O, Tannenbaum…

 Wow! I actually guessed correctly on this year’s Christmas surprise! Maybe I’m not so bad at this after all. Emma just seemed like the most obvious choice, and, well…

Four new Emma models it is! I think I like the red one best, despite blue usually being my favorite color. Think the red could pass for a chestnut? I guess there wouldn’t be much point in trying, since Black-Eyed Susan exists. They’re all so nicely shaded, too. At first I wondered why they used the same mold for the Coal release, since Emma has already been done in matte black twice, but the description does say this Coal has purple highlights and eyes, and silver hooves along with a belly stamp, so it shouldn’t be too hard to tell her apart from the original Emma. 

I did end up ordering four of them (I misread the descriptions in my haste to order and thought there were more than three common colors), so I’m going to really hope I get at least one black one. My luck has to come in sometime, right? Good luck to everyone else ordering! 

Another Stablemates Club reveal, Cosimo and Christmas surprise (oh my!)

 Well, it’s been a crazy weekend of reveals! Quite a lot of things have been revealed, actually - like next year’s regular run releases, but those will supposedly be officially revealed tomorrow, so I’m going to wait until then to talk about them. But in the meantime, we also got to see another 2025 Stablemates Club release! Say hello to Alana, who can be seen here. I’m not at home and my tablet isn’t cooperating, so you’ll have to view the links to see the models. Anyway, Alana is very promising! Another release I’ll have to join the club for. I love her turquoise braids! So that just means we have one more reveal to go - the gambler’s choice for next year. I’ll wait on joining until we see what that is. Hopefully it’s on a mold I don’t want so I can just get one membership like I’ve been doing for the past few years, but we’ll see.

We also got an unprecedented third Premier Club reveal! They teased a sketch of the model yesterday and then revealed a cropped photo today, which can be seen here. I definitely like what I see! But I do like a nice Roman nose on a horse, so it’s not surprising. I also like black horses! So he’s probably going to stay with me. Dare I hope we get to see the Stablemate next? Hahaha. I’ll hold out on joining until he very end of the year, just in case. I don’t think we should necessarily expect to get this many reveals next year, though - I suspect it’s a 75th Anniversary thing and we’ll be back to normal at the end of next year. I hope I’m wrong, though! It would be great to be able to see all the releases in advance every year.

Lastly, Breyer sent out an email today that this year’s Christmas surprise will be revealed tomorrow at 1pm EST! So I’ll have to haunt the Breyer website tomorrow to see what it is. My guess is some type of Fell Pony, but who knows. I think I guessed her last year and it turned out to be Huck. Guess we’ll find out tomorrow! Good luck to everyone! 

What is happening?!

 Well, the Christmas Day surprise model has been released (Wassail!), and then sold out (Wahhh-sail!) - what a long, strange trip it's been! 

The initial release went okay - no website glitches that I'm aware of. At first I was incensed, because there were no actual photos of the model, and I thought they weren't going to reveal the mold at all - but then I saw Huckleberry Bey was in the description, and was somewhat mollified - with photos to be revealed on Christmas Day. The description also revealed the four colorways - glossy metallic sparkling red, glossy metallic sparkling red with filigree, glossy metallic sparkling green, and glossy metallic sparkling green with filigree, with 24 glossy black Hucks thrown in there too (edit: it's my assumption that the Coal models will also be on Huck). I'm using past tense to refer to these items, because not long after the surprise went live, the page was scrubbed of any reference to Huckleberry Bey or the four colors. Uhh...is somebody asleep at the wheel in NJ? Why are they doing this in the sloppiest way possible? Did the higher-ups already check out for Christmas and leave the interns in charge? Why is this being done so haphazardly? 

I guess I'm glad about the Huck reveal mistake, because like I said earlier, I would have been pissed if they actually intended to make us wait until Christmas to reveal the model, while still expecting us to buy it a week beforehand. I was fully prepared to close the page and not buy anything at all until I saw Huck in the description. But now it seems the Huck reveal was a mistake, and they weren't intending to tell us the mold at all? This is a lot of money to be spending on a gamble - if I'd purchased these not knowing what they were, and then had it end up being Big Ben or Gem Twist or some other Moody mold I don't collect, I'd be super upset! It was bad enough buying the 2020 and 2021 Breyerfest surprise models sight-unseen - I really don't need that to become a regular occurrence! Not to mention the fact that the model price has gone up to $145 and the piece count breakdown (2624) evens out to 650 models per color - so if it turned out to be an unpopular mold, I'd likely end up having a hard time getting my money back. 

My best guess as to why they're doing this is because they don't want to have people in the office on Christmas Day trying to figure out the inevitable technical glitches (many people outside the US were charged for shipping when they weren't supposed to be). Add that to many customers' repeatedly voiced desire not to have to be haunting the website on Christmas and a heavy dollop of the usual Breyer ineptitude, and here we are. 

Okay, anyway, with all of that out of the way, let's talk about the colors themselves. Here they are again:
Glossy metallic sparkling red
Glossy metallic sparkling red with filigree
Glossy metallic sparkling green
Glossy metallic sparkling green with filigree

Before being scrubbed of information, the website said the models would have bald faces and stockings shaded by hand, and black muzzles and inner ears. Let's take another look at the sneak peek from last month's Collector Club newsletter:

I dismissed this being a sneak peek of the Christmas release at the time, but now that all of this *waves hands wildly* has happened, I don't think I'm going out on a limb by saying this is probably the "glossy metallic sparkling red" color. Well, it looks promising, at least! As for the "with filigree" ones, I think the common assumption was that the mention of filigree meant they'd be a red or green filigree, but there's some speculation that the use of "with filigree" means they could end up looking more like the Swirls'n'Snowflakes Stablemates. Sounds good to me! So if that's the case, they're probably basically like big versions of the red and green Swirls'n'Snowflakes models. 

Some people were confused by how the models could have bald faces in combination with black muzzles. Since that verbiage has now been removed from the website, I guess it's anyone's guess how they're going to pull that off, though I did see speculation that they may end up looking like some kind of Mari Lwyd reference. So we may have some exciting reveals to look forward to! 

I did order four of these guys, since I have a large Huck conga (and like I said yesterday, a glossy black Huck would be great!), and only realized as I was checking out that...since we're flying back to our hometown tomorrow, if these models get shipped this week they're likely going to arrive here and end up sitting on our doorstep until we get home. Curses! Now I'm wishing they'd kept the release on Christmas Day after all! I did send an email to Breyer requesting that they not be shipped until after Christmas, but I haven't gotten a response yet - I may have to call them in between flights tomorrow, I guess. 

That's all I have to say about the Christmas models, but we did get one other tidbit today: the full-body reveal of Lanin in the Stablemates Club! 

So it looks like most or all of his mane is gone, but the tail is more-or-less the same? It looks like the tips are different on the tail, but it could also be a horrendous cutout job in Photoshop, so I'm going with that. Mirado looks a little weird without his mane, but not nearly as weird as the maneless Nokota, so I'm okay with it. Let's hope we get some more SMC reveals this week! 

Premier Club 2023 preview and more!

 Excellent news, everyone! We have a preview of one of the Premier Club sculpts for next year - check it out! 

Something rearing, I presume? Well, I like what I see so far. This is probably the Heather Puleo sculpt. I like what I can see of the color, too! There's been some speculation that maybe the horse is doing something else and the photo was flipped, but I think it does portray a rearing model - considering we won't get the full reveal for at least another six months, I don't think Breyer would try to trick people for that long. If someone joins the club purely because they're excited about a rearing model, only for Breyer to say, "Gotcha! It's a rolling/striking horse instead!" six months later, I imagine they'd be pretty upset. 

In other news, we also got a reveal of the G3 Cantering Warmblood in next year's Stablemates Club! Say hello to Brighton! 

No mention was made of this being the gambler's choice for next year, and we still haven't seen the G2 Shetland Pony, so I'm going to assume the Shetland Pony is the gambler's choice. Which means...I probably won't bother to join the club, as the two, possibly three releases I want shouldn't be too hard to find secondhand. 

And lastly, if you're into Christmas morning horse releases, keep your eye on the Breyer website tomorrow at 11AM EST! Well, "around 11am," anyway!

That's right - another year of Christmas morning ponies! I can't wait - though I'm hoping whatever it ends up being is something I don't want - it's just easier that way. This release tends to sell out fast, so be ready to buy! I certainly will. Good luck, everybody!