Another awesome estate auction find

 Lousy pictures for now, but last week I got very very lucky and won some auctions through a local online estate auction.  I was on pins and needles at work that morning, since the auctions ended while I was at work, and I was sure there would be a rash of bidding right before the end.  Turns out there weren't a lot of last-minute bids, and I won six lots in total.  

Three lots were for vintage Dell comic books: Silver, Trigger, and Champion.  At least some of those have Sam Savitt art on the covers, although they weren't allowed to sign their work.  A fourth was for a larger (16x20 approximately) framed print of a Sam Savitt work, a color head-study of a bay horse.  

The fifth was the one I'd noticed first - five horse figurines.  Two are Breyers, a Rejoice and a vintage Appy Family Arabian Stallion.  The other three were china, and one made me yelp, especially after I confirmed that it was what I thought it was.  One Metlox horse, one copy of a Hagen-Renaker draft horse, and the star of the show, a Hagen Renaker large Honora.  Sure, there were a couple of visible repaired breaks, but ! ! ! ! ! !

The last lot was one I'd made a small bid on, just because it was an assortment of horse-shaped objects: three T'ang style horses, a salt-and-pepper set of pintos, a silver stylized horse, a brass less-stylized horse, etc.  But later, I took a second look on the computer, with a larger screen, and noticed a rump and tail of a foal, almost hidden by the salt and pepper pintos.  All I could see was the rump, tail, and part of the head, but it l ooked like a Hagen-Renaker, most likely a Lying Fez.  So I put in a larger bid and crossed my fingers.  I won that lot as well, and yep, one very nice Lying Fez. 

The only little twitch was that at some point after the auction, the company marked my lots by zip-tying tags to things.  And of course, they zip-tied the tag to the Honora, for crying out loud.  Luckily nothing broke and

I got the tag off with no casualties.

SM Club delivery

 The second horse for the Stablemate Club was delivered today, along with a pair of travel partners (hoping for the chase horses from the current series).  And, my luck is holding - a pair of Phineas, and two more of the pink blind bag horses, so as far as mold goes, I drew four of a kind.  

This makes at least four pink Prince Charmings.  They're the new version of my string of pink and green Drafters from a few years ago.   Prince Charming is nice enough, but the star dapples need some work. 

Vintage Club Overload

 Covid must be messing with the shipping (still) - we've gotten two of the four Vintage Club models in one month.  

At the beginning of the month, Cooper the Appy Performance Horse showed up, with his vintage-style bareback pad and bridle.   He also has, instead of the normal Vintage Club belly stamp, the stamp for an upcoming Bird Series horse, Kingfisher.  Can't wait to see what the real Kingfisher looks like, and if it's on the same mold as Cooper here.

 

 

Then, just a few weeks later, Breyer released Sandman for purchase, Smoky the Cowhorse in a really nice red dun pinto with gloss.  And both eyes are looking in the same direction. 

 

 

 

 

 

 Other recent Breyer things:  My NaMoPaiMo horse for the year did get done before the deadline.  This year I painted a SM Iron Metal Chief as a nice buckskin.  I tried to blend the leg markings more, but it needs a little work. 

 

 

 

 

 

And I found two of these at the grocery store, one sort of light blue, the other fuschia.  They poop little tiny candy.

And Honeybear, the Collector's Club horse.  Gorgeous pinto, glossy, and chunky

I should buy a lottery ticket

 My luck, at least in Breyer-related things, is running over 90% lately.  Yes, I'm still looking for someone to swap my second cranberry Christmas Clyde for a silver, but on the other hand, I've been chosen recently for a Zugspitze, a Montana, and today a Cardinal, plus being able to get a Spice Drop (thanks to the ability to shop online on Christmas morning while being a passenger in a car going 70 MPH on the interstate). 

Breyer's put some simple colors on some older molds this month, and I'm seriously tempted by the Trakehner in a gorgeous chestnut and the QH Gelding with a lovely shaded palomino paint job, glossed. 

So, not the last new ponies

 Because I managed to get a Spice Drop on Christmas morning, and it was already delivered. 

I was kind of hoping for purple, but green and gold is fine. 

And then, on the other account, I was (shock!) drawn to buy the black and gold ram, Montana.  

Totally unrealistic color, but I must have been a magpie in a former life, because the glittery flashing things appeal to me.  

And now that Breyer has revealed the horses for the Stablemates Club next year, I'm very tempted to get a second membership again.  The gambler's choice is the Fjord, and mini Fireheart is the bonus model. 

Overall, my luck is running great on the Breyer side of life.  Well, except that I can't find anyone who wants to swap a silver Christmas Clydesdale for my second cranberry one.  

Last horses of 2021 (I think)

 Last new ponies of the year (presumably)

 

Stablemates Club - Twist, and the bonus foals, times two

 

 

 

And, my luck was good - chosen to purchase Zugspitze!!  

 

Along with the accidental collection of blue horses, the silver ones seem to accumulate here too. 

 

 

 

 

 

In an odd twist, I got two boxes from Breyer today.  The first one I opened was a bit of a confusion and seems to be a mistake.  It's got a Balthazar, Arctic Grandeur ornament, Dazzle, and Le Mer.  So, tomorrow I get to call Breyer to fix that (someone's waiting for those) and ask for a replacement for the Twist who arrived with a nasty groove in one side.  

 I was online at 12:50 today, with a computer and a phone logged in to my two Breyer accounts.  I was patient and lucky, and managed to get a pair of the Christmas Clydesdales on each account.  They sold out in under ten minutes for the Collectors Club-only early release.  No idea if Breyer kept some back for a general release later or not. 

Aren't they shiny?!?!  I'm a little surprised that there's blue instead of green - the usual colors would be silver & gold, and red & green.  I guess they're going with blue & silver as one pair, red & gold as the other. 

And yes, I have two Collectors Club accounts.  I pay for them both.  I got four Christmas Clydes, I'll be keeping all four (or swapping to get one of each color), and I'm not going to be sorry or ashamed that I have two accounts.  Breyer knows there are households with more than one account.  As long as each account is paid for, what does it matter? 

Arctic Grandeur

So. I always get the Holiday Horse. This year is complicated. The local dealer didn't get any at all in stock. Tractor Supply in town seems to have gotten two, which sold overnight before I got there to pick one up last weekend (should have done the pickup in store option). I could drive 30 miles to pick on up in JC, or wait and hope they don't sell out by Thanksgiving when we're there anyway. I thought I was being clever this year, changing my birthday on my TSC account to be September instead of October, so my birthday coupon wouldn't conflict with the usual October toy sale. But this year, with the shipping issues, TSC hasn't gotten most of the Breyers in yet. Maybe it'll work out better next year. Or, I can just order one from Breyer, which is what I did. Between the 10% Club discount, and the fact that it actually qualifies for free shipping, it was probably the cheapest way to go. Hopefully the costume isn't prone to damage during shipping. My first horse on the Duende (?) mold, so I can't wait to see what he looks like in person.

Breyerfest 2021 - Day 1

 The official Breyerfest shopping is done.  We son't add up the grand total yet, because it won't be a calming number. 

1. Ansel
2. Knossos 
3. Kaleidoscope
4. Palette
5. Favrile
6. Apollo de Solis
7. Breyerfest SM 5-piece set
8. Pop-Up Store grab bag
9. 4-piece Stablemate set (aka the one-day horses)

Happily, I got my top two picks on the SR list, Ansel (run of 2,000) and Knossos (run of 1,000).  The new Morgan is one of my favorite of the new Premier molds lately, and I can't remember if I have a Spanish Bull or not.  And, Knossos fits with my interest in ancient Greek and Roman civilizations.  

And now it's off to watch workshops and seminars.  I've managed to get the TV browser logged in to the website, and the videos will play on it, so I can watch while I delete mass amounts of email.  

Tomorrow, I've got two crafting workshops to attend - Suncatcher Stablemates, and Galaxy Stablemates.  The last of the supplies for the Galaxy workshop should be delivered today. 

Champion, the Vintage Club horse

 Champion was delivered yesterday.  He's going to be a tricky one to get a good picture of, between the gloss and the very dark bay color.  

I ordered 4 blind bags along with him, hoping for the chase pieces, but nope.  One orangey-yellow Prince Charming, and three Walking Arabians (2 orangey-peach, one blue).  

The two Tobias SM Club horses are on the way. 

New SMC Horses

 The Hendriks and their ride-along buddies arrived, and for a change, not in separate packaging.  

It was an interesting few days, since Breyer sent two UPS numbers for each order.  I had to wait to find out what was up - turns out one number of each pair was a phantom number, which has  been happening a lot with Breyer lately.  And one of the boxes had a big dent in one corner.  

The Hendrik run seems to have had some issues, mostly with the mane masking, and with lint and stuff in the gloss.  And the dapples, because Breyer keeps trying to do dapples on SMs, and it rarely ends well.  

Both of mine have decent masking.  One is pretty good overall, but the other one, poor thing, has massive and blatant dapples on his off side, plus a couple of lint bits in the gloss.  The other side is probably good for photo showing.  Given the rate of issues I saw, mine weren't that bad, and I didn't bother asking for a replacement, because it could have easily been worse.  

The ride-alongs were a pair of Walking Arabian, one blue/teal, one red/pink, and the new Prince Charming in yellow, from the newest unicorn blind bag series.  No chase horse, darn it, but at least not triplets or something.  

(4/23/21)

Incoming horse - Vintage Club Julius

 Breyer put Julius up for purchase this morning, so he's on the way with a paint-your-own-Walking TB Unicorn as a travel partner.  I kind of wish they'd shown the rest of the VC horses before I rejoined.  I decided to renew the VC because of this mold, and then they add a regular-run Georg to the 2021 lineup.  Oh well, I'm sure the other VCs for the year will be great too.  And I do like that old splatter roan.

Jol, the second horse of this year

 The Christmas Day surprise this year was the Fjord in clearware - clear, red, or blue-green.  Not sure how blue-green fits the Christmas theme, pure green would be better, but that's okay.  I got online at the right time, and bought one, hoping for the blue-green to add to the Blue Horse Herd.  

 

Mine was delivered on Monday, and I got the blue-green I was hoping for.  Very pretty, and at least the glitter seems to be embedded in the plastic, instead of on top where it can shed everywhere.  

 

 

So, may I present Sermilik, named after a fjord in Greenland with a locally-famous blue iceberg, known as the "blue diamond." 

First horse of 2021

 The first horse (okay, first in-hand, not first paid-for) is here.  Columbia's three Walmarts each seemed to only get 2 boxes of the Series 3 unicorns, and I never found the purple Warmblood, so I paid $25 for one on Facebook.  And he arrived early, too!  The silver on one hoof is a little sloppy, but that's an easy fix if I want to touch it up - it's not like he'll be a show horse anyway.

Now he needs an appropriately grapey name.

I should have bought a lottery ticket

 Breyer had two lottery Web Specials recently.  The first was a decorator pair on the newer Eberl Andalusian Mare & Foal molds:  La Molina in silver filigree, Masella the foal in blue filigree.  The other was Ursa Major and Ursa Minor (aka Space Bears!): the Bear and Cub in a panda pattern, but with pearl white, and (fuzzy) stars on the blue areas.  My luck was running good - one account got drawn for La Molina, the other got drawn for the bears, and then the first account got drawn on the bears waitlist.  But, given my past record of trying to buy things to re-sell, I just passed on the second set of bears.  

 

The Andalusian pair looks great in pictures with the blue filigree Benasque, but since I didn't win that one, my pair has to make do with the silver filigree Sherman Morgan as the stallion.  Or High Tide, or the silver filigree Callahan.  

The bears are amazing, and will fit in with my blue and space theme collections.  I do wish the stars had been crisper instead of fuzzy airbrushed spots, but oh well.  

And the herd grows again

More new horses recently.  

 

 

First, a small group from the local auction.  These were listed as "small dishes and other stuff" or something.  It's a really mixed lot - the large one is wood, from Sweden.  Then there's the metal foal, the little blue spotted one is ceramic, and the tiny brown one is some unidentifiable substance.  Maybe plastic, maybe celluloid or something.   (Mini Magnolia is there for scale)

Finally got the palomino Hamilton.  I paid about $80 for this one on eBay, and of course the next morning Breyer decided that they were going to let people order a specific model from the 70th Anniversary assortment.  Oh well.  This one does have better masking and dapples than the ones I saw early on. 

Walmart locally finally got the newest series of SM unicorns.  My feeling skills are still on point, but no purple chase yet.  And (again) the next day someone on the east coast found the series 4 unicorns, with a black and gold filigree chase. 

Breyer did another holiday SM blind bag set.  I got duplicates of the red filigree Smart Chic and gold filigree Darwin.  Managed to trade a gold Darwin for the green filigree Croi, but I don't think anyone will want to swap a red for the silver filigree Vanner. 

And, the winter Web Special is La Molina and Masella.  One of my CC accounts got drawn for a pair and they're gorgeous. Too bad I don't have the Benasque to complete the family.  They look beautiful in pictures.
 

Good grief, Reeves, slow down!

 

Another flood month of Breyers.  Late last month was the Halloween horses, where I got a trio of Mini Poltergeists and one Mini Nightmare, plus Ratsputin and the plushy.

 

Then I stopped at Becky's Breyers for Yuletide and a couple of Anniversary SMs that weren't the chase pieces.  I messed up really badly with the Smart Chic, thinking it was an Indian Pony. 

 Traded one of the Mini Poltergeists for Mini Twilight Terror.  

Then the 5th SM club horse, times 2.  And today they released the optional Vintage Club horse, Barrington, the new jumper in classic Cantering Welsh Pony chestnut, and a non-black Carltonlima Emma as a Christmas pony in palomino with a cute blanket.  

 

 

 Sigh.  I hate to think what that all adds up to.  I thought about the Yuletide enamel pin, but changed my mind.  

 

One of the Stablemate Club horses arrived today, the other will be here tomorrow.  First one is the blue and purple pinto unicorn, which was third on my ranking.  Depending on which one I get tomorrow, I may try and trade for the pinto or Appaloosa.  Or maybe not.  

 

Vintage auction score

 I usually find some luck once a year at the estate sales here, but I haven't been to an estate sales since March, thanks to COVID.  But, there are other options.  Yesterday, the local consignment auction had a sale ending, and I remembered to look through the online catalog.  And, bingo, Breyers.  Listed as Breyers, of course, so there were multiple bidders.  I didn't bid on many of them, just 3 lots with Breyers and one lot of random animals that was mostly bone china horses, but a wood horse and a Hagen-Renaker Lying Foal in the mix.  

Big score, and the one I spent the most on, is a glossy alabaster Semi-Rearing Mustang, with red eyes.  He's gorgeous.  There are some rubs on his mane and nose, but the black marks came off, and he's great. 

Next is the alabaster Running Stallion, who is older than I am.  Lots of times you'll see something online that looks like an alabaster Running Stallion, but it's just a Unicorn that's lost the horn and beard somewhere.  This one, I'm pretty sure, is the real deal. 

Third is a glossy alabaster Pround Arabian Foal, who was peeking out of a box surrounded by a doll and some kind of stuffed animal, and a lot of odds and ends.  

Then, on a whim, I bid on the group of small animals, because the bay foal looked familiar.  Turns out he's a Hagen Renaker.  Of course, he's also the only one that was broken, but the piece was with him and it should be an easy fix. 

Took a nice drive out this morning to pick them up, and spent a little time cleaning them when I got home.  Managed, with work, to get most of the black marks off the Mustang, so they're all gorgeous now. 

Good grief, Breyer

 Again with "when it rains, it pours" Breyer style.  On Tuesday, the last horse for the Vintage Club this year was available.  So, $140 out the door for Zahra and a SM ride-along. I'm hoping for the glossy bay.  I'd want the palomino, but those dapples look way too obvious.

 

 

And then, in good Breyer fashion, yesterday they put the Halloween horses up.   

I've already got Apparition, but had to get the glow-in-the-dark Classic Ratsputin, and the blind bag SMs, and the free Halloween plushie.  And then today, went back for 2 more SMs so I can have a chance at the whole set.  But with today's order, the Club discount worked, so $4.99 off.  

So, I must avoid eBay for a while.  And any other temptation to buy more horses.  

The planned purchases for the rest of the year: 

• Holiday Horse - when TSC puts out stock and sends my birthday discount
• SMC Valerio x2 (the Alby gambler's choice)
• SMC #6 x2 - the new stock mare mold
• SMC bonus horse - the dapple grey mini Clydesdale Stallion
  
• Anniversary SMs - if TSC has some out so I can feel them
• maybe Barrington, the bonus VC horse
• maybe whatever surprise horse they come up with for Christmas

And I think that's it.   I hope that's it.  Quicken told me what I'd spent on Breyers for the year so far, a few weeks ago, and it was a scary and depressing and surprising number.

Incoming Stablemates

 The next horse in the Stablemate Club is on the way - a glossy bay G1 Arabian Stallion called Sultan.  I'm doing a slight experiment with mine - ordered one alone, one with a ride-along - to see if my idea that ride-alongs slow things down in the shipping warehouse might be right.  

And Tractor Supply had the paint-your-own suncatcher SMs on sale, so I ordered 5 for in-store pickup.  Ended up with 3 Magnolias, a Warmblood, and a Walking TB.