Packing for a Show

I don't get to very many model horse shows due to time constraints from family and teaching. If a show is more than three hours away, it is doubtful that I will attend. But I am lucky to live in a "hub" of showing - I am on the fringes of several very active show radii and that gives me some choices and flexibility as to the shows I choose to attend.

Tomorrow I am heading the Great Lakes Congress' No Frills Collectibility Show. It is a relaxed, friendly show, but the competition is top notch. And, it's a collectibility show, and that is my collecting focus. Win-win!

I've been prepping and packing for two weeks. It is the end of the first quarter at school and I have had parent/teacher conferences, so no last minute show prep for me!

 The tubs and boxes are all ready to go...

... save this possible performance entry. It's a vintage Lakota Sioux costume by Kim and Lenore Jacobs, and I am on the fence about showing it. It's lovely, but is it competitive? I will probably pop it in and take it, then decide at the show if I want to put it out for judging.

 I've typed up my entires and the order their classes will be called.

 Unused packing materials are all in one spot and tidy. (I hate to come home to a mess after a long day showing and traveling!)

 There are bare places on my shelves...

... where pieces that are going to the show have been removed.

All that's left to do is to finish my last parent/teacher conference before school this morning, teach all day, do some final prep for Monday's teaching so I don't worry about it over the weekend, pack the car, and go!

I'll post a show report a day or two after the show. Wish me luck!

Black Grazing Mare

(From Breyer History Diva, June, 2011)

Isn’t it funny how some variations drive some hobbyists crazy, while others barely rate a shrug?

The "black hoof" Black Grazing Mare is one of those kind of models. When you point out an example that has the black hooves instead of the standard gray, many hobbyists get that slightly quizzical "Hmm, I never noticed that before" look.

Such is the case with the Grazing Mare and Foal in general. Outside of the occasional Test Color, Oddity or Chalky, those molds never have rated very high in the Collectibility scale. Most collectors aren’t really looking for Grazing Mares and Foals, and what you aren’t looking for you won’t find.

I happened to notice, but only because I was one of those rare birds: the Black Grazing Mare was one of my earliest "grails." I’m not sure why; as I’ve related before I was also obsessed, back in my early days, with finding the alleged test color/variation of the "Solid Black" Scratching Foal, so I’m guessing I must have had a thing for the black horses back then.

Come to think of it, I did already have most of the ones I had already known about, up to that point. Models like the Stretched Morgan, the Bucking Bronco, several of the Stablemates - the Appaloosas and the Pintos, too. Yep, must have.

It took me years to finally find them, and when I did, it was a little anticlimactic. I found a matching set at BreyerFest, for a good price. I was thrilled to have finally found them, but the drama had been drained dry by then. It took me a few years more to find a nice "black hoof" Mare, but that was mostly because my collecting priorities were elsewhere.

The "black hoof" Mare is far more common than the Foal; I’ve only seen a couple of the Foals online, and even then I had my doubts about their authenticity. It’s dreadfully easy to fake black hooves. Fake’s probably too strong a word: it implies malice, and in most cases of hoof painting no malice was intended. It was something hobbyists of a younger persuasion often did to make their favorite horse even better. A little nail polish, or black marker, and voila!

Even thought they’re not all that common, a nice example of the "black hoof" Grazing Mare doesn’t bring that much more than a standard gray hoof one. An authentic black hoof Grazing Foal might merit a little more cash, if anyone other than me was looking for one.

Smoke Belgians

(From Breyer History Diva, June, 2011)

Anyway, here is a picture of one of the Smoke Belgians I picked up in one of those large collections I purchased recently:

Yes, he has a chipped ear. Believe it or not, he was the better of the two Smoke Belgians I had to choose from.

Condition is one of the primary criteria in Collectibility judging, but it is not necessarily the most important. The other Belgian was completely intact, but he just wasn’t as … nice. The masking wasn’t quite as clean, he had a few dings, and his shading wasn’t as soft and velvety as this one. Oh, he’s a good piece - but this guy was just seemed a little bit better. Even with a chipped ear.

The Smoke Belgian is another one of those models that seems to elude my grasp. It’s not that he’s that rare - he ran from 1964 through 1971, a decent length of time - it’s that condition has always been an issue. Every single one I’ve found had something wrong with him. Not just a ding or two, but stains, cracks, chips, seam splits - the whole litany of disqualifiers.

So this collection came with two Smoke Belgians, and I was pretty excited about the possibility of finding My Smoke Belgian between the two. What sealed the deal, I think, was when the seller gestured to the two of them and mentioned that he was one of her favorites.

"His name was Chester," she said. Dang it, he had a name. I had to keep him. I mean, keep one: she didn’t specifically point out which one of the two was her childhood equine squeeze, so I had the luxury of choosing who got to be Chester.

Initially I thought the intact one was going to be him - chipped ears are usually an automatic out when it comes to collecting - but once I got the two of them home, and cleaned up, it wasn’t so easy a decision.

I finally went with the one I "liked" better, because of all things that go into defining Collectibility, none of that matters if you don’t "like" a model to begin with.