and filth. But to each their own! 

There's also some fun new Stablemates, which is what I'm most excited about, despite the dreaded blind bags:

Those are some pretty ambitious paint jobs, so I won't complain about the $25 price...this time. Let's hope the factory can pull them off! Plus, they qualify for the 10% Collector Club discount (CLUBPLUS20), so order away! I'm hoping to get the Cantering Warmblood and the Friesian, so here's hoping! 

There's also a cute plush:

Aww, I love candy corn! I may be alone in that opinion, but whatevs. If you order $75 worth of merch (any merch, as far as I know), you can enter a code (SUGAR20) to get the plush for free! 

Humorously enough, there's also still leftovers of last year's Halloween Stablemates. You'd think they'd take the hint from the last few rounds of blind bags not selling out (these and the Starry Skies) and QUIT DOING BLIND BAGS AND JUST MAKE IT A SET WE CAN ALL BUY....but I'm trying not to be too negative here. Anyway...happy early Halloween! 

Breyerfest Closeups: Halloween Stablemates

Greetings, readers! Continuing in our series of Breyerfest Closeups, today I'm going to talk about the Halloween Stablemates that were featured in the Collector Club tent. Take a look!



It's been a while since Breyer last did any Halloween-themed Stablemates. The last time we saw any new ones (unless I'm forgetting something) was the Spooky Stablemates II set back in 2006, preceded by Spooky Stablemates in 2005. It's been a while!

So, our three molds are as follows:

G4 Arabian as Calavera
G4 Reining Horse as Bats in the Belfry
Rivet as Ichabod/Crane

Fortunately for me, none of those are molds I collect. Since it looks like these guys will be blind bags and/or shipped randomly, that's one less pile of blind bag garbage to deal with. Can you tell I'm getting tired of the blind bag gimmick? Well, anyway, here's a closeup of Mini Ichabod.

I love the detail on the little skulls! It's amazing what they can paint on Stablemates these days. Remember the fuzzy bats on the original Nosferatu? Haha! We've certainly come a long way from those days.



Mini Calavera is cute too, and they all have really great details, honestly. One wonders how the painters do it without going cross-eyed.

Hopefully these guys sell well - I always like seeing Stablemate mini-me models pop up, and more of these Halloween-themed guys would be very welcome. And I wonder if we'll still get a Halloween Classic this year if they're doing the Stablemates? I don't think Mason would lend himself to the Halloween spirit very well, but you never know. His mold has been sadly neglected since its introduction last year, so let's hope we get some kind of new release on him soon.