Do That Conga: Stone ISH, Part 2

Last month, I embarked on my ever-growing ISH conga, talking about the short mane/short tail body style. This month, I’ll talk about my long mane/long tail ISHs. There are seven of them. The eighth I thought I had is actually a long mane/short tail who was labelled incorrectly in my spreadsheet (gahhhhh, this data nerd is cringing in horror!) I’ve already written the content for him, so I could probably toss him onto this post anyway, but since July's conga post will need to go up a mere two days before I leave for BreyerFest, I'm gonna save him for then. July Mel will profusely thank April Mel for already having a post ready to go.

 

 

This DAH ISH was my second ISH ever. I ordered him in May 2017. He’s seal bay with dapples, painted by Julie Keim, whose seal bays are absolutely to die for. I ordered gloss, of course, because all bays should be glossed, though he initially arrived to me in matte and I had to send him back to get his proper coat of shiny.

This horse kicks ass and takes names in the show ring. He was the overall breed champion at his first ever show and continues to do well almost ten years after his purchase despite the gargantuan size of Stone Paint classes. He's definitely not the flashiest Paint out there, but he is correct - the badger face is a sabino trait, so I gave him knee-high whites on the front and extreme high (up onto the belly) whites on the rear legs to be consistent with that, and blue eyes because the white covers them both. His show name is Zenith.

 

 

I’ll give you two guesses as to who painted this ISH - Letting Go, a run of 10 for Art of the Horse 2021 - but you’re only gonna need one.

Yet again, Mel falls victim to a lovely light flaxen chestnut painted by Audrey Dixon.

I’m pretty sure I stalked the website the day he was released so I could make sure I got one. I adore his soft color. I left him matte; I wasn’t sure if the color would go too orange or yellow in gloss. I’ve seen glossed ones and while they didn't stray too far into orange or yellow territory, I do like him better in matte, so I’m happy with my decision. His show name is Moving On.

 

 

This is #IS17043 Goo, a run of 200 pieces for the Artisan Hall series in 2003, designed and painted by Sarah Minkiewicz. The Stone Horse Reference site says “an unknown number of mares were made.” My copy of Goo is one of them.

Goo has a story. She was a Mercari purchase in late June 2023. The seller shipped pretty quickly, but UPS didn’t see fit to deliver her for eight days. I was at BreyerFest by the time the box arrived. I was sitting in our hotel room at the CHIN one night, minding room sales, arguing via text with Chris that pickles DO NOT belong on tacos (long story), when I remembered Goo’s delivery and asked Chris to get her box off the porch. He said he already had … and if there was a horse in it, it was probably broken, because the box looked like an accordion. He sent photos.

It was bad.

Chris is afraid to be anywhere near my horses most of the time and will only go into the horse room if I'm in there with him, but I called him and begged him to open the box so I could see if Goo was okay, and so I could let the seller know if there was any damage. Chris said he was also Very Concerned and agreed to open the box. He took lots of pictures before opening and also took pictures of every step of opening the box and unwrapping her.

Miraculously, Goo survived with nary a scratch. He even took her into the horse room and set her on the floor next to one of my shelves, and sent me a “proof of life” photo.

Her show name is Treacle, because treacle tarts have a gooey filling.

 

 

Oh look, a shiny blue thing! I talked about Little Bird in my January Full Spectrum post, so you can read his deets over there, if you’re so inclined.

 

 

This model is somewhat of a mystery. He was advertised for sale in June 2024 as Monroe, a run of brindle ISHs from 2011, but those were the short mane/short tail body and had only three stockings. I let the seller know that Monroe wasn’t a match for what she had, but she kept the price as-is.

The best we can figure is that this is a OOAK ISH painted by Julie Keim somewhere around 2008 or 2009. Her initials are on the bottom of one of his hooves (she was kind enough to confirm them as hers at a show we attended together), and he’s the cream-colored plastic, which was commonly used in 2008-2009. Stone’s record-keeping at times has been as hit-or-miss as Breyer’s, so there are many OOAKs out there that have unknown origins. I provided photos and a write-up of what I knew about him to Barb Bacon, so he’s on the Stone Horse Reference site now.

His show name is Uomo Misterioso, which is Italian for Mystery Man.

 

 

This is Black Tie, a 2004 run that was evenly split between glossy stallions and glossy mares. Mine is a mare. I got her from my friend Eleanor at BreyerFest in 2024. Her show name is Just a Formality.

 

 

Dazzle was a special run for the Ginger Horse tack shop in 2004. She was evenly split between 50 glossy and 50 matte models. I bought her in November 2024 through a Facebook group that offers weekly auctions from the estate of a long-time collector. She is unshown.

There are seven long mane/long tail ISHs on my wish list: Abby, a matte Black Tie, Denali, the Holiday Horse, Miss Dainty Doc, Ragtime, and Silver Spur. The only one that might take a little bit of searching is Denali, as there are only five of him.

Factory Custom ISHs coming up next in May!

Sentimental Journey: Nautical and JCP Huck

How is it April already?

I am neither clever enough nor enough of a prankster to pull some convincing April Fools shenanigans on this blog, so it’ll just be business as usual today.

One of the best parts of BreyerFest for me is seeing all my friends. I’m lucky enough to have a close group of hobby peeps who live close to me and whom I see on the regular, but there are plenty of others whom I only see at the occasional show or at BreyerFest. My friend Susan is one of those. 

Susan has a spectacular collection of models, mostly gray and mostly of the Spanish variety. Some of the pieces she owns are jaw-dropping examples of the best artistry the hobby has to offer. She rotates other models in and out of her collection on a fairly regular basis, and when she decides to switch directions with her collection and have a sell-off, she prices her items silly cheap. I remember when she decided to part with a number of her Stone Trotting Drafts at one of our local shows, and she had them priced at like $25 each. You feel like you’re stealing from her, but she insists that’s all she wants for them. I feel like she’s wired kinda like my friend Heather, where sometimes it means more to have someone get a model they really like than to make money on it.

These two models are examples of that.

 

 

I have a modest Big Ben conga - none of the rarities, but I have all of the regular runs and most of the high-quantity special runs they’ve released. This guy, #701500 Nautical, a run of 750 pieces for the USET in 2000, was on my short list of most-wanted models from the time I went to my first BreyerFest in 2010, but the ones I’d seen for sale were always priced out of my budget. 

When I saw him in Susan’s room during BreyerFest 2015, I prepared myself to be priced out again - but she had a mere $20 on the tag. Knowing how Susan is but also not wanting to deprive a friend of a fair sale, I said, “Susan, are you sure? He’s worth much more than that.” She smiled and said something like, “Yes, but I’m especially sure because you’re the one buying him and I can tell how much you want him.”

 

 

In 2006, JCPenney released the #410146 Pinto Half-Arabian Family through their Christmas catalog. I was well into grad school by then and had taken a large step back from collecting, so I didn’t acquire them at the time, and have regretted it ever since. The Susecion & Le Fire from the set don’t come up for sale often and command quite a lot of money, often $300 and up for the pair. This guy, on the Huck Bey mold, obviously isn’t any more rare than the rest of the set, but he isn’t as popular from a mold standpoint and is thus a little more common (and less expensive) to find.

Susan had him for sale, too, mint as mint can be, for half of what he normally fetches on the market. I am overrun with Araby-things in my show string and I tend to pick my Partly Cloudy Weather Girl over him for the Part-Arabian class, but he’s made the table a few times here and there. His show name is Bashir.

I got both of these models for less than I expected to pay for one of them individually, and it was clear Susan was just as happy about that as I was. The word that comes to mind when I think about the expression on her face is “gleeful.” Buying these two models from a dear friend is such a happy memory!

New Additions: March 2026

My purchasing in March was a heck of a lot calmer than the weather. The latter included multiple shelf clouds, severe thunderstorms, tornado warnings, flood warnings, and in mid-March, an unexpected 4-5" of snow (they were calling for a dusting to an inch). It was 80 with blazing sun, storming and putting down enormous volumes of rain, windy enough to knock down trees and power lines, or 35 and snowing/sleeting. My house continued to develop new and exciting ways to leak water, so that's been a good time. After successfully sealing a crack in the outside concrete decking that was leading to soaked carpet in the sunroom, the latest casualty is the head jamb over the kitchen door. I have no idea where the water is coming from, as the door frame is embedded in the brick structure of the house and sits underneath an awning, but I sure as heck watched water run and drip out of it in a steady stream during the storms on Thursday, and my kitchen floor was wet. Guess I’ll be paying someone to figure it out, because I ain't risking the Brazilian Koa.

I only purchased four models in March, two of which aren’t in hand yet, and I also need to talk about a purchase I made in February that contained an unexpected ride-along. I’ll start with that one.

In my February 2026 New Additions post, I shared a photo from a hobby friend of mine who sold me her Stone ISH Ima Shifty Goodbar. He was purchased on February 26; she shipped him out a few days later and advised me to look out for “a little surprise extra” in the box with him. I was thinking oooo, maybe a sticker or something, since Stone has been producing a lot of those lately.

 

Turns out she sent me a whole extra horse, the mini-me version in the same satin matte finish as the big guy! He was not part of our negotiations nor the price - when I messaged her with a pic of them together and about a dozen exclamation points, she just said, “Well, mini me was lonely and I only collect mini mes to go with the big ones. I forgot I had the little one. There he was alone on the shelf. Enjoy!” 

He is lovely in satin matte. I love the people in this hobby and their generosity.

 

 

This little guy is one that isn’t here yet, so the seller's photo will have to suffice for now. He’s Potion, a OOAK Chips Mule from the 2024 Moonlight Madness sale. I’ve been in love with him since I saw his original photos during the event, and this in-hand photo from the seller cemented the deal. The seller offered a discounted price for in-person pickup at a show next month; I’m not able to make that show this year due to the finals of my bowling league, but my friend Sarah is going and offered to transport. I’ll grab him from her in May when I attend the live show she’s hosting. Yay for enabling hobby friends!

 

 

In my most recent Other Makes post, I talked about my WIA models, and noticed my WIA Vincenzo’s right leg was somewhere in the vicinity of his ear due to his weight distribution. So I headed over to Triple Mountain to buy him a stand, and oops, a couple other things fell into my cart. This guy, #MK10001 Erren the Criollo Stallion, a run of 5000 pieces produced in 2022 for WIA, was one of them. I judged one last year at a local 4H show and fell I love with how dynamic he is, so now one lives with me.

 

He's got teef!

 

 

One of the other things to oops itself into my cart was this palomino CollectA, #88984 Andalusian Stallion, released in 2023. I’ve got the bay and gray, so it was time for the third color to join the herd.

I had one more CollectA purchase from Triple Mountain in my order, but he was a pre-order and won’t be shipping til July, so I’ll get to him then.

Happily, all my purchases this month were tiny and fit on the shelves! Now if I could just do something about the floorses …