September Collector Club Newsletter and Tractor Supply news!

Well, it's the end of the month again, and you know what that means - a new Collector Club newsletter! If you're in the club, check your email to read more. There's an Avatar's Jazzman giveaway (and the Morgan article says Troubadour will be a RR for 2022!), an update on Lafayette backorders and Astrid (stuck in shipping - no surprise, but thanks for the update), and this tantalizing sneak peek...

That's definitely a Susecion, and it looks pearly and white or blue, to boot? Could we finally be getting the holiday (unicorn?) Susecion and Le Fire set I've been asking for for the last few years? I'm going to have to watch the website like a hawk this month so I don't miss out! 

In other news, some of the Tractor Supply stuff is starting to come in stock in various places. The Indian Pony Sayan can now be ordered on the website, but there's a discrepancy there - the website shows Sayan as Sayen, a chestnut - but the ones we've seen on the planograms and the few that have been found in stores are bays named Sayan. So are there two, and the IP collectors will have to track down both? Maybe orders done over the internet will only be the chestnut Sayen models? Interesting stuff.

Also, if you search for Breyer on the TSC website, this banner comes up when scrolling down the page of results:

That's the Ethereal, Wilder! Wow, he looks really nice in that color. I hope our local TSC gets them in stock soon. The Toy Shop is accessible now (most of the links were dead yesterday when I looked at it), but none of the TSC exclusives have listings yet except for Sayan/Sayen. I hope they come up soon so I can order a Wilder! 

Featured Model - 8/2/20, Decoupage

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...Decoupage!



While deciding who to feature this week, I noticed I'd featured Decoupage's foal, Impressionistic Page, a few years ago, so I decided to finally feature his mother! Decoupage was a Connoisseur model from 2004 along with Impressionistic Page, item #90128. She was a run of 350 pieces on the Susecion mold sculpted by Kathleen Moody.

This is another great paint job for Susecion - I really like the contrast of her dark bay areas with the whites. Her semigloss finish sets her off pretty well, too - I almost wonder what an alternate version of her in black instead of bay would have looked like. Well, maybe someday pigs will fly and I'll win the Design Your Own Breyer silent auction lot and be able to find out! I wouldn't count on it, though.

Susecion is one of those molds you really don't want to look at head-on because of her goofy face...but I love her anyway. She and her foal are so sweet together and they're a great representation of an adorable moment in tine. Will we see them used again anytime soon? Well, I'm still holding out hope that they'll be used as the holiday mare and foal set. We did get a more contemporary set last year (albeit unicorns) with Mira and Antares, so anything is possible. They've been a web special twice, so I wouldn't expect to see them used there again anytime soon. Breyerfest is another possibility, but Breyer has other, more recent mare and foal sets they're more likely to use, so that doesn't seem likely either. I'll keep hoping for a holiday release - maybe a nice dapple gray (for the mare) and foal gray for the foal? That would be pretty cool. Well, whatever their next release is, I hope it's something obtainable!

Zion and Moab are here!

Okay, I confess - they got here a few days ago, but I had other things to blog about. So, here they are!

 

I was a little worried about what they'd be like, quality-wise. I'd been hearing a lot of bad things about the mares - namely, that the seams were really bad on some of them, and others were poorly painted.

 

My two aren't too terrible in the paint department - Zion has a smudged spot on her neck, a tiny eartip rub and a couple of other minor issues, and Moab doesn't have any issues at all that I can see, not even with the seams. Which lines up with what I'd been hearing - the mares are messed up, but not the foals.

 

Sorry for the naughty bits in that picture. My Zion is pretty okay, seam-wise, but she does have that very visible seam where the tail joins the body and another right next to the vulva. The factory workers in charge of sanding the seams must have been asleep at the wheel or something, because they're kind of...really noticeable.

 

They do have nice color, though, and I like that the mare is even browner than the set I saw in the Collector Club tent at Breyerfest. Much better than the grayish color in the promo photos. I did notice one odd thing with their eyes, though...

 

...namely, that Moab's eyes are much more detailed than Zion's. The foal gets eyewhites and blue eyes, and all the mare gets are sloppily-painted black blobs with eyewhites? That's weird. You'd think the mare would have some type of eye color too, but evidently not. I almost wonder if the mares were painted in one factory, and the foals in another (I believe Breyer has two factories in China).

But like I said earlier, their paint jobs aren't bad at all - it's just that someone dropped the ball with the seams on the mare. Let's hope that doesn't become a trend!

All in all, I really liked the releases in this series and I hope Breyer continues with it, if only because I really want a glossy alabaster Weather Girl. I think Sommer has done a really good job designing these, and I can't wait to see what comes up next!

Zion and Moab!

Whoa, that was fast! Zion and Moab are already on the website!





 From the website:

In southern Utah, there is a fantasy land of strange and wonderful places, winding slot canyons, towers of rocks that stand like sentinels of the desert. High sandstone cliffs ripple with color. Hot desert sun reflects off rocks, while cool canyons offer relief. These magnificent parks are a delight to hikers and adventurers from around the globe. This rich western landscape inspired Zion and Moab, a striking bay dun overo mare and foal. The gentle nuzzling mare and her newborn have distinctive dun striping, wild pinto patterns, and the baby sports blue eyes. The mare is marked with Zion and Moab on her belly in gold.

 The colors are interesting, for sure. They're a very attractive set - I hope I get drawn for them! I wonder if they'll be metallic at all? Here's a quick photo I took of the set they had at Breyerfest:

 

It could be the lighting, but they look a bit redder there than in the promo photo. I hope they're closer to that color, honestly - I think it looks better. Good thing my room sales went so well this year, because their price is $195. Seems fair, since we're getting two models instead of one. Good luck to everyone entering for this pair - I have a feeling they'll be popular!

More new arrivals!

The Bravo I managed to snag from the early Black Friday sale is here!



I was a bit nervous that my order would be canceled, so I didn't want to say anything until he showed up. Yes, I took off the blue ribbon sticker; it would have eventually peeled off his glossy finish anyway, and I'm not really into stickers on models. He's really nice quality, though - I didn't see anything warranting a return. Yay!

Another recent arrival is the one splurge I allowed myself after selling Dixon (the rest of that money went to pay down my credit card):



One of my goals this year was to increase the number of Susecion/Le Fire sets in my collection, and I'd say that's been a success so far. I had two sets at the start of the year; now I have seven. I'll have to start thinking about what next year's goals are going to be! In the meantime, the Susecions and Le Fires will always have a place on my shelves.

I'm still waiting to hear when Yasmin will be available for purchase...I would really hope it's this week, since Breyer appears to have missed their "November" goal. Hurry up and release her already!

Featured Model - 10/29/2016, JCPenney Pinto Susecion

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

This model was issued through JCPenney in 2006 with a matching Huck and Le Fire as the Pinto Half Arabian Family, item #410146. She was done on the popular Susecion mold #580, first introduced with Le Fire (#581) in 2002, both sculpted by Kathleen Moody. There's no indication of how many of these were produced, sadly, but they'll set you back a fair amount if you want to buy them now (trust me!).

I like this mare, despite how derpy her face looks when you look at her straight-on. Hasn't everyone had a look like that on their face at least once in their lives? Possibly shortly after giving birth? And I like her maternal devotion to her wobbly-legged foal. As a bonus, I like the way this model's color is executed - I've always liked a good buckskin (though it does beg the question of what breed this mare is, exactly - buckskin Paint Horse x Arabian?).

Susecion and Le Fire are a set of molds that just haven't been used all that much since their release, and when they are used the releases tend to be small. The original release ran for a respectable three years (in an era when most releases only get two). Then they were used for the 2008 Treasure Hunt; TH releases were technically regular runs, but only for the year. Everything else they've been used for has been limited in some way, including the droolworthy 2012 raffle set, Queen Mum and the Prince.

When I was thinking of names for this set, the only things I could think of were to use names derived from the Bold Impression/Decoupage/Impressionistic Page Connoisseur models. So I named this mare Cut Piece as a reference to the Yoko Ono performance art from the '60s. 

I think it's high time this set was used again - and the holidays are coming up! Let's see them get a release as the mare and foal set they've been doing for the last couple of years, with matching blankets. They could be named Noelle and Nick!