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?!