I've had a couple people mention to me that the Breyerfest celebration horse (who was supposed to be Intuit) has been removed from Breyer's website, blog and social media platforms. There was so much controversy going on with the real horse that the owners apparently backed out of their deal with Breyer (click on the link to read Breyer's official announcement) "for the safety of their horse" which is a real shame. I don't want to start a debate but personally I was looking forward to the Intuit model and I do think this was taken too far. Regardless of how you feel about the real horse, the model was stunning even if he looked similar to Ambrose, and the models are the reason why we're here after all. By the way, if you didn't get the opportunity to see the model before it was deleted, this was what he was going to look like: So while we wait to see who will be our next celebration horse, I would like to introduce you in the meantime to the first Premier Club 2021 horse, Fireheart. Although we most likely won't see the other Premier Club horses for next year, this guy alone has already made me decide to renew. It's now just a waiting game for the clubs to open, which Breyer has announced will start some time next month, most likely after the third release for the club is in hand. He is a beautiful sooty palomino blanket appaloosa, though honestly I feel as if the blanket is going overboard. I would've bought this boy without it. I love his subtle, realistic dappling and those hooves are just incredible! I love how his mouth is slightly open, and his eyes just appear as if they're looking right through you. Yes, this boy is a no-brainer for me! He's got all the awesome qualities I look for in a model.
The price of the Premier Club models is $175 each but the $100 deposit you have to pay to get into the club is dispersed between the three models making it $141.66 each plus shipping. You will be obligated to purchase all three models, meaning that if you can't purchase one of them, you are kicked out of the club and will be unable to purchase anymore Premier Club models the rest of the year. You will also be forfeiting the rest of your $100 deposit. If you don't want every release, the best thing to do is to buy second hand. It will be a bit more expensive than original price but it beats having a bad reputation in the Breyer specialty clubs if you can't afford all the models. Wowza, this horse has me thankful I joined the Premier Club this year! I was excited for the Kylee Parks release, and it didn't disappoint! Remember the sneak peek of color we saw back during Breyerfest? Well, he is a silver bay splash and he has a BLUE EYE! His name is Troubadour. Take a look: I admit when I first saw this guy, my heart did a little gig. I thought for sure this was the Standardbred I've been yearning for with his thick neck and trotting pose, until I saw that Breyer's description said he's meant to be a Morgan. Actually, Standardbreds and Morgans are so closely related, it makes me wonder if they could possibly use him as a Standardbred mold in future? I would also like to introduce you to his mini me, Lyric. He has the same exact color pattern on the new Fjord mold. My only question about these two is how well they will stand. Trotting poses are almost always tipsy, but we'll see. I can't tell you how excited I am to see this pair in person! Finally, I'd like to take a moment to discuss the newly revealed Breyerfest 2021 information. For those of you who haven't had a chance to hop over to Breyer's website, they have put forth some revelations that I think will excite those of us who love colorful horses. As stated from the blog, "Appaloosas, brindles and pintos, oh my!" Yes, you've read that right. Brindles! I cannot tell y'all how much I've wanted to own a brindle Breyer. This takes me back to that brindle Emma they showed during Breyerfest. Could that have been a test model for the gambler's choice? I guess only time will tell.
Vermeer was released this past week, and he had some people who loved him while others... not so much. I wanted to love this horse, I truly did, but there's just something about him that I can't seem to put my finger on. It's neither the color nor the mold I dislike but more the combination of both of them. A Knabstrubber would have looked stunning in this color pattern, and vice versa the mold in a color like silver black, bay roan or dapple grey. Yes, I know that Friesians don't come in any of those colors, but plain black would have Premier Club members really upset that they're paying that much for a plain black horse, plus they're more of a drafty color than appaloosa. People are starting to get them in hand already, and while I do think he looks better than I was expecting, there is so much variation amongst them that I'm kind of glad I didn't take the gamble. The horse on right looks great, very similar to how Blaylock originally designed him. The horse on the left, however, looks more like what I would have expected. The grey is way too faint and hard to see, and the horse has less of a creamy color. Most of them looked like this. I can't wait to see what they come out with on this mold in future. I kind of wish they would have held off on making Harley until after they released this mold. The mane on this mold is a bit too long for him, I know, but we can pretend he grew it out. Blaylock stated on her Facebook that Georgian Grande horse could be a possibility. While any Friesian cross would work, I think this American Cream draft horse shown below (after all it's been many years since we've had that breed made as a Breyer) would make a cool regular run: Breyer was going super big on duns the past few years to the point where I actually made a post titled "Are we dun yet?" talking about that. This year, it's appaloosas. I've honestly never seen so many appaloosas in my life. It started the last day of the year with Ambrose, followed by Klaus for the Stablemates Club, then we were given Lionel for the flagship horse and the Collector Club released two appaloosas as lottery draws: Goji and Bilberry. It wasn't surprising that we had Oak in the Breyerfest lineup and the grullo appy for the 70th series. Just as a heads up to those who don't already know... they decided to make the Artist Signature ornament for the holidays this year with appaloosa horses on it. It seems to me like possibly they're gearing up for the colorful Breyerfest next year so I don't think the palate of color is going to go away any time soon. Which I'm perfectly fine with, by the way. I'm loving my two new additions who are as colorful as they can get: I love appaloosas in real life, but when it comes to Breyers, I prefer the realistic ones. I don't like Breyer's vintage splatter spots or blurry dots on their appaloosas, though lately they're getting a lot better. I went to Breyerfest last year for the first time specifically for the 30th anniversary stablemates and Zipped in Black Magic. Prior to that, the only appaloosas I owned in my permanent collection were DZ Weedo, Toro and Impress Me Shannon because of their realism. I have since also added Oak from this year's Breyerfest, flagship special Lionel and Quill (when I went to Breyerfest for Zipped in Black Magic).
I sold Klaus and traded my Nayati appy for a pinto because of all the bare plastic on them. I don't like a ton of bare plastic on my horses, though as an artist, I understand that leopards are much more tricky to paint than they look and take a lot of time whether base coated or not because of all the masking involved. I just prefer chalky models over bare plastic. The only exception was Lil Ricky Rocker, and that's only because of sentimental reasons... he was a symbol of Breyerfest for years. I do hope that Breyer continues being awesome and making realistic looking appaloosas, and hopefully we'll see more in the upcoming year. If there's one color pattern I need more of in my herd, it's appaloosas. I'm really happy with my special runs. My last two ticket times resulted in Oak, Brighid and Beltane, Epona and another surprise so I'm officially done buying. With five surprises total, I really hope I end up with one of each color, though I can guarantee that I'm going to get duplicates. I will go over my "haul" as soon as all my stuff gets here, which Breyer said in their video that some packages will start shipping tomorrow. If you've pre-ordered something from me, it'll be in the mail the day after I get my package. Next year's theme has been announced, and it's called "Horse of a Different Color". Now when I first saw that, my mind immediately thought this was going to be a year of decorators, although Breyer spoke of spots, chrome and stripes... basically anything flashy. My husband thought maybe it'll consist of anything but plain horse colors, like roan, perlino/cremello, champagne, etc. I really hope he's right because those are up my alley as a collector and I'm already planning on attending next year. The second Premier Club horse was finally revealed today. Apparently Blaylock gave him a greying out ghost spotting appaloosa pattern, and from the video he looks like his mane/tail are pearly and his body possibly chalky? Although he's pretty unique in that this is the first time (I believe that was said in the video... correct me if I'm wrong) that Breyer has made a leopard appaloosa with the grey gene, I'm more than likely going to end up selling mine upon release in August. Folks on social media are saying he's a portrait model of Mystic Warrior, though his name by Breyer is Vermeer after the Dutch painter. Here is what he'll look like: I feel a bit empty - depressed? - now that Breyerfest is over. Although it wasn't the excitement of last year, it was still fun to be a part of history, the first virtual Breyerfest. The videos on the website were well done and the website itself was easy to use. Minus the store issue (frankly if I were Breyer I would have done lottery draws for the store specials then those who didn't get what they wanted could simply trade) I think it was a pleasant experience overall. I try to remember that Breyer didn't have to have Breyerfest at all, they could've simply cancelled the event, and they did their best to fix any mistakes. To those who couldn't wait around for the store specials I really hope y'all took advantage of the glossies to at least walk away with something. Yes, I know they probably won't be as limited as the matte versions, but again, Breyer didn't have to do that for us. After this ordeal I'll appreciate standing in the hot, humid Kentucky heat more from now on.
I gotta tell ya... I thought this whole doing Breyerfest online sitting in the air conditioning would be easy. It's not! I kind wish I would have paid someone the extra money to get what I wanted instead of the ordeal I've had to go through. Imagine if they let everyone at Breyerfest, everyone, in the store all at the same time. One word... chaos. That's exactly what virtual Breyerfest is like. Imagine, getting to the checkout counter with your goods and then someone runs up to rip them away from you while you're handing the cashier the money. Last night they made the bold decision to take away the number of trips through the store, which was a double edged sword, as it made the store a free-for-all making it even harder to check out. Yep. Good times. Now I see why Breyer never made Breyerfest an online event before. Breyer has been doing their absolute best to make this event possible. They are listening to us, the collectors, and making last minute tweaks to accommodate our needs. I've been saying all along to give Breyer a chance. For example today they are offering unlimited glossy models of the three traditional store specials: Benelli, Cheesecake and Topgun. Just like they did with the CC appreciation models last year the models won't be available until about six months out, December 2020, but hey it's a guaranteed model that you don't have to fight for and it's glossy. You can't go wrong there! I decided to cave and pre-order a Cheesecake since he's the only that I haven't been able to get yet so kudos to Breyer for doing this... they really do love their fans! With everything that I've bought, I have about a million separate transactions from trying to get through checkout as quickly as possible. It makes me wonder if they'll ship it all together or each order separately. I was going to buy more... then a grail happened. It was on sale at a price I couldn't refuse though it still wasn't exactly what you'd call "cheap" and remember when I said in a few posts ago that we had just hit a deer? Ugh. I ended up splurging a couple hundred on the grail and will probably regret it later but hey, it's Breyerfest. It's still not as bad as the people paying thousands for the live auction models, right? We've also been shown another sneak peek for the Premier Club. This is the Fraley sculpt who was supposed to have "majestic presence and expression" which I agree that it does, and I'm also happy that it's not a standing pose like I originally thought. I also wasn't expecting a draft breed after the release of Georg last year, but that complicated mane and tail are going to be interesting to see transferred from clay to plastic. As the welcome letter described the coloring of the Fraley sculpt as "loud and proud" I'm assuming it's going to be the leopard appaloosa pattern. I want to give people some tips on how to make it through to get the store specials so y'all don't go away empty handed tomorrow. Breyer has consistently been restocking store specials every two hours. In fact, today, they posted exactly when they were doing restocking. There was a time they missed from doing a live video, but then extended the special runs an extra 2 hours out to make up for it. So, once that time came around, and yes I understand sitting at a computer (though I found my phone a bit faster than my computer) refreshing the page every few seconds is a pain, but it's really the only way to get anything.
My suggestion is to choose ONE ITEM that you want to buy, keep refreshing the page around the restocking time - give or take 20 minutes - and then quickly add it to your cart, go to checkout, go to each "next" button as quickly as possible and let it ride. Don't get impatient or click happy, because you could lose them in that short amount of time. It happened to me a couple times and the item stayed in my cart, but then once it's in your cart, you only have to go to checkout, refresh your cart around the restocking time and it'll let you skip a few steps to cut some time off your checkout. This is honestly the only way I've managed to get anything. I say concentrate on one item at a time because if you go back, you most likely won't have time to add another to your cart before they sell out. It's all about timing. If you have slow internet access, I truly feel for you, as my computer is super slow, which is why I had to use my phone. Good luck! 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?! Altynai arrived today. I was incredibly happy to see him. I love his gorgeous blue eyes! I'm not sure if the blue eyed thing is a true trait in Akhal Takes or not but anything with blue eyes is a keeper in my herd. I don't ever plan to sell him. He's one of my "only sell if emergency funds are needed" kind of horse. I only have about four in my entire collection that I wouldn't sell unless those circumstances arose. So here he is, the man of the hour: The pros are that he has superb dappling (very blended and realistic, not fish scaley) and he has that Akhal Teke shine to him. He's got the high withers and loooong body that the breed is known for. Take a gander at this reference pic for those who aren't familiar with the breed: So the artists did a great job capturing this exotic breed in both body and color. He is the pinnacle of my collection. I love how dark his withers and shoulders are. Mine even had some darker shading on the haunches. The biggest con is how long he is. He is no doubt a shelf hog. He is even longer than Carter on the Dundee mold, who I thought was incredibly long when I bought Hal at Breyerfest last year. The only other issue was that he did have some flaws. He had a thumb print on his hind leg, a couple hairs under his paint (first time I've ever had this happen) and ear tip rubs. I guess that's to be expected the more intricate the model is. Even with his flaws, he's still a beauty! I can't wait to see what the other horses of the Premier Club will look like. Breyer has released grab bags for the Premier Club and the Vintage Club. I'm unsure how much the Vintage Club is but the Premier Club is $175 plus shipping, and that's for one horse of random choice. They are doing it as a lottery instead of being able to buy it outright like with the Stablemates Club blind bags. I decided to forego it for two reasons: one is that I'm trying to save up for Breyerfest, and two is that most of the PC horses from years past go for cheaper than that. The only ones that really hold their value are Dundee, Bristol, Shannondell and Georg. If I ended up with Emerson I'd be majorly disappointed.
As this is my first year in the Premier Club, I'm a bit excited to have the welcome kit show up at my door, even though my mail carrier shoved it in the mailbox and ended up bending it. Ugh! Anyways, it contained the artist's sketch of Altynai that could possibly be framed, along with a sticker of Altynai (is this new or did they always do this?) and a welcome letter. So it's getting real now! I can't wait until Altynai becomes available for purchase in May!
I wanted to discuss a few things in the letter. Whereas Breyer released not only the artists but the actual breeds to be done last year, this year they are being very vague. For example, the letter says that the Lynn Fraley sculpt (who I'm assuming is going to be the second release) "has majestic presence and expression" which makes me feel as if it's going to be a standing - or portrait - sculpt. It also states that the coat color is "loud and proud" so I'm guessing the appy butt we saw as a sneak peek the last week of last year was for the Lynn Fraley release. Now something else I want to note is near the bottom it states that the stablemate will be a "frequently requested breed" and usually the stablemate is portrayed after the second release. I note too that they do not say horse anywhere in either of those two paragraphs, they just say "sculpt" so I'm wondering if the Fraley sculpt is going to be a mule? A leopard appaloosa spotted mule would be amazing! Would they actually do it though is the question, as they might get some negative marks from people who collect strictly horses, although they did use a mule for the Stablemates Club one year as a gambler's choice. We're in need of a new mule mold. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. For the Parks sculpt, which is the third release, they note that it will "make performance showers happy" so this one sounds indeed like an action pose. Going by her previous art and medallions, it'll probably be something with a long, wavy mane/tail like an Andalusian or an Arabian. There is no hint of color so I don't know what we're in for in that department. I'm excited for my first year in the Premier Club. I never thought I'd ever be part of it, and I can't wait for the exciting upcoming releases! I figured Breyer would do something special for all the clubs for their 70th anniversary, and they just revealed an optional 7th horse available to purchase through the Stablemates Club. This time they have shrunk the Clydesdale Stallion mold and named him Duke to go with their royalty names, complete with a vintage dapple grey pattern. Now while I decided against paying the $30 extra for the plain palomino Fighter with the Deluxe membership, this made joining the Stablemates Club all worth it, because I'd probably never get the optional model at cost. I don't know if he'll be the same price as the club releases. We won't know until he's offered at the end of the year next year. Excited much? I know I am! It seem like Breyer always sets itself on a certain color every year. Last year it was buckskins. Now it looks like it'll be appaloosas with recently sold out Ambrose, Klaus from the Stablemates Club, Lionel the flagship horse and now this: This was a sneak peek for one of the other two Premier Club horses for 2020 and I have to say that I'm excited! Although I had already joined before this sneak peek, it makes me feel much better in my decision to join the Premier Club. I'm really hoping this horse is a Knabstrubber, a breed that they haven't portrayed yet. I do see peacock spots in the sneak peek so that's always reassuring. I love mapping and peacock spotting. Although speculation on social media is that it's going to be a leopard appaloosa, I actually fell in love with Rana from Breyerfest a few years ago and hoped that they'd eventually do a semi leopard like him.
Rana had it all... peacock spots, realistic hooves, roaning, nose spots, ticking at the base of his tail, lightning stripes on his sides, bi-colored eyes and a silvery mane. If they could replicate that, it would be the best Premier Club year yet! Breyer also released the production photo of Altynai. Wowza! They did a great job with replicating him from the original artist piece to plastic. Apparently he's going to have mapping around his white areas and it even appears that they have given him a metallic sheen, which I was hoping for since Akhal-Tekes are naturally shiney. I can't wait to get this guy in hand! Maybe it'll make me give up the search for the limited edition Akhal-Teke from 2007. I'm hoping the third release will be a full blown pinto with lots of mapping but we'll see. |
Archives
May 2024
Categories
All
|