In case anyone wasn't aware, Breyer made commemorative certificates that you can print out as a kind of COA for the special runs this year. If you would like to print them yourself, click on the links below for whichever horse you want to print the certificate for. I am also willing to print certificates for $3 each plus shipping if you don't have a printer. They'll be shipped in between two pieces of cardboard in a bubble mailer to prevent bending. Uffington Pech Merle Gran Cavallo Seurat Knossos Tassili Pollock Ansel Volunteers have also been getting the 2021 volunteer model named Thornycroft in hand, and he's one I definitely wish I could get my hands on! I'm really big on that rabicano roan color. My chances of actually obtaining one, however, are pretty much nil, as with most of the volunteer models since only 100-something are usually made, but here is a picture of him in case you missed him: So for everyone who has been asking: the good news regarding the mid years is that they are showing up at the flagship dealers. I'm assuming Breyer is probably getting those out of the way first to give them physical stock to sell in their stores before working on the orders for the online dealers. As with the Breyerfest horses, it's a process. Some get them early, others get them later, but all will eventually receive them within a matter of a few weeks. Where I'm at on the list is anybody's guess, but it should hopefully be soon since, as I mentioned last week, Breyer already charged me for some of my order. I do want to remind people that since Breyer has only a limited amount of stock that came in from overseas to ship out to all their dealers, this will NOT be my full order. Marc of Charm and Tiz the Law still has yet to come to me. At this time, I've decided no longer to give refunds since it's so close to them being shipped out that it should only be a matter of time before the rest of the mid years land. Again, I thank everyone for their patience.
After receiving three BF shipments last week in a total of seven boxes, my dealer order due to arrive any day now and two BF shipments this week, I think I owe the UPS man some cookies or even just some cold water with this heat wave we're having right now. As an employee of a shipping service myself, I completely understand how hard these guys work. I just watched a co-worker collapse from exhaustion last week, so let's give these guys some slack for all that they do to make us equine crazies happy. Today I received my surprise models, which made my long work week a bit better. Of three surprises, I amazingly only got one duplicate: the matte palomino pintaloosa. Since I've already shown the pintaloosa in a previous post, I want to give a huge shoutout to Breyer for giving me three different colors in one order. This is what we want to see as collectors, and is definitely a big step up from last year where, of the five I received, I only ended up with two colors. I was able to trade off a matte red roan pinto Giselle for a matte silver black, and thankfully that same trade partner has the champagne this year which she agreed to trade for my buckskin Pech Merle, so I only have the red roan to track down. The sabino was my second favorite amongst all the colors when I saw pictures on social media, but after seeing him in hand, I'm actually having a hard time deciding between him or the pintaloosa, who was my original favorite. I think his color is super realistic and very flashy. It doesn't bother me one bit that he was the most common color. I'm a sucker for all things roan. When Breyer showed the lineup for the special runs, you'll remember me writing a post about "where were all the roans?" Well, apparently they were in the surprises. Should've figured, and Dundee being a stock-type horse looks great in roan. Guess who else I got? The rainbow... and not just any rainbow but Breyer had the audacity to give me the glossy. If anyone wants to make an offer, shoot me a message! I may be tempted to sell him if I could get current internet prices, as I could definitely use the money to help pay for my real horse's surgery at the end of this month. If not I may possibly keep him as trade fodder down the road for something rare that I like even more. There's even a chance I'll forget about him and he'll just slowly become part of my permanent collection, never to leave my shelf. I'm not even sure what I think of him. He's unique, that's for sure, but looks out of place in my realistic collection. I do love his dazzling blue eyes as well as that color shifting blue paint, and that darker green is definitely prettier than Pollock's lime green. He's got a few minor flaws, like a piece of tape stuck on his leg, and some overspray, but overall he's pretty nice. I still have Gran Cavallo, Ansel and Seurat on the way, due to arrive Tuesday. These will be the last orders for my personal collection. I'm crossing my fingers for the Gran Cavallo variant because I love that color shifting blue and purple. I only have one traditional with that color... Mirror Image back from the JAH days. As for Ansel, I like both variations so it doesn't matter, but with Seurat I'm hoping for the matte. He's one of those ones that I like better in the matte from the pictures I've seen. Change my mind yet again, Breyer, I dare ya!
How bad do y'all want that Uffington variation that people on eBay are willing to pay OVER $2000 for him??? Now I'm not price shaming by any means, but geez guys we don't even know what the run numbers are yet! They might not even be micro runs, they could simply be 50/50 splits. We won't know until Breyer tells us. I'm still waiting on one more box containing my Seurat, Gran Cavallo and Ansel. The rest of my surprise models are due to come in tomorrow. Again, before comments snowball out of control, I want to remind my pre-order people that I am only showing the horses that were either extras or will be part of my personal collection. I received the rest of my VIP order today and my free swag item I got with my $10 VIP coupon, the Dani notebook. I think I'm going to use it to make a hand written list of all the current models in my collection. I admit that I was one of the masses that misread Breyer's email, thinking that the VIP models were going to be delayed when, in fact, what they meant was that at the time they were supposed to be shipped (aka by July 31st according to our original VIP email back in January) they didn't have the models in stock. Now they have the models in stock and are fulfilling VIP orders, so I apologize for the confusion. If you're a VIP member and you have not received your models yet, rest assured it should be soon! Internet speculation is that VIP members got the "sloppy seconds" instead of the best models, but I still think they were mixed in pretty well since some VIPs did get variations. I ended up with the originals of both Pollock and Uffington, which is fine with me since I wanted the originals anyways. My other Uffington thankfully turned out to be the perlino, so I'm happy to have a complete obtainable Altynai conga. His pearly golden color and the level of shading is fantastic. His blue eyes are thankfully very well painted. When I heard Breyer was making a mold of the Akhal-Teke, my first thought was "I hope they eventually make a cremello/perlino" and thus they have. You've read my mind, Breyer. I'm starting to think of rainbow horses like when Breyer was on their unicorn craze, that they're just making too many now and not all of them are easy to obtain (the stablemate Croi chaser and Prism for example) so I'm trying not to let myself get sucked in. Though I have Prism and Crystalline, I don't need all the rainbows, which is why I'm really hoping I won't get that rainbow leopard Dundee, or else I might be tempted. Here is my rainbow Pollock: My matte Josie and my matte Apollo arrived today as well. The matte has slight gold shimmer and beautiful shading, which may not look as good under gloss so I'm happy with my finish choice. I already splurged on a glossy Josie but I'm having a hard time parting with the matte. I could keep both, but I typically don't do that. However, with Josie I may have to make an exception. If I sat them side by side, considering that she only has brindling on one side, they could technically be two different horses, am I right? I didn't know she had a white markings on her lower left leg. I thought it was a rub from one of her ties at first, but then I found out the real horse actually has that same marking. I'm surprised nobody has noticed that yet... Sometimes I'll see a model in pictures and I'll want that said model, only to get it in hand and end up selling it. This is what happened with Pech Merle. I wanted the buckskin variation so bad only to get him in hand and find out that I'm truly not in love with him. I thought his special coloring would be metallic or pearly, but it's not, it's flat matte and all the white is bare plastic. I'm beginning to think with the amount of buckskins showing up that the Pech Merle variation may possibly be a 50/50 split like the matte/glossy and mane/tail variations. However the rest of them I feel may be a little less than that, possibly more like the glossy surprises, about 300-500 each. So not necessarily "micro runs" but not huge either. Again this is all just speculation. We won't know for sure until Breyer releases the numbers officially. Breyer has really outdone themselves this year with all the beautiful models. Adding the variations made it more fun and memorable even though we were stuck at home for the second year in a row. Although they said they were going to try to go live next year, the Delta variant of COVID-19 is getting so bad here that my workplace has started mandating masks again, so there's still a lot of unknowns, and for this reason I am waiting on booking my hotel room until probably after the first of the year.
Say it isn't so! I guess I take back my previous post about possible delays in holiday stock. A new series of stablemates have been discovered at select Tractor Supply stores. Unless they become available to dealers, I won't be able to get my hands on any until probably closer to September (my local stores put out Breyers only around the holidays) however whether they'll be exclusively for Tractor Supply stores or if they're going to be regular runs has yet to be determined. Will we see a new Walmart exclusive set too? I hope so!
Although I don't have any shareable pictures (yet!) the series includes: -light chestnut Peruvian Paso -grullo frame overo Reiner (my favorite!) -liver chestnut Loping Quarter Horse -dark bay/black Valegro -buckskin Icelandic -leopard appaloosa Dressage UPDATE: Chase pieces are a blue Copenhagen on the Prince Charming mold and a blue Loping Quarter Horse See exciting things are ahead after all! PS I have a 22 lb box yet again on the way to me... this time it's actually moving. I'm hoping it's the rest of my special runs from my main account. If so then I'm just waiting on the remaining surprise models that I ordered on my secondary account and my Breyerfest will be complete until the glossies arrive in December :) I'm surprised to see that Breyer released the surprise numbers before everyone got their orders, but hopefully it'll make the second hand market not so crazy since the numbers were so close to being even and quite generous in amount. They also listed the official colors: Rainbow leopard appaloosa with blue interference: 700 matte, 325 glossy Sable champagne minimal splash pinto: 800 matte, 325 glossy Flaxen liver chestnut roan: 900 matte, 325 glossy Palomino pintaloosa: 975 matte, 325 glossy Bay maximum sabino: 1000 matte, 325 glossy I'm glad the bay sabino was the most common because I'm hoping to get it with the rest of my three surprise models. The remaining three were all ordered on my second account so they'll probably be all the same color knowing my luck with previous gambler's choices. Oh, well. At least then I can offer them up as trading fodder. Now without further ado I can finally show you all the official color pictures: Breyer just sent what can only be described as an apology letter to all VIP members about not having enough stock to fill the VIP orders. There it is, the truth I've been suspecting but didn't want to say so as to give false information because I wasn't 100% sure, but now we know the true reason why they've been shipping everything so slowly. Needless to say people are pissed. While Breyer did offer VIP members a pin of the rainbow surprise horse to be shipped in December, the fact of the matter is that they're announcing this now, three weeks after the event, when they really should've been honest from the get go. This is exactly the same thing we retailers deal with so now you know how frustrating it is. With how awful overseas shipping has been lately, it makes sense that Breyerfest models would be affected too.
As to the pin though, we have to remember that Breyer didn't have to offer us any consolation prize at all, but I agree that at this point we just want our models so I completely understand why people are upset. Since VIP people were promised their stuff first and now they're delayed until after most people have gotten their models when we paid an extra $200 for the ticket, a lot of collectors feel this doesn't make up for it. They also offered VIP members first dibs on Breyerfest leftover special runs which made people complain about "spending more money on models Breyer may not have in stock" but they'll probably have them by then, given the delay in the sale. I'm hoping to pick up a Tassili for my personal collection since I really want the non-Marwari variation. I will not be surprised in the least if the holiday models are delayed as well including the Collector Club Appreciation because Breyer has literally hardly any regular runs in stock right now. Who'd know the day would come when regular runs were hard to find. Breyer didn't even make a fall deco this year for retailers to sell, but instead offered Old Glory the entire year. The shipping issues wasn't something I was making up, y'all, and now everyone is seeing it first hand. I'm super happy to announce that some of the mid years are indeed coming! After letting me know that they were expecting a container to arrive on Wednesday, it'd been crickets on my end, until today when I happily received the phone call I've been anxiously waiting on for over a month now. They probably won't arrive until later next week but at least we know that they're coming. ***Please note that this isn't my full order. I'm still waiting on Marc of Charm and Tiz the Law which are estimated to ship later this month. This order was only Thriller (the Halloween horse) and Omega Fahim so those orders will be fulfilled first. I will begin sending tracking numbers as soon as I get a shipping notification from Breyer next week.*** Admittedly I wiped some sweat from my brow because I've had more cancellations with this order than I have ever had before. I'm just a small business, mostly doing this as a hobby, so refunds hit me hard. Once you consider the price I pay for the models from Breyer, selling fees, ink and paper to print labels, tape and the fact that I have to buy specialized boxes to fit most of the models I barely end up making $10 a profit off each model so I truly do appreciate all of you who support me. In other news... My first special runs landed today! I received a surprise and Uffington. These two were meant to be for my personal collection but... I ended up with the variation of Uffington which, if you read my last post, was the one I wanted LEAST. Until... that is... I saw him in person. DARN YOU, BREYER! I didn't know he had a rainbow iridescence to him. I thought he was solid black. Actually, he's not even black. He's more of a steely grey. The pictures I've seen didn't really bring out his shimmer well but hopefully you can see it in the pictures below: Breyer really irks me when they do these variations because I fall in love with the variations and now I have to track down the original version too. Since we don't know as of yet if the variations are micro runs or a 50/50 split, I'm reluctant to sell this beauty. He's mine. MINE! MIIIIIINNNNNEEEE!!! (*insert evil laugh*) This... unique color on Uffington is something I've never seen before and I'm curious to know what Breyer officially calls it when they announce the run numbers. I'm going to call him Deputy Glitters for now, after a racehorse that was in the 2006 Kentucky Derby and whom, I think, fits this dude really well. Now for the first of my surprise models. I ended up with the palomino pintaloosa, which was the one I was hoping for the most. I love his splatter dapple spots which, to me, look like Breyer attempted a similar design with the Weather Girl from the benefit auction. Of course he was matte because I'm never lucky enough to score a glossy with the surprise models (last year was my first year doing so but probably only because they upped the numbers) which is perfectly fine with me since I'm more of a matte collector anyways when it comes to realistic horse colors, and this is the most realistic mass produced pintaloosa they've made yet in my opinion. Keep up the good work, Breyer! Keep in mind that some of you may have some variations coming your way soon yourselves but please note that I will not be posting pre-ordered horses on my website so that those who ordered will be surprised with whatever they get. Only horses for my personal collection will be shown. Unfortunately I only did a few pre-orders this year and didn't anticipate variations so I cannot take recommendations, or I'm sure most of you would ask me for the variations. My Pollock might be for sale if I end up with the gold variation. I like the rainbow with gold spots 100x better so be sure to check in on my blog next week if you're interested to see which I end up with.
Breyer sent an email out today saying that 60% of their Breyerfest orders have now been shipped out. I'm one of the masses still waiting on my special runs. I did receive something new today in the form of the Best of Breyerfest stablemate set, which are all very lovely. Minimal flaws on them. My only complaint is that the dapples on the grey and buckskin are hardly visible, not like the Django of last year who had visible dappling, but again I blame the pandemic and having to rush to get the models finished. We have to remember that Breyer didn't have to do Breyerfest at all, but they did so we could have our beautiful ponies. Other than that the set makes a lovely addition to my ever growing stablemate collection. Locksley is a stunning little guy. Some of you may hate them but personally I'm a sucker for Breyer's roans, and the bay roan color looks good on him. His white markings are crisp. I'm not a fan of Breyer's vintage style splatter spots but I understand that they were also on the traditional horse Grim is a mini me of. However the sooty palomino color with a soft pearly sheen and slight silvering in the mane/tail is gorgeous! Pendragon has me written all over him. His flashy color and the fact that I conga this mold is enough. His markings are crisp and I love his cat tracks. Her pearly steel grey color is very nice. Again I just wish she had more visible dappling. Reminds me of a mini Hero's Welcome surprise. Thumbelina is adorable despite lacking dappling. I don't like how Breyer gave her a dorsal stripe though since she's supposed to be buckskin. The dorsal stripe technically makes her dun, and dun is over made on this mold. ***Spoiler alert for those of you who don't want to know about the special runs***
The variations of all the special runs are now officially known! They are: *Uffington - dark grey holographic *Pech Merle - buckskin appaloosa with same appaloosa pattern as original *Seurat - matte/glossy *Tassili - Marwari and non-Marwari *Gran Cavallo - color shifting purple interference with same pinto pattern as original *Ansel - metallic blue with same pinto pattern as original *Pollock - gold pintaloosa with rainbow spots *Knossos - gold with same pinto pattern as original I'm really hoping to get the original version of Uffington, but as far as the others go, I'd be fine with any of the variations. I wonder how limited the rainbow variations will be? Should be any day now that the special runs start showing up. I have yet another package due to arrive tomorrow (after just receiving the last of my Danis today with my Best of Breyerfest stablemates) so I think it'll finally start happening! I know it's way too early to start speculating for Breyerfest 2022 but I foresee three molds being used: Georg because he's a German Rhendish drafter, Idocus (most likely the mane/tail split) and Carina and Selene as the mare/foal set. Lipizzaners are from Vienna so it just makes sense, and we are due for a mare/foal set next year! Would they do it after making Julep and Pim already? As we've found out from this year, anything is possible, but if not them then there's a good chance that the new mare and foal set for the Premier Club will be a German breed. I do see Carina still being used whether she will be with her foal or not, and possibly as the surprise like Giselle was. We'll come back to this topic early next year :) So I called up Breyer today and the container ship they were waiting on still hasn't shown up yet but they did say that it was due to arrive any day now and that they're hoping it'll show by the end of the week. I'm sure that Breyer is just as tired of waiting as we are and the employees will probably do cartwheels once the truck finally arrives. I know I will be. The wheels are turning y'all and we're closer than we've ever been to getting those mid years, just hang in there a bit longer! It was nice of Breyer to leave up the Breyerfest website through mid August instead of taking it down at the end of July. As for Breyerfest models all I've received so far was Dani and a Kaleidoscope. I do have a pretty big shipment coming in tomorrow though admittedly it's probably just more Danis. I will be packaging up a good majority of them over the weekend to ship out Monday so keep an eye out for tracking if you pre-ordered her from me. I still have a couple left from cancelled orders if anyone is interested. Kaleidoscope has beautiful shimmery color. They really knocked it out of the park with him. My only complaint is that the hooves are atrociously painted with a lot of overspray. I'm not complaining though - I still love him and he's my favorite on the mold so far - but I do want to give a heads up that some LSQ collectors may want to lower their standards a bit for the Breyerfest models because they were mass produced during a pandemic and the artists were probably in a hurry to get as many done as they could to get them out the door in a short time frame. Nonetheless, I think he is stunning, and the spots on the one I received are uniform with an equal amount of all the colors. Most of the ones I saw had too much blue. He didn't come in a collectible box by the way, just wrapped in bubble wrap and a plastic baggie. WARNING!!!! SPOILERS AHEAD...
Breyer certainly did "pull out the stops" when people discovered that Breyer made variations of each model, just as they did in 2019. So far that we know, all the surprises came in their typical matte/glossy splits, Seurat was also a matte/glossy split (which I'm really hoping to get matte because I prefer sooty palominos in matte), Tassili is the mane/tail split between the original Marwari mold and the modified long mane/tail resculpt, Ansel came in a blue decorator with the same markings as the blue roan and Pech Merle came in a metallic golden buckskin with the same markings as his bay counterpart. This is all we know of so far and I'll surely update this post once I find out the rest because, since most of the models came in variations from the few we've seen so far, one can speculate that all of the special runs will have variations. Now I did have a customer ask me what happens if I get a variation I don't want from my pre-ordered models? There are lots of groups on Facebook that do specifically model horse trades, or if you don't do social media, putting an ad on Model Horse Sale Pages is another option that often yields good results. I'm sure somebody will want to trade you for your variation, especially if the variations are very limited like in 2019. While I'd love to know if you end up with any of the special variations (so feel free to let me know) unfortunately I will not give refunds if you get the color you don't like. This certainly has been a weird year. Hello, all! I have some good news coming your way! I've just received word from Breyer that they're expecting a shipment to the warehouse to come in this week, though they don't know what all will be included with this shipment. I'll update as soon as Breyer sends me tracking. I'm just excited to finally see the mid years in-hand! I did have some more Breyerfest orders ship to me so look for those to be filled as well in the next couple weeks. It literally seems like Breyer is shipping Breyerfest items one at a time for some reason rather than consolidating orders so it may still be a while for me to get everything in, but rest assured, it's all coming! I thank you all very much for having patience with me during this hectic time. Updated to add: I also received my holiest of holy grails today, the one and only Dundee, whom I'm very happy with. His shading is truly realistic and blends together nicely. I never knew he had frankenstein-like stitching on his dorsal stripe but it's pretty cool. I don't have any models with that. His leg barring and hoof striping is almost perfect. He also has very light mapping around all his spots and brown colored eyes. They gave him a soft pearly sheen as well. Breyer really paid attention to detail on this boy. I'm very much looking forward to adding his brothers (aka the 7 Arts Surprises) to my growing conga. With receiving such a low number of surprises this year, I have decided that I won't be offering any for sale. If I get duplicates, I instead will use them as trade fodder for the other colors, as I would like to complete the set eventually since I love this mold. I'm hoping that next year I'll be picked for more surprises and be able to offer them.
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