How is it April already?
I am neither clever enough nor enough of a prankster to pull some convincing April Fools shenanigans on this blog, so it’ll just be business as usual today.
I am neither clever enough nor enough of a prankster to pull some convincing April Fools shenanigans on this blog, so it’ll just be business as usual today.
One of the best parts of BreyerFest for me is seeing all my friends. I’m lucky enough to have a close group of hobby peeps who live close to me and whom I see on the regular, but there are plenty of others whom I only see at the occasional show or at BreyerFest. My friend Susan is one of those.
Susan has a spectacular collection of models, mostly gray and mostly of the Spanish variety. Some of the pieces she owns are jaw-dropping examples of the best artistry the hobby has to offer. She rotates other models in and out of her collection on a fairly regular basis, and when she decides to switch directions with her collection and have a sell-off, she prices her items silly cheap. I remember when she decided to part with a number of her Stone Trotting Drafts at one of our local shows, and she had them priced at like $25 each. You feel like you’re stealing from her, but she insists that’s all she wants for them. I feel like she’s wired kinda like my friend Heather, where sometimes it means more to have someone get a model they really like than to make money on it.
These two models are examples of that.
I have a modest Big Ben conga - none of the rarities, but I have all of the regular runs and most of the high-quantity special runs they’ve released. This guy, #701500 Nautical, a run of 750 pieces for the USET in 2000, was on my short list of most-wanted models from the time I went to my first BreyerFest in 2010, but the ones I’d seen for sale were always priced out of my budget.
When I saw him in Susan’s room during BreyerFest 2015, I prepared myself to be priced out again - but she had a mere $20 on the tag. Knowing how Susan is but also not wanting to deprive a friend of a fair sale, I said, “Susan, are you sure? He’s worth much more than that.” She smiled and said something like, “Yes, but I’m especially sure because you’re the one buying him and I can tell how much you want him.”
When I saw him in Susan’s room during BreyerFest 2015, I prepared myself to be priced out again - but she had a mere $20 on the tag. Knowing how Susan is but also not wanting to deprive a friend of a fair sale, I said, “Susan, are you sure? He’s worth much more than that.” She smiled and said something like, “Yes, but I’m especially sure because you’re the one buying him and I can tell how much you want him.”
In 2006, JCPenney released the #410146 Pinto Half-Arabian Family through their Christmas catalog. I was well into grad school by then and had taken a large step back from collecting, so I didn’t acquire them at the time, and have regretted it ever since. The Susecion & Le Fire from the set don’t come up for sale often and command quite a lot of money, often $300 and up for the pair. This guy, on the Huck Bey mold, obviously isn’t any more rare than the rest of the set, but he isn’t as popular from a mold standpoint and is thus a little more common (and less expensive) to find.
Susan had him for sale, too, mint as mint can be, for half of what he normally fetches on the market. I am overrun with Araby-things in my show string and I tend to pick my Partly Cloudy Weather Girl over him for the Part-Arabian class, but he’s made the table a few times here and there. His show name is Bashir.
I got both of these models for less than I expected to pay for one of them individually, and it was clear Susan was just as happy about that as I was. The word that comes to mind when I think about the expression on her face is “gleeful.” Buying these two models from a dear friend is such a happy memory!
Susan had him for sale, too, mint as mint can be, for half of what he normally fetches on the market. I am overrun with Araby-things in my show string and I tend to pick my Partly Cloudy Weather Girl over him for the Part-Arabian class, but he’s made the table a few times here and there. His show name is Bashir.
I got both of these models for less than I expected to pay for one of them individually, and it was clear Susan was just as happy about that as I was. The word that comes to mind when I think about the expression on her face is “gleeful.” Buying these two models from a dear friend is such a happy memory!