It's Friday, I'm a Judge! Mini Collectability #6

Welcome back to another Friday judging clinic! We're in mini collectability land again today, which as we all know is my personal favorite place to be. 

As always, my personal judging history and credentials can be found on my About Me page. 

This week, we're looking at a class of regular run Stablemate models. Like Kelly's guest judging post, these are all models with tie-ins to other properties, be it an event, an estate, or a franchise. Let's look at our class!

Horse A: Saddle Club 4-Piece Set - Regular Run 2008-2011

Horse B: Bandit - Regular Run 2010-2012 - Elvis Collection

Horse C: World Equestrian Games: Reining - Regular Run 2010 

How would you pin these three? How much do you weigh the popularity of the molds against the popularity of the licensed property they're attached to? How much is condition a factor? When you're ready, you can find my placings under the jump. ↓

The Placings:

🥇1st: Horse B - Bandit

In first place, I pinned Bandit from the Elvis Collection. The thing about the Elvis Collection is it's marketable to non-collectors - while Elvis may not be as popular as he was at his height, he's been a focus for memorabilia collectors for a while (one of my own grandmothers being one!) and the continued presence of Elvis impersonators speaks to his lasting impact on culture. This crossover appeal with non-collectors is crucial, as it means a significant amount of these models likely did not end up with hobbyists. In addition, this example has very nice shading, is on a well-liked mold, and is in stellar condition. For all these reasons, Bandit placed first.  

🥈2nd: Horse A - Saddle Club Starlight

The Saddle Club model I pinned in second. This is another class that could have reasonably pinned first or second either way. The Cantering Warmblood and the Standing Thoroughbred are pretty equally matched in mold popularity. That being said, in most cases usually I would pin the Standing Thoroughbred first. The Saddle Club is a collection that is more popular specifically with children - that means more of the set this model came from ended up in the hands of children, so finding them in nice condition is hard. If you look closely, you'll see that the entry here does have some condition issues. In this instance, it was enough for me to knock him to second, however on some of the more desirable Saddle Club Stablemates (such as this same color on the G3 Warmblood Jumper from the Jump Off Playset) this wouldn't be an issue. Additionally, if Bandit was in roughly the same condition, I would swap the first and second placings.  

🥉3rd: Horse C - WEG Reining

In third, we have the WEG Reining horse. Of the three, he was produced for the shortest amount of time, and was an immediately popular model, as the first reining model in the Stablemates lineup (the second in the Breyer plastic lineup as a whole after the Classic Hollywood Dun It). Because of this, he likely made it into more hands of collectors than the other two in this class did. While he's not always an easy model to find, he tends to pop up for sale more often and for lower prices than the others. In this case, mold popularity and better condition is not enough to overtake the relative scarcity of the first and second place models. 

How did you place this class? Why did you make the decisions you did? This is a class where there were placings could flip flop depending on how you as a judge weigh different factors - you don't have to agree with my placings!