General Additions thread - Catching up on all I missed, pt1

So many stunning Breyer additions- and as always I love how you take photos with these backgrounds, it makes the models even more realistic and really tempts me to start collecting myself! I sometimes wish that Breyer made some dogs again- the ones before were among some of the best models in plastic! I'm so impressed that Breyer can continue to make different stablemates with so many different poses like these, whilst still maintaining their high standards- I would have thought that by now they would be short of ideas, but still they keep on producing these elegant models, I loved reading about the Isabella Palomino- so delicate! And I love the detail of the speckles on the fox trotter- and good luck finding the last 70th anniversary model!

Your Breyer are correct here or I can move them to Breyer section if it is convenient for you and if you want all your Breyer additions in a single topic. Though, you can use this topic for all your additions, it is litterally up to your personal preference.
I've read your blog entry and I learned a word - levade - I love words to describe poses.
Your observations about the Arab are very interesting as well as the istorical project with obsolete colors.
Though, the set with two mares is really fun. We never know what two mares can do together.
If it is a mistake influenced by an editing error on the Identify Your Breyer website, I think it is remarkable and shows the importance of the site.

They may as well stay here, I have as many non-Breyer as Breyer arrivals so it makes a nice contrast between model styles to see them all together.

Funnily enough, when I was riding horses I made a conscious choice to avoid using all the correct technical terms I'd read in books. Because I was taught a very casual and old-fashioned riding style by an old traveller horseman, and there was a big cultural divide between common people like us who just happened to have horses, and actual horsey people who were rich and posh and used their correctly taught language as a way to exclude the 'wrong' kind of horse folk. It was a way to look down and sneer and bully, to have their own secret language of properness, while we used old basic words and called things what they were. Many a time at horse shows we'd get mocked and sneered at for not being posh and correct, but it just made us laugh cos it's such a stupid petty thing to hold against someone. Surely a horse lover is a horse lover, and as long as the animals are looked after well and treated with kindness and respect, no one way is right or wrong. And my scruffy mixed breed old horse in unfashionable tack often beat the perfect modern clean ones in a race or jumping contest anyway
So I know all the right words, and I often use them in writing for clarity, but there's no way I'd use them in real life with the common horse owners I know!

What a nice little herd! :) I do love that black mare's wide snip, that's an unusual marking for Breyer to use. The Darwin model is nice, that's another one I haven't seen up close in person yet. They're getting back into finer, delicate details again I feel like with the newer and newest wave of Stablemates, all the ones I never seen anywhere around here.

I feel like several of the family sets of yore were pairs of stallions and mares, just willy-nilly.

Nowhere near me sells Breyer at all now, I went to the nearest toy shop on friday (I live in the country and very very rarely go into town, but had to for my covid jab, and thought I may as well make the most of being there to look for model horses!) and he's stopped stocking them cos they got too expensive. The next-nearest toy shop is over an hour away and even they didn't have much of the range - and nothing new - when I went there a few years ago, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd let them fizzle out as well. Thank goodness for online shopping!

I enjoy your observations on the modern Arab, at least here in the US. They no longer look, move, or behave like Arabs to me, but wannabe Saddlebreds. Such a crying shame.
For what it's worth our horses had a lot of Crabbet in them.

Wonderful newcomers, congrats! Breyer stablemates are so cute. I like many of the new molds, for example, the Lipizzaner I also like it when they miniaturize the bigger molds, it works great.

The light palomino stock horse looks lovely, one day I would like to attempt painting this shade of palomino. It's such a subtle tone.

Fantastic photos of your new Stablemates. The Missouri fox trotter and Lippizaner particularly stand out for me. I wasn't aware of the fox trotter sculpt. Unfortunately, it was sold out at Chestnut Ridge, hopefully I can find it at some point.

Lovely collection of Breyers,and some lovely models!

I think the nice thing about Stablemates is that they're small and relatively cheap, it makes them very collectable and it's always fun getting hold of new ones. I especially enjoy getting new moulds, but I'm not into the rarity-and-value side of collecting so the various exclusive clubs and special runs don't appeal to me, I have to wait til each new mould trickles through to the regular run range, which means the anticipation builds up slowly compared to the people who can get their hands on these things early and satisfy the new-mould craving quickly!

Yesterday I had some second hand Mojo Fun figures arrive - all models I had already got, but variations of paintwork rather than exact duplicates

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The cob mare in piebald. Curiously, this horse belonged to the friend of mine who introduced me to the Mojo brand in the first place, with the words 'Have you seen the Mojo cob mare? You NEED her!', and I had to go and look it up I have ordered my own brand new copy in the meantime, but it amuses me that the original one we were talking about has now come to live with me too.

Why both? Look at them together!

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The markings had a redesign, somewhere between the production of these two mares, and although I liked the one I got, I'd always thought I'd like the other versions as well if I happened to see them come up for sale :)

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The older version has hand-painted dark hooves, the new one has sprayed pale beige instead

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Different face markings, too. My first one is named Precious, the new girl will be Pippi after a cob my horse made friends with over the fence this summer

Along with her came a pair of ponies...

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The shetland mare in flaxen chestnut

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And her matching foal

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They make a very sweet pair!

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Here's the pair I bought a while ago, in the old colour paintwork

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Their colour isn't vastly different, but enough that I'll keep both - besides, I'd feel terrible painting over either of them, leaving one foal without it's real mum any more

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Shetland family portrait time!

Congratulations

Lovely additions and the variations!

They look to me much more than just variations. Maybe the word is more adjusted to these Shetland moms. I love very much Anna's horses and when Mojö gives them some dignity in their paintings, they result really wonderful.

I know Mojo change the paintwork now and then for various different models, but I don't know what term you use for each new iteration. Version? Edition?
There's been three different marking styles for the cob mare (this is the one I don't have yet) since she was first released.
Would you like me to take a plain-background picture of each side for Toy Animal Wiki for the one I've got which is different to the one already on there?

George wrote:

I know Mojo change the paintwork now and then for various different models, but I don't know what term you use for each new iteration. Version? Edition?
There's been three different marking styles for the cob mare (this is the one I don't have yet) since she was first released.
Would you like me to take a plain-background picture of each side for Toy Animal Wiki for the one I've got which is different to the one already on there?

As long as it preserves the same product number and designation, it is always a variation. It was not a lesson of terminology but some collectors use the word variation to minimal differences. When we spot a little difference from the same production run, it is surely different from when the painting layout is changed. I like the word version. When we find out which year it was changed, we can even call it as 2020 version or 2020 variation, for instance.
Yes, I would love if you could take a picture of that version not pictured on TAW. Thanks also for pointing me to it, I often tend to ignore variations but these are surely not to be ignored. Thanks!

Really interesting variations- and beautiful models!
I love those Shetlands-they're so sweet!

A little travelling companion to the Mojo models, but I hadn't had chance to get his photos sorted out yesterday.

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This is the Stablemates Club special edition, called Florian.

For those who don't know Breyer, the whole exclusive club thing some people do is a bit complicated to explain. First they have to join the Collector's Club, for a yearly subscription fee, then they have to also join the Stablemates Club for another fee. Once they're in, they have to buy all six of the models which will be announced and released that year.
So it's basically subscription on top of subscription and you're stuck paying for models you might not even like - this means the horses very often end up being sold on the second hand market shortly afterwards, as people try to gain back a bit of the money they've laid out and pass along the horses they don't want for their collections.
And, just occasionally, the exclusive models end up bundles in mixed job lots on ebay, which is how this one made his way to my friend's home - but she didn't want to keep him so he got put aside into the growing pile reserved for me

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I'm not really a fan of the glossy finish on models, the thick glassy coat of varnish which makes them look more like imitation china figurines than realistic horses, but the colour underneath it is just so striking and detailed, with all those intricate patches - I find I can forgive him for being so shiny when his pattern is so pretty!

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The other side, showing his markings.

I have plenty of others on this mould, so it's nice to be able to tick off a rare one to add to the conga!

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These two were also in the same parcel, but they're not really the kind of model this forum's aimed at (more for vintage/craft toy collectors than animal figure fans) so I'll just drop one photo in, and link to my blog post if you do fancy reading more about an unusual brand.

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Really lovely Mojos and breyer. That stablemate conga line is impressive!

Congrats on the Florian!  What a great way to get such a rare model! He's lovely, and carries the glossy well, I think.

Those cob mares look great together. That's such a nice mold! I love the face and the movement of everything.

I love that roan Julip, it's really beautiful. The delicate head and the little lifted hind hoof.

I think the mares must be sisters, or half-sisters at least. They'd make a good driving pair, perfect matched strides!

The Julip 'CJP' mould (Child's Jumping Pony) is one of the finest moulds they have, very slim legs. They have firm wires inside, so they can be posed and stay in position, so there's no worrying about the softness of rubber not supporting the weight if they have long fine legs instead of chunky strong ones

Great stablemate conga!!I remember seeing the Julip horses many years ago-you hardly see them anymore now.

Top Notch Pancakes!

Most of the new additions to my collection lately have been over in my painting topic, as they're newly finished customs rather than arrivals, but a little while ago my mum (having discovered online shopping, and particularly the joys of second hand stuff on Ebay!) offered to buy a model for my birthday.
It couldn't be a surprise, as she has no idea which ones I've got already or which were on my wishlist, but we browsed together so the choice could be one we both liked, and we settled on this lovely wildly-patterned spotted mule by Breyer.

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His official name is Buckeye, and he was released a couple of years ago as a portrait of a real mule, who competes in dressage and with that flashy colour, gets attention wherever he goes. Seriously, a Google image search on 'buckeye dressage mule' supplies some amazing photos - he's got great paces, and he can't half jump!

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The other side, which was harder to photograph cos I only had a very narrow sliver of sunlight to catch between the trees (and it's been raining every day since my birthday on thursday, so this was my first chance to get him out there in the sun at all!)

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This sculpt is from the 1990s, a little rough round the edges compared to more recent Breyer models, but somehow on a mule it looks part of his charm, rather than a disappointing lack of polish as it would on a horse model. I have the previous spotted mule they made, too, but he's a very different colour and paintwork style, so they'll look great together on the shelf, rather than too similar to need both.

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Look at those lonnnng ears! I've only ever met mules in passing, it's donkeys I've worked with, so I'm not really up on breeds or types, and have no idea about the genetics of their colouring when they're getting colours from two different species, so I need to read up a bit about that!

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His masked markings are really nicely done, sometimes spots or intricate pinto patterns end up coming out flawed or smudged, but that's another advantage of buying second hand - you can be sure you're getting a really nice one with no quality control issues!

I don't have many mules in my collection, so he makes a very welcome addition to the Harecroft herd

Oh I am so jealous... happy birthday! What a great gift. I really need to grab a standard and stablemate size mule for myself, I really like the ones by Breyer. Congratulations!