Well, the panic we were all waiting for is here. Breyerfest started with a huge hiccup in that people weren't able to checkout with the store specials. I woke up and, before checking social media, went to the store first thing like apparently so many other people. I thought "Huh... that's funny. All the special runs are still available. I thought for sure some would be sold out by now." I attempted to add them to my cart to no avail. It kept asking me to log in, and when I did, it didn't recognize my account. Apparently those who had early special run times were also unable to add any special runs to their account which delayed special run times by 2 hours. The next hiccup, but this one was not surprising in the least, was how quickly store specials have been selling out. I gotta tell y'all that I was hesitant about this to begin with, but I didn't realize that you literally have only a matter of a couple minutes once items are restocked - which has been consistently about every 2 hours - to check out. There were a lot of times when I'd get the horse in my cart only to have it displayed as "sold out" halfway during checkout. Despite this setback, I was able to fulfill most of my pre-orders this first day, though it took a lot of time fighting with thousands of other people for the same horse. By the way, I'm not blaming Breyer on any of this. In fact, I still think they're doing a phenomenal job for taking up such a difficult task. The website is easy to use, by Friday afternoon everything seemed to be running smoothly as far as the special run lines and they've been doing their best at answering my questions whenever I messaged them to let them know about a glitch I was having. I can only imagine how their IT department must be feeling. All the power to them. I would like to show you all what many Collector Club members look forward to at Breyerfest each year, the who wore it best special run where Collector Club members can vote on who is their favorite. This year it's called "Picture This" and consists of four different molds in silver bay overo coloring. They'll be available for purchase next year so if you want one you can either join the Collector Club 2021 at the end of this year or take the one I'll have available upon its release, as I'll likely not add this one to my collection because of all the bare plastic. Really In my opinion, Adios and Zippo Pine Bar match the breed to the color quite well. Carrick and Latigo (though Latigo was made to be a stock horse) just not stocky enough to be a Paint horse. It was hard to decide but in the end I went with Adios. We had a couple specialty club reveals today in the form of stablemates. The first was the Stablemates Club new mold, a walking stock horse. I can't believe how detailed they're making these little guys. The amount of muscling and the mane/tail are just phenomenal. She's a little fat in the barrel for my liking though, so depending upon her coloring will decide if I keep her or not. She definitely looks like an older broodmare well past her prime who has had her share of healthy foals... The second reveal, although we saw the sneak peek yesterday of what the new little Fjord for the Premier Club will look like, we didn't see his color. Breyer posted this today, saying he could be one of the three following colors. Since the first looks like Altynai and the third is similar to the leopard appaloosa pattern we saw in the sneak peek at the end of last year, I'm assuming the middle guy is going to be the coloring for the PC horse we haven't seen yet. If it is, I'm super pumped! Yet another splash pinto, this time hopefully with mapping! Love me some splashes. Which color will they pick for the PC stablemate? I'm thinking the one that looks like Altynai since it's more similar in color to a true Fjord than the other two, however we all know that colors matching to breeds mean absolutely nothing to Breyer. What if it's a gambler's choice? Ooo! That'd be something!
As for my special runs, well I ended up somehow getting four surprise models with my two Friday tickets. I don't know how because I thought they didn't give duplicates for the same time slot but for some weird reason I've been having incredible luck with surprise horses lately. I either got a really good place in line both times or nobody is taking a gamble on the surprise horses since they don't know what they're going to be. I'm excited, as I love surprises and I really hope I get at least one glossy. Chances are I'll probably end up with duplicates which will be for sale on eBay once I know exactly which I get. I have two more time slots but not until Sunday so I'll be spending tomorrow trying to scoop up whatever store specials I can get. Bring on day 2! Breyer has announced that this year they are offering their raffle models free to ticket holders by logging in on the day of the raffle and submitting your information. You can enter once per account. I think this is amazing of Breyer to do this, as I avoided the raffle since I have such rotten luck at winning anything and felt like it'd just be throwing money away. I love both of the raffle models, especially Thistle, and would love to add one to my collection. I would never consider selling it. I know we've been waiting a while and Breyer has finally put up pricing for the store specials. Not surprisingly the drafters were more costly than the Connemara Pony, though I was a bit surprised how much the stablemates set was. All the others were pretty much as I had expected, about the same as last year. Also released were the rest of the auction models. They are all beautiful this year, but that Roxy has my jaw dropping to the floor. Apparently they switched the live auction models at the last minute from eBay to Live Auctioneers. I think this was the best move to avoid eBay fees and the policy in which Paypal holds money from new eBay sellers until the item is delivered. They are currently up now as I type this and taking bids. For me personally they're already past my price range at the first bid but good luck to those who try for these guys! At least now we can see which molds are likely not going to be the surprise. Or am I wrong? After all, at Breyerfest last year the rarest surprise model was auctioned off by himself. If one of the following is a surprise model, which could it be? Obviously Roxy is out since she was already a surprise model before. I think we could also eliminate any with mapping which only leaves the Cleveland Bay, Bluegrass Bandit and the Proud Arabian Stallion. Since they used the Cleveland Bay mold last year, I doubt they'd use him again, and that pattern looks too intricate to be a surprise model. The Proud Arabian Stallion would be the first vintage mold ever used, which seems to throw him out, but it is Breyer's 70th anniversary and they've been using a lot of throw-backs this year. I think the best bet would be Bluegrass Bandit. Hmm... interesting possibility. Another sneak peek released today is that of the Premier Club stablemate, and I have to say this guy is really nice! I wasn't expecting a Fjord, but it makes sense since that is one breed stablemates are lacking. I just hope he's a nice size for being a smaller guy, like the Cob mold, and not teeny tiny like the miniature Emma.
If this is the sneak peek, does that mean the breed of the traditional is similar? In some years, the SM was colored similar to the first release, in other years similar to the second. The same with the breed. In some instances, like with Falhofnir and Hermosa/Corazon, the SMs were the same exact breed as the traditional, and since Breyer noted "we wanted to show you a sneak peek of tomorrow's reveal" does that mean that it'll be similar to the breed of the traditional? So many questions! Can Breyerfest just be here already?! We took 2 weeks off for Breyerfest prior to COVID and decided to spend the weekend in Virginia Beach since we wouldn't be heading to Kentucky next weekend. We stopped by what's left of The Meadow where Secretariat was born on our way home. We couldn't actually go into the barns because tours were cancelled due to COVID but we could still drive up to view them. The land that The Meadow stables was on has apparently been turned into fairgrounds. Only few original buildings remain, including the foaling shed and the training barn. It made me sad to think that at one time this beautiful piece of land was once home to hundreds of racehorses frolicking through the grass. At least they were able to preserve it rather than turning it into a housing development like so many other properties. My plans for purchasing extra Breyerfest items than I had typically planned on getting was foiled when we hit a deer coming back through Pennsylvania. Thankfully nobody in the car was seriously injured all but some minor whiplash and hubby had marks on his arms from the air bags. The poor beast was a large 200+ pound buck that unfortunately didn't survive the ordeal and did quite extensive damage to our car. Our car is in the shop getting repaired and that means that my Breyerfest savings will be mostly depleted. I'll have enough to buy the pre-orders for people, special runs and the store specials I wanted but I'm not sure how much more than that. If you're wanting anything from the Breyerfest store and couldn't buy tickets, pre-sales are the way to go since I probably won't buy any extras to have available after Breyerfest thanks to the collision. I'm offering pre-sales up until Thursday of this week through MH$P.
Ugh! Why does this have to happen a week before Breyerfest? Well, Breyer showed us some examples of their one of a kind auction models for Breyerfest. I admit that Salinero has me wanting to go bankrupt to get him. In reality, I know I'll never be able to afford these guys, but they're still wonderful to look at. I only wish we could have seen these beauties in person. Alas with the way the world is right now, I still think Breyer made the best move for everyone involved by making the event virtual, however I do have one big issue with the auctions being on eBay. Some people were worried about how to find the auction information but I'm sure they will add a link to the website to take you there. What I'm worried more about is will they limit the audience to only ticket holders or will anyone and everyone be able to bid just like typical eBay auctions? If they can't limit the audience then I'd hate to see how high the models will get since you won't have to physically be at Breyerfest to bid - although I'm sure they will donate generously to their beneficiaries. Ugh! I truly envy anyone who has the funds available to bid on these guys. Enjoy the eye candy and good luck to those who are going to try their luck at getting one! As a side note, a couple things I think this concludes is that Bristol is most likely not going to be the surprise mold and, even more likely, the T-shirts were just that... T-shirts. Also, Salinero was another guess of mine, or possibly even Totilas, however with Salinero being an auction mold and the Totilas mold being released as a mid year for Adiah HP (which in a typical year would be available to purchase at Breyerfest) I don't think either of those will be used either. I'm still resorting back to one of my original idea of Goffert being the surprise horse. Sadly, I've tossed Emma out the door as being the surprise after she was used in the 70th anniversary stablemate collection - again as with Totilas this would have been something that would have been released at Breyerfest.
Mid years are finally here! They will be shipped out over the next few days. I was so excited, as this was my largest shipment yet, and it arrived sooner than expected. I didn't think it'd arrive until the end of the week. Everything else I ordered was included except one box of Stablemates (they ran out though I still had enough to fill all my pre-orders and then some) and they're all stunning models! This is a great year to be a regular run collector. All the regular runs so far have been amazing. I love, love, love little Emma! They really blew that mold out of the park. It looks exactly like the traditional, minus the addition of male bits (yes Emma is Emerson) but they have the details to a tee, even the beard on her chin. I think they did a great job of shrinking them all. I think Emma was the closest to her traditional counterpart, followed closely by the Fighting Stallion. The least, in my opinion, was Smart Chic Olena because his mane doesn't stick out from the sides like the traditional version. It makes me want to give up traditionals with all the little guys they're coming out with. It would certainly save me some shelf space. Maybe when traditionals get to be unaffordable... Anyways, I plan on having fun with a few of these. Those who have had numerous factory flaws are now on customizing row. I have plans for these guys and I can't wait to show them to you later! Also, I don't know how I happened to get so lucky (honestly guys I'm never lucky... I'm never one to pull a glossy model from a 50/50 split, or a rare variation like at last year's Breyerfest) yet somehow, of the three boxes I ordered from Breyer, I ended up with a chase model in every box. Wow. Maybe I should go play the lottery now? LOL. I would love to get the other chase model too eventually. Hopefully these guys are made longer than 6 months but it wouldn't surprise me if Breyer only makes them until the end of the year for their anniversary year. I ended up with a few flawed models that I plan on putting in the customizing bin. I have some ideas for them and I plan on having fun doing it! I hope they shrink more molds in future. How cute would Othello and Zippo Pine Bar be in miniature? Or more modern molds like Ashquar and Dundee? How about even an Old Timer complete with a mini hat? Oh, the possibilities...
Unfortunately I won't be putting in any more regular run orders until after Breyerfest so what I have now, once it sells out, won't be back in stock until at least August. I have to save up the money to purchase my Breyerfest models. Hard to believe it's only next weekend! If anyone is interested in Breyerfest pre-orders, I still have quite a few open spots on MH$P. So far only the crystals and Skye have been sold. Special runs won't be posted until after the event once I see who I end up with. |
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