Do That Conga: Giselle

For today’s Do That Conga post, we’re looking at my collection of Giselles.

Giselle was sculpted by Brigitte Eberl, one of my favorite Breyer sculptors, and was first released through the Connoisseur line in 2008. I absolutely love the rich chestnut color they put on her for that first release, but I’ll never own one - she’s a porcelain, and I break breakable things.

Giselle, like many of my other congas, was not intentional; she just kind of happened.

My first Giselle was - shocker - a Shiny Bay Thing, this glossy #1474 GG Valentine, a regular run produced from 2010-2019. They glossed one set out of six (one per case). 

 

On March 4, 2017, I went to the New Year’s Bash: Defrosted Edition show hosted by my friend Chesna. I have no show documents or photos of models with ribbons from that day, but the magic of old Facebook posts tells me I was shadowing my friend Kelly K as she judged Breyer/Other collectibility. (Awww, baby judge Mel was just learning!)

Chesna had a Breyer dealer at the show, Tack Shack and Livestock Supplies, who had some incredible discounts on some of their models. When I saw the glossy GG Valentine & Heartbreaker set priced at just $25, I snatched it right up!

She was the only Giselle on my shelf until 2020, when they used her for the BreyerFest special run #711371 Slainte Surprise. I bought three BreyerFest tickets that year because they had three molds I conga in the lineup - Sham, the Trakehner, and Wintersong. That was the first year of online BreyerFest (thanks but no thanks, Covid) and the first year of using online form submission to pick your special runs (a practice they still use today). I put the Sham, Trakehner, and Wintersong first on my master list, followed by three Surprise models, and I was lucky enough to get all my picks.

 

I was even luckier that they used a mold I like for the Surprise. 

Chris had paid for the Sham and one of the Slainte Surprise models as my birthday gift, so when the box arrived with all my special runs, I told him to pick one of the three Surprise bags and that one would be his official gift. I was thrilled to open this glossy red roan pinto! The glossies are always significantly fewer in quantity (325 of each color in 2020) and I'm typically not lucky enough to pull any. Perhaps I should drag Chris to BreyerFest with me and have him select my Surprise bags! (Just kidding, I would never subject him to the insanity that is BreyerFest.)

The next Slainte Surprise I opened was a matte red roan. Yay for two different ones! There were 800 made of each color in matte.

My third Slainte Surprise was another matte roan. I ended up trading with my friend Penny for this matte black silver. Penny had gotten duplicates of that color but was missing a roan, so our trade worked out great.

Right after New Year’s in 2021, a seller posted this matte palomino Slainte Surprise l on Model Horse Sales Pages for less than cost due to some factory flaws. I didn’t mind the flaws and just wanted her for a shelf-sitter, so I pounced.

 

Six months later, in June 2021, my friend Marci listed these two for sale, the glossy palomino and glossy black silver Slainte Surprises, with a discount if you bought both together. The black silver looks particularly awesome in gloss; I wish they’d use that color more often.

And thus, within the span of a year, my Giselles went from one model to seven.

 

In September 2022, my friend Heather B (who has already been mentioned in this blog A Lot) was ready to part with her #712192 Chesapeake, the event model from the 2016 Chasing the Chesapeake event, and I was more than happy to agree to buy her. Shiny Flaxen Chestnut Things are my second-biggest weakness behind Shiny Bay Things.

 

My last Giselle has a fun story. 

 

Every year since 1983, except for 2020, my family has gone to Kraynaks in Sharon, PA, sometime on or around Black Friday. We call it K-Day and we all look forward to it immensely. 

Last year, K-Day was delayed all the way until December 8th thanks to the ludicrous 60” of snow my parents got at their house in Erie between November 28th (Thanksgiving Day) and December 3rd. 

 

 

Those are my parents' cars - my mom's in the driveway and my dad’s on the street - on November 30, 2024. That was probably 18-24" of snow - and it continued to come down for three more days after that!

 

When we finally got to Kraynaks in December, I picked out this gal, #10007 Calista, for my parents to give me as a Christmas present, because my mom says it’s not Christmas unless they give me a Breyer.

As far as Giselles on my want list still to be acquired - there aren’t any! I had both the matte and glossy appaloosa Slainte Surprises on my want list at one time, but the masking on the appaloosa spots was notoriously bad on the entire run, and I haven’t yet found one in either finish that I can live with. I'm sure they'll put other colors on Giselle in the future that will catch my eye, but for now, the conga is holding steady at nine.