Kiana

 In the midst of all the Breyerfest shipping, Breyer decided to go ahead and ship Kiana, the SM for the Deluxe Collector Club this year.  She's a new mold, sort of - a miniaturized Hagen-Renaker Zara, which the Proud Arabian Mare is based on.  The SM's neck is slightly more turned.  The detail is amazing, Breyer didn't get crazy with the dapples, and the bi-colored eye even looks good.  In short, she's absolutely gorgeous, and I can't wait for Breyer to release her in every solid color possible.  Hopefully the model detail holds out.  

I do wish Breyer would give up on these tiny, thin mailing boxes for the SMs though.  Most of the Kiana boxes have looked like mine, or worse.  

 

 

 

 

Thrift store score of the year

 I walked into one of my favorite thrift stores over Breyerfest weekend, and walked out with what I later discovered is probably my thrift store find of the year. 

 

 

I picked it up because I'm on a bit of a collie kick, but mostly because it's a lovely ceramic dog, in mint condition other than crazing, and it was only $1.  Came home and posted a pic on the Clinky Connection, asking about an ID.  Turns out, this is a vintage Hagen-Renaker Marmion, from the San Dimas factory.  And worth in the vicinity of $200.  

"Shocked" was an understatement.  He (she?) is absolutely beautiful.  Some crazing, no big deal.  Eartips are even intact.   

The Annual Hagen-Renaker find

 This week was my annual Hagen-Renaker find.  About once a year, I come across a HR or two at an estate sale or auction or something.  Usually minis, although I keep hoping for a nice Design Workshop Swaps or Kelso, or the large Zara or something. This year, it was an auction lot at the consignment auction, for a mirrored tray and about 20 ceramic animals.  Mostly cats and dogs, but hidden in the back, a pair of Hagen-Renaker mini drafts in harness.  I drove down to the auction site to pick them up on Wednesday.  It was a nice drive, but some roads that I would not want to drive in bad weather.   The rest of the animals are nice, mostly made-in-China or made-in-Japan, most likely, but the horses are in fact Hagen-Renakers, and are mint.  No broken legs or anything. 

So cute!  I'll have to put a Breyer G1 Drafter next to them in the curio cabinet.

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.

New not-horses

 Won an auction last night for a group of Hagen-Renakers.  No horses, but there are a Mama and Papa Penguin, three Eskimos (Inuit, now, I think), and a trio of Polar Bears.

They're in pretty good shape overall.  Some crazing, Mama Penguin has a chip out of her beak, and one of the Cubs has a tiny chip on his nose.  

$44 for the whole lot, so $4.50 average each. 

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. 

Flea-marketing

I have some child-free time, so I hit a flea market I hadn't been to before. I didn't buy any horse-shaped objects, but I did find a Sam Savitt book, the Big Book of Favorite Horse Stories. Savitt didn't edit it, but he did do the illustrations, foreword, and a bit of info on all the writers. It has some stories I haven't' seen before, which is always fun.

Horse-wise, I finally saw my first Hagen-Renaker in a flea market. It was the small "Running Mare"and was grossly overpriced IMO at $22, when I think it's still a current release. I also saw one Schleich, a current horse, for $12.95. I bought mine for $6.49 at Target last month.

Breyers were similarly overpriced. $56 each for a very-yellowed Alabaster Fighting Stallion and bog-common Clydesdale Stallion (although the Clyde looked in good shape, and all the bobs were still there). $10 for the Simmental bull missing both ears and both horns. $24 for Jasper the Market Hog, $10 each for old G1 Stablemates in crap shape. The only realistically-priced Breyer was a Little Bits ASB for $4.95, probably because his mold mark says B.M.C. and they didn't realize it was an ultra-rare (LOL) Breyer.

Every now and then, I find something worth buying at a fleamarket, but lately I've had better luck online. The dealers seem to think that all Breyers are 50+ years old and scarcer than hens' teeth.

Best thrift-store deal I ever found was a black pinto Western Horse with the snap-on saddle. I paid $12 for him in pretty good condition, although he later lost an eartip in a fall. Mom had better luck for me when I was in school - a glossy grey appy Running Foal for a quarter and a palomino Standing Stock Foal for a couple bucks.

My neat find of the month

I browse occasionally at a couple of online auction/sales sites, including Ebay and MHSP. Last month, I had some luck. I found an auction listing for "3 brown Breyers" with this slightly fuzzy picture:



I've been a fan of the Breyer/Hagen-Renaker Kelso for a long time, so the picture caught my eye. And after a closer look, I thought the model just might be the Sears special run from the early 1990s, which was sold with Sam Savitt's How to Draw Horses book. I didn't have one - it was a run of 900, according to Nancy Young's Breyer book, and I kept getting outbid online.

The seller was selling a bunch of odds and ends, not a collector, so it was kind of a crap shoot, but I took a chance on bidding without any other pictures.

So I kept an eye on the auction, put in an early bid to remind myself about the auction, and managed to park myself in front of the PC as the auction closed to put in a higher bid. My luck was good, and I was the high bidder. A few days later, UPS delivered a box of 3 well-wrapped horses. Two were in kind of scruffy shape, but the Kelso was the Sears Savitt SR, and he's in darned good shape, all things considered.



Ear rubs, of course, a small flaw on his face (which I didn't notice until DH pointed it out, somehow), and a small faint rub or two. Otherwise, for a 20-year-old donation, not bad.


Of the other two, the Proud Arabian Stallion was also a Sears SR, and the Family Arabian Stallion was a short-release from the 80s or 90s. Both are pretty rubbed up, more than you could tell from the pictures, but they'll be good toys for my little boy if he wants them.

Kelso, on the other hand, is mine. I can mark something off the grail list, finally. And maybe, someday, I'll be able to afford a Hagen-Renaker Kelso to sit on the shelf beside him. For right now, though, he's sitting on the printer by the PC.

Casualties

Strange things lately. Maybe it's the Halloween season.

I'm missing a Palouse. Can't find her anywhere, I know I haven't sold her. Unless she's still boxed up from the last live show I went to (in March!). I'd swear she was just on the shelf, though. The only other idea is that Toddler Boy toddled off with her, but this place is small enough that she'd be hard to hide.

One of my small Hagen-Renakers (a common, recent one, luckily) turned up broken somehow. It's been packed in cotton and boxed up. I opened the box last night, and one foreleg is floating around loose. Joy.

And I managed to scuff one of the other Palouses last night. I was photographing the Palouse conga before I packed them away for safe-keeping (some of them are notoriously unstable), and put a nice rub on Iskitpe's mane. I saw what I thought was a bit of lint, tried to rub it off, and accidentally peeled off some paint. Never had that happen before. I hope it'll be fairly simple to touch up later on; it's in a variegated part of the mane anyway.

Yeah, yesterday wasn't a good horse-day.

Dreams

I dreamed about Breyers & other models recently.

The first dream, I was in some sort of store that sold odds and ends of surplus stuff, and they had a table full of the next BF horse, Alborozo, and another mold or two. The weird part is that there were so many of them, in some wonky chestnut sort of color - not the grey BF color - and they were all $15 or some oddly low price.

Then, in either another dream or a different part of this one, I was in a book/toy store, and found a corner kind of behind the other shelves, full of old books. And on the top shelves were some old Breyers for sale, mostly smoke and charcoal, I think.

I wish I could remember if I managed to buy some of those or not.

Then, last week, I dreamed that I found some lovely ceramic horses, including a Hagen-Renaker Kelso, dirt-cheap at a yard sale of some kind. Seriously cheap - $30 for a Kelso, who I drool over any chance I get. Okay, he had a broken leg, but the piece was there and it was a clean break. I don't remember what the others were, but they were affordable and gorgeous.

The only time I have this kind of luck is when I'm dreaming. I've yet to find anything droolable at a fleamarket or yard sale. The closest I've gotten is an old black pinto Western Horse with a snap saddle for $12 at a thrift store.

Pictures

As promised, pics of the Hagen-Renaker Mini Morgans.

The mare, who is beautiful. The first picture is more her true color, although I'd love it if she'd been closer to the color of the second picture.




And the stallion. He's very sooty, for lack of a better word, especially on the "show" side. Not what I would have picked if I'd had a choice, but that's the way it goes. And I wouldn't order something online and expect the seller to go through all 50 horses to find one in a certain shade, either. You pay the bill, you get the horse that was on top of the stack or whatever. He's still gorgeous, and I wish I had a safe place to display him. Unfortunately, until we move, he and the mare will be living in their shipping boxes. Sigh.

New horses!

The mailman knocked on my door today, and left three boxes. Okay, one's for DH (my Valentine present), but the other two are horse-related.

The small box has my Hagen-Renaker mini Morgan stallion and mare, in a sooty-looking palomino. This is the second set that Ed sent; the first set went into the PO's Bermuda Triangle and still hasn't reappeared. But they're beautiful!

The big box is the 3 ISHs that I ordered from P.S. Cord - Pretty Consecutive, Andrea's Answer, and Definitely a Dunnit. Still have to pry them all out of the boxes, so pictures may appear soon.

Horses on the way

I've got a few horses on the way again. Ed Alcorn is re-shipping my palomino HR Morgan pair, since the first ones are lost somewhere in the postal system. Hopefully they'll surface at some point. And I got the shipping notification for my P.S. Cord order. They're having a sale, so I got three ISHs - Andrea's Answer, Pretty Consecutive, and Definitely a Dunnit. Hope they're nice ones.

The Stone company is getting a little outrageous, though. They aren't making any "regular run" type horses that I can see, just a lot of limited-run SRs with very high prices. From what I saw on their website this week, $90 seems to be the minimum for a Trad-scale model, and the smaller Pebbles and Chips aren't far behind. I can see why there aren't many CM'd Stone molds around anymore (other than factory CMs).

Christmas horses!

My in-laws have figured it out (and without any blatant hints!). Last year, I got a Trail of Painted Ponies figurine from my sister-in-law, and this year, along with the Breyer 3-D Paint by Number I asked for (the one with the new-mold pony), I got a carved wood horse and a ceramic mare and foal figurine. And my brother, smart boy that he is, gave me a Mid-States Warrior. Now, I've already got one Warrior, but what the hey. Returning it would be a pain, and my selling luck isn't so hot lately, so I'll probably keep him.

Then I bought a few for myself. I went a bit crazy and bought the Hagen-Renaker Morgan stallion and mare SR (in palomino) from Ed Alcorn, which proves that I'm insane. :) Nice expensive, highly breakable horsies in my home. Oy. But oh, they look pretty, and I've always been a sucker for the Hagen SM molds. Thanks to Toddler-boy, who's into everything, the Morgans will be living in a box until we move.

I also ordered a few things from American Livestock and Rural King when they had sales last week. American Livestock sold out of the Cefnoakpark Bouncer, but I got a second Cloud's Legacy set, and this one has both of the new foals. From Rural King, which is still in transit, I got two more 3-D sets, the customizing kit, a couple of plushies, the deer family, and maybe something else.

Need to work on the pictures, though. And on finding room for everyone.