The April edition of the Collectors Club popped into my email yesterday afternoon and it has a Sneak Peek Square in it. It’s clearly for the next Bird of a Feather series, as they used a birdy pun plus a chick emoji. The pun goes as follows: “If it’s not too much of a birden, we have a little sneak peek of an upcoming model for you!” This means I best get the still shot from The Birds ready to roll again, lol. The sneak peek is a dapple grey something.
Other items in the newsletter include the My Collector Story, a reminder that the Premier Club’s first release of 2021 happens in May, the Feature Story discussing Breyer packaging, and the giveaway model. The giveaway model in this newsletter is Bisbee, a 2019 Limited Edition on the Forever Saige/Mustang Mare mold. She is painted to mimic turquoise with copper veining running through it. What a (semiprecious) gem she is! I have one so I won’t be entering, but good luck to those who are!
Warning: Rant ahead. Escape now while you still can! If you choose not to read the rant, skip down to the section below the Bernadette photos. Otherwise, read on.
Now I must comment on the Feature Story which focuses on the short lived 1960s touchability boxes and the 2019 Vintage Club Shire Mare Bernadette. Breyer packaged the Bernadettes in touchability boxes to be all vintage-y. The Bernadettes were the Gambler’s Choice that year, meaning they were available in the four vintage decorator colors: Florentine, Gold Charm, Copenhagen, and Wedgewood. Cool idea, except for one issue-the Wedgewood is the only matte finish of the four, and Breyer squeezed the Bernadettes into the white shipping boxes. Squeezed in without putting a sheet of bubble wrap over the exposed side of the models to protect them from the shipping boxes. The glossy finishes did a good job helping to protect the paint, but many of the Wedgewoods weren’t so fortunate. The shipping boxes had rubbed the unprotected barrels. I tend to get my models later than other people do, even when I order them as soon as they are available. By the time my Bernadette showed up, wearing Wedgewood and rubbed, I was too afraid to send her back for an exchange as there was no guarantee I would get another one. There was a strong chance I would get a refund instead of a new Bernadette due to the number of exchanges. I decided I would rather have a rubbed Wedgewood Bernadette than no Bernadette at all, especially since she’s one of my favorite molds. Funnily enough, the newsletter’s Feature Article cites damage to the models as one of the main reasons the touchability boxes were discontinued...but they didn’t bother to protect Bernadette?! Here are photos of my beautiful Bernadette-even with the barrel rub, I still love her:
I did find the article interesting and informative, but have to mention an interesting practice I remember. After the touchability boxes came the hat box packaging, with a color photo of the model on the box for consumers to see what the model looked like. Last century (1970s) our local Woolworth’s Five and Dime carried a small selection of Breyers. However, the Breyers were removed from the hat boxes, had a price tag slapped on them, and were lined up on a shelf along with random knickknacks. I remember seeing the Clydesdale Stallion, Man O’War, Yellow Mount, the palomino Family Arabian Stallion and Family Arabian Foal. For some odd reason, the Family Arabian Mare was never there. I was always on the lookout for her to complete my family Arabians. Imagine the palomino FAM being so elusive-hahahaha! She was only in production for 6,000 years. I assume the store decided that the boxes took up too much room; the shelves in that store had no room to spare. Every inch was crammed with something, making it hazardous to take an item off the shelf without knocking other items over. In fact, it was a ‘do not touch it unless you are buying it’ situation as you’d never get the item back on the shelf without knocking stuff down, lol. I suppose the store simply discarded the boxes, along with the Collectors Manuals (as the in-box catalogs were once called). I cannot imagine people tossing those catalogs, but that’s just me. I LOVED those catalogs, and was so excited to get new ones. They were almost treasured as much as the models themselves!
