Nonoma - Still Some Mystery

 The second offering of the 2021 Vintage Club has arrived and Breyer has made this one's release really intriguing.

First, they did not release photos of the club's models when members renewed or joined last year. That piqued a lot of interest and the club sold out quickly.

Then, Breyer gave collectors a clue as to one of the offerings with the stamp on Julius's belly. Every year the club belly stamp is of one of that year's models, so we knew that the Foundation Stallion (Azteca) would be coming as one of the releases.

What he would look like, though, was a mystery, and in my opinion, Breyer scored on this one. Nonoma is beautiful!

Breyer's description of him on their web site continued the surprise aspect: Nonoma is dressed in a new modern grullo variation inspired by the brown pinto paint job made famous by the original Breyer Indian Pony.  SURPRISE!! Native American warpaint symbols, if present, will vary in this release! Four different variations.

Notice that "if present" in the text? That means that some Nonomas will not have any warpaint at all. Now the question hobbyists are asking is, does this mean there are four warpaint variations and one non-warpaint for a total of five different Nonomas? Or are there three warpaint variations and one without? I lean toward the first because the club is limited to 500 people, and that would easily divide into 100 of each of the five variations.

At this point, I have only seen four variations and that includes the one with no warpaint. I was lucky and got the one with all the markings. (The variations that have surfaced are no markings, nose and neck, eye and flank, and all five.) 

The Foundation Stallion was done as a Lakota Pony in 1992. There were four different options available, but a fifth is listed on Identify Your Breyer. Was it a variation by mistake? Or was it an actual part of the release?

I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a fifth variation that some collector will discover, maybe even like the chase pieces in the blind bags.

Sometimes with Breyer you never know, and that is okay with me. In the meantime, I am really pleased with my Nonoma and am looking forward to the next offering.

Stablemate Barn

Breyer currently is producing a really nice barn for Stablemates. It can stand alone on a shelf or dresser or it can be hung on the wall. (Photo taken from Breyer's web site.)

The barn also comes with four Stablemates in a set called Dappled and Dots. 

Currently I have a nice set-up for my Stablemates (which I don't collect) - two four tier clear acrylic cupcake risers.

I like them very much, but the Stablemates are prone to falling over when there is the slightest bump to the risers. I have had more cascades that I can count.

The new barn Breyer was offering looked promising because it had that fence to keep pieces from toppling over. So, when I ordered my Vintage Club Nonoma, I also ordered the barn.

The fact that all four Stablemates in the promo picture are set at an angle should have been a clue as to how the barn would work. That fence is set so far back, nearly all my Stablemates had to be set in at an angle, too. And that eats shelf space.

So, the cupcake risers are still out and in use for the longer models who would not fit.

I'm not sure what I am going to do with them - I was hoping to use that space for more models books. I did check to see if I could remove the fences on the barn and move them out a bit. There is certainly space to do that, but they have been set and glued into holes.

I ended up with mixed emotions about the barn. On the one hand, I did get a lot of Stablemates into it, and it is very well made. I am really pleased with the quality.

But, I still have 43 Stablemates either in boxes or on the cupcake risers. Should I buy another barn? Or should I continue to use the risers?

(Maybe the solution is to just stop buying Stablemates.)