Great timing

 Breyer dropped the latest in the Classic-scale Gambler's Choice horses today:  Johann, the Lippzan Stallion in four glossy colors.  Luckily, today was my day off, so I could sit on the Collector's Club page for ten minutes, refreshing every minute or so, waiting for Johann to be available to order. 

 

 

Adding a copy of Breyer's promo shot was more difficult that I thought, thanks to the newish notion that everything should save as a webp file instead of JPG, and Blogger's non-support for webp format photos. But I persevered!!  I like all the colors, although of course I'm a long-time sucker for a nice palomino.

 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? 

The other Atticus, and a Gold Charm

 For once, I managed to find a swap for a gamblers' choice horse fairly quickly.  So now, I have a pair of Attici.  Glossy Atticus is named Percy (or Perseverance), and the matte Atticus is Jezero.  Both named for the Perseverance Mars rover - the matte is named for the landing crater, which is dusty and therefore not glossy.  The other is Percy because Perseverance is the shiny new rover. 

And the gold charm SM that's the bonus Vintage Club model arrived the same day.  Both got delayed a day for whatever reason.  But now I've got to figure out how to get this gold Native Dancer out of the package without destroying it.  

 

 

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." 

Breyer, Breyer, Breyer

 Are you trying to drive us all mad?  First, I ended up with two Valerio unicorns, and apparently they're the least popular of the four.  I've been trying for a week to swap one for the Appy, but no luck so far.  One trade fell through over a tiny flaw, the other one because I didn't see the post soon enough.  I'm still looking, and may have to just settle for a rose grey or the palomino pinto, since the Appy seems to be the hottest of the four. 

And, Breyer, what's with this one new release popping up every day routine?  After Bennington and Honeybunch last week, the next day came Christoff.  Being a mini St Moritz, and Frozen-themed (kind-of), and blue, yeah, I bought one.  

And then yesterday or today, they add a new Classic unicorn, Nova.  On my favorite of the newer Classic molds, the Frolic stallion, but good grief. 

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.  

 

Zahra is here

 UPS delivered a day earlier than their first estimate - although really, leaving the box 10 feet from the porch, in full view of the street, is not optimal.  

But, Zahra is better than I expected.  I got the matte palomino - the other two possibilities in the gamblers' choice were glossy bay and glossy grey pinto.  I'm a sucker for a palomino, but the dapples in the promo pic were way too obvious.  Luckily, Breyer again has horses that look better than the promo pics.  The dapples are more subtle, and importantly, not perfect circles.  

The body is smooth, but the lower legs have some roughness that I'm curious about. And the chestnuts are really tall.  

She looks pretty good. 

Naytuksi

Latest of the web specials, Nayati.  Once again, my luck held, and I got the two I wanted - the dunalino and Appaloosa, both glossy.  They're gorgeous.  I'm loving the dunalino especially.  These need Star Wars names, since they arrived on the 5th, which is close enough to May the 4th. 

 

The dunalino has some wide masking on  his mane, but it seems to be not too obvious. 

Appy is gorgeous too, but has a few flaws.  Mostly that they skimped when glossing his hind legs, but there's also a tiny rub on one knee (in the red, so it's obvious), a strange flaw on his nose, and then I think the gloss in his nostrils bubbled a little because they look pale and milky inside. 

But overally, they look great.  

2019 Model Wrap-up

I did a little work with the model spreadsheet last night, after people on Facebook were sharing their favorite 5 models of the year. 

Based on my numbers, I bought or otherwise acquired 208 models last year.  That includes

• 12 Traditionals
• 15 Classics
• 3 Mini Whinnies
• 2 Porcelain Breyers (the white Circus Ponies)
• 2 Marx
• 1 Gladys Brown Edwards trophy
• 3 Hartlands
• 1 awesome Hartland clock with horse
• 3 CollectAs
• 5 Lakeshores
• and a whopping 153 Stablemates

The Stablemate flood is all because of the darned blind bags and trying to find the silver and blue Albys.  Which I finally found.  But there are 7 of the pink and green Clydes, 6 chestnut ASBs (I was trying to find a flaxen-mane variation) and a dozen each of the teal Alby and purple Magnolia.  One of the goals for 2020 has got to be thinning out the duplicate SMs, because sheesh.  

Some of the highlights:

The Christmas Candy Cane

Purple unicorn, and unicorn foals

A Lakeshore Status Symbol SR

Corbin, from the Stablemate Club (can't wait to see him in a color with some face color)

Another Lakeshore SR, 1 of 4, that I got in a barter deal (i.e. practically free)

I finally got two of the Tartan Ponies from 10+ years ago, thanks to a lovely Blab member.

This year's Halloween Horse, the lovely glow-in-the-dark Samhain

The Spooky Stablemates - I got all three!

My luckiest day - I took a chance on the Stablemate Club grab bags, and got a Fylkir!  And even the color I wanted most.

Bought a lovely deco Iris, to go with the silver-bay Iris I got.

Hagen-Renaker Drunk birds SR

Found a second curio cabinet, and have it pretty full.

Candy Cane and Clubs

The first horse of 2020 (*) is Candy Cane.  Who technically isn't a horse, but an equid. 

My blue horse herd continues, because I got the blue Candy Cane today.  Was kind of hoping for the 1-of-12 random Licorice, but then I'd feel guilty and think about selling it because that's a lot of money.

I was a little surprised to find the box in the mailbox, not on the doormat.  This is the first Zebra I've seen in person, and it's smaller than I realized. 

(*) Technically, Candy Cane was paid for on Christmas Day, but it's the first horse in the door for 2020.  And usually I date my spreadsheet by the day the critter is actually in my hands. 

In other news, I was sucked back into the Vintage Club for 2020, mostly because of the In-Between Mare.  And then Breyer announced the horses for the Stablemate Club, and the darn Mini Alborozo is the Gambler's Choice model for this year.  So after much waffling and calculating numbers, I signed up for a second membership, because I figure (as do other people) that the secondary-market prices for Alby are going to be high enough that the second membership will be cheaper than buying one on eBay or whereever. 

Figuring that the club, plus the Collector's Club membership, will run about $180, and guessing that I can sell 4 of the duplicate models for about $20 each (a loss of $5-10 each), that makes the Alby portion around $100. 

Gah.  I'm actually talking about $100 SMs without cringing.