Copperfox Cob Number 6

A very handsome arrival to introduce this time, it's another welsh cob for the herd!

He's absolutely lovely, with soft dappling applied well, and not too evenly all over - the dapples fade in and out over various parts of his body, gently blending into a well-shaded base coat, with his face palest and legs darkest, just like so many real horses in the greying process. He's very different to the paler dappled grey, Percival, so if you try to avoid collecting repeats of too-similar colours on the same mould, you'd be ok aiming for both these!

With my other Copperfox cobs so far, something related to their original release name, but this boy's officially called Gibson, which I couldn't really work with as a theme, so I just picked something which seemed suitable! So he's Harecroft Welsh Magic.

I got him on Ebay, quite a bit cheaper than average for the second-hand market, because one of the pointy bits of his mane had been broken, but it'd been neatly mended, you wouldn't notice it unless you knew where to look. 

Annoyingly, he managed to topple over sideways during his photo shoot, and despite landing gently on his side on my nice slightly-plush fake grass, he broke the same bit of his mane again, a fraction of an inch along from the previous mend. I can superglue it to stabilise the crack and stop the loose piece coming off, but it's clear now that's the vulnerable spot which hits the ground first when falling, and judging by the amount of chipped or snapped ears I've seen on second hand or body model sales, the plastic must be more brittle than Breyer or Stone use. I'll certainly be even more cautious with my Copperfoxes from now on, handling them more like resins than plastics.

So my welsh cob conga is one horse longer, and I'm still hoping to get my hands on the complete set - just the chestnut and the black to tick off the wishlist, now!

Jaffacake

What do you call things that aren't brand new, or nearly-new, or even within-two-or-three-years second hand, but aren't old enough to call vintage yet, either? Retro!

A couple of weeks ago, some Julips popped up on ebay which came from the old days of J-club, when Annabel still ran the company. One of the horses was really distinctive, a dun skewbald which I remember (after all this time!) was called Toffee, and that her owner had two different Toffee Julips as the second one was ordered with more accurate markings. I don't know if the ebay model was the first or second Toffee, though!
The other two Julips listed were chestnuts, and when I flicked between the photos, I realised something curious - they were the same pony! Four short white socks, and a really unusually shaped face marking, with dark blobs on the nose and chin. So it seems the owner had two portrait models for this one, as well as the skewbald I remembered. I decided I liked the dartmoor best of the pair, as he had such a cute cheeky face, and set my heart on bidding for him. Luckily, I got him, and he arrived here safe and sound (after a short stay with someone else with the same house number down a different road, because the postman didn't pay attention!).

I just love his face marking, it doesn't really matter that he's a portrait of one I never knew, cos the quirky blaze and inkblot nose just give him so much real-pony character, it was that which made me really want to buy him.

I showed his photos to fellow Julip collectors on the current J-club forum, and a couple of people remembered his original name : Jaffa. I'm calling him Jaffacake instead, as it sounds just that little bit sweeter, and the slight change allows for the fact I never knew his first owner's pony myself.

He brought with him two buckets, and two headcollars, and a custom made blue rug to travel in.

A close-up of that nose! His family horse counterpart had the same marking, ever so slightly different but that's probably just the difficulty of painting from photos, or a different reference sent for one model than the other. I can't be sure of the exact year any of these ebay models were made, but the way he's painted - especially the eyes - dates him to between 2007 and 2008.

He had a mane and tail trim cos I never can stand leaving them at the uncut length (the mohair ones are better, as it's 'long' isn't all that long, the old nylon manes would reach the ground and tails trail a good inch or two on it, which just doesn't work for a realistic and practical pony length!), but other than that I'm leaving him alone : his hooves are a bit wonky and his chestnut colour is from peak era plain unshaded colours, but cos I've been collecting Julips all that time, the older ones appeal in a bringing-back-memories nostalgia way, a bit like the true vintages do for people who started collecting in the 60s, 70s or 80s!

Misty and Stormy

If there's one Breyer model almost any collector from any time in the last 50 years would instantly recognise by name, it's got to be Misty! Sometimes alone, sometimes with her foal Stormy, this little pony must have found her way into hundreds of thousands of home by now - I can't believe it's taken me so very long to get round to adopting this adorable pair into my herd.

My Misty and Stomy came second hand from ebay this week. Over the years I've had many of this set on my watch list, bid on several, but always missed out. Finally, with a bargain price of £12.50 and a bit of luck, they were mine. Both of them had a couple of tiny rubs to their paintwork, but nothing I couldn't touch up with a fine brush and some diluted carefully colour-matched paint, and now they look good as new. 

The only down side is that it's going to be very hard to name these two, as their real names are so ingrained into my mind!

Misty on her own, she's a bit bigger than I was expecting but the rough-coated sculpting style is even nicer in person, and it's such a good touch toward capturing that proper pony character, even though I've never seen any Chincoteagues in person it's every scruffy-coated native type I've ever met!

And here's Stormy, even more adorable than her mum, and sweeter in hand than pictures can ever really show. I think this is probably the cutest foal mould Breyer have got; the older sleeker foals are nice but there's something special about the babyishness of this really young one. 

The other side of them. You can tell they're a more recent release because Stormy's markings are very crisp, the modern masking method rather than the older stencilled ones. But I can go a bit further than that, with a little detective work I've figured out their age : this particular pair must be 2006 or later, as that's when the USA stamp was removed from the Misty mould, and also have to be before 2009, when those printed ID numbers under hooves began. And they can't be from 2006, as in that year, Misty was only sold on her own. So that narrows their date down to only 2007 or 2008.

But never mind all that, just look at how sweet they are!

So there they are, at long last, ticked off my wish list and I'm delighted with them! It feels like I've finally joined a club everyone else has been in for years, though, do you have a Misty and Stormy? Or are they on your wishlist too? And the biggest question of all : will Breyer just keep making them forever?!

Special run Stablemates

Not new new arrivals, but a little selection of recentish OF horses who got left out when I posted Trad scale parcels and customs on here - they actually arrived from various different sellers toward the end of last year, or earlier this year.

First, Harecroft Northern Lights, a G2 warmblood in pale grey. No fleabites, which tell him apart from the Target and TJ Maxx special runs, this one was made for the World Equestrian Games in 2014 (a run of 750), and sold as a Selle Francais. I've wanted to get one ever since I first found out they'd existed, so I'm pleased to have added him to my collection.

Next, a Horse Crazy set of four, exclusive to Walmart in the USA. 

Now, I genuinely have no idea what the Horse Crazy title is about, they seem to assign it randomly to some models and not others. Some blind bags are Horse Crazy and some aren't. Some re-releases of regular runs become Horse Crazy on their second time around. Some of it's Walmart SRs, but some of it is the paint-your-own kit stuff which is sold everywhere. If anyone knows the logic to it and could explain, do leave me a comment!

For the longest time I dithered over whether to risk buying from overseas, having been hit with customs fees in the past I was put off because that would double the cost of the horses, but luckily one seller had them priced just below the cut-off value (cheap items don't incur any import and handling fees when they reach the UK), so I was able to buy them for no more than a normal 4-pack set, phew!

A gorgeous bay on the Django mould, really deep and rich in his shading. I think these ones do vary, if you look at sellers' real photos on ebay, some are very dark with no pale parts, others seem to have got a very thin coat of the brown colour and look far more golden. I think mine's just right! I've named him Harecroft Duststorm, because he reminds me of my old loan horse Dusty.

Harecroft Marshwood, the most annoying of the four purely cos of the pearly basecoat paint including his socks! If they'd just used it under his body colour, it would've looked much better and more realistic, but I do love having another example of the mould, and his beautifully shaded coat colour, so I just have to ignore disliking his feet!

Harecroft Scalloway, a bright fiesty little shetland pony stallion. Another mould I'm really fond of, it's a shame they haven't used it more for regular runs because shetlands are so popular in real life so they're bound to be loved in model form too, and there's so many brilliant colours they could've released him in.

Harecroft Souvenir, this darker grey is nice to see, I can't think of any other SMs that've been smooth mid-grey with darker points, they mostly dapple them or go paler!

Having realised I could get SMs sent safely over from the States without extra fees, I had a little browse around and found another model I really liked the look of, only to discover the postage on all of them was too expensive (at least £17, up to £30, for one SM on a card!). So the one I had my eye on went on my wishlist, and was sadly abandoned there as a 'probably never will get'. Only to pop up on UK ebay about a month later!

So here she is, the G3 highland in a really lovely softly shaded appaloosa pattern. The G2 Warmblood in this colour was one of my favourite SMs, so I was really happy to see them re-using it, and even happier to get my hands on one! Rather oddly, Breyer label this one as 'Shetland', despite it being neither the shetland mould or a colour purebred shetlands come in, so, uh... yeah. I'll show mine as a British Spotted Pony as it's a very varied breed and some of them are quite chunky with feathered heels - she's definitely a better one of those than she is a shetland pony!

She came with a little travelling companion, one of the newest blind bag Mini Whinnies, the shrunk down version of the Classic scale 'Mariah' morgan mould. I don't actively collect these (they're not much cheaper than an SM for the blind bag ones, and the rest all seem to be in playsets with buildings and stuff I don't want), but they are really nice in that inexplicable oh-it's-so-tiny-how-cute! way, so any time one happens to come my way I'm pleased to have it, anyway!