I love everything pearly that Breyer comes out with. I'm a person who prefers matte over gloss but pearl is my favorite of all. A light satin sheen makes it look like a show shined horse. I understand that everyone has a preference though (otherwise Breyer wouldn't make so many different finishes to begin with) and I'm not here to argue, but of all the finishes, pearl is my favorite followed by matte followed by gloss. That being said, I've received my first order of the year. Hamilton, only the second Premier Club horse I've ever owned, and whom I was making time payments on, was finally paid off and arrived today. Along for the ride was the new palomino Saddlebred from the 70th Anniversary Collection, both of whom are pearly. I have to say that even though I never really worked with or collected Saddlebreds before, I've fallen hard for this mold. This horse is so realistic he blows my mind. I actually thought about starting an obtainable conga with him. Honestly I don't see why some collectors were complaining about the original Hamilton being "too pearly" because you could hardly tell. Although Hamilton looks shiny in the pictures due to the flash, in real life the 70th anniversary palomino's mane and tail were glowing compared to the white areas on Hamilton. Hamilton is the first horse I've ever had with mapping and by far one of the most beautiful in my collection and he's also my most expensive horse to date. The "chrome" areas on the palomino Saddlebred were just bare plastic and didn't have the pearling of his mane/tail. His body color did have a slight metallic sheen. Not overpowering, just a satin shine. Apparently all the 70th anniversary models are stamped on the belly except for the Fighter, whose is stamped on the tail, as sort of a COA. Surprisingly the ASB was pretty flawless for a regular run. I will do more detailed reviews on both of them on Youtube when I get the time. Breyer mentioned that they are sold out of 70th anniversary models until April, so those people who think you have all year to purchase these guys, you might want to reconsider and try to track them down while you can. I planned to eventually purchase the Fighting Stallion at the very least, maybe the grey Andalusian if I can hand pick a nice one and possibly the chaser if I can manage to get one from my local dealer. He's going for $100-200 average on eBay right now... yikes! Carter is super lovely. Honestly I can't stop looking at him. He has subtle pearling that gives him a little shimmer but not a lot. He even has bi-colored striping on his mane. Besides some tiny black dots on his legs and a couple shiny spots, all of which don't bother me since most of my horses are shelf sitters. He has beautiful chocolate brown eyes that were hard to tell from the stock photos (honestly I thought they were completely black) but which added to his appeal, and he as per usual with Collector Club special runs is stamped on his belly.
I did, however, have the same issue as with Corbin in Breyer's tendency to send me horses with lots of dapples on one side and very little on the other. Carter has nice scaley dapples with dark shading on his left side and subtle dapples with hardly any shading on his barrel on his right. Is it possible he was painted by two different artists? Hard to tell but I long for a club model with even shading/dappling on both sides. At least his neck shading is pretty even, as I've seen some that have had dark shading on their necks too. I'd promised myself that I wouldn't get caught up in the chaos, yet here I was, dragging my sleepy husband to Walmart at one in the morning because Brickseek updated that our local Walmart had a new box of Unicorn Crazy stablemates! The last full box didn't contain the chase, so I'm assuming that they didn't put one in every box. I did however find the chase in this box! It was right in the middle of the box, wedged between some Alborozos and some Walking Thoroughbreds - not sure if it's always in the middle of the box or not but I always have people asking me whenever I find chase models where they're located in the box. The Emerald chaser from the Mini Whinnies collection was always near the front in every box I found. Everyone meet Sherbert! I'm not sure if just nobody in my area knows about this new series yet or if they have managed to find the ones they wanted, but I seem to be getting lucky lately with finding them. I've found three Emeralds so far, two pink Icelandics and a rainbow Magnolia. Like I said before, I don't try to drive myself crazy over finding the chase model, but I admit that they are addicting!
Our local Tractor Supply store has also had to mess with my mind about putting out Spirit Riding Free series 2 blind bags and the Unicorn Crazy blind bags from Breyer's website. I'm trying to avoid them as much as possible, especially as the unicorn is on the same mold as a non-chase model, and at $4.99 each I don't want to buy a half dozen purple Alborozos since I already have the purple Alborozo. The Spirit one though... that one is tempting since it's a completely different mold. I'm still unsure about Sherbert, whether I will sell her or keep her. I didn't think I'd like her until I saw her in real life... doesn't that seem like it always happens? |
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