Jill's (growing) Collection [update 4.30.24]

Oh wow, so much to catch up on, I've not kept up to date on the forum and you've had SO many beautiful and interesting arrivals. The Kaiyodo dogs, Eyscota cats, and Breyer Collie are the particular stand-out highlights as I read down through the page

Thank you, I'm still on cloud nine about Jester

And the remainder of March. Perhaps I did splurge a little for birthday month, but Safari surprised me by releasing the Everglades toob. I COULD have waited of course, but I didn't know if that release meant that the older figures risked getting retired . . . and anyway, I am not very patient.

I talked more about the Everglades toob on the Safari section of the site, but all in all, a great set!

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And to accompany them to help with shipping, I started my newest [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] with the deer and the hyena. The babirusa was just a fun addition. He was on sale and how could I resist this figure? This is more of this general size figure than I usually add in one month!

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And speaking of that mid-size figure, I found these quagga and decided to add them. I've been inspired by my upcoming purchase of the Breyer quagga in July to try and have a little quagga collection, since I already had quite a few, and these came up when I searched on ebay. They are Animal Kingdom branded, so essentially high quality knock-offs I have learned. The small horses behind them are more Kid Kore minis. Not in very good shape, but when you are a beggar you cannot be a chooser, and with this series I am a beggar for sure.

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And finally, a few more Play Visions! They always crop up around when I am telling myself, okay we're done spending for a little while. And I have a hard time saying no to any Play Visions figure I don't have yet, because I never know when I will see one again at this stage in the game . . . And then also, the Safari Good Luck Minis desert set, which I got specifically for the tiny dingo. :)

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I like the two birds on the first photo....and the meerkat on the last photo.

Big congratulations.

Thank you Jill for these images, I really like the Everglades toob from Safari that I am going to hunt as well as the quaggas

When you put the tiny dingo next to the meerkat it looks even smaller.
I like those quaggas despite being knockoffs.

Beautiful newcomers, especially the Safari toob figures

Great new additions!!

Very nice figures here Jill, well done. You are expanding your collecting style slightly I see:)
I like some of the Everglades models in that set.

Thanks so much everyone!

sunny wrote:

Very nice figures here Jill, well done. You are expanding your collecting style slightly I see:)

Definitely more mid-size figures out on display now than ever! I don't think it's a general shift though, just a few select figures. We're still mostly tiny guys or every big horses over here.

April!

First off, thank you so much to [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] for finding an Action Products hyena for me! I had traded her mine, and then she very kindly hunted the internet since then I suppose and rustled up another so now we both have one. :) Plus she sent along a dingo friend with it, which was a wonderful surprise!
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In the vein of small but big finds . . . I FINALLY found the Club Earth Auk! This finishes my Extinct Animals set, which was one of the first sets I started when I started collecting again. Yay!!! Plus the Play Visions lion and dark variation coyote, and the whole set of whales. Well almost whole, but I already had the beluga. I haven't been able to find these other whales anywhere forever, even though I don't think they are all that rare (on the sliding scale of Play Visions). So to find them all together was really exciting.
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But the conclusion of long hunts doesn't stop there! I have also been searching for the CP Toys "Kitty Cat Park" set ever since someone mentioned it on one of my first posts looking for information about the little cat figures in the same molds. Since I love that set of molds, I determined to find all of them that I knew of, and that included the CP Toys set. But it was long ago retired and the closest I got to ever even seeing any of them was a lot that Paige spotted for me with four of the cats in it (extremely exciting!). The trail was dry after that for a long time until . . . the entire set popped up on ebay! All 16 cats (and the accessories, which I am less worried about, ha)! These are a funny mix of some of the best colors for these molds and some of the weirdest. I am so excited, there is currently only one cat that I know of out there that's in one of these 12 molds that I don't have (though I suspect that means there are more).
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And just when I thought my luck must surely be used up, I found one of the craziest things (for me) that I have found in a long time. Some Kid Kore mini horses . . . new in package without any large horses. This is probably not ground breaking for anyone else, BUT I have never found the minis packaged separately. It was an insane little package, too, I will probably put a little post about it in the appropriate thread just to keep all that information together, but I was pretty stoked. I had to make a Poshmark account to get it, even. I also found two other minis that I have been trying to track down, so that was cool! I had to pay out the nose for them, though, because I was only missing the baby and it was in a larger lot of little horses, whoops!
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This guy is not NEW this month, but he did return to me after traveling the country with my mom for two and a half months.
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I also traveled the country a little tiny bit and visited Arizona for a week while they were staying out there, and while there, I visited an antique mall and found these three Breyers. They were too well priced to leave behind, but I didn't want to fly back with them, so mom and dad drove them home. So I also was reunited with these just this past week.
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I've talked about all my recent Breyer finds in my actual Breyer post so I want rattle on about them here too much, but the antique malls in my area are extremely dry typically. I think in the almost 25 years I have lived here, I have seen one or two Breyer horses, which I did not buy due to pricing. And then all of a sudden last fall it was like someone opened a chute somewhere and all the Breyer vendors came spilling out. I still wasn't finding incredible deals, but I was actually finding Breyers, which was exciting by itself. These four came from two different shops, and I had to leave some behind because they were way out of my budget, but maybe it means they will be more readily available around home. I wouldn't complain!
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And last and only least by size, two Stablemates to finish off the month. Every year, Breyer does some kind of April Fool's post on April first. Sometimes, it's some mold or specific release that was much disliked by collectors in general re-released in a different way (like the Khemosabi mold, notoriously poorly shaped, released in the four vintage decorator colors). These are in fact only jokes and are not actually produced, though they usually release something real on April second, using the joke as a launching point. The Khemosabis were made, but only one each, and they were auctioned off at Breyerfest that year. This year, the joke was a set of four stablemates released in four of the least liked colorways Breyer has made. There was Cinnamon the appaloosa with cartoonish markings (intended to be painted on the cartoonish Dapples molds but instead put on a regular traditional, much to the designers chagrin), Sham done in "bay going gray" which because of the mix of colors turned olive green instead, Stud Spider in an overo paint that was blobby and lazy looking, and Cloud done in resist dapple that was just big rectangular white spots all over the body. It was funny to see their self-awareness and poke fun at their own oops-es, but I was especially sad that this was an April Fool's joke because Cloud is on the Swaps mold, the one I conga! We expected it to go as usual, with the following day an announcement for a new stablemate or something, but instead they actually released them! I'm not sure why this year was different, but they were a blind bag set. Unfortunately, the blind bag combined with the price ($25 each!) and the disliked color schemes meant they didn't sell all that well. Many of us wanted them for nostalgia or collectability, but they were after all designed after colors people did not like. I did, however, really want two of them--the green Arabian and the Swaps. I got two, one of which was the green but no Swaps. Luckily my friend got two Swap-es and traded with me, so I got the two I wanted. Honestly I think the green is a lovely decorator color, most of my favorite colors are earthy greens. And Cloud is exciting because it's the first Swaps release since 2005!! Anyway, very long story, haha, here they are!  
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Splendid additions and huge congratulations! Its always great to get models that complete series or are very hard to find.

As for your orange dog chinamal, I recently got 2 myself to custom repaint someday into dholes (for now, one will be painted and the other kept original, I would like 1 more if anyone sees them). But the model makes a good dingo too! Anyway, just wanted to compliment your coyote and orange wild dog finds in particular!

How very wonderful of Mitsukuni for helping you get the hyena (back)!

Congratulations Jill on all your new models, and the really beautiful little cat that went travelling with your mum. It's so very pretty.

I like the 2 stablemates that you have! the one at the back has a lovely pose, and I like the spots on the front one, they are both special pieces and it's a fun story attached to them. Just as well you have a Breyer collector friend to swap with.
Quite amusing that Breyer poke fun at themselves as well. That would be the accountant's going thru the books to see which models performed dismally -or maybe reading comments on forums? I am sure Breyer fans would give their opinions. Though voting with your wallet is the true indicator of performance.

Nice to see Isabella and her ability to find hyenas.
Do you know the brand of your new dingo?

This little hyena is beautiful. Nice horses too.

Thanks so much everyone!

Saarlooswolfhound wrote:

As for your orange dog chinamal, I recently got 2 myself to custom repaint someday into dholes (for now, one will be painted and the other kept original, I would like 1 more if anyone sees them). But the model makes a good dingo too! Anyway, just wanted to compliment your coyote and orange wild dog finds in particular!

Yes I can see where it is more dhole shaped than dingo shaped, or just vague enough to be either.   I hope you can find another! I had never seen this one before.

sunny wrote:

Quite amusing that Breyer poke fun at themselves as well. That would be the accountant's going thru the books to see which models performed dismally -or maybe reading comments on forums? I am sure Breyer fans would give their opinions. Though voting with your wallet is the true indicator of performance.

Many people closely involved with Breyer are also a part of the hobby, and that was very true back in the earlier days of Breyer as well. I think they are in general pretty aware of what collectors are saying about models, especially once the internet was available. None of these are modern releases, so they have had time to collect a notorious reputation.

Roger wrote:

Do you know the brand of your new dingo?

I don't, it has nothing on it at all!

Your newcomers are always interesting stuff.

Jill wrote:

Roger wrote:

Do you know the brand of your new dingo?

I don't, it has nothing on it at all!

Thanks! :)

That's a great haul with the completion of several series and other rare figures. I didn't know about the Breyer April fools jokes, nice that they can poke fun at themselves. I love the Kid Kore horses, very adorable sculpts. Very kind of Mitsukuni to find another hyena, it's a great figure. Would you mind measuring the shoulder height of this hyena for me?

rogerpgvg wrote:

Very kind of Mitsukuni to find another hyena, it's a great figure. Would you mind measuring the shoulder height of this hyena for me?

Of course! 3/4 of an inch.

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