Green Boi

 My Christmas Day special arrived on Friday, I was feeling super rough so no unboxing but I do have pictures at least.

I really wanted a plaited one so wasn't that pleased with green. Colour is nice I just wanted plaits. I am contemplating rehoming him so I can buy myself a nice plaited variation.

I suppose whilst I am still contemplating his rehoming he should at least get a name. So he has been called CRS Beauty Calls (not Green Boi, although that is a good name)

So Much Guessing

 Two sets of BreyerFest guessing for you guys today!

First guess is....this...

Is blue? Blue horse? Blue moose? Blue potato? Who knows. Anyway is blue.

Next we have the Surprise Horse guessing! 

My money is on either the Show Jumping Warmblood or the True North moulds. Let me know your guesses in the comments below?

HD Harkness

 The latest BreyerFest Limited Edition to be released is HD Harkness. This is a lovely bay on the new Morgan mould

A nice simple colour on this mould. It's nice to have something a little more plain

Why is no moose?

 The latest BF releases are Surrey and Axie, a cute little Lady Phase Mare and Foal.

Available to in person and online ticket holders.

Whilst I'm not too fussed about these guys I do LOVE a swishy tail Lady Phase so that is super exciting

BreyerFest Sneak Peak

 Here is the latest Breyer sneak peak, what do you think it could be?

The pattern on the first one doesn't seem that horse like, to me it feels almost like a cow. But it has been pointed out that it could be a blanket appaloosa pattern. The mare and foal special run set has not been revealed so it does make sense for this to be the mare and foal set, the Clydesdale Mare and Foal set seems like an obvious choice.

Evaluating Your Collection

 It's a new year and with a new year comes a bit of a stock take. I do think it's important at times to go over what you own and start to think about where there are gaps and where your focus should be for the next year. This is particularly true if, like me, you're a regular shower who doesn't really have any specialism and just likes to have all the pretty things!

The main focus of this post is going to be evaluating your collection with regards to having a well balanced show string, but this can be used in lots of other ways too :)

So here is my guide to start evaluating your collection.

Step 1: Cataloguing

If you haven't catalogued your collection then this is your cue to start. You need to catalogue your collection from day one. On a very basic level if your house burns down and you don't know what you have you won't be able to claim on the insurance, so please catalogue!

There are tonnes of different ways you can go about doing this (and I've already written loads of tutorials on it) but here are the three main ways:

1. Paper catalogue
2. Spreadsheet
3. Specialist software

Some people do still like to do a paper catalogue, either in a binder, notebook or one of the specialist model horse cataloguing planners. This is a lovely way to do it and looks beautiful but it can be time consuming, it is also not much help if it burns with your house (you should have a fire proof box in your house where you can keep important documents, if you are paper cataloguing and don't have one, get one).

A spreadsheet (either excel, sheets or similar) is probably the most popular option. I've done a tutorial on it here. 

Finally you can use specialist software. There are a variety of different programmes out there designed to do this. The two I've used are MyModelHorse Database and OMHPS (this is a photoshowing database but can also be used for cataloguing if you have less than 2,000 models). I did also use one years ago that came on an actual disk (so vintage) but I cannot remember the name of it!

Once you have your models catalogued you can move on to data collection.

Step 2: Know what you've got

Now you need to know what you've got. There are various ways to do this but this is my super duper not technical simple method.

I use a blank excel spreadsheet. Along the bottom are tabs for different finishes. On each sheet is a column for the different show classes like so:

Underneath each one is a list of all the horses that go into that class. That way I can clearly see who I have for each class. I also use this to help pick horses for showing. You can also use filters on your actual catalogue to help with this.

As an aside the green squares are BMECS qualified horses for 23/24/25.

Step 3: Where are the gaps?

Now the next question is, where are the gaps. Above is an extract from my OF sheet. Not many gaps there. Now take a look at ARC:

Immediately you'll note that some columns aren't even there. I don't own a single ARC Paint Horse for example. You can also see some have WAY MORE horses than others. It is really no surprise that I own thousands of fantasy/decorators and then hardly any realistic models.

Seeing where I have gaps can help me to think about what I might want to focus on creating for the next year. This is especially useful if you have like 100 blank resins *maybe more cough*. So in terms of my painting for this year I am definitely going to increase my stock horses and I could also do with a few more British Native. I should probably not paint anymore fantasy or decorator models for a while!

Step 4: Where can you make cuts (if you want to)?

This step is totally optional. But if you do want to cut down your collection you could start by making cuts where you simply have too many horses to realistically ever show. Using this spreadsheet I can see that I have 156 OF Fantasy/Decorator horses. The reality is it would take years for me to show them all so most never go out. If I want to make cuts this is probably the best place to do it (I won't though, you can prise my decorators out of my cold dead hands).

Step 5: Where could you introduce new blood

The final step is to think about where new blood could be introduced. It may be that yes you have ten very nice CM Arabians, but actually they are all 10 years old and don't really do much anymore. Maybe, looking at that, a focus for this year could be adding some new ones. If you also cross reference with your workmanship tab you could focus down even more by trying to fill gaps in colour as well as breed.

So there we go! Collecting evaluated and stock take done. Now to start planning some shopping for the new year :D

You Don't Have to Have it All Figured Out

 In the last week I've seen several posts on Facebook along the lines of "How do I start collecting X?" "I want to collect X, what should I buy?" which always seems so strange to me because surely collecting is just buying stuff you like until you have a lot of it? The idea that you'd need someone else's opinion on what to buy is just bizarre, if you like the thing, you can afford the thing, then buy the thing.

Which is why I'm here today to say this very important message

You don't have to have it all figured out

Your collection doesn't need a goal or a plan. It doesn't need to be perfect, or the right thing or 100% show stopping pieces. It doesn't even have to be all horses, you can just own things with no purpose and that's OK.

The harsh reality is that a large proportion of what you buy is probably not going to keep its value. Generally speaking a regular run Breyer will not fetch as much as retail price on the second hand market (there are some exceptions). All models will get damaged, particularly if you show. You can try to avoid it as much as possible but rubs, marks and breaks are inevitable when you are shifting models back and forth every weekend. At some point your Springer Spaniel will eat a horse and a cat will knock one off the shelf. One day you are going to smash one of your best show horses putting it back in the cabinet. Some things will increase in value and some will be a decent investment but a lot of what you own won't. And that's OK. The point of collecting isn't to get rich at some mysterious point in the future at which you sell the items, the point is to buy beautiful things, that you love and fill your life with richness. 

So if you're not sure where to start, or want to start collecting something different, here is my advice. Just buy a thing. Anything. There. You started.

I shall leave you with a picture of the beautiful Plum, who one day will hopefully be able to go off to a repair artist and be made whole again.