When I started thinking about guest judges and topics they could cover, Mel was one of the first people I thought of, for Stones in particular. I've co-judged with Mel many times, and she has a wonderful approach to judging, with the knowledge to back up her placings. Mel is also a fellow blogger! You can find them over at
Mel's Model Horse Collection.
Stone Collectability
by Mel Grant
Hi! My name is Melissa (Mel) Grant and I’m honored to have been invited by Macie to be your guest judge for March.
Before we get into the meat and potatoes, here’s a bit about my history in the hobby. I was introduced to model horses when I met my best friend in 1990, and my parents got me my first Breyers for Christmas that year. I added the first Stone to my collection around the year 2000. In June 2010, at a Breyer Fun Day at a local dealer, I met a few hobbyists who would become some of my closest friends, and attended my first two live shows later that year. My friends eventually convinced me to give judging a try, so I shadowed for the first time in early 2017 and judged at my first show in November that year. I was so nervous, but the show hostesses were amazing and I had a blast. Since then, I’ve judged at multiple shows a year, including SE Ohio, Southwest PA Classic, Rainbow Rave Live, Finger Lakes Live, Lake Erie Live, and Steel City Live. I also co-host Are You Kitten Me Live every spring, which raises money for a local cat rescue, Wayward Whiskers. My favorite divisions to judge are Breyer and Stone collectibility, though you might also see me judging OF breed from time to time, especially for minis. For today’s post, I picked Stone collectibility, which can be complex for a number of reasons.
Collectibility judging is exactly what it says on the tin - what’s the most collectible thing on the table?
Typically that’s defined by using the following criteria: age, rarity, desirability, and condition. With Breyer judging, sometimes that leads to a straightforward 1-6 in the class; other times it can get tricky, such as comparing “old and rare” vs. “new and rare.”
Stone Collectibility judging can still be done competently using the same criteria above - age, rarity, desirability, and condition. However, Stones are very different from Breyer in that almost everything from 2005 and on has been either an extremely small run or a one-of-a kind (OOAK). How do you judge based on age and rarity when everything on the table is, by definition, fairly new and also rare?
When I’m judging Stone Collectibility, I start with age and rarity, but that usually doesn’t get me very far, so I get to desirability and condition fairly quickly. For desirability, it’s important to know which Stone molds are most popular, both currently and historically. Volo and Pimento are the “latest new thing” and are riding that wave of popularity right now, particularly Pimento; the Andalusian, Mule, Bunny, and Cob tend to disappear the fastest at both online and in-person sales events; and of the older molds, the Arabian and ISH have longstanding popularity. Less desired molds are the Performance Horse, Original Morgan, Rearing Horse, Sport Horse, and Western Pleasure Horse.
It’s also important to know which older pieces, though more plentiful in quantity, are highly sought-after (Seeker is a great example) and thus might be considered more collectible than a lower-quantity piece, even one on a more desirable mold.
I also heavily factor workmanship into the desirability element, though others may not. With Factory Customized pieces, I hold them to the same standard as if I were judging custom workmanship - for any parts of the model that were moved, is the bone structure and musculature correct? Were extra details added to make it more realistic or to make it more closely represent a certain breed, such as veining, teeth, bulked up or slimmed down musculature, leg feathers, etc.? How well-executed and detailed is the paint job? If the model has an added finish, how evenly was that applied, does the added finish add to the desirability, and does it make the model stand out? Are there noticeable paint flaws? [Note: having painted a Stone myself at the factory in 2019 during the Paint Your Own event, I will absolutely, 100% ignore minor lint in the finish as a judge. Stone’s painting setup is great, but it’s impossible for their environment to be dust-free. I cleaned lint off my piece between every single layer of paint, and he still managed to sneak through the process with some lint. Large hairs or giant clumps of lint? Sure, I’d knock a model down for that. But little pieces of lint here or there? Not even a factor for me.]
It’s also interesting to note that for their Stone Horse Country Fair show this coming May, Stone has moved to judging their OF models by workmanship. From the show packet: “Note that we are not judging on collectability – but rather workmanship of the original finish piece. This includes prepping of the body for paint, lack of visible seams, correct masking placement, overspray, detail of the paint work, detail and accuracy of customization, etc.” I completely agree with this approach.
By heavily factoring in workmanship, I usually have my placings before I get to condition, but if I have to get that nit-picky, I’m looking for rubs or scratches, gloss scuffs/uneven or pebbled glossing/drips in the gloss, large pieces of hair or lint, and seam issues, especially on the Half-Passing Warmblood, who was notorious for splits.
In many shows in my region, classes are double-judged for both breed and collectibility, so I often see a wide variety of Stones in those classes - older, larger runs that might work better as a breed horse (especially since many FCMs aren’t conformationally correct), Design-A-Horses (DAHs), small-quantity event runs (e.g. Stone Horse Country Fair, Moonlight Madness), OOAKs, and usually, a fair number of highly customized Best Offer models. Those classes are easier for me personally to judge - while there’s a lot to consider given the variety, there are usually some models that stand out right away.
Other shows split out breed and collectibility into separate divisions. At these shows, the Stone classes tend to be grouped by type and run size - Best Offers, OOAKs, runs of 2-30, runs of 31-99, runs of 100+, FCM DAHs, non-FCM DAHs, decorators (sometimes further split by holiday or color), fantasy, etc. Sometimes the sections are split even further by scale. This is done to try to keep like with like.
I am a modest Stone collector, with just over 80 models in my collection. Most of those are older, higher-quantity runs or DAHs, so while I would love to give a clinic on judging OOAKs or Best Offers, I just don’t really have those in my collection, and the ones I do tend to be Shiny Bay Things. So today, we’ll pretend that we’re at a show that has split out collectibility classes from breed classes, and we’ll be pinning a non-FCM DAH class.
Here are the three models:
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| Photo courtesy Mel G |
Horse A: This is a non-customized Heavy Draft (Bunny) body in glossy gray with black points. She has dapples and minimal white markings. She was designed and purchased in 2021.
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| Photo courtesy Mel G |
Horse B: This is a non-customized Arabian Stallion body in glossy chestnut-going-gray with dapples and minimal white markings. He was designed and purchased in 2015.
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| Photo courtesy Mel G |
Horse C: This is a non-customized short-mane, long-tail Ideal Stock Horse (ISH) in glossy bay roan extreme tobiano. He was designed and purchased in 2020.
How would you place these three models?
Find Mel's placings under the jump. ↓
