Jill's (growing) Collection [update 11.4.24]

Great additions again,especially the Panini dogs and cats!!

Thank you guys!

I had another little chunk of time spent away from collecting and the forum, October was a kind of crazy month and now in November I am doing NaNoWriMo, which is how I spent pretty much my whole evening every night. But! I did add a few little friends last month!

Tractor Supply seasonally carries Breyer in my area, and I got very lucky and hit one window when they still had a few blind bags left. They usually sell out immediately and then never have them in stock again because people buy so many at a time, but I managed to get my two favorite regular runs and the chase piece from the set, so that was VERY exciting.
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They also sell little Stablemate families there, and I picked up this one mainly for the gold horse. It's one of my favorites of the newest generation of stablemate molds, and I only had it in a unicorn previously. This one is very metallic, but less metallic than he looks in this photo. His gold has a red cast to it and could plausibly be similar to an Akhal-teke coat, if you imagined one cleaned and polished and photographed just right.
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The mare and foal are also nice, not the reasons I got the set but also not a reason for me to NOT get the set.
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I also managed to add a few more Play Visions to the team. I had bad internet connection when these were listed, so I missed a few of the Yellowstone set I was hoping for, but I felt very lucky to get the ones I did several hours later!
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And just recently I got very lucky and found a huge lot of UK Yowies at a very affordable price. I love this series even though it is not always very realistic.
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Ahh, lovely Stablemates! I think you got the nicest three there, the Connemara and bay pinto (I can't call it a Fell now it's that colour!) are on my wishlist too. Not that we even know if that batch of bags will ever be released in the UK - the runs which first pop up in specific US shops sometimes turn out to be a sort of early preview and the rest of the world is allowed them later, but sometimes they're limited to just that one company and cos we don't have the shops here, we're not allowed the horses either

The gold one is definitely akhal-teke material! I think yours has more of the metallic in his paint mix than mine, but what's most noticeable is his socks and how much higher they reach, especially on the hind legs! Here's mine for comparison :

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Very nice models and glad to see ya back! Those stablemates are lovely, I would love to find a copy of the blue draft. Very nice PVs and Yowies too! Too bad you missed out on the other PVs but that beaver is much nicer than I thought! And the wolf of course too.

I've been missing lots of your additions. I don't know why it happens since I spend all day more a few hours on forum. Great that you're almost completing Panini, nice to see so many Play visions, etc. Just a little question. Do you know who is the sculptor of the horse above the leaping foal?

George wrote:

Ahh, lovely Stablemates! I think you got the nicest three there, the Connemara and bay pinto (I can't call it a Fell now it's that colour!) are on my wishlist too. Not that we even know if that batch of bags will ever be released in the UK - the runs which first pop up in specific US shops sometimes turn out to be a sort of early preview and the rest of the world is allowed them later, but sometimes they're limited to just that one company and cos we don't have the shops here, we're not allowed the horses either

Oh I hope you get them! Sometimes the limited runs/special releases/all of that are frustrating in that regard. Like I know that's the point but a lot of times I just feel like, just sell us what we would like to buy please.

Quote :

The gold one is definitely akhal-teke material! I think yours has more of the metallic in his paint mix than mine, but what's most noticeable is his socks and how much higher they reach, especially on the hind legs!

Oh yeah very different! The white on mine's legs isn't great for realism but it does have a distinctly vintage feel to it with the "gold charm" quality of this paint job. Yours looks much more like one that could pass in a competition. He's lovely!

Saarlooswolfhound wrote:

Very nice models and glad to see ya back! Those stablemates are lovely, I would love to find a copy of the blue draft. Very nice PVs and Yowies too! Too bad you missed out on the other PVs but that beaver is much nicer than I thought! And the wolf of course too.

Thank you, I don't think I will be fully back for a while but it is nice to come back in every now and then and take a little break. I wish you luck on the blue draft, I squealed when I opened him, I didn't even know what the chases looked like this year and I was so pleased! The other is a gold Magnolia mold and I like this one much better.

Roger wrote:

I've been missing lots of your additions. I don't know why it happens since I spend all day more a few hours on forum. Great that you're almost completing Panini, nice to see so many Play visions, etc. Just a little question. Do you know who is the sculptor of the horse above the leaping foal?

Jane Lunger, who did several other of the same generation as well such as the Friesian and the highland pony.

Congratulations

Congrats on a wonderful bunch of new additions!!

Nice adds, congratulation

Wonderful additions!!!!

Thank you guys! Here's January's new additions, plus a couple from a little earlier!

First of all, during my trip to the beach, I visited the Fort Fisher aquarium in North Carolina which was very nice and which I commemorated with four little Good Luck Minis from the gift shop. :)
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We also went thrift shopping while down there, and I was able to find the Safari whale shark and a flockie Breyer. I go on more about the Breyer [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
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Still in the Breyer realm, in December I added two models I had wanted when I was young but never got, Shockwave (the rearing horse) and Clayton.
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When I got back from vacation, I had a gift waiting for me from a friend of mine--two Safari tubes! The Rainforest and the River tube. She told me she chose the ones that had the most reptiles and amphibians in them that she could find, plus an otter because I work with those, so she knows me well. I was at Michael's craft shop later and found a whole section of Safari models, so I picked up the South African tube I had been hoping to get someday. It's really nice! I got it specifically for the hyena, but all the other creatures are really good. I get tired of Africa megafauna as they are over represented, but these are in lifelike and interesting poses. Especially the lions have a lot of appeal to them, but the detail to the rhino and elephant make them much more appealing to me than the many elephant and rhino tube sized figures I already have.

Just curious, why is there such a difference in quality between some of the tubes? The Venomous Creatures and South African tubes I have are really nicely sculpted and painted and seem not to have repeated sculpts, while the Rainforest and River tubes, while great and I love them, are definitely not painted as well and many of sculpts are not original. The Reptiles tube at the store was even less interesting, just all the same green plastic with hardly any paint detailing at all!
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I was able to add two more horses to my Kid Kore collection, finally a pair that I knew existed and I knew exactly which set it belonged to, I just hadn't gotten my hands on them yet. I love when I find puzzle pieces I know are missing rather than random pieces I have no clue where they go.
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And another hollowcast New Ray cat! That's six of the twelve, which will hopefully someday turn up at better prices than I see them listed for most often. I got lucky with this one. Most of them are $30+ and this one was $5.
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And finally, not new additions, but I unpacked all my Breyer Stablemates and placed them on a shelf for fear of their legs warping over time while packaged (it happened to a few, so I am trying to keep it from happening to anyone else). These are the adults, except for the G1 that are displayed elsewhere--I didn't have room for the foals, who had to go back in their box!  
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Soooo many beauties! Is that Hidalgo I see? I love the mules too!

Saarlooswolfhound wrote:

Soooo many beauties! Is that Hidalgo I see? I love the mules too!

Thank you! Yes, there are two Hidalgos in there, one rearing and one running (one is a stunt double, perhaps ).

Slowly completing your series. Good things take time.
I am afraid your beautiful little display for Stablemates will turn into something dangerous to your little horses.

Wow Jill! Love your new addition and your breyers, lovely display<3

wonderful new old stuff :)

With regards to your question about the TOOBs, the Rainforest TOOB is an older tube, when Safari was reusing sculpts, both with themselves and other companies (figures in the original Insects TOOB were shared with K&M and may have originally been by Toy Major...)

Impressive Stablemates display! And I am so jealous that you found the new pinto pony and Connemara. I still haven't managed to find them here and I don't know whether I ever will. I wasn't aware of the draft horse, but it looks good too.

The Yellowshop PVs are beauties too. The quality of the Safari TOOBs seems to be very variable, but what we like may depend on our collector's taste. Strangely, I am not so keen on the South Africa TOOB and I don't like the lions. But just ignore me, my taste shouldn't put you off enjoying them!

Great additions and wonderful display of Stablemates!!

Nice adds and wonderful display

Thank you so much, everyone! I really like these shelves, my dad built them for me and I keep changing what's on them, but probably Stablemates for a while now.

Roger wrote:

Slowly completing your series. Good things take time.
I am afraid your beautiful little display for Stablemates will turn into something dangerous to your little horses.

I hope not, ha--there were a few domino accidents setting them up.  [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

bmathison1972 wrote:

With regards to your question about the TOOBs, the Rainforest TOOB is an older tube, when Safari was reusing sculpts, both with themselves and other companies (figures in the original Insects TOOB were shared with K&M and may have originally been by Toy Major...)

Oh, thanks for explaining!

rogerpgvg wrote:

Impressive Stablemates display! And I am so jealous that you found the new pinto pony and Connemara. I still haven't managed to find them here and I don't know whether I ever will. I wasn't aware of the draft horse, but it looks good too.

I hope they show up over there soon and you can find them. It seems like the non chase pieces at least will be available on ebay for somewhat reasonable prices, I hope.

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The Yellowshop PVs are beauties too. The quality of the Safari TOOBs seems to be very variable, but what we like may depend on our collector's taste. Strangely, I am not so keen on the South Africa TOOB and I don't like the lions. But just ignore me, my taste shouldn't put you off enjoying them!

Of course, it is good that everyone has slightly different collecting tastes or we'd never be able to find anything we are looking for!

Wonderful additions! I especially like the Safari South Africa TOOB.

I always thought that Safari TOOBs had really great paint jobs and material until recently, it seems they may be going a bit more basic with some paint jobs. The Asian animals TOOB that they recently released has a very different feel to it than some of the older safari figures... I'm surprised to see the South Africa figurines having such great quality.

Or maybe I'm just being picky

I love thes UK Yowies and the S.African toob!

CodyK2004 wrote:

Or maybe I'm just being picky

It seems to be wildly hit or miss honestly. I agree that a lot of them I saw were very lazy.

February was only two packages, one little and one very large, but both very exciting! Cody and Whitelightningwolf making dreams come true again. Almost entirely Play Visions plus the Wing Mau lizards and snakes sets in their entirety. I've been looking for those two sets since I started collecting again, so it's very exciting to have all of them now! The Play Visions are mostly set completers, except the salamanders from Whitelightningwolf, which I'm excited to have three of. I really can't pick favorites from all of these, these were some of my most looked for!

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These two friends are perfect partners when the subject is collecting small animal figures.
Well, those Wing Mau are not exactly what we call tube sized figures, they're larger but the concept is basically the same.