2025 Stablemates Club is now open, and 2025 JAH!

 Good news, readers! Well...some good news...anyways...the 2025 Stablemates Club is now open for enrollment! Behold, a full-body photo of the shrunken HR Zara! 

I don't think I've seen such extensive bloody shoulder marks on a horse before, but I'll assume Lesli Kathman knows what she's doing. Nothing I need to buy, but at least she'll be easy to sell! I'd hold off on joining the club just yet, though - Breyer needs some encouragement to show us the rest of the releases in the club. 

Also, the 2025 JAH is showing up in the wild! If you're a Collector Club member for this year, keep an eye on your mailbox! Here's some pertinent info from it (Photos from Facebook.) 

Clues about the 75th Anniversary Traditional Assortment. I'm assuming this is in the same vein as the 70th Anniversary assortment, with four common models and one chase piece. I'll think about it more later, but I'm going to guess the five molds in question are the Western Horse, Moody ASB, Lonesome Glory, SCO and Esprit. Esprit will be the chase piece, naturally. 

There’s also an ad for next year's Vintage Club! They're getting an actual Clock Horse! This makes a lot of sense. That's a nice color on the...Western Pony? Hmm. Aww, the Fireheart family is on the clock. 

We finally get to see the Premier Club Stablemate! Another matte/gloss split, groan. Apparently the sculpt is a Mindy Berg resin called Dewdrop (or Doolittle?) It’s cool that we’re getting a lying-down model, but doesn’t look like anything I need. It looks like she has Tigerlily’s coat color with Firestorm’s pattern. Neat! 

Coalfield Classic show report

 Well, readers, I made it to my fourth show of the year and had a great time! The show was Coalfield Classic in Beckley, WV. The show hall had about 35 entrants and everything ran smoothly. Here’s how I did!

The photo is missing a couple of reserve section champion ribbons because we ran out. But it was a great show! I was feeling pretty pumped after not doing so well at the last one. I can't remember specific anecdotes about the models I showed, except that my Via Lattea has been very consistent in placing somewhere in the vicinity of fourth place in her classes. Maybe someday she'll win! Clearly I still need to work on my breed assignments, though. I also wouldn't have minded if the 1st-4th place ribbons had differentiated between breed and collectibility (because there was no way I was going to remember that afterward, hah). But that's a minor nitpick. Overall, I had a lot of fun at the show and I'm excited for the next one! asdfjasdfjasdfjasdfjasdfjasdfj

Featured JAH - 11/2/2024, Mar/Apr 2004

 Hello and welcome to another edition of Featured JAH! We're continuing through 2004 with this week's issue - Mar/Apr 2004 - so let's get going! 

Feast your eyes on a young(er) Viggo Mortensen and Hidalgo on the front cover, along with a partial photo of the Hidalgo model. 

Stephanie is back in the Editor's Desk this month for some reason, talking about Pony Clubs and the USPC 50th Anniversary Breyer Model Essay Contest. The winner of this contest was Flash! His sketch makes its debut this issue, though the sculpt will take a bit longer to be revealed. 

On page 3 is Letters to the Editor, with some fun envelope art. 

On page 4 is the first page of the Hidalgo article. 

The Hidalgo article continues on page 5. 

On page 6 we have a preview of Breyerfest 2004, featuring Nobel II! Hey look, a gray Celebration Horse. I wonder if his color perfectly matched the real horse at the time? Just curious. 

The Breyerfest preview continues on page 6. Ooh, that El Corazon. I wanted one back in the day! Not so much now, though. 

On page 8 we have the winner of the Breyer/USPC Essay Contest! The winner and 10 runners-up were given portrait models of their horses, mounted on wooden bases. And Breyer liked Flash so much that they decided he needed his own model, leading to the Flash model many of us love today. 

The rest of the finalists are pictured on page 9. I wonder what ever happened to all these portrait models? They all had the wooden bases, so presumably the owners knew their prospective value (not so much 20 years later though, since most of those molds aren't terribly popular). 

After skipping a how-to article, the next Connoisseur set makes its debut on page 12! It's Decoupage and Impressionistic Page! Still highly-sought-after today. z

After skipping Breyer jr., the Hidalgo article concludes on page 17. 

On page 18 we have a feature on Carol Herden, sculptor of several Breyer models and three of the CollectiBulls. 

There's a feature on Jane Lunger, sculptor of the other three CollectiBulls on page 19. Jane Lunger also sculpted most of the G3 and G4 Stablemates, among other things. 

After skipping a couple more How-To articles, on page 24 we find this week's Vintage Point featuring the Proud Arabian Foal! 

The Vintage Point article concludes on page 25. 

After skipping Horse Trader, on page 28 we find an article about the Beagle, and the reveal of new Companion Dogs! Huzzah! 

After skipping the Calendar of Events, we've come to the end of this week's issue! On the back cover is the Springtime collection again. 

That's it for this week's issue. Check back next week for May/June 2004! 

2025 Premier Club!

 More good news, readers! The 2025 Premier Club is now open for enrollment. As a reminder, here’s the first release in next year’s club:

Turns out the new mule was sculpted by Laura Skillern-Sailer. I haven’t rejoined the Collector Club for 2025 yet, so it wouldn’t let me view the 2025 Premier Club page. Anyone know if there are any other photos of Winnifred? I’d kind of like to see more of her before I decide if I want her or not. 

A big change for next year’s club is the revelation that shipping will now be “free” in exchange for each release now costing $195. Presumably the deposit will still be deducted from the cost of each model. The costs had to go up sometime, I guess. We have until 12/31 to join the club, so don’t feel like you need to rush to sign up!

October Collector Club Newsletter!

 Good news, readers! The Collector Club newsletter for October has been published! Check your email for more. There’s an article about customizing and hair growth patterns, a Zulu giveaway and this sneak peek:

My guess is it’s the holiday decorator web special, but the color doesn’t look particularly holiday-ish, so who knows what it is. Guess we’ll find out soon!

Also, in case I don’t make any more posts tomorrow, I’ll be at Coalfield Classic Model Horse Show in WV on Saturday for some live showing fun! Feel free to stop by my table and say hi to me, Geralt and Roach!

2025 Celebration Horse revealed!

 Wow! I was sure they'd make us wait until Friday for this reveal - but I'm not complaining. Say hello to the 2025 Breyerfest Celebration Horse, Tight Lines! 

And here's his model! 

Wow, Cigar! Definitely not on my bingo card for next year - I thought it might be an older mold. Nothing I need, but it's a pretty color! And as a friend said, at least it's not bay (again). Cigar has only been done in gray a few times before, so it's good to see some variety in his color. I like the blanket, too. Each Tight Lines (or "Phish") model comes with one, but fear not! Breyer confirmed on Facebook that the blankets will be packaged separately from the model, so no staining. Huzzah! 

It’s also super cool that Will Coleman is coming to Breyerfest! I saw him at the Kentucky Three-Day Event in April, so it’ll be cool to see him again at Breyerfest. 

The blog post says more ticket information is coming in December - I hope we get to see some more models then! I'm excited to see what else we're getting for next year's Breyerfest! 

Some 2025 reveals!

Greetings, readers! More 2025 reveals are slowly (unofficially) being made - an astute Blabber spotted these on the Rural King website:

I don't know how I feel about the color combination - I think I would have preferred something more like this. It's great to see Mason get another release, though! 

Yay, a new release on the new Freedom Series Arabian mold! It's another decorator, though - I'm hoping she also gets released in a realistic color or two. I like the model despite its terrible promo photo, though it's hard to tell if that's clearware or not. I'm going to assume it's clearware until we hear otherwise. It could be a while before we see the rest of the 2025 releases (remember, we didn't see this year's releases until January 5, which is ridiculous). These particular models don't seem to be on the Rural King website anymore, so they probably weren't supposed to be revealed this early. 

But speaking of new reveals, Breyer posted on Facebook this morning that the 2025 Celebration Horse will be revealed this week! Probably on Friday, if past reveals are anything to go by. So I'll be looking forward to that!