Small Update

It's been awhile since I last posted, sorry about that!

Lots of things have been interrupting my normal schedule--loss of internet, working overtime at my new job, and now NaNoWriMo. It's my first year taking part, and between work and writing, I haven't had much time for anything else!

However, I did manage to finish a cm today before it got too windy.

Meet Dealer's Choice.

Yes, he's a Grand Champion. Yes, his body is made with the rough "hair" like that. And yes his mane and tail are a little bit funky. But he's a cutie. He's got little "Batman" ears. *squee* And he's son to my very first classic GC custom, Court Jester.

Selling Models, especially Grand Champions

There's been a lot of contention recently in the Facebook world about how selling models should be done. There are pros and cons of each type, and I have no real preference one way or the other, except lately I've personally decided to back out of auction-style sales for several reasons, the largest one being the ridiculous prices that some of these horses are going for. I've likened it to a sharkfest, and tho I've never been in the pit during Breyerfest, I can imagine it's similar to the online version of it, at least as much as can be made over the otherwise infamous GCs, haha. Models are selling for way over their worth, merely because newcomers to the hobby are trying to play catch up and get all the "rares" they're missing. The thing is-- Grand Champions didn't really make any rare models. They made some that were only released in Europe and not the US, sure, but they're fairly abundant on that side of the world. So much so that they show up regularly on their eBay. I can only imagine how their flea markets look. Besides the trick of finding a seller who will do the international shipping, tracking down the European horses is only a matter of patience and shelling out a little extra dough to cover it. When my last engineering job was well underway and I had extra funds, I was importing models by the week from over there-- and I wasn't paying out the wazoo for them, either.

I have an idea about how and why the Grand Champions prices started getting so out of control, but I'm not at liberty to discuss, and the person it involves is still largely active on the groups. I made a comment about the selling-styles several weeks ago on my group page, and it was a bit of foreshadowing of what was to come. Now, the groups are trying to figure out a way to keep the peace, as many buyers are unhappy with the results.

The two main ways to sell are this-- list a model with a set price you want for it and sell to the first person who claims it and pays that amount, and put a model up for offers for a set period of time and sell to the highest bidder. Both options are available on eBay, although the BIN option is not used as often. Why?

Because people want to get the most out of what they have. Money drives the world, whether people want to admit it or not. Just because someone is willing to put up an amount of money for something, doesn't necessarily mean it's worth that much. The problem with collectors of any sort of object is that they get so wrapped up in the hobby and the grails and the money and the excitement, that they sometimes forget there's a world outside of it. Just like Grand Champions, where the model horse world expands into Breyer and Peter Stone and Artist Resins and so on. When broadened to compare to that, the prices being paid for these 'toys' are laughable. A Breyer person wouldn't pay squat for the hard to find Grand Champions because they're not worth it to them. Try selling a resin model horse for $500 to a random somebody on the street. Probably not going to happen. My point is this-- avid collectors that are doing the *grabby hands* for all the pretty horses they want do NOT set the value for models. The economy of the world still does. Who was buying a bunch during the recession? Not me, not really. People were selling at rock bottom prices just to move the models. And we're still coming out of it. Customizers are still suffering.

I've been thinking lately about alternative ways to list horses. The first that came to mind was a yard sale-style. How does that work? Well, you tell everyone the time and place you're going to list your products, and they come and see what you have all at the same time. That way, they are aware of when they'll be listed, and the first come-first serve basis is more fair. Many complaints are due to the fact some hobbyists are across the world from each other and can't get on certain times to catch the sales. Honestly, I've set alarms for 3:00 am just to be awake the time an eBay sale ended to make sure I won it. If you really want something that bad, you'll make it work.

The other idea I had was this-- list the model and see who all is interested in it, same as an auction. But instead of having them post prices and let the money do the talking (and as much as people hate the word, but when money is what is talking, it's called greed), get names of everyone who wants the horse, and then do a lottery to choose who gets to buy it. Picked at random- totally fair by way of chance and luck. And it doesn't completely knock out the people who have children or going to school or can't afford to pay $100 for a horse that's not worth it anyway. The horse can still be sold for what the seller wanted it for, but not by what the masses battled over it for.

Just some thoughts I've wanted to spill out since this whole debacle started. I haven't been buying much lately anyway so mostly I'm in the stands being entertained, but I'm interested to see how it all pans out. Either way, some people will find cause to complain :P

Everyone Starts Somewhere

Several years ago, I decided to move my collection online and make a website. I was inspired by the two stables I first came across- http://thundervalleyfarmhorses.webs.com/ and  http://vnvstables.net/vnvsdlist/sdindex.html. I knew I wanted to create a photo gallery-style website to display my collection. But that meant taking pictures of each and every one of them. Back then, I had a basic point and shoot camera, and limited materials. My first setup was horrible.

The background was printed out from the internet, and my grass was a cheap mat bought at a hobby store. I tried taking them inside, and the cheap camera insisted on flash. This caused pretty sharp shadows and an overall dark picture. There was also no separation between the mat and the background.

Gradually my setups got a little more realistic. I added an arena wall and arena sand, with a more natural background. The lighting was still uneven and caused unfavorable shadowing. Half of my photos were in focus, the other half weren't. Again, these were taken inside, mostly because I lived in Wyoming and there was a blizzard outside on any given day.

A little after this time, I bought myself a Nikon D3000. Ah, what a difference it made! I also purchased a better grass mat from an online store and experimented with new backgrounds. Some came out very well!

Nowadays, my photos have a much cleaner color, focus, and shadow placement. My background merges better with my footing and has proper blurring to not distract from the model. I could still make a lot of improvements, but I have to say I am very proud with my results!

Remodel

Every so often, I get the urge to remodel my website. It happens when I see something I think could be better. In this case, it was my old background. It was a red one that tiled a bit in the background, and the edges annoyed me. I set out to find a better one. And I was attracted to this:



In fact, a whole set of them: http://www.ibjennyjenny.com/2012/07/12-free-tumblr-backgrounds-in-colors.html

I love the color silver, and blue and silver are my absolute favorite color combo. I wanted to go for a vintage feel, because I was hoping to be able to use the fancy fonts like I always craved, but could never get to look right. I chose a dark blue and light blue text color to offset the gray, and changed my text to look a lot prettier.


I'm hoping this not only brings more customers in, but keeps them at my site longer. I also have to see it a lot, so might as well make it something I love looking at!

That being said, I also redid the look of my blog to have similar colors and a fall theme for the background.

Auctions

Today was filled with auctions- MHFC's Fall Auction ended last night at midnight, and Golden Hart Estates made quite a haul, bringing home 13 horses of mostly different breeds. Keeneland's auction live feed video played in my background today, as I waited for the bids to hit the $1 million mark. I missed the first ones, but I wanted to see what a million dollar horse looked like.

Among our new horses:

Barr Nunn Kickin Gunn, Mustang stallion

Qizzette, Akhal-Teke mare

Torrente, Andalusian stallion

We would also like to welcome the first Pony of the Americas to our stable! We do not specialize in pony type breeds, so we are excited to have a quality mare to begin our herd.

Koalite, POA mare

More to come!

Alter Real- Chasing Chestnuts

Yesterday I accidentally found myself about to pedigree an Alter Real. It was a Grand Champion that came with a bio card with his name and parent's names provided. I like to use Breyer or Collecta bodies usually to fill in those BSO parent names on the cards. That particular model's card was super hard to find, until a friend on Facebook finally hooked me up.

Royal Real, GC Alter Real stallion

My brief overview of the breed turned up two obvious problems-- Alter Reals are essentially Lusitanos, bred at the Alter Real Stud in Portugal, and they are predominantly bay. GC has a bad habit of attaching a breed to any type of body, so I've learned to ignore that as much as it may bug the living heck out of other collectors. But the chestnut proved to be a much more challenging problem. My initial search showed two conflicting views-- Alter Reals are ALWAYS bay, and Alter Reals can come in chestnut, black, or gray as well. I figured this meant the breed had gone the way of the Cleveland Bays-- too many bays would flood the genetics with E_A_ individuals, which may or may not be homozygous against the chestnut or black gene. This probably also suggested that chestnuts had existed, even if they were a few generations back, which would mean I could breed it forward by carefully selecting mates that were not homozygous EE themselves.

Unlike many non-English speaking stud farms, the Alter Real one is not hard to find- http://www.alterreal.pt/
(If you are using the Google Chrome browser, it automatically offers to translate it to English for you. I opted for this and explored the site.) The most important part was to the top right of the logo- "Stud Book". This provides a searchable database. Simply enter the horse's name in Nome do Equino and search. But what names to look for? Where to even start?

In searching for terms such as Alter Real chestnut, I stumbled across a blog about someone's visit to the 2008 Alter Real Stud Farm's auction. There- the mention of a black Alter Real, with an accompanying photo. http://horseless.blogspot.com/2008/05/alter-real-really-great-day.html (And Sorraia's! Must investigate that another day). His name was Xuhado, and though his name didn't appear in allbreed, his sire Hircino did, but of course with no color listed. Looking back in his ped, I found the closest chestnut- a 1960 mare named Brasilia. A bit of a stretch (I don't like breeding BSOs in between if I can help it), but she would do if I absolutely had to.

I also found a site- http://www.interagro.com.br/ or http://www.lusitano-interagro.com/ for the English version. Under Interagro's Auctions, it leads to a wonderful 2013 catalog for horses and foals- http://www.interagro.com.br/2013/index.asp. But how to tell what is Alter Real? I prefer using the original website- go back to that and check under Leiloes Interagro, and a couple more links pop up. I've found that the English versions of sites often cut out "excess" links, but when you're digging for info, these links are sometimes crucial. In this case, it leads to the past auctions. Could be uber helpful for someone, but not quite what I'm looking for.

I decided to put Xuhado's name in that pedigree database I found earlier. Jackpot- this shows his birthdate, as well as Pelagem (Color) is black ("preta") Google kindly translates this for me. Unfortunately, no pictures. Clicking the bottom left button, "Ascendencia" produces a short pedigree that is linkable. Score! His sire Hircino's  Pelagem is shown as Castanha. Google translates this to chestnut. Okay! Maybe we're on to something. I trace this back several generations, but then I notice something odd. ALL of the horses are showing up as chestnut. My gut doesn't think this is right, and I switch tactics. I do a search on Portuguese horse colors and stumble across these amazing charts-- http://www.oocities.org/thoroughbredpr/CoatColorsLanguages.htm.

Sure enough, these charts support my belief that Castanha is in fact the word for Bay. Meanwhile, Alazao is the term for chestnut. This makes much more sense, as I've come across the spanish term Alazan often in my research of other breeds. I use this knowledge and do a new google search for alter real alazao, but nothing comes up. I try again- this time using ALL the resources at my disposal. First, I go to allbreed and find up the chestnut mare's name from earlier-- Brasilia. I plug this into my searchable stud book. Several come up, but only one was born in the '60s. Under her info, I find the key- Pelagem- LAZÃ.  This is what they call the chestnuts!!

Now, Google search "alter real LAZÃ" and chaching! Up pops some links including Cavalonet- an auction site for Alter Reals. Now that I am familiar with the basic terms I am looking for, I do not translate the site. I don't want Google mistranslating anything this time.

The link I pick is the 2008 auction- the same one the blogger had written about earlier: http://www.cavalonet.com/pt/eventos/programa.php?idevento=3653

Sure enough, scrolling down, I see 28- Xuhado. There are also several LAZÃ pelagems that I can then go ahead and plug into my pedigree database, cross-checking with allbreed when needed, to figure out a sire and dam that work for me!

Not only was this search successful in finding chestnut Alter Reals, but I found several blacks as well!

If this helped anyone, please let me know! I love doing this sort of research and would like to hear if anyone has been able to use it to your advantage!

P.S. In the end, I had ....

SFC Royal Real

Royal Real, bay stallion that can produce chestnut, as well as a BSO chestnut mare that is available for many older years (come one, come all!).

A Job

Thank you for everyone who prayed and hoped for me to get this job. I heard this morning after waking up that I got it!!

We celebrated with a late lunch at Joe's Crab Shack after spending the day browsing IKEA and Dicks Sporting Goods.

It looks like more models are in my near future!