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 as 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.