It's not that I'd tried to not buy any horses (in fact, one of my goals is to buy MORE horses than usual this year), but my unintended restraint ended today. After an unusually long week of engineering (and mind you, when I say engineering, I mean math, and lots of it. Think about that for a second-- a week of MATH lol. I always like to psych my non-engineering friends out.), I took a detour on the road home to drop by an antique store on the north side of town. They had had postings on craigslist for some Breyers, and seen a few I'd be interested in--namely, the original Justin Morgan and the original Thoroughbred mare and nursing foal set. However, I didn't know pricing, so I wanted to drop by and ask. I could have called, I suppose, but I won't lie, I like to try in person to let my fairly good-looking, charming self help reduce prices if possible. I've never had proof that it works, but it's always worth a shot.
Unfortunately, the situation looked grim. Most models were unmarked, and the ones that were had some intimidating prices. Like a black appaloosa running stallion for $100. Yikes! As I was headed out the door, the guy asked if he could help us with anything, and I decided to take a chance and ask about the ones I wanted. Luckily for me, the ones I wanted were unmarked, so when I asked about one, he quoted me a decent price. I hesitated and said lets look at the others I wanted, and we went to look at the mare and foal set. I paid near book price, but I'm happy with them (I got all the ones I wanted I had seen from the craigslist ad!).
They look like a cute family, don't they??
And then, once upon returning home, I found myself checking the Germany ebay website. And found a Buy It Now of a hard to find UK Clydesdale family. It was pushing my budget limit, but the mare herself was selling for $20 on my group, and I could nab the whole family for ~$35 including shipping. So I did!
Whoohoo! Finally 'Ello Love and her foal will be heading this way! (Samantha, you will be getting their stud as a gift ^.^ to add to your Clyde stallion conga).
On top of all that, I won an auction for the original Marabella for only $11 and cheap shipping, so I got her as well. I'm super stoked!
Sometimes I feel that being young in the model hobby has its disadvantages. I am not good at crafting and so I will probably never make a name for myself that way, and I won't be able to make enough of an income on what I can do in order to trade for the expensive horses or tack. And so I will be left to purchase them all straight. On top of that, I have to catch up with all the horses that were released before I was even born! At prices 10-20-50x what they were sold at originally. $5 Traditionals? I can't even imagine. If I had a time machine, you know what I would be doing! ;)
So, share! What have you, my readers, purchased so far this year? Any great deals? Any surprises? Grails found already?
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