When I planned my posting schedule for this month and saw that my Fabulous Finds post would land on Christmas Eve, I knew exactly which three models would be in the spotlight.
Today, a day before the 35th anniversary of acquiring my first 1990 JCPenney Traditional Horse Set to start off my Breyer collection, I’m going to talk about the liberation of the second set.
Today, a day before the 35th anniversary of acquiring my first 1990 JCPenney Traditional Horse Set to start off my Breyer collection, I’m going to talk about the liberation of the second set.
On August 24, 2023, my friend Heather B messaged me about a possible presentation Buffalo buried in the corner of this picture from an estate sale near me that upcoming weekend. We consulted Nancy Young’s book and concluded that the presentation Buffalo did exist, so it could very well be The Real Thing. Heather couldn’t go to the estate sale due to a funeral, but she looped Kelly W into our text thread, and since Kelly W and I have a history of great finds together, she and I agreed to meet for the sale.
We knew the sale was more popular than we’d anticipated when we both had to park several blocks away, even well before the start time of the sale. The line was long, making us worried that someone would get to the Buffalo before us, but at least we were entertained while we waited. One of the people in line recognized Kelly from when she’d appeared on WQED’s “A Flea Market Documentary” years ago. Kelly gracefully navigated that minefield and avoided any discussion of model horses so as not to tip off the people in line in front of us.
The house was tiny and cramped, like many old Pittsburgh houses, and we couldn’t tell from the photo which room the models were in, so it was an agonizing wait for people to move out of the way enough for us to get there.
Luck was on our side, because all the Breyers from the photo were still there! We grabbed them all and continued looking around, but there weren’t any others. We picked up a clinky cat that Heather had spotted in another picture, waited in line to check out, and traded looks as the estate sale workers banged the models together as they were packing them up. Luckily, no one was damaged (the models or the estate sale workers).
Kelly purchased the Buffalo, bulls, and G1 Thoroughbred Mare, while I picked up the pinto Stock Horse Family and the JCPenney set. We couldn’t wait to examine the Buffalo, so we found a bench on the street a few doors down from the house and unpacked our liberations. There was obvious glue residue on the Buffalo’s wooden base where the plaque had been attached, so we knew right away he was The Real Thing! We ended up putting him in the silent auction for our 2024 Are You Kitten Me Live show, where every penny of his final bid price was donated to help the cats at Wayward Whiskers Animal Rescue.
We knew the sale was more popular than we’d anticipated when we both had to park several blocks away, even well before the start time of the sale. The line was long, making us worried that someone would get to the Buffalo before us, but at least we were entertained while we waited. One of the people in line recognized Kelly from when she’d appeared on WQED’s “A Flea Market Documentary” years ago. Kelly gracefully navigated that minefield and avoided any discussion of model horses so as not to tip off the people in line in front of us.
The house was tiny and cramped, like many old Pittsburgh houses, and we couldn’t tell from the photo which room the models were in, so it was an agonizing wait for people to move out of the way enough for us to get there.
Luck was on our side, because all the Breyers from the photo were still there! We grabbed them all and continued looking around, but there weren’t any others. We picked up a clinky cat that Heather had spotted in another picture, waited in line to check out, and traded looks as the estate sale workers banged the models together as they were packing them up. Luckily, no one was damaged (the models or the estate sale workers).
Kelly purchased the Buffalo, bulls, and G1 Thoroughbred Mare, while I picked up the pinto Stock Horse Family and the JCPenney set. We couldn’t wait to examine the Buffalo, so we found a bench on the street a few doors down from the house and unpacked our liberations. There was obvious glue residue on the Buffalo’s wooden base where the plaque had been attached, so we knew right away he was The Real Thing! We ended up putting him in the silent auction for our 2024 Are You Kitten Me Live show, where every penny of his final bid price was donated to help the cats at Wayward Whiskers Animal Rescue.
And here they are, a second set of three of the models that started it all.
My originals are on the left in each photo above, with the model from the newly-liberated set on the right. All the new additions are in better condition than my originals - neither the new Lady Phase nor the new Quarter Horse Gelding are shrinkies, and the new Rugged Lark has considerably fewer battle scars and was likely never played with (unlike mine). My originals will never leave me, but I was nonetheless pleased to have the upgrades.
The Stock Horse Family from that liberation has a happy ending, too. I had always intended to pass them on to another collector, but the Stock Horse Stallion was an obvious shrinky. He was faded, his finish looked cloudy, and his legs were warping inward so much that he wouldn’t stand. I’m one of those people who can’t bear to break up family sets and really wanted them to all go together - and they’d presumably all been together since the early 90s - but I despaired of anyone agreeing to buy the set with the Stallion being in such poor condition. I put a cheap price on them, $25 for all three (a $20 loss on what I’d paid for them), took them to BreyerFest with me in 2024 and 2025, and hoped for the best.
This year, a man came in during room sales and picked up all three models. He told me he was buying them for his daughter. Not knowing how knowledgeable he or his daughter might be on the finer points of collecting, and in the interest of full disclosure, I let him know that the Stallion was a shrinky, that he was likely to get worse, and that he didn’t stand. The man said, “Actually, my daughter collects shrinkies, so this is exactly what she’s looking for. She'll be happy to have the set.”
Perfect.
Happy Holidays, everyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment