Featured Model - 12/22/2018, Arosa

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...Arosa!



This guy was Breyer's holiday web special for 2012. He's item #712197 and was a run of 255 produced on the Missouri Fox Trotter mold sculpted by Kathleen Moody.

Arosa holds the distinction of being the actual production run that resulted from this test in 2011, which was auctioned at Breyerfest that year. And he's beautiful! I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a mold this paint job doesn't look good on. I wish Breyer would use it again - ooh, how about on Weather Girl or Brishen? Mmm, that would be nice. I love his shade of gray and how his spots stand out against the white blanket and gray base color. And he's glossy to boot! I definitely think this is one of the nicer releases on this mold. Now if we could only find out why they picked such an odd run number...

As for the MFT, he's seen a lot of use over the (21!) years since his introduction. Sheesh, I remember getting Iron Metal Chief for Christmas 1997, along with a barn. Ahh, those were the days! But I digress. The MFT has been used for a lot of releases, but his most recent appearance was as Raven at Chasing the Chesapeake back int 2016. Where will he pop up next? It's hard to say. He's been a prize model at Breyerfest multiple times, and I can't help but notice he's never been a Breyerfest special run model. Maybe we'll see him at Breyerfest next year? Otherwise, I'm not sure where to expect him - he could always be another web special, or RR, but we've already seen next year's new models and he isn't among them. Maybe he'll be a mid-year release? Or a collector club special run? Ooh, that's a definite possibility. I guess we'll have to wait and see!

Featured Model - 2/4/2017, JC Penney Missouri Fox Trotter

Hello, readers, and welcome to another installment 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...the JC Penney SR Missouri Fox Trotter!


 

This handsome guy was part of a set with a bay Bluegrass Bandit and flaxen chestnut Saddlebred Weanling issued by JC Penney in 2009. He was produced on the Missouri Fox Trotter mold sculpted by Kathleen Moody. Breyer never seemed to release production numbers for any of the JC Penney SRs for some reason, so I don't know how many of these guys were produced. He is definitely attractive, though!

Gray is pretty much my favorite horse color, so I may be a bit biased, but I think this color looks really nice on him. It would be a little nicer if his tail had more shading, but as-is he's perfectly acceptable. I love his ribbon colors, too! Since he didn't come with an official name, I call him "Smoke Screen."

The original Iron Metal Chief is another one of the few remaining models from my old "carpet herd" that I still have. My parents gave him to me for Christmas '97 and he was one of my favorites to play with (black was my favorite horse color at the time). I still remember how sad I was when I read about the real horse's passing in JAH - they had done an article about him earlier in the year and I thought he was so beautiful.

I mainly collect the MFT out of nostalgia - in retrospect, his tail is a little ridiculous, and his pose precludes him from being used as anything other than a Missouri Fox Trotter. He does have a nice face, though. There have been a lot of nice colors issued on him over the years - Arosa for one, and Masquerade for another - the first Connoisseur model I was drawn for (and last until 2011, as I stopped entering drawings after him due to lack of funds and didn't try again until I was drawn for Swirling Sky). It still amuses me how much they must have liked the Masquerade design - how many OOAK models have we seen on him now with that pattern? Seems like there have been several. Of course, my favorite is this one - I have a weakness for rainbow anything.

Off and on I toy with the idea of selling off my MFTs, but after multiple collection purges, they're still here. I forget exactly how many I have now, but they're among the more populous molds in my collection. One never knows what the future holds, but it was nice that they used him at Chasing the Chesapeake (as confusing as a MFT in New England was). Maybe it means they'll use him for something else really nice in the near future? We'll have to wait and see.