Halloween and TSC

 So, my acquisition of a TSC Jolene is getting complicated.  Some people say they aren't putting the horses out until the 19th of September, but other people have bought a Jolene already.  Local TSC claimed they were available for pickup, but my order was cancelled.  Then they were available for same-day delivery but not standard shipping.  And now if I want one, the closest one is 30 miles away.  My sister is driving in from Colorado next week, so I'm going to have her check a store along her route, and then I will just have to drive down to Jefferson City to get mine.  Assuming they still have one, that is. 

And then today was the day that Breyer's Halloween horses went on sale.  Of course I was at work at noon, and the only person at work.  Sigh.  Managed to get my orders in, although I didn't get my lunch finished.  Four of the blind-bag SMs, plus Maelstrom, Tabitha, and the plush, Skully.  Because I am a sucker for glow in the dark things.  Hopefully I will get all three of the SMs and won't have to swap a lot.

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. 

 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? 

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. 

Oops - post gap

 My plans to post more often seem to have gotten lost.  At least for a while. 

Back on track:  I ordered the third Vintage Club horse today, along with four blind bags from the newest series.  I still haven't found the chase horses from the Anniversary bags or the newest Rainbow unicorn bags.  I waited a few days to order this one, waiting to see if the next SM Club horse was released, but this  morning I decided I shouldn't wait any longer.  Missing the deadline means I lose my deposit and the rest of the horses this year. 

This will be my first Presentation style horse.  I hope mine looks as good as the one in the picture, he's gorgeous.

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)

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.

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.
 

The latest round of newbies

 My two Breyer orders were delivered last week.  

 

The bonus horse from the Vintage Club, Barrington, is really nice.  My first on the mold.  

Honeybunch, a "pony for Christmas" - comes with a nice gift box and a cute blanket.  Also my first on the mold, and I was waiting for something other than a solid dark color. 

Christoff, sort of a little brother for St. Moritz.  Lovely, if a tiny bit tippy. 

And five Anniversary SMs, to get one order up to the free-shipping limit.  No chase, of course, and the Smart Chic won't stand on his own.  But, another charcoal Fighter, an IMC, and a pair of Emmas.

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.  

 

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.

When it rains, it pours

Or, the flood of new horses. 

First, Breyer announces the mid-year releases, which include Apparition (a blue-purple glow-in-the-dark Halloween horse) and the 70th Anniversary shrinky-dink SMs.  I pre-ordered and paid for an Apparition at Becky's, and then went "damn the torpedos" and added a whole case of the SMs.  With any luck, I'll get one of the chase pieces, but even if I don't, I'll have neat minis of the Fighting Stallion, Fox Trotter, and all the others.  The mini charcoal Fighting Stallion will be awesome, if it looks anything like the large one.  Same for the pinto Indian Pony, the woodgrain Clydesdale, and most of the others.  They're doing two chase pieces this time - 1 in every 4th case, and a super-chase in every 12th, I think.  I'm betting one is an Alborozo, because they put mini Alby everywhere, and I think the other one might be the FAS or Western Horse, since those are the reliable old standards.  I just hope if it's a FAS, they don't go lemon-yellow on him.  But a mini Western Horse would be amazing.

Then they sent the email about the Vintage Club horse being ready to order.  This one is the Wedgewood pinto Belgian, Josiah.  I held out for a few days on ordering, since this week last year is when I paid for one of the SM Club horses last year.  And my patience was rewarded, because the email for Chroma, the clearware SMC horse, came a few days later.  So, combined shipping on one account. 



And now I must avoid eBay, because Breyerfest is next week, and while my Single Day SMs and ticket are paid for, the SRs and store specials aren't.  And I have a list.  Which will probably get cut down a lot after I see the prices on the store specials, but it won't go down to $0, I'm sure.



 

Irises

Which I keep wanting to type as "Irish" - so I'll just have to name my bay Iris something with Irish in it.

I was going to try to swap my silver bay for the deco Iris, but after I looked at her for a few minutes, I sort of fell in love with her.  So. After some lurking and searching on eBay, MHSP, and a few Facebook groups, I managed to score this one at a tolerable-to-me price ($60 PPD).

And I LOVE this color. 

The SM Club Priscilla is also here, and other than being tippy as heck, is gorgeous.

 

It's been a lucky year for me with Stablemates.  Besides getting my two most-wanted Irises, I finally found the blue Alborozo unicorn at Tractor Supply (and then found two more), after months of searching every Cracker Barrel and farm store around, and ordering 9 blind bags from Breyer (last count - 7 Clydesdales, 2 Magnolias).  Tractor Supply also had 4 Spirit bags, and I found the chase Mustang in one of those.

 

Then, Breyer had a "buy one, get one free" sale on blind bags for Friendship Day, so I ordered a dozen of the series with the silver Alby.  I got one or two duplicates, guessed 11 out of 12 correctly when feeling the bags, and actually got a silver Alby!!  Found three of the rainbow Magnolia unicorns, and swapped one for a Sarge, and after buying 8 chestnut ASB mares, found a pair with the flaxen manes. Walmart also had two more pink Icelandics, and I grabbed a random Mini Whinnie which turned out to be the green dappled chase piece.

 

(I thought Sarge was blue.  Turns out he's green!)

 

And, icing on the cake, Breyer did another round of Stablemate Club grab bags.  I have no willpower, so I ordered a pair.  After seeing someone else get Coco and Wolfgang, the pair I got with the last grab bag, I figured I'd get a third set of those.  Nope, my luck was good, and I got Kohana and Fylkir!  And, it was the roan Appy Fylkir, the one I wanted most - he matches my roan Appy Scotty. 

Then there were the Spooky Surprises. Ordered four, managed to get all 3, and sold my duplicate mini Ichabod to someone who needed one.

However.  I'm now overrun with extra Stablemates, and need to do something with them all.  The Alby conga is almost complete - I don't have the Fairytale Club Alby, but I think I've got all the others.

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. 

My lucky day at Goodwill

After a decade or more of regular visits to the local Goodwill, and finding nothing but knock-off My Little Ponies at best (and one Marx horse, but that wasn't the local GW), I finally found Breyers yesterday!

Two, to be precise, and only one was a horse. 

But first, go chronologically. 

I started off at Orschelns Farm & Home, because it occurred to me that even though they usually only have Breyers during the winter holidays, they might be stocking the blind bag unicorns all year, like they do the Schleich and now CollectA animals (they seem to have dropped Schleich, sadly).   I was right, surprise surprise. A whole bin of the unicorns, and oddly enough, all sorted out - first 7 drafters, then a few Magnolias, then a dozen or so that were either Mag or the Arabian (I didn't get specific on those), and then 4 mini Alborozos.  I bought all 4 Albys, since I've already got 7 pink and green drafters. 

In the next bin were Spirit SM bags, so I felt those, hoping for the chase horse.  No luck, but I bought 2 - the brown reiner, and what I thought was the bay Appy Warmblood, since those would both camoflage the eyebrow issue.  And on the way out, I found a nice chestnut CollectA foal. 

Turned out that none of the Albys were blue, darn it, and I was way off on that Warmblood, because it was really a cremello Lusitano with obvious eyebrows. 

 

 

Then I went to Goodwill.  Found the clear glassware I needed, and then on the next aisle (not in the toy section even), I saw a dog's head sticking out.  Thought it might be worth buying for a Blab PIF, even if it was cheap plastic.  Got a little closer and realized it was a Breyer Boxer - which is a mold I don't have yet.   A little closer, and saw the original vinyl collar, and a bay Family Arabian Mare laying on the shelf behind him.

 Knock me over with a feather.  The Boxer was $3, with a few rubs here and there, and odd bumpy texture on both shoulders.  The FAM was only $2, in played-with condition, but I couldn't leave the old gal behind.  She'll probably clean up decent, especially at t hat price.  I think she's a vintage matte Sheba, but haven't looked really closely at her yet. 

Darley, Fruitcakes, and Unicorns

My last SM Club horse was delivered early, along with the ride-along Unicorn. 

 Darley's not bad, he just looks awkward with that front leg.  I think he'll look much better without a white face - it hides whatever detailing is there.  Mirado and Coco also had that problem. 

The Mystery Unicorn is #10 that I've ordered from Breyer, since I haven't made it to a local source.  With this one, I'm up to 7 Uni-clydes and 3 Magnolias, but at least I've got both colors on each mold.  Seven identical uni-clydes would have been too much. 

Poor Magnolia, though, got dropped less than 5 minutes after I opened her.  The horn didn't break, just half an ear.  Unfortunately, the horn would have been easier to find - I still can't find the ear.  Things bounce and slide on hardwood, and if it's under the dishwasher or fridge, it's essentially gone for good. At least it's the right ear, so I could still photo-show her if I wanted to.