Breyerfest single-day tickets are now available!

Heads up, everyone! Single-day tickets for Breyerfest 2019 are available on the website now! This year's Stablemates are going to be popular, so I wouldn't be surprised to see tickets sell out. If you want any of the Stablemates, don't dawdle!

Featured Model - 4/27/2019, Gold Valegro

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...Gold Valegro!



This model was a Limited Edition for 2016, with a run of 3,000 pieces. As item #1783, he was produced on the Valegro mold sculpted by Brigitte Eberl.

This model was an unexpected fall release by Breyer after Valegro won the individual dressage gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics. He's certainly shiny enough, and gold looks good on Valegro! Not sure how much else I can say about him.

As for Valegro himself, I'd say he's due to appear in another release. We haven't seen anything new on him since 2017, and he's a fairly popular mold. He was a web special in 2017, though, so where would he show up? Maybe at Breyerfest in some capacity, or as this year's second Collector Club release, or maybe a limited edition in the fall? Whatever it is, I hope I can get my hands on it. I'm generally not into dressage in real life, but I think Valegro is one of the best sculpts Breyer has introduced in the last few years. I can't believe he's been out for almost five years already!

The last Single-Day Stablemate - Andante!

The last Single-Day Stablemate for Breyerfest has been revealed, and he's definitely unexpected...for me, anyway! Say hello to Andante!

I foolishly thought he'd be a raffle model design from the past, like the others were, so I was pleasantly surprised to see a mini Allegro! To be fair, the blog did say the Stablemates were drawn from past prize models, not just raffle models. Anyway, I think he's gorgeous!



I hope Breyer makes plenty of these models, because they're going to sell like hot cakes. Now I'm impatient for the single-day tickets to go on sale so I can buy four of them! I gotta make sure I can get the ones I want. Word on the street is that the tickets will go on sale in May, which means we could get them next week! I hope so.

No One...and a new test model!

The third single-day Stablemate has been revealed, and it's a mini-Areia! Say hello to no one Arya!



I guess I'd been under the impression that this mold was a stallion, but I don't see a sheath under there. Fair enough.



At this point, I'm 99% sure I'm going to just get four single-day tickets so I can get the full set. I'll worry about whether I want to keep this one later...

In other news, there's a new test run available to enter for on the website!



From the blog:

In 2014, a few different colorways were created to find a deco for Hope, the 2015 Breyer model that benefited several Autism charities.  This lovely blanket Appaloosa version was a bit too complex for regular production and just this single pretty test piece was made!  She sports a pearl base and a metallic palomino coat with multi-colored puzzle pieces as her “spots.” 

Wow - usually these tests are fairly old, but this one is pretty recent! I like her, despite not being a fan of the Quarter Horse Yearling. She's cute, but I can see why the pattern didn't make it to production. She's a test for this autism benefit model. Honestly, I think they should have kept looking for a different colorway...the one they went with seems really garish and weird-looking. I like the test model better - maybe if they'd abandoned the "Appaloosa" part of it and used the puzzle piece pattern they eventually settled on for Hope?

Despite the fact that I like this model, I don't collect the Quarter Horse Yearling, and I don't see this model having the resale value the last one did, so I'm not going to enter for it. Good luck to everyone who does!

Too Obvious, and Beau

The second single-day Stablemate has been revealed, and it's Toe Tapper!



Now, don't get me wrong; Boot Scootin Boogie has a beautiful paint job. But I didn't want to speculate that they'd use his color on the Brishen mold's mini doppelganger, because it was just too obvious, and Breyer doesn't usually do obvious. They must not have been able to resist, and it's not like they've ever done this before - we haven't seen the Mini Alborozo or Mini Magnolia released in the same colors as their Trad counterparts yet.

That said, I'll definitely be trying to get my hands on this guy - and the way things are going, I might just break down and buy four single-day tickets so I can get the ones I want. It's not like it'll be hard to sell the Magnolia, anyway, and every time I look at that new warmblood mold I want it a little more.

In other news, we've finally found out the results of the My Strongest Suit vote from Breyerfest last year! Check out Beau!



So the dapple gray prevailed after all - and he's being released in the loose and braided versions! Ugh, that braided one looks really nice...but I can't start another conga! I just can't!

Like the rest of the world, I'm wondering why Breyer is releasing yet another product when it seems they have yet to straighten out the trainwreck that is their warehouse move, but I guess I'm not the one in charge of produced releases over there. Hopefully they get things fixed soon!

I wonder what'll happen to the other three tests of this guy? I bet at least one of them will be in this year's silent auction. I guess we'll find out soon!

Another Curveball

Dang it, Breyer! Just when I think I have things figured out, they go and change it up! Here's Chiffon, the Single-Day Stablemate on Mini-Magnolia:

Look familiar? That's because she's a mini-me of Red Velvet, the Moody Andalusian raffle model from 2009. I kind of thought Breyer would stick with the superheroes theme and give us all decorators for the single-day horses, but they must have decided they needed to do something for the 30th anniversary, so the single-day models will all be mini versions of previous prize models! It's a fun idea, though.



From the blog:

Let’s go back in time all the way to the 20th Anniversary of BreyerFest back in 2009. For those of who don’t remember, it was our 20th Birthday Bash!
Red Velvet was our Saturday Raffle Model and was exceptionally popular with Andy fans and BreyerFest attendees of all ages - and even Red Velvet cake fans!
To honor this amazing prize model, we’ve created a mini-me version – Chiffon!  (We kind of have a thing for cake here at HQ.)

I thought chiffon was a type of fabric - I didn't know it's also a type of cake! Interesting. I'm not a cake person, though (at least, not if I can have pie instead), nor am I a Magnolia person - so this one is going to be a pass. I'm excited to see the rest of the single-day Stablemates, though! Which mini-me versions of prize models would I like to see? Pretty much any raffle model from the last 20 years, I guess!

Let's hope these aren't the only models that pay homage to the 30th Anniversary theme - I'd kind of forgotten about it with all the superhero stuff!

Featured Model - 4/20/2019, Frankincense

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...Frankincense!



This model was one of the three possible colors one could receive when ordering Breyer's Christmas Day special model back in 2016. He was a run of 350 on the Sherman Morgan mold sculpted by Jeanne Mellin Herrick. He's item #712207.

While the intent on this model was good (red/green/gold Christmas decorators for the second year in a row), I feel like the execution was a little lacking - his shade of green tends to look more like Army green than anything festive. However, all of his white areas are pearly, so that helps make up for the failing in the green department. The green wasn't the only production failure - something apparently went wrong when many of the tails were glued on in this run, because I remember seeing a ton of complaints that models had arrived with their tails broken off. Let's hope that was a one-off thing that doesn't persist in the future.

Sherman Morgan is the only mold in my collection that I prefer to see in decorator colors rather than realistic ones, probably because he's not the most realistic mold ever sculpted. What's he doing, anyway? As such, the only Shermies in my collection are decorators - the three Christmas horses, Carpe Diem and Celebration. I wouldn't mind getting my hands on the Joker's Wild Connoisseur releases, or Crescent City, but that seems unlikely - they rarely pop up for sale, and they tend to be expensive when they do. Maybe someday, though!

The Sherman Morgan mold isn't currently in production, and it's hard to say when he'll be used again. He's not the most popular mold - the original, old-tail version of the mold only had four releases before it was retired, and it's only had 8 (or 9 if you count the Connoisseurs) attainable releases since its reintroduction in 2000. I wouldn't be surprised to see it pop up in a Let's Go Riding set somewhere down the line, though - a lot of older molds have been used for that line.

That being said, if he gets a decorator release, I'll probably want to buy it - so I hope he gets released in a spectacular decorator color soon!