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

Congrats

Very interesting, I love the story of Cody's wish and the figurine is very beautiful.
You mention a photo of the real Full Moon Rising but it's not visible.
What you say about the Schleich horses of the year confirms my impression. On the wild animals too, the too Cute side is much less present in 2024.

I like how much attention the fjord is getting recently from different brands. :) Congrats on these lovely new additions!

I have also commented that the latest horses from Schleich have been showing superior quality when compared to the immediately preceding years. However, it is different when someone much more informed about the subject expresses this idea. Although I have hardly bought any horses lately, it's good to know that this popular brand is once again producing figures with the quality that its devoted followers deserve. Breyer horses are always characterized by extreme elegance, devoid of any features that could identify them as toys, also because they are not.

widukind wrote:

Congrats

Thanks!

Kikimalou wrote:

Very interesting, I love the story of Cody's wish and the figurine is very beautiful.  
You mention a photo of the real Full Moon Rising but it's not visible.
What you say about the Schleich horses of the year confirms my impression. On the wild animals too, the too Cute side is much less present in 2024.

Yes, I'm really glad they made the model on such a handsome mould, so I didn't have any difficult decision to make over whether I wanted to buy him cos of the story but didn't like the sculpt they'd chosen!

The photo was posted as a link, out of respect for copyright - I never post images in-message from another person/company's URL (terrible internet-manners to do that!), so I share with a clickable link instead. I'll try to highlight the text to make the linked word stand out more in future - here is the Full Moon Rising photo again incase you still want a look at him!

Jill wrote:

I like how much attention the fjord is getting recently from different brands. :) Congrats on these lovely new additions!

Yes, it's so nice to see them being released with new sculpts, I know most brands have done them at least once before but figures get outdated or retire and we end up with not many left on the market til they bring out a new version!

Roger wrote:

I have also commented that the latest horses from Schleich have been showing superior quality when compared to the immediately preceding years. However, it is different when someone much more informed about the subject expresses this idea. Although I have hardly bought any horses lately, it's good to know that this popular brand is once again producing figures with the quality that its devoted followers deserve. Breyer horses are always characterized by extreme elegance, devoid of any features that could identify them as toys, also because they are not.

Yeah, that's why I wanted to really go into what's good about these, and what the faults of the previous style were - no point just saying over and over again that I don't think recent Schleich were good, unless I describe WHAT was bad, and likewise it isn't very informative to just say 'this one's better' without picking out what exactly the improvements are. Especially being aware that the majority of collectors on here are more into wildlife and not necessarily familiar with horse anatomy and movement, so if my reviews and critiques can be informative, that makes them way more worth writing!

When I got the WIA 'Niklas' Friesian recently, I went to add him to the breed's page on my website, and in scrolling through all the other Friesians realised I still hadn't got round to adding the pair by Mojo Fun, so I placed a little order (direct through Mojo on Ebay is the cheapest, as you get 20% off if you order more than two models, and free postage too) - here they are!

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The mare, very sweet-looking and a really good pose, with their famously flashy trot most action-pose Friesian figures are done in that gait, so it's nice to have the variety of a cantering one. She's got some reddish brown in her coat, rather than being jet black, and I think the shade of them does vary - the example on Toy Animal Wiki looks almost bay, but mine is much darker.

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And here's the gelding - for some reason I always thought he was listed as a stallion, probably just cos most brands do make a mare/stallion pair whenever they do more than one of the same breed, but I checked and both the item description on Mojo's site, and the anatomy of the figure himself, agree that he's a gelding!

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A really handsome pose, with a super-long mane and alert expression. He's a true black, in contrast to the mare.

And just because it was irresistibly sweet, I added an unrelated foal to the order too - the little Hanoverian has come to join the herd (I do have the matching mare already, the Friesians don't have to adopt )

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A few new and second hand models to update - these didn't all arrive today, but I've got really bad at keeping up with posting them, so this is a batch post to summarise everything from this spring

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A regular run portrait model from 2010, I never bought Fleet Street Max first time round and can't even remember why - perhaps there were other models I wanted more in his year, or maybe I just didn't get round to it before he was retired?
Most regular runs stay in the catalogue for several years in a row, or even longer - just did a quick scan down the list for the oldest still on sale, and they currently have horses which first came out in 2009, 2012, and 2013! This usually gives collectors plenty of time to order all the ones we like, but for some reason Max never carried over into the following catalogues, even though he wasn't described as being a limited edition. So I suspect the reason I didn't buy him was purely down to missing out during the brief time he was available, and not for any lack of liking the look of him!
This one popped up on Ebay for a total bargain price, I thought I'd take my chance to get him after all.

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I really like his markings, I find the ones copied from a real horse tend to have shapes and placements that someone just designing a made-up paintjob for aesthetic appeal, wouldn't necessarily have come up with - they're more asymmetric, less balanced, there'll bee 'too much' white on one side and 'not enough' on the other, but it's that very lack of artistic design which makes the markings and patterns so much more appealing! His blue eye stands out very well, not all regular runs get colours painted in but they do make a deliberate effort when the eyes are a more unusual colour, and essential to capturing the likeness in a portrait paintjob!

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I've named him Snow Moon, cos he arrived on the February full moon traditionally known by that name, and it seemed such a good fit for him!

Next month, I got two of the brand new 2024 models. I've found that ordering them from Germany is SO much cheaper than paying UK prices, and also removes all doubt and concern about if/when they'll ever be in stock here, or whether I'd even catch the ones I like before they sold out. Although it's a shame not to buy much from UK dealers I know online, it's become a budget-conscious and practical decision to import them instead. When I can get two Traditionals together for just over £60 from Germany, or wait months, not knowing if I'll ever own the horses I like, and then pay £50-60 EACH, then I'm afraid I'm going for the cheaper easier option every time.

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This is Atlanta, a portrait model of a record-breaking Standardbred race mare from the USA. The sculpt is very new, only having been used for a pricey and exclusive club model and a Breyerfest special, so I was surprised to see it reach the regular run line this fast!
Here you can see the clear plastic stand which holds the model very steady on the shelf despite the dynamic pose, but I don't like the way they spoil photos, so for the rest of the shots, I fitted it underneath my fake grass!

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Here she is again, stand concealed, flying along at top speed! I only realised when the model arrived in-hand, that she's a trotting Standardbred, rather than a pacing one - the legs are posed in diagonal pairs, rather than both legs on the same side being forward at the same time.

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Her colour's a bit plain, but given enough shading to look deep and natural, rather than too monotonous, with some really rich highlights, and of course the white markings help with adding detail and interest, too.

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I prefer this side for her pose, but the light was terrible and the garden too flooded to drag the chair around and face her the other way You can also see the freeze brand mark on her neck, racehorses here are identified and checked by microchip scanning at the course, but all the Standardbreds seem to have a visible freezemark in photos, so I think they use that method instead.

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Again, struggling with the light a lot, I might try again in mid summer when the angles aren't so tricky to keep the horse's shadow off the background.

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And here's my other 2024 purchase so far, Cossaco - a Lusitano champion which has for some reason been made on the Barb (Moroccan/North African) mould, rather than a truly Iberian one! He's a gorgeous model, but I'm changing the breed of mine, to better suit the build and conformation, and the pretty neat little head. Lusitanos are beautiful, noble-looking and extremely handsome horses, but no-one would ever call them pretty! So I'm going to show mine as either an Arabian x Lusitano first generation crossbred, or maybe a Hispano-Arabian, which is a long term crossing of Arab and Andalusian horses in varying percentages over any number of generations, with a studbook registry of their own.

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Another mould making it's debut in the regular run line, after just the Premier club initial release, and a Breyerfest special. It's brilliant that Breyer are finally letting the exciting new sculpts out into the world so much sooner, so anyone who can't afford to buy in to the whole must-have club ethos, and/or spend big money on the US resale market for all the special runs and exclusives, can still feel like we can get nice things, and not be such second-class collectors.

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I love the Barb mould, it's great to see one at long last, after much neglect from nearly all the model horse companies. This breed was hugely influential in European horse breeding through the 17th and 18th century, with several Barb stallions being used at the royal studs, and for the forerunner of dressage. The Duke of Newcastle, who wrote books on horse training and a very precise and technical riding style, owned, rode, and bred from Barb stallions along with a certain preferred type of Spanish horse (which became the modern PRE or Andalusian), and the now extinct Neapolitan. So they're seen surprisingly often in art from the era - if you pay great attention, you can even trace horses by name or distinctive markings, all through his writing and book illustrations, including some which survived his exile during the English civil war for being a Royalist, and some individuals which he bought out there and then brought home with him when the Monarchy was restored, and he came back to re-start his stud and riding school.
So it's a pity, as a fan of the breed and having studied it's involvement in the history of British horsemanship too, that I have a model in a colour a purebred Barb cannot be!

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He's a bit smaller than I was expecting, not as big as a typical Traditional Breyer at all, but looks so full of presence and spirit that he'd be the sort of horse who doesn't know he's small and will show off at, or threaten, much bigger stallions!
Some people have noted really bad moulding flaws on this mould, on the curve of the neck just below where the mane starts - you can see slight subtle dimple-lines on mine in the right light, but if there was ever a rougher lumpy/jagged seam, then it's been carefully buffed down smooth before painting. So I think it's a case of how much care's been taken by each individual handling this stage of the manufacture, and maybe some batches were rushed more than others?

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His beautiful flowing mane, windswept but in a natural weighty way, it's been given a lot of texture and not overly stylised and smoothed.

And now, some Stablemates models, from 2009.

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Gendered packaging sucks, by the way, Breyer. Neither model collecting nor real ponies are for 'gals' only, and not all girls like pink anyway, so deliberately branding these special runs as the pink ones for girls is a really bad choice, heavily backing up sexism and gender stereotypes for the intended child audience, and probably annoying some of the adult buyers too.

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The G3 Stock Horse mould, in a different chestnut Appaloosa than last year's regular run.

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My favourite of these four, the G3 Rearing Andalusian mould, in palomino and sold as a Lusitano instead

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Another G3 mould, the Tennessee Walking Horse, in chestnut roan

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And the G2 Thoroughbred in pale grey - I've already got a grey, but not this grey, and there's something about Stablemates which makes it perfectly ok to have loads of the same mould/colour combination as long as they're sliiightly different

Very beautiful all of them and your pictures are always perfect! As a Portuguese I need to know why Lusitanos are made over other breed molds?
I know I've seen that rearing one before. I'm not familiar with most of these models anyway.

Wonderful additions.I agree about Stablemates!The Lusitano model is really lovely with the sweeping mane and tail!

Beautiful additions. Snow Moon looks especially good to me, and I always like running horses so Atlanta is amazing too. I am very happy that you say that it is perfectly OK to have loads of the same Stablemate mould/colour combinations because I bought two pink girls' horses from the same seller . Different from yours even though the rearing Lusitano and running thoroughbred are among my favourite Stablemates. Can thoroughbreds be grey?

Great choices! I love Cossaco and Atlanta. I think I will add at least Cossaco eventually. It's a beautiful mold and in a good color. I too was surprised to see these molds so early. It's a nice trend!

(I couldn't agree with you more about Breyer's packaging, ugh. They have always targeted a girl market but they seem to have leaned into it even more heavily than when I was a kid.)

rogerpgvg wrote:

Can thoroughbreds be grey?

Yes, they can. Because all of them start out dark and grey gradually (with each moult of the coat in spring and autumn, it grows back with a higher ratio of white hairs to coloured hairs), a lot of racehorses have retired before they look fully white-grey like this model, so dappled greys are seen more often. But occasionally you get one which greys faster, or has a longer career, and is still racing when their coat has reached the white stage. Desert Orchid is a famous example, more recently Neptune Collonges won the Grand National while he still had some dark colour in his mane, tail, and a bit on his legs, but after retirement he's gone on to a second career visiting hospitals and care homes and charity events, and is now pale all over. I saw him parade as a special guest at Burghley once

You've had some very nice additions in the past period of time!

I really like the Mojo trio. The mare looks very sweet and I think that I will add her to my collection at some point as a mate for WIA Niklas (even though she will be probably much smaller than him). Not as fond on the gelding for some reason but I really like the Hannoverian foal, I just would probably go for the black one instead.
Fleet Street Max looks really cool and Snow Moon suits him. Zippo Pine Bar has something cute and calm in his appearance but isn't a very popular mould for some reason. I think that he is a little bit underestimated even though there are other moulds that I like slightly more than him.
Constantia for example!
Atlanta is very pretty. I love rich, deep and dark coat colours. She would look amazing in gloss! I guess that her glossy version might be the price model of some sort of contest this year's Breyerfest.
Cossaco is also very handsome! When I saw him on their promo picture, I thought that he was some sort of grey. He looked rather plain there. But when I saw some in hand pictures I have really fallen in love with his coat colour. He is supposed to be a buckskin (?) but with a rather prominent dorsal stripe. He looks simply awesome, his shading is very nicely done and I like this mould quite a bit in general. Anamar has something very elegant and graceful in his appearance.
It's actually Breyer's common release system for a couple of years already. Firstly the new mould gets its introduction in the Premier Club (the first release is normally also one of the raffle models at Breyerfest the same year). The following year it is either a Breyerfest Special run or Limited edition. And in its third year it will become a regular run. There are of course some exceptions here and there like Zafirah, who has had her regular run version last year already, although she would have been due only this year. Or Fireheart, even though he is a rather minor exception as he was simply released in the second half of last year instead of the first half.
The stablemates are very sweet. I like especially the little red roan Tennessee Walker but the palomino Andalusian looks also very nice.

Nice newcomers again

It's about time I posted a catch-up for the models added to my collection since my last post in this thread, between the laptop problems and then the house fire (which at least ended the laptop problems! ) I haven't been taking as many photos of each model as usual, or worked on any review/writeup for them as they arrived, so this is going to be a bit more of a speedy summary than my new additions usually get!

I'll do the Breyer Traditional (1:9) scale first, then the Stablemates, then everything else  

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One of Breyer's mid-year regular runs, a handsome bay called Salvino. A portrait of a real dressage horse, but it's not a sport I follow so I hadn't actually heard of him, I just liked his colour and was pleased to have a new regular run on this mould sculpted by one of the model horse world's greatest talents, Brigitte Eberl. All we'd had so far was the original black Totilas in 2013, and then the chestnut pinto Adiah HP in 2020, so a third model was very welcome - and I think this nicely shaded rich colour's the nicest so far!

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The other side, this is one of those poses which looks fine from either way! He does come with a little disc-stand for one foot (the same as Huck Bey and Salinero, those infamous devices which snap at the drop of a hat, hah), but I always like to hide them for photos by poking the peg up through a little hole punctured in my fake grass sheet, the stand itself is underneath.

My next purchase was an ebay bargain, two Traditional models for £20, and such a cute breed - how could I resist!

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My original thought on this set was 'what a pity they're black ponies!' because Breyer don't handle that colour very well, they always get a flat application of semi-gloss black paint without any attempt at shading or depth or dappling these days (I've talked about this before, the 2004 Black Andalusian Stallion remains my example to prove they COULD paint great black horses, and have just decided not to any more  )

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And yes, I do still think that the black coat of paint here is lazily done and could have been better, but the white markings help a lot to make this little mare look interesting enough, and her face and pose are just too sweet not to immediately forgive her for being a bad colour

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Here's her matching foal, also pure jet black, which is actually even more inaccurate than a plain black mare, because foals are born with a paler almost mushroom-brown tint to their coat, and only shed to actual black when they lose that foal fluff later in the summer! But again, he's too cute to mind the lack of realistic paintwork design, this little sculpt is full of playful energy!

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One of the best things about mare & foal sets, figuring out the cutest pose possible for a photoshoot  

The next model was this year's Breyerfest celebration model. For those outside the model horse hobby, this means she was given away free with every ticket to attend the annual Breyerfest (it's a combination of competition and convention and sales event, with exclusive models and auctions, plus socialising with hobby friends and watching real-horse displays and model-themed talks).
Because the models are handed out to every ticketholder, whether they collect that scale/breed/mould or not (and even to non-collector partners and parents who've gone with someone else) there's always a flood of them on the second hand market afterwards, and it's often possible - even in the UK - to pick up the limited edition model for no more than regular run cost.
This year's was a relatively plain looking chestnut horse, on a mould I have in chestnut roan, so I decided against getting her - the colour was similar to, but less detailed than, the one I'd already bought.

And then one day I happened to read the story of the real horse behind the model, and immediately rushed back to Ebay for a Buy-it-Now purchase to add this horse to my shelf! You can read it all here : [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

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Here she is in Breyer form! Although at first I though I didn't 'need' a chestnut on the same mould as my chestnut roan, in person they're easily different enough, even at a glance or across the room, and of course her white markings give her the extra detail which her coat colour itself may lack. She's even got brown eyes, which gives her face a lot more life and expression than when they're glossy black with no colour or pupil painted in.

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The other side, not such a good photo but I thought I'd show both sides for her white markings

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Yet another portrait model of a real horse (the majority of regular runs seem to be, now, it's getting rare to have any 'we just made up a cool colour for this mould' releases!), this one's called Battlefield Angel.
I didn't buy him at first just because I'm not really into the whole pinto/barok Friesian sporthorse marketing machine (personally I just think they're a handsome and useful crossbred, not a real breed!), and in a way I'd rather have seen a black purebred as the first regular run for this new modern Friesian mould intended to replace the 1990s one, but he is a really striking looking model, and I decided I wanted him for my collection after all!

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This one is almost the exact opposite - a mould I didn't find very interesting at first when it was a plain bay German Riding Pony, but as soon as I saw this colour on it to represent a different breed, I changed my mind! These spots certainly catch the eye, and I like the way the roany speckles give the background colour some detail too.

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He's part of the Ideal series, models inspired by the paintings of American artist Orren Mixer - this is the exact painting they used for designing their Pony Of The Americas model, cos they included a print of it inside the box.
All the previous releases in this set were on a mould I don't like so I hadn't paid much attention to them, or looked up what other breeds might be coming, so even though the art obviously existed as a spoiler for what Breyer might be making next, it came as a surprise to me when the new addition to the line was a pony breed instead!

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Here's his other side, for more spots :)

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And finally, a little grey pony with a bit of attitude! She's the Banks Vanilla model (yes, another portrait!) from 2015, a year I didn't buy many models cos I was between jobs and saving my money for the real ponies. So it's been quite a long time adding her to my collection, this one was second hand from Ebay earlier this month.
The reason I just had to buy her, was that she reminds me of my own first horse Rosie, a rough tough little white-grey mare! Mine was a Welsh x Arabian and Vanilla is a Connemara, but the resemblance is there, and there's a certain similarity in the wild pose too! I looked up rose-related names in Irish and came up with Róisín, which apparently means 'little rose' - and Rosie's full name was Rosetta, which also means a little rose! Perfect!

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A darker photo, but the higher contrast shows off the detail in the mould much more clearly, I think!" />" />

Beautiful photos and horses as always! I missed seeing your professionally crafted posts!

Brigitte Eberl sculpts are always very well balanced with beautiful design.
I also love your posts, they're always very informative and they could easily be a part of a dedicated magazine.

The POA is a really lovely model.I have an old book about livestock and there is a picture of an American Quarter horse and its the same style as the style as the one of the POA so its great to know finally who the artist is!

Wonderful models and pictures!