New Additions: February 2026

 

This guy, until a couple days ago, was going to be the lone wolf for February acquisitions.  He’s #0985 Vic, a run of 200 pieces from 2001. According to the 2005 Stone Base catalog, he was produced for the Lawrence, Kansas Little Big Horn Celebration and Show Dinner and was sold by Happy Trails Collectables. I bought him off a Facebook ad from someone who was selling off overstock from a relative who had been a Stone dealer in the past.

He has a paint flaw on his chest that the seller didn’t see and wasn’t clear in the pictures - a large whitish area, like he was attacked by a rogue airbrush. I messaged the seller to see if that was normal for the run, and she said it wasn’t, because none of her others had been like that. She didn’t have any stock left to replace him with, so she offered to take him back for a refund. That was super nice of her, but while I was initially pretty disappointed with the flaw, I'll never find another one that cheap, so I declined to send him back. I’ll just find someone to fix him someday.

As you no doubt have guessed by now, Vic wasn’t the only thing I spent money on in February.

In my last post (literally, the one from Wednesday), I wrote about Mini Me Ima Shifty Goodbar, and mentioned how I’d hoped to add his larger counterpart on the ISH mold someday. Writing that post prompted me to put up an ISO ad for him on the Peter Stone Sales Page on Facebook.

Ask and ye shall receive.

A relatively recent (within the past couple years) hobby friend of mine messaged me on Thursday that she had one that she’d sell. She offered to ship him, but her house is literally right next door to my cousin JoAnn. (Small world!) My mom and I are going to visit JoAnn this summer, and my friend didn’t mind holding onto Shifty til then. Saves us both from having to worry about him in shipping. Until he gets here for his “official” glamour shot, here’s one my friend sent me.

 

 

Between the words “Shifty” and “Goodbar,” there are so many fun directions I could go with a show name. Side-Eye Snickers? Treacherous Toblerone? Shady Skor? Cagey Clark? 

I think I like the last one.

Singles Bar: The Letter C (Stone Edition)

I had so many singles on molds starting with C that I had to break it up into two posts. Last month was Breyer. This month is Stone.

 

Like Breyer, Stone has multiple scales of models; their Stablemates-sized equivalents are called Chips. Breyer’s average Stablemate costs about $4, while the average Stone Chip usually costs over $100, so I don’t have very many of the latter. The only Chips in my collection that won’t be featured today are my two Chips Arabians - because they’re not technically singletons.

 

 

This guy was the first Stone Chip I owned. His issue name was Barbados and he’s on the Chips Rearing Horse mold, which debuted with this run of 200 pieces for Equilocity 2012. I hand-picked him over at the Marriott next to the CHIN, where they were hosting that year’s event. He has been one of my most successful show models, with 25 breed ribbons, 18 collectibility ribbons, 9 breed NAN cards, 5 collectibility NAN cards, and a few Reserve Champs. His show name is Antilles, after the Lesser Antilles island chain, of which Barbados is part.

There are 12 Chips Rearing Horses on my wish list, so Antilles won’t be alone forever.

 

 

The next Chip to join my herd was Mini Me Ima Shifty Goodbar, a run of 15 on the Chips Stock Horse mold made for the All American Quarter Horse Congress show in 2017. He’s modeled after the 2016 Congress Queen’s horse of the same name. 

I attended the AAQHC model horse show that year, where Stone was a vendor. I instantly loved the color, but was waffling on buying him, until my friend Beth talked me into it. Someday I hope to acquire the larger version of the same release on the ISH mold.

I’ve taken Mini Me Ima Shifty Goodbar to 8 shows, where he’s earned 6 breed ribbons, 5 collectibility ribbons, 5 breed NAN cards, and one collectibility NAN card. Not too shabby! His show name is Corn Spot Hot Shot, which has made at least one judge giggle (looking at you, Riker, if you’re reading this).

There are 17 Chips Stock Horses on my wish list, with Mini Virginia and Mini Me Bellame at the top.

 

 

Next to join my Chips collection was this little dude, Angel, a Chips Stock Foal produced for the 2018 Warehouse Sale. He wasn’t purchased at the time of the sale and was given away as a prize during the Stone Horse Country Fair event in 2019. I honestly don’t remember how I won him - that night was a blur. That was the first and only time I attended any Stone event; they were still doing the Paint-Your-Own offering then, and I thought it would be super neat to paint something at the factory, so I made the trek. You’ll see the model I produced in a later post (spoiler alert - okay, not really - it’s a glossy bay).

Growing up, I was obsessed with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, so it’s pretty cool that this little guy ended up with me. His show name is Button. He has NAN’d in collectibility at two of his three shows.

There are 8 Chips Stock Foals on my want list, with number one being Mini Me Black Iris. A friend of mine has one and I drool over it every time I see it.

 

 

In January 2020, right before the world went to hell in a handcart, I ordered a couple Design-A-Horses - a bay roan extreme tobiano ISH and this guy, a chestnut-going-gray Chips Andalusian. He was painted by Audrey Dixon, one of my favorite Stone artists. His show name is Eternal Optimist.

There are 13 Chips Andalusians on my wish list.

 

 

In recent years, Stone has done a bunch of grab bag releases, similar to Breyer’s blind bags and gambler’s choice models. This Chips Mule, Mini Scrooge, was a grab bag release for the Classic Literature Series in December 2023. I typically stay away from Stone’s grab bags because I usually only like one or two of the models offered, and $150 is a lot to pay for a high chance of getting something you don’t like. The Christmas Carol grab bags were all outstanding, though - I liked every one of them - so I hopped onto the website right at drop time on 12/22/23 and managed to snag one. The gray Arabian and the spotty Mule were my top two choices.

The spotty mule is who I received, so that made me really happy. There were 5 produced. His show name is Eggk. I didn’t like anything I was coming up with when trying to associate his name with A Christmas Carol, so I turned to the list of random names I keep in my phone. Eggk was borne of a text misspelling between me and Heather B (see? There she is again!) We were discussing her BreyerFest Collector’s Class earlier in the year and she’d meant to say, “I guess he’d work,” but her phone somehow translated that to, “I guess he’d so egg k.” And my response was, “Gonna name a horse Eggk now.” He’s NAN’d, so that’s his name for life.

I’m not typically a mule collector, so there are only 7 Chips Mules on my wish list. Two are rainbow, two are blue and green decorators, two are bay, and one’s a grulla pinto.

Other Makes: Stone Thoroughbreds

Heading back into the realm of Stones for today’s Other Makes post.

 

 

The first Stone Thoroughbred to join my collection was Butter Pecan, a 2014 release from their Show Line series. I bought him in August 2014, when prices were a hell of a lot more reasonable than they are now - he was $68 shipped. [For comparison, the average price of a Traditional in 2025 (excluding Best Offers and DAH) was $512. Pretty frustrating.]

Anyway.

The Stone Horse Reference site describes Butter Pecan as a chocolate palomino, but he looks sooty to me. I typically don’t like cream dilutes unless they’re sooty, and I definitely don’t like them glossed (they’ll go too orange or two yellow in a heartbeat), so I left this guy matte. He shows well for me with documentation for the color. Of the 25 times he’s been on the table, he’s only been shut out of the ribbons twice. His show name is Good As Gold.

 

Next to arrive was this bright chestnut, Severance. For a brief period of time, Stone had a second website called Stone Ponys, which had its own separate inventory from the regular Stone site. I bought Severance from the Stone Ponys site in August 2015 and had him glossed. While I love the color and think he looks better in gloss than he did in matte, he has an outrageous amount of lint on his neck.

 

 

Having painted a model at the Stone factory in 2019, I’m pretty forgiving of lint, but I mean, look at that. This guy looks like he rolled around on one of those fuzzy velvet coloring pages right before he got glossed. He doesn’t show for that reason.

 

Captain Wentworth, a run of 10 pieces from Equilocity 2013, was my second-biggest Stone grail for a really long time. (In case you’re curious, Boaz was grail #1.) Superbly shaded red bays are my biggest weakness when it comes to model horses. I had a chance to buy him from the Stone site after Equilocity 2013, but couldn’t pull the trigger, and then kicked myself for years afterward.

On the evening of August 29, 2022, I posted an “In Search Of” ad for him on the Peter Stone Sales Page on Facebook. Not even three hours later, I got a PM from a hobbyist in New Zealand who had him for sale, and the rest is history.

His best show outing was just this past October at Steel City Live, where he won his class in both breed and collectibility and also section champed in collectibility. His show name is Zealand.

 

 

I think this guy is one of the prettiest Stone Thoroughbreds they’ve ever made. He is the non-customized version of Prince William, a run of 5 from Equilocity 2019. I bought him in September 2024 after I damn near drooled all over my phone screen upon seeing his ad on Facebook. His show name is Teenage Heartthrob and he has absolutely kicked ass in the show ring since I got him, with four NAN cards to his name already.

There are 22 Stone Thoroughbreds on my wish list. All but one (a rare buckskin) are bay, black, dapple gray, or some shade of flaxen chestnut. (I have a type, okay?) My biggest wish is a glossy bay with an ocean wave tail, like Cherish the Moment.

Fantastic Finds: Glossy Palomino Fighting Stallion

I've made it to post #50! 

 

I had no idea how this blog would go or if I'd stick with it. This started as a "me" project, and mostly still is, but I've been pleasantly surprised at how much interest and interaction there's been, and that has kept me going even when my stress has been through the roof and I don't feel much like writing.

 

One of the ways I like to manage stress is to go out liberating, and one of my favorite antique stores in the greater Pittsburgh area to liberate from was Crown Antiques down in Washington. It’s where I found my birthday surprise chalky buckskin Mustang in 2014 and a bay Stock Horse Stallion autographed by Rich Rudish. The mall lost the majority of its tenants between 2016 and the end of the pandemic, and is currently being redeveloped as mixed retail and a business park. Crown Antiques closed in June 2019 and relocated to Uniontown.

 

In September 2015, before the downhill slide started, I found this guy.

 

 

In one of the booths, high up on a shelf, he was hanging out with a ton of Family Arabians. I had to pull said Family Arabians down to get to the Fighter tucked behind them, and their price tags made me cringe - $60 or more each. I thought, “Gosh, if they want that much for the Family Arabs, what outrageous amount will they want for the glossy palomino Fighter?”

The answer, happily, was $40.

 

 

I snapped this picture of him in the store because I couldn’t believe my luck. He’s in amazing shape and still has remnants of his foot pads, and he’s a gorgeous soft honey caramel color. #33 King, The Fighting Stallion was produced from 1961-1973 and had quite the color range during that time, from soft honey caramel like my guy, to pale orange, to bright orange, to darker tan.

He doesn’t come out to play much in the show ring because I have a gazillion stock horses, but when I do show him, his name is Crown Jewel.

Show Stoppers: Artist Resins

As I said in last month’s Show Stoppers post, I am mostly an Original Finish collector. Artist Resins (ARs) are the scarcest thing in my collection - I, the person who breaks Breakable Things just by looking at them, even have more Breakable Things than ARs. There are many AR sculpts out there that I love (cough cough VINCENZO cough cough), but I’ve talked about my hesitation to drop a comma on things, and good paint jobs on ARs typically involve commas. The naked resins themselves are also Not Cheap.

Thus it is that I find myself with a mere five ARs to my name. Only four of them will make today’s post - this is a post about show models and my Veronka, despite being purchased in 2022, is still naked. I’m having a problem deciding on her color because that sculpt literally looks good in everything.

(Who am I kidding. She’ll end up bay.)

 

Given how long I’ve lusted over Vincenzo, I never thought a Walter - well, a pair of Walters - would be the first ARs in my collection.

But then Sheryl Leisure had a table at the Artisan Gallery at BreyerFest 2015 and had a bunch of painted Walters there for the incredibly cheap price of $125 each. I stood there and debated between the dapple gray and the caramel dun for like twenty minutes. Then it went like this:
    Sheryl: “See something you like?”
    Me: “I’m trying to decide between these two.”
    Sheryl: “How about both for $200?”
    Me: “Sold.”

 

I've only shown them once; the caramel dun placed 5th and the gray placed 6th. I don't remember which name goes with which model, but one of them is called Impulse Buy and the other is Steal of a Deal.

They’re slightly tippy and Felice the Destructor absolutely would have done them in, so they stayed safely in their boxes until we moved into our current house and I had a room with a door that closed. I probably should have redone their glamour shots with the better camera on my newer phone instead of using these ones from 2015, but there have been some Incidents in the horse room lately and suffice it to say, I'm afraid to touch anything.

 

 

The next AR to join my collection was this delicious Cromwell, painted by the incomparable Myla Pearce. His show name is Pompous Pete, though I just call him Pete for short. Pete was originally purchased and commissioned by my friend Heather B.

 

[It seems I can't get through one of these posts without Heather showing up somewhere.]

Heather brought Pete to a bunch of shows in the early and mid-2010s. I drooled over him every time I saw him. I’m pretty sure I voted him as the Overall Overall one time when the show holders asked the showers to vote. There is such depth to his paint job and the only words I can think of to describe his whites are “soft” and “touchable.” I’m not really a pinto person, and I’m definitely not a draft person, but Pete won me over the second I saw him.

Fast forward to early 2018, when Heather said to me, “Do you want Pete?” I wonder what my face looked like when she asked; I’m sure it was some interesting combination of shock, disbelief, and “Oh hell yeah!” Heather was intensely congaing Brishens at the time and didn’t have an original Brishen in her collection because most of them were decidedly greenish in tone, not the lovely liver color from the stock photo. Mine was less green than most, so Heather suggested a trade of her Pete for my Brishen plus a pitiful amount of cash. I still feel bad about how little it was; the blank Cromwell body probably cost her more than that. It was definitely a lopsided trade, but Pete going somewhere he’d be appreciated was more important to her than what she could get for him.

Have I mentioned she’s the best?

On January 8, 2018, we met up for the exchange, and Pete was mine.

I show the ever-loving hell out of him, despite the fact that (a) he’s a heavy wee thing and (b) he takes up a lot of room in the show tote and (c) I’m typically managing multiple OF divisions and/or judging something at the same time, so having to keep track of AR classes for one model is an extra level of challenge. He’s been on the table at 13 shows since I bought him and has only been entirely shut out of the ribbons once. With me, he’s earned 5 breed NAN cards, 5 workmanship NAN cards, a reserve section champ in workmanship, two section champs and two overall (entire division) champs in workmanship, and a Top 5 in Region 10 for workmanship. Myla did an incredible job on him and I am thankful every day that he graces my shelves.

 

 

This Denderah resin, sculpted by Karen Gerhardt, made his first appearance on my blog as one of my “Top 5 of 2025” models. I wanted to tell his full story then, but it’s show-related, so I saved it for here.

Quick recap - Denderah was a pandemic purchase in August 2020. He hung around naked until January 2025, when the perfect set of circumstances aligned to get him painted: I had finally landed on his color, Jennifer Danza had just opened commission slots, and my parents had gifted me some Christmas money, which I chose to put toward his paint job. (That last part will become important in a bit.) I sent him off to Jennifer with the instructions to make him a red bay shaded to hell and back, and he arrived to me in April, every bit as outstanding as I’d hoped he’d be.

In early June 2025, I took Denderah with me to a two-day show in Hammondsport, NY. We’ve got family up there on my mom’s side, so my mom came with me. Our cousin JoAnn graciously put us up at her house for the weekend, which was exactly a three-minute drive from the show hall, and she and my mom had a great time hanging out and catching up while I was at the shows.

They stopped by the hall on Saturday afternoon to see what the fuss was all about. JoAnn has always been intrigued by the hobby, and my mom said something like, “You talk about these shows all the time and I can never quite picture what you’re doing, so I want to see it for myself.”

Their timing could not have been better. Workmanship classes at these shows were split out from the breed classes, and the bay class was called shortly after they arrived, so my mom got to see me take Denderah up to the show table. A few minutes later, the judge finished up - and Denderah had a first place ribbon and a yellow NAN card in front of him. I’m pretty sure I squealed out loud and yelled “Mom!” across the show hall and held his winnings up for her to see.

As I said above, my parents have always been my biggest enablers and biggest champions when it comes to my collection. To have my mom help fund Denderah’s workmanship and be there to see him get his first NAN card for workmanship was the best moment of the whole weekend.

I’m pretty sure she would say that the best part for her was the huge ridiculous grin on my face when I brought him back to my table.

He went on to take earn a Top 5 rosette in workmanship that day, and then did the exact same thing on Sunday under a different judge. At a show in October, he took first in his class in both breed and workmanship, and also section reserved in both. His show career is just beginning and I can’t wait to see what else he does.

 

My next order of business with ARs is to get my Veronka painted.

 

Then maybe I'll finally get myself a Vincenzo. 

Don't Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth: 60s Bay Fighting Stallion

In addition to all my awesome model horse hobby friends who have gifted me things, I have also been gifted models from non-model-horse collectors.

I’ll have known my boyfriend, Chris, for 25 years this April. (God, we’re not that old, are we?) In high school, he was friends with a guy named Steve, who married a gal named Carrie. Steve and Carrie been together as long as Chris and I, if not longer. They're Jeep people, like Chris, and they also have a floofy black kitty whom they rescued as a feral kitten, which automatically makes them Really Cool People. We’re all friends on Facebook.

Carrie has been a long-time collector of Barbies, and she and Steve frequently go out treasure hunting to flea markets and estate/yard/rummage sales. In August 2015, Carrie sent me a message that she had acquired eight Breyers at a rummage sale and wanted help identifying and pricing them. They were a mix of 60s-70s vintage models and some newer, mid-2000s regular runs. I couldn’t tell from the photos if any of the vintage ones were chalky (they were all correct for the era) so we agreed to meet up at my house so I could look at them. Carrie and Steve also wanted to meet Felice, who was only three months old at that time and already a Facebook star in her own right.

As soon as Carrie freed this guy from his bubble wrap, I knew I had to have him.

 

 

This guy is one of the prettiest bay Fighting Stallions I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot. #35 King, The Fighting Stallion had a long, long run in Breyer’s lineup, from 1961-1987. There are a zillion copies of him out there. This particular model is from the 60s - he doesn’t have the USA stamp, he’s got factory eyewhites, and he has remnants of the foot and tail pads that Breyer added to some models throughout the 60s to prevent them from scuffing furniture. The 60s models also tend to have the best shading, and this guy's shading is outstanding on both sides, so that also points him to this time frame.

He’s awesome.

The rest of the models in the lot were in great shape, except for a chipped ear on the bay Running Mare. I cleaned up a few stray marks on them, and then helped Steve and Carrie write up the descriptions for their eBay store and set Buy-It-Now prices. Once we arrived at a price on the Fighter, I asked them for their PayPal address so I could pay them.

Steve and Carrie looked at each other, came to an agreement without saying a word, and then Carrie said, “Consider it payment for helping us with the rest of them.”

I double and triple checked that they were okay with that - he was by far the most valuable of the lot and would have gotten them a great return on their initial investment - but they insisted that I keep him for free.

His show name is their last name, which I won’t share here in the interest of their privacy.

I also wanted to share these pictures - Felice absolutely hated when I was in the horse room without her, and would wail and shove her piggies under the door until I gave in and went out to pet her. I was in the horse room one day trying to get a quick photo of this guy when Felice decided she’d had enough, and these awesome photobombs occurred.

 

"MOM! I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE, MOM!"

Full Spectrum: Even More Winter Blues

Ever see the Disney movie The Sword in the Stone? Remember when Madam Mim is having that epic tantrum at the end about hating sunshine, which devolves into her screeching the word “HATE” over and over again?

That’s how I feel about Valentine’s Day.

So today, we ain’t talking about pink models, red models, models with hearts on them, none of that. We’re continuing on with our Winter Blues series. Today is the Stablemates.

 

 

#701705 Stablemates Mini Fanfare was released through the JAH magazine in 2004. There were 1500 total sets made. Each set had the G1 Saddlebred in the four original decorator colors - Gold Charm, Florentine, Wedgewood, and Copenhagen, along with a G1 Draft in one of four colors (who I talked about in last month’s Collectibility Spotlight post). I’ve considered parting with the set in the past, but every time I pull these guys down to pack them up, I just can’t do it.

 

 

#711158 Dungaree was one of the four Single-Day Stablemates produced for BreyerFest 2013. I bought the full set that year, but he’s the only one of the four who is still here. I parted with my Chrome at BreyerWest 2018, and my Rivet and Indigo sadly yellowed while briefly stored between moves. I think they reacted with the bubble wrap.

 

 

I love this little mold. He has the goofiest face, especially when they paint eyewhites on him. This blue guy is #711282 Big Lex, one of the four Single-Day Stablemates made for BreyerFest 2018, Off to the Races. They’ve done a few representations of Big Lex over the years, but I like this little Stablemate the best. I’m sure the gloss has something to do with that.

I bought the full set of Stablemates that year as well, and none of them will ever leave me. My bestie and I have been in love with Silver Charm since his Triple Crown bid in 1998; Man O’ War is my favorite racehorse of all time; and Ruffian is on the G3 Standing Thoroughbred, whom I conga, and is also a Shiny Bay Thing.

I recently saw the set advertised for $550, which seemed like crazy town to me, but apparently that's what they're going for, because it sold.

 

 

This shrunken-down Albycorn (Alborozo unicorn - someone dubbed them that and man did it sure stick in my head) was the chase piece for the Horse Crazy Unicorn Surprise blind bag series, produced from 2018-2020. Even though he was the chase piece, and thus rarer than the others in the series, he wasn’t overly difficult to find, given how long the series was produced. I didn’t even have to go “feeling up the blind bags” to find mine - the seller from whom I bought Hakan in 2020 (featured earlier this month in my Do That Conga post) included the him as a free ride-along!

 

 

I’m not a huge unicorn person, but he’s blue, and he’s a G2 Warmblood, and I’ve congaed this mold since it was first released in 1998 and currently have 32 of them, so I had to have him. I bought him in April 2021 as a ride-along with my Stablemates Club release, Hendrik, so the latter would be double-boxed and less likely to get Seriously Mangled by the post office during shipping.

 

 

God, I hate this mold. (Again, picturing Madam Mim screaming, “Hate! Hate! Hate!”)

But of course they put blue on it, so I had to have it.

This is #712381 Dahlia, who was the gambler’s choice release for the Stablemates Club in 2021. I was in the club that year and received the glossy champagne with my own membership. It seems I completely fell off the map at the end of 2021 and didn’t write down where I got the blue one from (or anything else I bought in November and December that year), but I’m 99.99% sure Heather B was involved again, because I know I got this model at cost.

 

She's the only one of this bunch that I show. I had already named her glossy champagne sister Caledonia, so this blue gal became Caledonia Waterfalls.

 

 

This is #712413 Clydesdale Christmas, the annual holiday Stablemates blind bag release in 2021. Four colors were available, all glossed - blue, gold charm, silver, and red. Blue was obviously my first choice. I received both blue and gold charm; I sold the latter at BreyerFest 2024. Someday I’ll probably pick up a red one, since red is my favorite color.

I absolutely love that they shrunk down the Traditional-scale Clydesdale Stallion. He will someday be a large conga.

 

 

So this is a model I CM’d myself. When I write these posts, I always like to say when models joined my collection, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out when I’d done him. I’d have sworn to you that it was only two or three years ago, but his in-progress photos eluded me for quite awhile.

That’s because it has been a whopping SIX years since I did this guy, and I just didn’t go back far enough. He was a pandemic creation, borne of a Saturday in August 2020 when the only safe way to gather with people was outside. A few of my friends came over and we learned how to flock models on my back deck. I knew right away that I didn’t want something realistic, and my friend had brought a ton of colors with her, so I decided on a blue pinto. 

 

He has a bad hair day every day of his life, and his eyes are scary as hell and need redone, and I’m not sure I’d ever flock a model again by choice, but I’m overall pretty happy with the way he came out.

 

 

This guy arrived in late September 2025, quite a bit before I was expecting him. He’s part of the #B-CS-10464 set from the 2025 Deluxe Collector’s Club. One model in the set was a glossy bay appaloosa on the same mold, named Darius, while the other was one of the four original decorator colors. I’d have preferred the solid blue Wedgewood, but this Copenhagen was my second choice.

 

 

This is #B-CS-10353 Chickadee, the gambler’s choice from the 2025 Stablemates Club. This guy was my first choice of the four colors, even though I hate that pearly shit they put all over everything. The blue totally redeemed him in my eyes. My second choice would have been the glossy solid silver bay (shocking, I know).

He arrived in mid-October last year and was one bright spot amidst a whole bunch of awfulness between work and Felice.

Next month, I’ll finish up the Winter Blues series with the Breyer Traditionals.

Collectibility Spotlight: Test Sham

I am an admirer of rarities, though I am not a rarities collector. As soon as a comma is involved in the price tag, I balk, and since nowadays even many of the not-as-rare rarities easily command four figures, I’m priced out pretty quickly.

The exception to that - the exception to every collecting rule I’ve ever set for myself along the way - is Sham.

• I don't collect decos or unicorns: Lavinia (purchased 2001)
• I don't collect multiples of the same model: #410 (11), #411 (2), #812 (3), glossy Sears SR (2), #3162 (3), #3163 (2), Best Choice (2), The Black Stallion (3)
• I don't collect breakable things: Galaxias (purchased 2011)
• I don't collect unpainted models: Naked Shams x4 (purchased in 2014, 2016, and 2018)
• I don't collect autographed models: Rudish Sham #1 (purchased 2014) and Rudish Sham #2 (purchased 2015)
• I don't collect models on lamps: Sham-on-a-lamp (purchased at BreyerFest 2015)
• I don't collect models with boxes: #410 with 80s box (purchased 2015), #410 with Sears box (purchased 2018)
• I don't collect culls: #812 from ebay (purchased 2018)
• I don't spend a comma on models: Smurfy (purchased 2020) and this guy, purchased in 2023, the subject of today's post:

 

On July 6, 2023, a seller posted this test Sham for sale on the Rare Model Horse Sales page on Facebook. This is what she wrote about him:

“Ever since I bought this handsome guy from a fellow collector (who knew very little about him other than she had bought him from an estate sale a few years ago), I knew he was something special. I attempted to research who he is and where he came from, and this is what I managed to find out:

This vintage Sham is a semi-OOAK Marney Walerius test model, part of an extremely limited run of models that she had brought with her as gifts for the judges of a show that was held in Texas, back in the 1980's. It is my understanding that not one of these models were exactly alike, even if a few look very similar to each other; there were small differences between each one, as they were not all painted exactly the same. This particular guy is a rich, dark red chestnut, with what is called a "skunk tail" (flaxen at the base, and fading into red), with four white socks and very light pink/cream colored hooves. He also features the classic "wheat ear" marking on his chest that all vintage Shams originally had (before Breyer decided to stop releasing the Sham mold with this marking, as too many people were mistaking it as a flaw).”

The seller had quite a lengthy want list as possible trades, so I was optimistic we could work something out. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything she wanted that was worth near the test Sham’s value. I reached out to her anyway, and over the course of the next few weeks, as we waited through her initial offer period and then some additional time as another interested party waffled back and forth on a final offer, we had some long and enjoyable conversations over Messenger about our mutual love of Sham and other Breyer Arabians.

Eventually, the other interested party withdrew, and the seller and I agreed on a trade - her test Sham for my Sanibel web special and quite a bit of cash to make up the difference in value.

I’d seen lots of pictures of the Sham at this point and was pretty convinced that he was what she said he was, but you never really know until you have the model in hand. In the time between when I paid for him and when he arrived, I half-convinced myself that he was just a cull of #410 and that I had grossly overspent.

As soon as I opened him, that worry disappeared.

 

 

He is so, so different in color from the regular #410 Shams. I put him next to my darkest and lightest #410s and it’s not even close. I have no doubt he’s original finish with a fully-executed paint job, and exactly what the seller was told he is - a Marney test from the mid-80s.

 

 

He’s got typical 80s seams, the wheat ear, and even some overspray on one fetlock, and his body color matches the chestnut Marney test on IDYB, though that one has a black nose and black hooves. The subtle difference supports the information the seller was told - that this might have been a small run, but each model was unique.

I knew right away that I was going to show him, so he needed a name. As a test, he obviously wasn't issued with a name, so I had nothing to work with. I wanted something that conveyed how momentous he is and also humorously reflected the sticker shock I had after buying him. Aftershock seemed a good fit - especially because he’s red, like the cinnamon liqueur.

If I have to limit myself to only one test model in my collection, I’m super happy it’s this one.

Special Effects: Connoisseur Models

From 2001 through 2011, Breyer produced the Connoisseur series - fifty runs of 350 pieces each, featuring complex, highly-detailed paint jobs of a caliber not-yet-seen in original finish plastic and sold exclusively to subscribers of Breyer’s Just About Horses (JAH) magazine. 

They were a smash hit.

Refinement of the new painting techniques used to create the Connoisseurs would lead to the introduction of the Breyer Premier Club in 2012, which offered Connoisseur-level paint jobs on brand new sculpts. Unlike the Connoisseurs, the Premier Club models aren’t limited to a finite quantity - anyone can sign up for the club each year. Early Premier Club memberships numbered around 750; Breyer hasn’t released membership numbers since 2014, but I’m sure they’re well into the thousands by now.

I digress.

I took a step back from the hobby after high school and thus didn’t know about the Connoisseurs until I resubscribed to Just About Horses in 2003. The first magazine I received, March/April 2003, had a picture of the horse who became the longest-standing and most intensely desired grail I’ve ever had. Most of the folks who read this blog already know who he is, but even though he was my first Connoisseur acquisition and I usually go in that order, I’m saving him for last, because he’s my favorite model in my collection. By a lot.

 

First up, my three others.

 

 

This is #90122 Hope-N-Glory, the tenth release in the Connoisseur series from the September/October 2002 JAH. She is #61/350. I’m a giant Lady Phase fan (she’s my second-biggest conga at 40 pieces) and it’s no wonder I’m in love with her paint job - it was designed by Tom Bainbridge, an artist whose work I’ve salivated over since I first saw a custom by him in the late 90s.

This Hope-N-Glory graces my shelves solely because of my friend Kelly W. It was the Saturday night of BreyerFest 2017. Kelly called me on my cell and told me to meet her in one of the CHIN rooms. When Kelly tells you to come see a Breyer, you go see the Breyer. When I got there, Kelly pointed to the Hope-N-Glory on the bed and said, “That’s a really good price.” It was a really good price - the cheapest I’d ever seen for her - but it was late Saturday night and I had already spent my plastic pony budget. I said that to Kelly; she said, “Well, then, I’m going to buy her for you because you need her, and you can just pay me back.” So she did, and I did, and that was that.

I show her regularly; her show name is Phrenology, an anagram of her issue name. She does okay, but there’s another Hope-N-Glory in my region whose mapping and coronet bands are a smidge cleaner and whose shading is a little nicer, so that one usually (and fairly) beats mine.

 

 

#90127 Del Fuego is the fifteenth release in the Connoisseur series, offered through the January/February 2004 issue of JAH. Mine is #329/350. I bought him through Model Horse Sales Pages in May of 2018. His price was lower than many because the seller didn’t have his COA. I would have liked the COA, but I wasn’t about to pass him up for that price.

His show name is Shango. He’s done fairly well in the show ring; of the nine shows he’s been to, he’s only been out of the ribbons twice.

 

 

This is one of those models that often makes me go, “Wow, I can’t believe I own one of these.”

#90143 Silverado, offered through the January/February 2008 JAH issue, is one of the most popular of the fifty Connoisseur models. People love the Wintersong sculpt, people love silver bay, and people love really well executed paint jobs. Roll those into one model and you’ve got Silverado.

Mine is #113/350 and I bought him from my friend Beth in May 2018. She gave me a “friend price” that was slightly under his current market value. The timing of his purchase worked out well for me (though not so much for Beth; sorry, Beth) because a year or two later, his market price tripled, then quadrupled. I could never afford to pay what he goes for now.

Beth showed him successfully with the name Evenstar Conquest. I totally forgot he had NAN cards and a name when she sold him to me, so I gave him the name Napa Valley. He did well for me for a few shows, though he is temporarily retired until I can get around to fixing an eartip rub he picked up somewhere along the way.

And now … drumroll please … here is my favorite model in my entire collection.

 

This horse.

It was March of 2003 and I had just resubscribed to JAH after a 10-year hiatus. I was sitting in my apartment in Columbus, Ohio, turning the pages of the March/April 2023 magazine, and wham. 

 

Never in my life have I instantly wanted to own a model horse as much as I wanted to own #90124 Fortissimo, the twelfth entry in the Connoisseur series.

I submitted my card for him right away (you entered through snail mail back then) and anxiously awaited the drawing. I had to have him. I looked at his picture almost every day.

I didn’t get drawn. 

To say I was disappointed is an understatement.

I eventually managed to put it aside, but I still looked at that page in that magazine all the freaking time.

Once I got through grad school and rejoined the hobby in 2010, I started actively looking for Fortissimo on the secondary market. I had a TON of near-misses, probably half a dozen, including one priced at a mere $225. His price had already started to climb by then and I despaired of ever being fast enough to grab one at a price I could afford.

Then I went to BreyerFest in 2013 and found one for sale at the CHIN. He was $600, which was more than I wanted to pay, but he was my holy grail, and I’d been looking for so long and missed out on so many, and I could inspect every millimeter of him right there in person. As soon as I held him in my hands, I knew I wasn’t going to walk away without owning him. I handed him back to the seller and asked if she could hold him for me for just a minute while I made a quick phone call.

That call was to my parents. I’d already spent a good bit of my BreyerFest money and didn’t have enough cash on hand to buy him outright. I asked my parents if they would front me the difference and allow me to pay them back. I knew they’d just give me the money without the expectation of repayment - they have always been enablers of my collection in the best way - but Fortissimo was my grail, the model I desired most for ten straight years, and it was really important to me to purchase him myself. They agreed, and I went back into the room and gave the seller the $300 I had left, with an agreement to send the rest in two weeks. She’d ship him to me as soon as she had the second payment.

I left the room in a daze, walked down to the CHIN bar where my friends were hanging out, sat down, and said, “I just spent $600 on a Fortissimo, I need a beer.”

At the time, that was by far the most I’d ever spent on a model horse. I was both horrified and so ecstatic I could barely talk. My friends found it quite entertaining.

I got a check in the mail from my parents shortly after I got back from BreyerFest, sent the other $300 plus shipping to the seller on July 31, and on August 10, 2013, ten years and five months after first seeing his picture in JAH, I finally had a Fortissimo on my shelves. He’s #146/350.

He’s been to 34 shows with me. He has 17 breed ribbons, 6 breed NAN cards, 16 collectibility ribbons, and 5 collectibility NAN cards. His show name is Crescendo, for obvious reasons.

Every time I pull him off the shelf to take him to a show; every time I get him out of the bin to put him on my table; every time I take him to and from the show table; every time he pins; every time I put him back in the bin after the show; and every time I put him back on the shelf, I say, “Hi, favorite!” Sometimes I even say it whenever I pass by his shelf in the horse room. When I toured Breyer headquarters in NJ during the Big Easy Bash, I took a picture of the Fortissimo on the shelves in the lobby and shared it on my Facebook with the caption, “Of course the Fortissimo in the lobby had to have a photograph of his own, since he's my favorite.” I shared my own Fortissimo on my Facebook for December photo challenges in both 2018 and 2019 on the “Favorite Model” day.

There will be other models I want, even some that might become grails because of how difficult they are to find, but there will never be another Fortissimo.