Do That Conga: Proud Arabian Stallions

 Bet yinz thought I'd start with Sham, didn't you?

While Sham is my biggest conga and the one I'm most proud of, taking all those photos will be labor-intensive, and I'd like to get a couple months of posts under my belt before tackling that beast.

I also have to hunt down a Niagara, since Breyer decided that a week after spending a small fortune trying to keep my cat alive (in vain) was a great time to use Sham as one of their super-limited event models. Lucky (?) for me, he's a run of 96, which should be much easier to find than the event micro-runs of 40, 48, 52, and 60 pieces.

So while I hunt that guy down, we're starting on the smaller side today with another Arabian conga, the Proud Arabian Stallion (PAS).

This is my OG, my very first PAS - #839, Proud Arabian Stallion, a regular run from 1991-1994. I got him right before Christmas in 1991. My dad was a volunteer firefighter and EMT with our local fire department and they had a Christmas party for their members every year. Kids under a certain age all got a gift, and this is what I opened at that year's event.

I have a second #839 PAS in my herd - my sister's! She briefly joined me in collecting in the early 90s and gifted all her models to me several years later when she lost interest in them. I can tell her PAS from mine easily - hers is a cooler shade of gray with larger dapples and darker knees/hocks.

My next PAS was #933, Sundown, a regular run from 1995-1996. He was a 16th birthday gift from my parents in 1995.

Next up is #1104, Dune, the 2000 Collector's Edition. He's a throwback to the original honey bay Proud Arabian Mare (PAM) and Proud Arabian Foal (PAF) from the late 1950s. I don't have a record of when I purchased him, but I was definitely at IUP at the time. I'm pretty sure I got him on eBay and had him shipped to my dorm.

After Dune, it would be more than twenty years before I added another PAS to the herd. This is #1341, Thee Desperado. This model was part of the Carole Christian collection dispersal and was auctioned on Facebook in March 2022. I had won another model that week, Rags to Riches, and noticed that no one had bid on this guy. When I emailed to arrange payment for Rags, I inquired about getting him also. They were happy to sell him to me for his starting bid.

In the future, I'd love to add the red bay 1983/1984 Sears special run, the 1997 Commemorative Edition Freedom, 1998 Toys "R" Us special run Cappuccino, and the 2010 mid-year chestnut Arabian Horse & Rider set to my conga. The only two unobtainiums on my wish list are Batal, a run of 25 for the 2002 Breyer tour raffle, and Beignet, an extremely limited run of 8 for the Big Easy Bash in 2014, but those will only come live with me if I win the lottery.