Lancelot, Teton, and Gwenevere

Well, no email from Breyer, so I guess I didn't get picked for the Teton list. That's okay. The "Check Engine Soon" light in my car came on today. It's a 20-year-old car, so I expect this will be a not-cheap trip to the mechanic.


 The Lancelots arrived - I ordered one with a pair of blind-bag SMs, and found two helpful Blabbers to order for me. Ended up with 2 blue, one Appy (my order), a palomino mini-Magnolia, and the funky gold-peach Andalusian. Already worked a swap to get a palomino, which should be here on Friday.

 These blues are gorgeous, and I don't just say that because I have a thing for blue horses.  There are gold/green undertones on the flanks, the masking is really good overall, and the color is NICE.  The star is shaped like a conch shell - they were going with an ocean theme, I guess.

 Appy Lancelot is also darn nice.  The spots are all masked, I'm pretty sure - they're all very uniformly placed in the pictures I've seen. 

 After Gwenevere and another blind-bag SM turned up in a bubble mailer (Seriously, Breyer??!!) I sent them an email about the unacceptability of mailing SMs like that.  Especially $20 SR Stablemates.  They offered, I thought, to replace the mini box, since mine got kind of smushed.  Turns out that they sent a whole other Gwenevere, in the usual super-sturdy brown mailer.  So now I have two Gwens.  New Gwen, I think, is one of the ones with the straighter head/neck, but it's hard to tell from some angles.  She does seem to be less stable than Old Gwen. 

A rant about Breyer

Breyer's web store is starting to frustrate me.  Specifically, their process for handling refunds on sold-out items.  In short, they don't seem to have a process. 

Twice now, I've tried to order one of their Warehouse Finds, the Clydesdale Mare.  Both times, it was listed as available and in stock.  Both times, my order has arrived without the Mare.  And both times, I've had to email, repeatedly, in order to find out what's going on, and get a refund.  Actually, I still haven't gotten the second refund, because I've only sent one email asking what's going on, and haven't gotten a reply yet - after a week. I would send a second email, but YahooMail is being a pill right now. 

Either their website store isn't linked in to the inventory, it's badly linked, or they're just messed up right now.  If something's sold out, I shouldn't have to ask for the refund.  I especially shouldn't have to ask multiple times.

Rats! again

Just missed out on a BF Galahad because I got busy offline yesterday. :( The delay I had downloading the pics didn't help any - the perils of dial-up internet and Really Big picture files. Took me about 8 hours to realize that my email wasn't downloading, and then remember the pics that were coming, that were clogging up the download. Sigh.

Ah well, he'll come around again.

Lousy timing

I've managed to miss auctions for two QVC Black Beautys on Ebay this weekend. And of course, both of them went for a price that I would have bid up, if I'd been online.

The first one, I missed because I didn't get online at all Sunday, and forgot about the auction. The one today, I was watching, and then my little boy woke up at just the wrong time. He's sick today, and I got busy giving him some medicine, so I forgot all about the auction ending.

I think it's time to look into a bidding service.

Rats!

I just realized that I missed the deadline to mail in my form for Breyer's free gift offer. The irritating part is that I had it 90% ready to go, just had to fill out the form and stick it all in an envelope.

GAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!!!!

At least I mailed my Color Crazy form in time.

Another shopping rant

I'm not sure what it is about this area, but shopping for Breyers seems to be pretty abysmal, if you want to buy in person and skip the online/mail order route now and then. I've been looking for some Breyers locally; actually, I'm desperate enough to buy almost anything if I saw it. :)

The local Orschelns apparently hasn't stocked up on toys for the holidays yet. They had almost zilch, just a few plushies and some of the paint-your-own Mini Whinnies sets. At least they stock some Schleich horses.

Target - also zilch. They have none of the SM sets (adult/foal) at the moment, and no empty peg for them either. A few SMs and random Classics, but not always, and a lot of the paint-your-own MW sets. They did have one of the new Classic sets last time, but I don't guess they'll every carry the Classic mare & foal sets that I'm wanting. They had a few of the SM accessory sets a few months ago, but nothing since then.

Not-so-local Orschelns #1 - had 2 of the truck/trailer/Stud Spider sets, and a couple of Trad foals, marked down to $9.99.

Not-so-local Orschelns #2 - better choices, and I hope they get some new stuff for the holidays. Last weekend, they had some Blue Suede Shoes and Mid-States Warriors, plus one Salpicado. Most of those were $25, I think. They also had a row of the truck sets.

Really-not-local Farm & Home, where I always stop on the way to the Renaissance Festival: Had quite a bit in stock, but the newest thing they had was Chevayo and and the ECLR Benefit horse (one each). They still have a couple of Nosferatus, and some other older stuff. I bought their Tonto's Scout, in spite of the split box, and the ECLR palomino. The other irritating thing was that most of their stock wasn't priced - nothing on the shelf, very few stickers on the boxes. Whether that's laziness or a misinterpretation of the MAAP mess, I don't know. They did have a dozen or so Classics, but all singles.

In short, I'd love to buy the Color Crazy sets, the Classic mare & foal sets, and a dozen others, but I'd also really love to be able to buy them in person. My usual online dealer is apparently low on stock, and while I'm looking for other options, I'm also tired of delayed gratification. Usually I don't mind it - heck, I'm waiting another month for my back-ordered JCPenney Joe/Bouncer set - but sometimes, I just want something now. To be able to walk into a store, look at a big display of Breyers, and pick the one that says "Buy me." To line three copies of a model up on the shelf and see which I like best (I did this with the Trad Hidalgo). To pay for the horse, take it home, and open it right away. To not have to wait for the UPS guy or the mail carrier to ring the doorbell.

You wouldn't think that's too much to ask, but apparently it is around here. Who would think that a town/city of 100,000 people, two colleges with animal/equestrian programs, and at least one horse-event expo center would have almost nothing in the way of Breyers? (We don't even have a tack store that I know of, and the last independent toy store closed two years ago. It's TRU or nothing now.)