‘Tis the season to buy to load up on bodies for the rest of the year! The best way to know that spring and summer are upon us is to see yard sale signs.
The yard sales were sparse today, but I came home with the first body of the season. An old FAM. She will join last year’s bodies, a waiting for inspiration to hit( which ultimately means dremel, sculpting, and hacking before reaching the permanent state of custom model horsey-ness).
There are two types of model horse sellers. Generally the model is in the same condition or worse than the model below. One seller sees ‘old breyer’ and ‘collectable’ and decides that the model is actually worth 30$. They will not bargain or be educated about the hobby. They will shout until they are blue that ‘THIS IS BREYER. BREYERS ARE WORTH A TON OF MONEY NO MATTER IF I LET A BIRD POOP ON IT!’ ‘YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING. I KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT COLLECTABLES AND NO MATTER THE CONDITION, I SHOULD GET RICH OFF OF THE THREE LEGGED STABLEMATE!’
Then there is the other type of seller, who is very wonderful. The seller notices the flaws, crooked legs (or lack of legs), and says, ‘well, this model may be a breyer but it is not in good condition. It is in very bad condition.’ This seller marks the model for 10$ or less, leaning more towards less than $5 if the model is a smaller scale or has broken parts. These sellers I have found are generally more friendly too. They understand that condition affects value. The best way to know whether a person has a clue about what they are selling is if they are knowledgeable about conditioning affecting price. Sure, if it is a rare model (like the dragon raffle model from a couple of years back), sure it will still bring in a pretty penny in bad condition. But the number produced does affect value, as does mold.
So there’s a little briefing before the full fledged yard sale season. Happy Hunting!
Kristian Beverly 