Horatio and the next Vintage Club release!

 Huh - the title to this post kind of sounds like the title to a mystery novel or something. Oh well. Good news, everyone! The Deluxe Collector Club Stablemate, Horatio, is now available to order! 

I'm surprised that he's available so early, but I'm not complaining. He's free with the club membership, so all you have to do is confirm your shipping address. Huzzah! I can't wait to get this guy in hand so my plastic Othello conga can stay almost-complete. Wait...this means he's probably going to be the Best Customs Contest runner-up prize next year, right? Perish the thought...

In other news, we also have a new Vintage Club release today - the gambler's choice! Check it out: 

Those colors are nice, but they're nothing I need. I really like the buckskin, but the Appaloosa has a weird-looking mouth. The bay pinto looks like he'd match up well with Robin and Nestling on the Running Mare/Foal. And here's the VC Stablemate! 

Also nothing I need. Looks like I got lucky this year! I still haven't gotten my hands on any Thunderbirds from last year, but maybe someday. 

Kirk is now available!

 Attention, Vintage Club members! The next release in the club, the Kirk nightlight, is now available for purchase! 

Here's his nightlight form: 

I sold off all my Geronimo models, so this one is nothing I need - but you'd better order now if you want to get it before Breyerfest! But the order deadline is 7/11, so I guess there's plenty of time to get your order in. Hopefully this means we'll get the first Premier Club release soon! 

Domingo!

 Greetings, readers! As promised, my replacement Domingo has finally arrived! Behold:

He's much, much better than the last one (although the masking around his medicine hat still isn't great)! 

I'll admit I haven't tried scratching him to see if his white paint scrapes off as easily as the last one's did - mainly because I don't want to turn this one into a body. I was extremely careful handling him because I don't know if the last one was a one-off or they're all like that - because it really shouldn't be that easy to scratch off the paint. 

Quality-wise he's pretty great, other than the so-so masking. His eyes are a little sloppy too, but nothing terrible. I might try live showing him later on. 

Which reminds me - I'm going to a live show on Saturday! I'll be at Bluegrass Live in Nicholasville, KY on Saturday. See if you can figure out which wild-eyed novice shower is me! I may even hand out free Stablemates to people mentioning the blog, if I can remember to bring the box they live in. This will be my first (real) show - I did a fun show last year that had about six participants - which was fun, but not nearly on the same level. I now have all my show models packed and documentation finished, so I'm just about ready for the show! Now I just have to contain my excitement until Saturday! 

New sneak peek and Vintage Club stuff!

 Whoa, I almost forgot to post about this - but there's a new sneak peek on the Breyerfest Blog! Behold: 

From the blog:

Hint:  It’s something you can only get with All-Access or VIP tickets, so if you don’t have your tickets yet, you can get them here!

Odd...what could it be? Maybe one of the live show or BCC prizes? I feel like they'd be a little more specific if that were the case. Maybe it's another Limited Edition that hasn't been announced yet? Some kind of special Stablemate, perhaps? I guess we'll find out later in the week. 

In other news, Vintage Club welcome letters are arriving in people's mailboxes. I don't have any scans or photos of the letter, but the clues for this year's other releases include "a Marguerite Henry character, a 1980s sculpture in his flashiest color yet, and some tiny treasures that will melt your vintage-loving heart." No idea who the Marguerite Henry character would be, but the 1980s sculpture may be Roy, according to speculation on the Interwebs. I don't know what the "tiny treasures" is referring to either, although I suspect a lot of people won't be happy if it ends up being a Stablemates set or something. And no real word on which of these releases is the optional one, either. Happily, they decided to be up front about this year's Stablemate: it's the G1 Morgan Stallion! Huzzah! 

That's it for today - oh, and today is also the last day to enter for Mumbai, so get your entries in if you haven't. Good luck, everyone!  

Finally, an update!

 Well, readers, it looks like we've reached the February doldrums again. Most of the Breyerfest reveals are over (other than the raffle and prize models, presumably), so there hasn't been a whole lot to post about...until today! I'll start with this year's first Vintage Club release, which was revealed today:

His name is Scorpion! What a handsome boy, although nothing I need. There was apparently a bit of a snafu right after he was released - some of the promotional copy was apparently not vetted well enough and called him a dunalino (I think) and said he would come with leg wraps. As far as I can tell, that wording has now been removed from the website. Still, uh, proofreading is a valuable skill, guys! Maybe give it a try sometime? 

Anyway, here's Scorpion's box! 

Wow, the model matches the picture on that box pretty well. 

In other exciting news, there's a new St. Patrick's Day plush! 

He's cute, and kinda reminds me of the plushie from Breyerfest 2020. Nothing I need, fortunately. 

In other, other news, my Heath came today! Woohoo! 

The sun wasn't quite down when I took the pics, but I didn't want to wait any longer to photograph him! He's a beauty. 

Definitely one of the best colors they've done on this mold - I'm excited to see what he looks like next to Saltire and Rainier. 

Of course, the big controversy surrounding this release (other than the release-day delay) has been the honeycomb paper he was wrapped in. For some reason, whoever wrapped these guys at the factory apparently forgot that you have to stretch out the honeycomb paper before you use it, so it'll, you know, protect the model. There's absolutely no protection if you don't use the paper properly - you might as well wrap it in Walmart bags or tissue paper. The technique can't be that hard, as it was used to good effect at last year's Breyerfest (though the glue on those paper bags needed to be stronger). So... what happened? While the Heaths were still packed in a plastic bag before the paper was wrapped around their heads and tails, many of them suffered rubs to the left ear due to the ear poking through the plastic bag and rubbing on the tightly-wrapped paper. When I opened my Heath, his ear had indeed poked through the bag, and while I think the ear does have a small rub, the paint on the edge of that ear is thinner than in other places, which effectively camouflages the rub and makes it hard to see unless you're looking from the right angle. 

So how do we fix this? Clearly whoever's packing the models needs to actually stretch out the honeycomb paper (for economics' sake, if nothing else; you use a lot more of it if you don't stretch it first), but they need to either use thicker bags on the models or wrap the heads less tightly (or go back to bubble wrap, but we're trying to be environmentally conscious, here). This issue has been pretty much all anyone can talk about for the last couple of days, so hopefully Breyer got the message. 

That's all I have for today! Presumably Breyerfest tickets will go up for sale tomorrow, since Breyer said it would be this week and well, it's Thursday and nothing yet. Hey, tomorrow is payday for me, too...but I also need to pay a visit to the KHP gift shop and see if they have the 2024 new releases yet, so I shouldn't get too crazy with the spending! 

Looking to the Future: 2024 Vintage Club

 As usual, this post is really late, but it never hurts to do some speculating, does it? It's almost 2024, and the possibilities are endless! Just as an FYI, much of this post will be cribbed from previous years' worth to save some time. To start with, let's take a look at my predictions from last year. Last year I predicted the gambler's choice would be the FAM and FAF (wrong), the optional model would be on Vermeer (also wrong), and other entries would include El Pastor (wrong!) and Duende (so, so wrong). Let's just suffice it to say that, well, I'm bad at predicting things. Edit: I forgot about the Stablemate! Last year I predicted Cassidy (not the worst guess, considering they finally seem to have remembered she exists) but was wrong about that as well, as they used Darwin instead.

Let's move on. As usual, this photo is probably too old to be worth anything, but it's still fun to look at:

So far, club members have seen the following models from the photo above:

Amigo, the charcoal Adios;
Halo, the Appaloosa-Performance-Horse-colorway on the Stretch Morgan;
Commander, the smoke Five Gaiter;
Denim (Diamonds?), the Copenhagen pinto Shetland Pony;
and Kiowa, the Indian Pony pinto on the Jumping Horse mold.
Also, the glossy palomino Semi-Rearing Mustang was one of the losers in the vote that gave us Tanner.

Molds that appear in the photo, but were used in the VC in other colors, include the Running Stallion, Man o' War, Quarter Horse Gelding, the Belgian (twice), Semi-Rearing Mustang, Fighting Stallion (twice), Running Foal (with Mare), the Western Prancing Horse, the Grazing Mare (with Foal), the Western Horse and the Thoroughbred Mare and Foal.

To conclude with that, pretty much all of those molds have been used by now, except the Longhorn Bull. Who knows if he'll ever end up in the club someday? Maybe in the far future when all other vintage molds have been used.

These are the vintage Breyer molds that haven't been used in the club yet, with molds unlikely to be used crossed out:

Black Beauty, the Black Stallion, Bolya/Halla,  Buckshot, the Donkey, El Pastor, the FAM and FAF, Galiceno, Haflinger, the Hanoverian, the Lying Down Foal, Midnight Sun, Morganglanz, Phantom Wings, Phar Lap, the POA, possibly the PAF, Quarter Horse Yearling, the Race Horse, Saddlebred Weanling, the Scratching Foal, Sea Star, the Stock Horse Stallion, Mare and Foal, Stud Spider, the Trakehner and the Western Pony.

The only thing we've seen for the 2024 lineup is the Geronimo night light, so that would make him the modern mold. That leaves us two vintage molds for regular entries, and I'm going to assume the gambler's choice will be on a modern mold, considering the last few have been. I'm still holding out hope that we'll see the glossy alabaster Thoroughbred Mare and Nursing Foal, but it seems unlikely (unfortunately). I still think El Pastor is likely to appear in the club eventually, so I'm going to stick with him again for 2024, along with, let's say Buckshot? As for the gambler's choice, Murphy's Law would dictate that it be something like Georg or Hamilton, but I'm going to go with the Moody ASB, because why not. Slap some old Five Gaiter colors on him and you've got a winner, at least in my book. I'm going to guess the Old Timer for the optional model because he's relatively popular, and his previous VC appearance will have been 12 years prior, so that seems like an appropriate length of time between releases. As for the Stablemate, guessing that is a total crapshoot, but I'm going to go with Twist as some type of old-timey Arabian. 

That's it for now - I guess we'll find out if any of these guesses were correct in January when the welcome letters go out and (I think?) the first release shows up. Unless it's Kirk, in which case we won't know much of anything. Woohoo! 

Well, that's it for this year. Happy New Year, everyone! 

The 2024 Vintage Club is open---aaaaaaand it's gone.

 Well, the signups for the 2024 Vintage Club were briefly open today - but whatever was left sold out in about 10 minutes, or so I hear. Here's a picture of Kirk: 

Congratulations to the people that managed to get in, but I was hoping it would take a few days for the memberships to sell out - we might have gotten a few more hints to entice people to sign up. Maybe they'll show us something anyway? Fat chance, but maybe. 

Swirls n' Snowflakes and 2024 Vintage Club!

 Well, the Swirls n' Snowflakes Stablemates went up for sale today, and the sale seems to have gone relatively smoothly, other than a temporary website outage. And they're still available for sale, so they must have made plenty of them! I'm fighting the urge to order one and see if I can get the Greyson...but I'm sure there'll be plenty of them for sale later and I just don't want to be bothered right now. 

In other news, the 2024 Vintage Club opens up for regular memberships tomorrow! Last year's members have had their chance to join, so the remaining memberships become available tomorrow! Huzzah! I'm...still not going to join, and even if I were, I'd wait until the absolute last minute to "encourage" them to show more of the releases. Let's hope everybody else does the same, eh? 

Vintage Club and Stablemates blind bags and Breyerwest sneak peeks, oh my!

 Lots of stuff to report today, readers! First and foremost: if you're a Vintage Club member, the 2024 club is now open for current members to join, and we got a new view of Kirk! 

He really is quite pretty - too bad I sold off all my Geronimo models. Lack of shelf space strikes again! 

Next, this year's Stablemates holiday blind bags have been announced! Behold, the Swirls n' Snowflakes collection! 

They're cute! And they really do look like Christmas ornaments - one almost wonders why they didn't go all the way and make them actual ornaments. But I suppose then people would have complained. Fortunately for me, they managed to mostly pick molds I don't collect, so I think I'm going to sit this one out. It shouldn't be too hard to get my hands on the Greyson later on. They'll be available to current Collector Club members around 1pm EST tomorrow, so good luck to everyone buying! 

Lastly, we have a sneak peek for the Breyerwest special run! 

I'm pretty sure this is a glossy HD Harkness, since those didn't sell very well at Breyerfest and the trend has been for Breyer to gloss something leftover for Breyerwest. Which means I'm going to have to find a way to buy one, since I don't plan on traveling to CO for the event. Fortunately, I know someone in Denver, so hopefully I can get my hands on one without having to pay an arm and a leg. I guess we'll have the reveal sometime later this week! 

Vintage Club preview and Nimbus!

 Sheesh, I guess I wrote today's earlier post too early - the news wasn't done yet! Firstly, we have an amazing sneak peek for next year's Vintage Club, Kirk:

Whoa, a night light! That's super cool. Looks like some kind of glossy splatter dapple gray on Geronimo? Can't say I had "night light" on my bingo card, though I'm starting to think I should have. Despite having been burned in the past, my inability to secure any Thunderbirds (so far) is making me regret not joining the club this year. Must resist! Most of the releases don't resell for issue price, and I don't collect most vintage-themed stuff! Must resist! 

Anyway, our second bit of late-breaking new is that Nimbus is available to order! 

Naturally I had to order him as soon as possible. I guess I could have waited to order Wintergreen along with Nimbus - she's still available on backorder. Oh well, not like I haven't wasted money on shipping before. 

That's (hopefully) it for today, unless Breyer comes out with something else unexpected in the next few hours!