SDS Grandpa's War Bond AKA The Secretive Stallion

He's here! Mr. Mysterious himself. Here's a picture of him on his way out to get his photos:

Any final guesses?

A nice package from Alyssa Simin arrived at my door yesterday, and inside was a . . .

Glossy Bravour 54! I won the diorama contest this year! It was so hard not to share it with you all. I knew quite a bit in advance (I had some legal stuff to sign and all) but Breyer swore me to secrecy. I decided to wait for him to arrive before I announced it publicly. :)

Let me tell you, I was not expecting to find the glossy version prettier than the matte. I never do (I still think my matte Nikko is nicer than my glossy one). But this one is quite the exception!! That gloss smooths out all his old imperfections. My copy is gorgeous! His COA is pretty too (but I don't have a pic of it - sorry!). I love that the glossy one has a grey area on his snoot! So cute. The matte one is all black there.

I decided to name him SDS Grandpa's War Bond. He's a comforting model to have on the shelf, but I never plan on selling him. It is really nice to know he's there (and my glossy Nikko from last year).

He looks so sweet on the shelf next to the matte. On the other end of the same shelf is my glossy Nikko.

The shelf below has a Bryant's Jake, SBH Phoenix, Wells, Avatar's Jazzman, and Valentine and Heartbreaker. (I'm telling you because I know I'd be squinting at the bottom of the picture and hurting my eyes if I were you 😂)

Still waiting on my matte replacement Bravour.

BF 2023 Haul!

One day turned into four days, but oh well. I'm back! With new ponies. :)

I have received 18 of my 20 models, so I will do separate posts on them when they arrive later on. :)

The first horse I got more than a week ago. It's my Bravour 54, AKA Problem Pony. He showed up Sunday morning while I was at church. I unboxed him as soon as I got home. He looked great. . . at first. I pulled him out of the box and realized that he was the most flawed model I have ever received. To give you an idea, this is the message I sent to Breyer about him:

I received my 2023 BF Celebration model today and he is extraordinarily flawed. I've been a collector for a long time, so I understand typical factory issues but this is beyond that. This model has four large rubs in the paint on his left side (going straight through to the base color), at least two human hairs under the paint on his neck, a smear of dark paint on his chest, a rub in the paint of his left eye, excessive shiny marks covering his body, areas in the tail that are unpainted, two large hoof rubs, an ear-tip rub, black paint spattered up the inside of his hind leg, and a number of other smaller flaws. I can provide photographs. I would like to know what you would be willing to do about this please. Please note: Both box and shipping box were in good condition, so the flaws did NOT occur in transit. 

 Thankfully, Breyer was awesome about it and sent me a replacement at no cost (he's still in shipping though). Here are some pics of Disaster Dan for interested parties:

A few days ago, I purchased a Teamster model from friend and fellow blogger, Equiden. He's utterly perfect with some incredible metallic shading.

Equiden also sent me these two little Wade animals as a birthday gift. Thank you again, Equiden! That was so thoughtful.

Circus Tiger

Cougar (or Mtn Lion)

Today, I checked the status on my big order from Breyer, and was disappointed to find it had not yet been shipped. Imagine my surprise when I discovered it on my doorstep 20min later! (Btw, my account still says it hasn't shipped.)

It contained a Wells, Harkness, Buggy, this year's BoBF, 2 RR SM Clydesdales, and the 6 piece SM asst. (the one from last year, with the Django).

I was worried unwrapping Wells because I REALLY didn't want a glossy one. I was thankfully blessed with a matte hunk! Man, he is really stunning.

Look at the size of that mammoth! He *fills* my hand!

Harkness is also awesome, but my camera hates him. He comes out red as a rose.

My Buggy was a bay (yay! Once again I didn't like the variation).

My BoBF set was better than I expected. My Singletree is downright gorgeous (he's even got eye-whites!!), my Landau is ten times nicer than I thought she'd be, and my Liverpool has only one tiny flaw! Hames is nice too, but I don't know if I will keep him or not. Still deciding. My Whippletree is also exceptional, and he may be for sale in the future. I have contacted someone, and if they don't want to buy him I will give him a proper sale post. :)

EDIT: Whippletree is sold. Thanks Lindy!

(Tiny neck dot)

(Tiny nose dots - squint hard and look at the nostril on the right)

The RR SMs I divvied up for show string and for bodies. These are the bodies:

And these are the keepers:

His dorsal stripe is only slightly off center.

So is his star.

This guy may be a body in the end, but we'll see how he goes in the photo show string first.

Look at how skinny his barrel is! So cute.

Once again, my camera hates this shade of bay. He isn't actually a strawberry.

And I'll include the extra pics of Zorah in this post too, even though she isn't part of the BF haul.

That leaves me just waiting on two more ponies. My replacement Bravour 54 and a special stallion who is going to be a big surprise. 👀 Feel free to guess in the comments who you think the mysterious model is!