Our hobby is reeling from the loss of Andrea Gurdon, aka the Breyer History Diva. She passed away on Saturday, February 17, 2024, shortly after receiving her cancer diagnosis. I have been struggling to get my thoughts together regarding Andrea’s passing. It seems impossible to have lost Andrea; it is unfair that the cancer had such a foothold that Andrea didn’t even have a fighting chance. I cannot find words.
Many of us never met Andrea in person (including me), but her incredible hobby expertise and presence through the decades made her an icon. I think I still have a couple of her sales lists from the 1980s, back from the days of SASEs. Her long running blog was chock full of so many interesting things about Breyer’s history (she knew more about Breyer’s history than they did) and models. Her musings were always a great read. Andrea was the person to ask questions to about models, especially those oddballs that would surface. She was willing to educate and share the information she knew. Her vast knowledge led her to write the Breyer Vintage Club COAs. The COAs were outstanding- I have sold a few of my VC models, but I always made a copy of the COAs to keep for myself; the original COAs went with the models. The VC COAs will never be the same, nor will our hobby. The void left by Andrea’s passing will never be filled. Rest in peace, Andrea. You were so special to us and we will miss you greatly.
*Photo is from the Breyer History Diva blog.
Andrea is truly irreplaceable. No one will be able to really fill her shoes. I’m so very fortunate to have been her friend & roommate for BF room sales at the CHIN. I still go to her blog to read old posts just because it’s habit to check it every day. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to delete the link from Favorites on my phone. I just don’t want to let her go.
ReplyDelete{hugs} I too have been rereading her posts. I think I may start from her first post and read on from there instead of reading random posts. I was going to email her a model question some months back but never got around to it. :(
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