Hi folks!
(I started writing this post in late 2021, just as a PSA in case any of the content towards the top is outdated- such as the 70th anniversary blind bags no longer being available at the time of publishing this.)
I know I'm not alone when I say that the thrill of blind bags can be downright addictive! Will you be able to find the chase this time? What's the harm of trying just once more? Need to buy one more box, maybe I'll get lucky on this one....
Blind bags have been my go-to tag-alongs with Breyer orders these days.
Stablemate blind bags (and to a lesser degree, Mini Whinnies only because they are less popular) are a great little pick-me-up when you go to a store. You see the bags, and you want to go over and see if you can find anything cool. (Feeling bags is where it's at by the way, don't be a jerk who tears the bags and puts them back!) It's innocent enough when you can get them in person and decide if the bag you're buying is the mold you want or not. Buying online, sight unseen, is definitely more problematic. And yet, this is what I've been doing with my last few ride-alongs.
When there isn't anything else I want (that's available) from the Breyer store, I've been resorting to tacking on a couple of blind bags to my recent purchases. That in itself is more to do with the flimsy shipping boxes Breyer &/or their shipping warehouse outsourcer use, but I can talk about that another time. It's basically gambling, the blind bags, when I can't control what I get (I am a fairly skilled Stablemate bag feeler, mini whinnies on the other hand, forget it, haha!) At this point I'm really just buying the bags on the off chance of snagging a chase piece I don't have (either the rainbow Croi or platinum Brishen), but when all said and done I might have just sucked it up and paid a resale price with how many extra bags I've gotten (and no, I haven't counted so this is just a guess).
When the blue Albozoro bags were new, I bought SO MANY lavender ones, though to be fair, those were all bought in person. I will not turn down the extra bodies for my future show trophies, so at least the extras do go to a good cause. The other element of the blind bags comes in when the chase is the same mold as one of the regular pieces. At least, for the Walmart bags, those were usually different molds, and one of the current Tractor Supply chases. The point of having the overlap of two colors is certainly to sell more bags, and that is a point of success.
What are some of the drawbacks of blind bags, aside from when you can't control what you've picked out online? Certainly, there is a large segment of the hobby population who simply have no patience for the "game" of blind bags. Others cannot afford to spend a ton of time and/or money trying to find a specific horse.
In 2017, Breyer began with the first three series of blind bags- one was available from Cracker Barrel around late spring or so. Some folks also found this series at TSC but I only ever saw them at CB. The "regular" models were all re-issues of older colorways, but the chase piece was brand new- a metallic blue with black points on the G4 Arabian mold.
While this mold isn't super popular, many people (including me) fell in love with the color.
The second series was offered through Walmart in the same year. Again, the "normal" models in the set were repeats of other releases. For this set, the chase was a goldish-greenish glossy G3 Friesian. (I have one of these but no photos currently). While the Friesian is decently popular, some people were put off by the color and were not overly interested. This series also seemed to hang around for a long time, and it was relatively easy to get the chase piece if you wanted one. I did not actually get one until late 2019, but I also do not heavily conga the Friesian so he wasn't a big priority to me.
The final series offered in 2017 was geared more towards kids- the Spirit Riding Free Series 1 bags. The "regular" colors featured various characters from the show, and the chase piece was a gold G3 Andalusian.
This guy, unlike the rest of his Spirit counterparts, does not have eyebrows. That particular aspect of matching the cartoon characters dissuaded some collectors from adding this series to their collections.
It wasn't until 2018 that Breyer started to become more invested in the Stablemate blind bag game. By changing up the formula, they saw a huge increase in the interest in the bags. Instead of just having the chase mold be a new release, now ALL of the models in the set were new color/mold combos. 2018 brought a overload of blind bag series, including:
"Mystery Horse Surprise" bags, available to dealers and TSC, with the copper filigree chase
"Horse Crazy Unicorn Surprise" bags, available to dealers (starting in 2018), TSC (2019), and Cracker Barrel (various times since 2018)
"Spirit Riding Free Series 2" bags, with a G3 Mustang Spirit with war paint as the chase. Available to dealers. (I don't own this one.)
"Horse Crazy Surprise" Series 2, available from Walmart- chase is a shimmery bright pink with black points Icelandic. (I do have one, but do not have a photo of him.)
In addition to having every option in each blind bag series be new colorways, Breyer also went in the direction of using more popular molds as the chase pieces. However, the most critical piece of this new and "improved" marketing strategy was having the chase piece (in the Mystery Horse and Unicorn surprises) being the same mold as another color offered in the set. This drove people to buy whichever molds felt like the chase piece, even if it didn't turn out to be the special one.
I recall feeling like I would NEVER get the royal blue Alborozo when that series first came out! I did not have good timing on visits to local dealers for most of year. I didn't even get my first lavender one until I bought one at a local live show in October of 2018. Not terribly long after that, Cracker Barrel started carrying the series. It took a couple of stores, but I FINALLY got that deep blue chase and I was soo glad I was alone in my car or people would have thought I was weird for shrieking! I named him "Mischief Managed" but uh, he definitely was not my last blue chase. The one pictured above was a lucky pull from a dealer's case at a live show spring 2019. He is much different than my first one, so I kept both. That fall, TSC got the unicorn series as well. I happened to be traveling to several locations while posting flyers for the swap meet I was hosting that November, so while I was there, I of course picked up some blind bags for fun. I ended up with several more royal blue chases that way. I kept one because he has the VIN printed (and my other 2 do not) and passed along the rest to friends who were not as lucky as I had been.
It does seem like any time TSC or other retailers like Cracker Barrel get chase series, the chases for them seem to come down significantly in price. They are often still profitable enough to offset any extra blind bags you may have bought in your attempts to find the chase, but they usually don't breach $50 while they are readily available. The Walmart ones seem to have a similar story- those chases do not tend to sell as highly as any series that is only sold through Breyer and Breyer dealers.
In 2019, Breyer introduced some more new blind bags- several of the older series were still available.
The "Mystery Horse Series" continued with Series 2- introducing more new colorways, and the chase was the Silver Charm Alborozo. This series briefly appeared at Cracker Barrel in 2020, but to the disappointment of many, this series never made it to TSC.
This guy was a lucky pull from my local dealer's 2nd box! They were nice enough to give me a call when the new box came in. This is one that I recorded my reactions to, which was fun!
Walmart had *2* series of Unicorn blind bags in 2019- "Unicorn Crazy Surprise" with Magnolia in black with copper splatter as the chase, and "Unicorn Crazy Surprise 2", with another Magnolia in a sherbet/pastel rainbow coloration as the chase. (I do have the rainbow one, but I don't think I have a picture of her at the moment.)
I was able to find two full boxes of the first Magnolia chase at one Walmart that I went to. I normally will feel around for what I'm looking for, but I was so excited! It was a bonus that they both had chase pieces, and very different ones at that. Both are still in my collection.
2020 saw two more new Unicorn Crazy sets for Walmart:
Series 3 included the purple dapple or "grape" standing Warmblood as the chase piece (a mold I don't collect, so no photo).
Series 4's chase piece was the "Princess Charming" mold in the same colorway as the dapple Magnolia from 2019. This series was later available at Five Below and sometimes Dollar General starting in fall 2021.
I got this chase piece on my birthday in fall 2021, here is her "welcome home" photo with the other models I bought that day.
2020 also saw the introduction of "Rare" vs. "Ultra Rare" chase pieces- though these have been limited to sets that have been available as a regular run sometime during their release cycle so far. The first of these sets was the 70th anniversary blind bag assortment. The "Rare" and "Ultra Rare" options have never been fully confirmed as to which is which, but from hobby estimates, it seems like whichever one is "chrome metallic" is the rarest one.
The scaled-down Indian Pony is the suspected "Rare" chase for 2020. I don't yet own the Silver scaled down Brishen, the suspected "Ultra Rare" for this series.
2021 brought a couple of new sets, all seem to be regular run (or later became RR).
The "Chasing Rainbows" series was introduced in 2021. The "Rare" chase is a pale rainbow Connemara Mare in a different pattern than the Magnolia from 2019, and has a very subtle metallic sheen. I also don't own this one yet. The Ultra Rare chase piece is a metallic pink Standing Warmblood (again, a mold I do not collect).
The "Handful of Horses" set originally appeared at Tractor Supply in fall 2021, but in 2022 has been made available to all dealers and on Breyer's website. The Rare chase is a Princess Charming in a metallic Copenhagen color:
Found at TSC on my boyfriend's birthday!
The Ultra Rare chase is a metallic blue loping QH mare:
(I found this back in January but I'm holding onto her to trade for the Croi, Brishen, or the Morgan chase pieces I'm missing)
The final series to come to light in 2021 was the Canadian Walmart Horse Crazy surprise. Several notable hobby dealers who sell in high volume online were offered this "leftover stock" from a promotion that supposedly did not pan out. This series has been available periodically from these retailers, and it is unclear just how much product was made. The chase piece for this series is a bright blue G2 Morgan with black points and a subtle shimmer...again, one I do not have (I tried! I bought a bunch of bags!) Interestingly, this particular chase seems to be fairly uncommon so far, which is unusual for the "Walmart" sets. It might just be that the distribution is not as wide and so fewer have ended up in collector hands. The boxes also seem to arrive at the dealers being less organized than typical - there is no guarantee that buying a "full box" will even get you at least one of every "regular" model in the series.
So far, there have not been any new blind bags released in 2022. The Chasing Rainbows and Handful of Horses bags are currently still available from Breyer, and from dealers. Since the exodus of Wal-Mart special runs to Five Below, Dollar General, and Breyer's website (for some of the Classic scale runs), it is uncertain whether Breyer's contract with Wal-Mart is continuing- perhaps they only made a shorter term deal, like 4-5 years. Or perhaps the supply chain is still affecting the arrival of new Breyers to Wal-Mart. While these runs were often considered far more accessible to folks who don't have local dealers, only have TSC (in the fall), or do not care to buy the bags online, the sheer volume of different series since the introduction of Stablemate blind bags is certainly getting to many hobbyists.
I do love the thrill of trying to find the chase, but it can also be quite frustrating to put a lot of time and effort into the search. For example, I spent a couple entire DAYS last August/early September and several shorter trips looking for the Tractor Supply runs when New England was lagging behind other areas of the country in getting them in. I managed to find the Prince Charming chase piece pretty much the same day they were stocked...at my closest store. I would NOT be able to do all that aimless driving today considering how gas prices are. I decided I wasn't going to be too bothered about finding the metallic QH, since I only wanted her to trade anyway- that worked out much better, I got lucky with bag pulls in the new year once that series transitioned to Regular Run.
It's certainly easy to get burned out with blind bags; whether you're on the hunt for the chase pieces, the places you look for them suffer from jerks opening the bags, your favorite molds keep getting used, you don't care for unicorns, you can only buy them online and you don't like the gamble, or any other reasons. But maybe, you're still enjoying the thrill of the hunt, the ability to feel up the bags in person to know (in most cases) what you're getting, or it just doesn't feel tedious to you. That's totally fine as well!
I think we can all agree though that it's nice to have a little bit of a break from new blind bags so far in 2022! (Though there is certainly the chance of new reveals for spring, mid year, or fall still.) Personally, I'm still trying to catch up on a few of the last series chases, so I'm relieved.
How do you feel about blind bags? Have your feelings towards them changed over time?
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