New Arrivals: Straight Bet, Lonesome Glory Reissue and Bay Leopard Dark Horse Surprise!

Up next in our list of new arrivals are Straight Bet, the Lonesome Glory reissue and the bay leopard Dark Horse Surprise! Let's start with Straight Bet:

I was very happy with this model. I actually ended up with two of them because I feared finding issues with the gloss, but they were both pretty nice. The "heart surgery scar" seam on the chest has been fixed (at least on those two), and I didn't see anything else wrong with them. Also, did anyone else notice he's pretty much the same color as the single-day Man o' War? I haven't gotten a photo of them together yet, but the similarity is uncanny. The MOW is almost a mini-me of Straight Bet!

Anyway, I love Straight Bet's shading and color, and I can't wait to get him onto the shelf next to Duende. (All of my recent purchases are hanging out on our entertainment center until we get a new shelf built.)

Next, let's look at the Lonesome Glory reissue!

I photographed the new LG with my original LG (in back). I've seen a lot of posts about this release on social media, usually complaints about how the reissue is a mare. This is most likely because Zenyatta is still in production, so Breyer pulled the whiteware for this run from the Zenyatta production line. I'd like to point out that the original Lonesome Glory is a stallion, while the real LG accomplished all his feats after being gelded, so clearly adherence to gender isn't high on Breyer's priority list. That and adding/subtracting parts on small runs isn't economically feasible, unlike with regular runs (see: adding a sheath to Wixom for Kong, or to Rejoice for All Glory, which was a larger production run).

Anyway, the new LG is in fact quite different from the original, as you can see. The markings are the same, though masked better on the reissue (duh), and the reissue is darker and semigloss rather than matte. Personally, I would have preferred that it be glossy to set it off from the original release even more, but there's enough difference between the two that it's not that big of a deal.

I also heard the QC on these models was iffy, but it didn't take me too long to find one that was acceptable to me, so I can't really comment on how bad they were. Well, that and after the third or fourth model I get bored and want to pick one so I can move along.

Lastly, here's the bay leopard Dark Horse!



Historically, leopard isn't my favorite Appaloosa color, so I'd have to say this one is my least favorite of all five colors. Fortunately, I don't find him completely ugly, unlike some past leopard Appys, so I don't have a problem with keeping him in the herd. It's interesting that all of the non-decorator colors had matching green (i.e. turf) bases. Maybe they figured green would be an interesting color, and if they were all the same they wouldn't have as many issues with pairing the right base with the right color. Dirt racing is dominant in North America, though, so I'd have thought they'd all be dirt-colored.

This guy brings me to a close for today, but tune in next time for more new arrivals (hopefully with better photos)!