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 big estate sale find

 This might be my biggest find ever at a sale, even bigger than my chalky Donkey. 

To set the stage - there was a massive estate sale in town this past month.  Seriously massive - the house was so full that they had to hold four separate sales, over about six weeks.  One sale was 3 days and just the books from the house.  They weren't hoarders, but they were massive accumulators of stuff.  The husband and wife were both artists and art teachers, and they liked everything.

I did go to the books-only sale, and found a few horse books.  The first version of Justin Morgan Had a Horse, a Jeanne Mellin book, C.W. Anderson's A Touch of Greatness, and the World Book of Dogs, plus two Rick Brant mysteries and an old issue of Asimov's magazine.  None in the greatest shape, but I thought they were worth the $6 each that this company wants for vintage books.

That was the appetizer.  This past week they had the final sale (I missed the first two), and there were a couple of Breyers in the preview pictures, plus a pair of ceramic Art Deco animals. The Breyers were an alabaster Semi-rearing Mustang, and the original USET trio. Luckily, the sale started on Wednesday, and I didn't have to work on Wednesday (although it was the last day of school for the year, so I had to do the school pick-up at 12:30 instead of 3:30).  I went over to the sale location early, to pick up a line number, and then went back and got there about half an hour after the sale opened, with the teenager in tow.  

 

First order of business was to find the Art Deco animals.  They were much larger than I expected, but that made the $40/each price easier to justify.  I carried one in each hand, and went looking for the Breyers.  The house was like a maze, most of the rooms connected so you could go in a big circle.  Found the Breyers, but the Mustang was missing his tail and part of both ears (priced at $8).  USET horses were in similar shape for $4 each, but I did find a ceramic Made in Japan horse for $4.  We looked around inside and found a few other things, then paid for the finds and went outside to look at the rest of the sale.  They had two tents/canopies, plus a garage and an overhang/porch area and other nooks and crannies.  

And there, in the last outdoor nook, I spotted a clear acrylic Don Manning "Artistic Doe"!!  For only $3!!!  Grabbed her PDQ and looked around hoping for the Buck as well, but no luck.  Oh well.  I've been looking for those for a long time, and wasn't really clear about whether I was looking for something Trad sized, SM sized, or what.  Now I know.  

A hunting scene, done in metallic something-or-other.

The large pink ram? Bighorn sheep?  

Small Made in Japan or China horse, about Classic scale.  One broken and repaired hind leg.

The scale of these three.  Blue deer is about 2 feet tall, pink sheep-critter is about 18 inches.

The Doe!!  She is stamped Don Manning on one hind leg.

Massive deer-critter, with photobombing by Modernistic Doe.

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. 

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.
 

Mixed lot

 Since I've been avoiding estate-sale crowds, I've been spending a good bit of time going through the online listings for the local consignment auction place.  That's where I got the alabaster trio a few weeks back, and a mixed lot of ceramic horses and other animals in the summer.  Today I drove out to pick up the latest batch.  For $4.40, I got an assortment of tiny dishes, and 4 horses.  One is wood, with a Sweden sticker, one is metal, one ceramic, and the fourth one is made of a mystery substance that I can't identify.  Might be celluloid, might be plastic, it's hard to tell.  

Also today, thanks to eBay's daily search emails, I scored a Sam Savitt racing hall of fame puzzle for less than $40 shipped.  Granted, the seller makes no claim about whether it's complete or not, but the next cheapest one is $50 for a claimed-incomplete puzzle, and complete ones are listed now for over $100.  The box of the one I bought looks almost new, so hopefully the last owner was as careful with the pieces as they were with the box.