Todays blog prompt made me lol. Do I have any collections? Afraid so. And it started early. Heck I still have some of the first things I ever collected, porcelain horses from my grandfather, as I mentioned recently.
There’s one more, but her leg needs to be repaired.
I come by this honestly. I love sorting and categorizing things, as did my mom. I guess it kept me out of trouble as a kid! I was so busy organizing piggy banks, making card catalogs for my books and lining up my Hot Wheels cars that there was no time to get in trouble.
One of two childhood piggy banks I still have.
So, I declare that collections are healthy and only a problem when you think they’re a problem. No, I’m not a minimalist.
Wine. Can’t forget that collection.
I have collected things with pansies on them for decades. They still make me smile. Mom loved pansies. Mom also had some cool purple glass stuff. I recently shared my purple glass window in the bathroom. Here are teacups.
These were also Mom’s
And there are still more horse statues. And rocks. And nail polish (I need to stop that one). And books, yarn, crystal, wine corks, dogs, horses, ugh. Too much. It makes me happy, sparks joy, or whatever.
RocksCrystalWine corks (oldest container; there are more)Fancy horses
If my collections become a problem later in life, I’m sure someone else will enjoy them when they go thrifting. It’s fine with me.
The vet came today. This is our annual reminder that having lots of animals is very expensive. But I’m glad we can avoid certain illnesses, know the dogs don’t have heart worms, and soon will know the horses passed their annual Coggins test.
The dogs were better than usual. That’s not saying much, since four had to be sedated. Goldie had a great time and volunteered to go back in the trailer numerous times, even though she got bonus shots for allergies and her leg sore she won’t stop licking.
I’m a good girl.
Penney, the unstable one, managed to get her shots like a big girl. Harvey still growled through sedation, Alfred got real zonked, Vlassic had to be carried into the trailer, and Carlton was quite a challenge to catch. He even ran off while sedated. But they all did it!
I’m resting up.
I was too busy helping to take horse photos, but they were troopers, even when the assistant was learning to take blood and give shots. She did great! Mabel was deemed too thin, Apache was too fat, and the other two were just right. I’m glad to get that taken care of for another year.
Yep, I am a collector. My whole life I’ve enjoyed collecting things like books, leaves, rocks, yarn, and things with pansies on them. As a kid, I had a collection of electronics components that my dad would bring me home from work. He inspected things ranging from telephone poles to potentiometers for Western Electric/AT&T. He’d bring me rejected items and tell me what they were. I had them in shoeboxes, all labeled. Later he brought some very early printed circuit boards and explained how they worked. That led to my first “real” job after high school, which was working in a printed circuit board plant – wow, some of those were HUGE, thick, and sturdy.
My collection display. See, there’s still room for more. There was no way I could get a photo without someone in the mirror, so, I apologize to Lee.
Anyway, I had a fun serendipitous addition to one of my collections yesterday. You see, right after we moved to the Hermits’ Rest, I bought a beautiful little resin horse figurine as one of our first Christmas decorations. It lived on the mantel, and I got a few more as years went by. They are from the Trail of Painted Ponies collection, which, I soon discovered consists of a LOT of little horses. People collect them and apparently pay some pretty ridiculous prices for them.
This one is ceramic, rather than resin. Sounds of Thunder, 2007. By Bill and Traci Rabbit, 1E/1018 (I think, this has weird handwriting on it). This is the side Bill painted.
As time went on, I got a few more Christmas ones, and branched out to some that weren’t Christmas, too. I like the Native American ones. Each is painted by a well-known artist, though some by lesser-known people who win design contests. A large part of the sale of each figurine goes to charity, which made me feel better for buying them.
This is the only Christmas one I bought. Poinsettia Pony, 2007. I like that she has eyes.
Originally, they were large statues in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which is why so many of them feature Western themes. Since I have had a small (growing smaller, thanks to our house cleaner) collection of porcelain horses my whole life, this was a natural outgrowth. Plus, Lee liked them. The pansy items I collect, not so much.
This one is sort of busy, but the little images in the circles intrigued me. Skyrider, by Wendy Wells-Bailey, #1509, 2005. 1E/5,338
A year or two ago, Lee got me a nice hutch to display the horses in, since the mantel was getting full. It housed my ten or so horses and a couple of other nice things. Which leads us to yesterday!
Earth, Wind, and Fire, #1545, 2004. I loved the gold, the eagle, and the bear. And the scary warrior. The artist is Bill Rabbit. 3E/2,628.
I was finished with work, and just browsing around, when I got one of those random Facebook notifications that there was a garage sale coming up in Rockdale. I like to occasionally look to see if there are any glass items for my office, so I opened the link. There, in all their glory were a LOT of Trail of Painted Pony boxes. The guy said to ignore the prices on the boxes (that was good, since the lowest one was $75, and I’m not paying that).
This is another favorite. Look at all those hand-placed dots. What you can’t see is there are additional images that are not painted, all over the horse. This one’s just so cool. Thunderbird Suite, by Joel Nakamura, #1582, 2004. 3E/2,879
I asked Lee and Kathleen if they wanted to go for a ride, and they said they would, so off we went to Rockdale. How spontaneous, right?
There, we met an interesting guy who does auctions and is selling off inventory from a store he used to own (hence the price tags). It turned out the horses were all from the early years of the Trail of Painted Ponies, starting in 2004. The newest ones were from 2007.
This is one I’d seen photos of and always wanted. There’s a big pink jewel on her tummy. Sky of Enchantment, 2004. She’s the oldest one, and from only the third edition of the ponies. #1534, 4E/9,670
So, Kathleen helped me look through all of them. Not all are to my taste, but a couple were really, really cool, like Willing, here, who is a heavy metal horsie, with a fake hair tail and tassel. Whoa. You just have to have THAT.
That’s one cool and scary horse. It has a real chain pair of reins, and all that tail and “beard” hair. Willing, #1510, 2005, by Virgil Ortiz. 1E/5,973.
I ended up selecting nine horses, which was over my initial goal, but some of these were just SO cool, and I knew they were all retired (and some first editions with 1E labels) and would cost a lot in a store or on eBay (I went to a store in some tourist town that had most of them, but some were over $200, and I don’t want any figurine THAT badly). We settled on a price that was reasonable, after I made a ridiculously low bid, because I apparently can’t multiply by 9.
Lee agreed that it was a good deal, so I am happy and not broke.
This is the back of Sounds of Thunder. A husband and wife team, Bill and Traci Rabbit, did this horse, and the blue side represents the male spirit, while the white side is the female spirit. I love the image on the horse’s neck.
The seller also threw in this beautiful Fenton pitcher, since it has a little crack. I don’t care, because it’s just going to set on a glass shelf, once I have them. Right now it’s in the entry room at the Pope Residence, but that’s just a temporary location.
Fenton cranberry glass coin dot pitcher.
I love that each horse comes with a story, and that they are so detailed. They aren’t just painted, but they have engravings, accessories like leather reins, and other trimmings. These older ones aren’t labeled on the base like newer ones are, but that’s an easy way to tell which ones are old!
They are all numbered and labeled on the bottom, which is nice.
It’s hard to say which of the horses is my favorite, but two of them stand out. The Saguaro Stallion has a beautiful moonrise painting on it, along with very interesting lines embossed into the mold. I love the colors. And the base has rocks on it.
Saguaro Stallion by John Geryak, #1523, 2005. 1E/4947
The other one I love is a very traditional looking horse, all dressed up for a parade. Plus, he’s a paint.
Silverado, #12241, from 2007. He’s so silvery! By Karlynn Keyes, 1E/1,108
I you enjoyed this journey down the Trail of Painted Ponies. I enjoy looking at them every day, and they fit in nicely with the ranch theme of our house. Last year I wasn’t feeling too well, and didn’t get a holiday horse or any other, but I plan to make up for it and get at least one horse every year. It’s something fun to look forward to.
That’s what collections are for, right? Fun. Share what you collect, if you’d like to.
The Upstate Gardening blog with Gardening Information, Recipies, Home Improvement Ideas, and Crafts Projects to make your life more beautiful and healthy.
The Hermits' Rest 