Why only one is not enough

This is for all those people who question my need to buy more horses so often and despite how I 'already have so many'. These people never seem to hear it when I say that there in America are collectors, who have HUNDREDS of traditional scale models, shelves full. I have only... 50? That is not much!

These three were bought from a fellow Finnish collector.

So, why only one horse is not enough?

Well, let me explain.

One thing I want to point out is scale. Model horses come in many scales, and I quite like to know what the difference between them is by experience. There was a time I didn't know how small stablemates are, and had to ask it. I still remember the description: "lightly hand-wrappable" alias so small that you can almost close the horse into your hand. 

The palomino and the pinto came from my American friend, LittleYoungOne, the dark bay andalusian (who's barely visible) and warmblood came from Kave (who painted both). Behind the palomino is my NaMoPaiMo model Torsti, as you can't see.

Different brands. Sculptors and styles vary, and every horse is different. Every brand is different, and often brands don't share sculptors with each other. 

Got this mare similarly as most of my collection, but she's a pretty model and therefore worth photographing and sharing.

Breyers are better than Schleich. I have a rather massive collection of Schleich, most of them from the early 2000's to the mid 2010's. There was a time I enjoyed Schleich and genuinely liked to buy new ones. Then the quality went down, and at the same time I already may have known what Breyers were like. Now Breyers give me the same enthusiasm what I felt about Schleichs years ago. It is what it is - I could never have only one or a few, I want a lot!

I make tack. It could be boring to do a ton of stuff and only for one size. With both real and model horses, one size does not fit all. I could not make tack for my friends if I had only one horse. I like the fact that now I can compare different models to make sure the tack is accurately measured. There is a lot of variation even among 'equally large' horses like warmbloods. Oh, there's so much variety in that box!

I made this halter to fit specifically the exact mold it is on; though the horse it's going for is in someone else's collection. (The horse is not scratched - just dusty!)

I am materialistic. I don't understand why people are so scared of materialism, or think it's a bad thing. Having stuff around makes me happy, even better if I can see it! Model horse hobby is one of the most perfect forms to let it storm around. For me, it has always been an option, because I don't know how to organize (or keep things organized all the time), and as a traditional artist I've already gained a massive amount of art supplies and have zero space for it. It's completely natural... But basically I can just honestly say that hoarding hobby stuff makes me happy.

This is partially to the materialism part: I like to have several pieces of something matchy, for example models of a certain scale or brand. In fact, I need to have it so, no less. One or two is not a collection, but a ten is. I don't even know why I feel it like this, but as long as I have too few of something, I don't bond with it properly enough. 

Everything in this photo came from my American friend LittleYoungOne. The skeleton got named Silli (Silly Silli), and he's one of the funniest things I found from that package. He may be a potential studio mascot.

Modelverse. I know, you're already so fed up with this topic, but I can't stop. It's my life. I cannot see a world for a certain scale if I don't own enough models in it. But the big thing is, that I must have all the horses I have. And more. I have so many ideas and plans, so few horses (and dolls) to make them real with.

Back before late 2016 I had only three traditionals: my PAM (who was unnamed for too long), an unfinished Blue Box QH and a wrecked flockie. All of these were in standing position and therefore I had very limited options for scenes. I know that some people actually prefer standing models over anything else, but I think these alone are just boring. I want that famous variety I already mentioned in the beginning of the article. 

Sense of community. By gaining a large and growing herd of different brands, scales, colors and breeds I also may get a better feel that I'm in a community. I'm a sideviewer most of the time anyway, so this could be at least the one thing I can relate to others with.

So to put it simple, this hobby could be basically impossible and really odd if only one could be a thing. People with tens or hundreds - let alone thousands - of plastic (or rubber, flocked, carved, china, porcelain) horses cannot be wrong. In a randomie's opinion my collection of Breyers may be overgrown and waste of space. (I occasionally get those "you could make a lot of money by selling these at some point" type of comments.) They just don't know what are like the collections of people who have for example collected much longer than me; those people may also have used way more money on their models than I with mine... 

I made this horse. And tack. And the doll.

So, anyway. I keep spying what to buy the next time.

The good and bad sides in large and small collections

Once I read a blog written by some American collector who has been in the hobby for a very, very long time. Seeing photos of large collections gave me a strange feeling, which, for some reason, made me think the good and bad sides of having small or large collections.

My Breyers somewhere in 2017... The herd has grown a lot since!

I have a small collection of traditionals, if we compare it to what Americans often have at my age. But I also know what it feels like to have a large collection - I have over 100 Schleichs, and many of them are customs. When combined these to the traditionals and yet my old classic scale toy horses, I can actually have a room full of horses; I can't keep them all visible since there just is no space.

The scale doesn't matter when you have to list all your horses, write their infos, put all this on a blog... And it's a lot easier with a small collection, obviously. Also the way you write the info chart matters, and the simplier it is, the quickier it is to fill and publish.

I have listed my collection several times over the years, first on paper and later digitally on computer. Yes, I've made a physical list of my models in a notebook at some point. That was just the Schleichs, and at the earliest years, when I was a kid, I probably also wrote infos as well or only for my classics (Grand Champions and related).

My yet unlisted ornament mustang which I got from LittleYoungOne.

What are the good sides of a small collection?

Well, one obvious good side is that the models don't take too much space. You can put all of them in one shelf and no one needs to go into storage in a plastic tub. Hmm, I couldn't do that (for Breyers) even if I didn't have space (which is true right now)...

Small collections are also easier to list on paper or computer. You can update their infos easily, if you need to do an overhaul.

If you want your every horse to have personal tack, it's a lot easier to achieve with less models than if you have 10 room-tall shelves filled with all kinds of models. 

What are the bad sides of a small collection?

I constantly crash with the issue that I don't have enough variety in models in general, when it comes to traditionals. For example, I want some chances at times when I photograph a ton of halters, but have only a couple models who truly serve good in that. No, the ones with tucked heads aren't those, believe it or not. But anyone with their noses in or near the horizontal line will be nice for this. 

It gets even worse if you have to do tack for molds you don't have, and the fitting has to go right (of course, when shouldn't it?). Making tack for others is always a little exciting because of that, especially if there is nothing you can compare the description to. My solution to this could of course be buying something similar to my own collection, but it's not so simple really.

Don't mind the doll... But I bought this pony mainly because so many seemed to want halters for theirs!

And what are the good sides of a large collection?

Variety... As said. The more horses I have to choose from, the wider variety of options I have for scene photography, matching horses and riders, then that that I may more potentially own a model which can mannequin for a trade/commission piece of tack. 

I often feel like I have photographed everything. New models are fun because of that. I also enjoy naming (if I'm in a naming mood) my models and building new story-related things (deciding which horse belongs to which doll, and cooking up their stories). I remember how dead this stuff was back when I had only three (THREE!) traditionals, and none of them were very great. 

What are the bad sides of a large collection?

Storage space can be under a rock, or more like under a plastic tub lid. This is what it is for most, but for me, only for my Schleichs. Model horses also take up the shelf space which otherwise could serve for other things, like books, tools and just everything. The shelves even hold the plastic tubs where my Schleichs are... And even worse, I have to keep most tubs piled on the floor because there is no shelf space!

Also, rescuing that army in the case of an emergency could be painfully impossible. And what if you had to move and take them all with you? I have never traveled with these, let alone seriously packed anything for a trip! 

Listing them all up is easy, if I do that slowly over time as the collection grows. But if I had to do a new list for every scale? No way! I mostly focus on traditionals only, anyway, so I just keep listing them. I lost my track of my Schleichs already years ago, as many newer ones were bought just for customising and the ones to be kept as OFs were not worth naming, let alone "registering". 

So, that's the... collection comparison. Or collecting habit comparison. More stuff to come, in case I don't sink back into my "what if I make someone angry with this text?" pit.