Timaru Star II Tack Sales Info
Welcome to my Sales Information Page! (formerly Tack Orders)
Current Order of Go, a.k.a. NEWS & PLANS depicts progress of current tack pieces, changing even now. This paragraph discusses the latest situations and hopes, updated, I'm afraid, every "god knows when" since we just took 2 years! Older chapters are moved down to join the TSII HISTORY.
Contact Info is below. The TSII in a Nutshell is "About Us" and what our visions are for this website. Our Draft Collar Tutorial CD is below. Payments, Trades, Repairs & Restorations, and Apprentices are all below. There's also a great portrait of me in the canoe.
Next below is TSII HISTORY, the accumulating reports dating back to December 2012. This is pretty long and of interest only to history buffs. The very bottom of this page contains our Picture-Borrowing policies.
13 March 2024
Current Order of Go, a.k.a NEWS & PLANS
The old estimate of our next book, Advanced Braidwork for the Model Horse, being written in just one year was hopelessly inadequate. As of now it has been a year and eight months, and we're only just now past the 4th of the 8 pieces. But hope springs eternal. Surely it will be done by fall... I was also wrong about there being 7 pieces; there are eight. I was NOT wrong about the book spinning off parts and pieces. We just sold off a duplicate mecate. Currently my intentions are to auction off the next two or three pieces of headgear at BreyerFest. That's right: the Peach Rose 2, the April's Hackamore 2 and, if I get it done, the Fancy's Hackamore 5 will be in Kentucky this July of 2024. My room will be 612 in the CHIN. Watch our blog and FaceBook pages for how to bid. If all else fails, text me: 814-470-7199. The next book, when and if it is finished, will have a price in the neighborhood of $25.
Here is a shot of the Peach Rose 2, modeled by our lovely horse Beau Soir, Eclipse to the rest of you. Imagine being told, in detailed drawings and photos, exactly how to make this bridle! Yes, that is the dream that is sustaining me these long months and years.
(Below) The lost Fancy's Hackamore, mistakenly thrown out. cuidado, mes enfants!
December 22, 2022. So what happened in the past 2 years, from 2020 to 2022? Several saddles were restored (TSII #89, #413 and #430). A wave of Akhal Teke presentation tack sets were conceived, born and sold: 4 of them plus a neckpiece which was sold during VBreyerFest via random draw. One horse was painted during NaMoPaiMo, Orlik. A Lead Pair of the 20-Mule-Team was created. The next book was (once again) started, and this time work was sustained over several months, until Christmas and a January canoe trip stopped it. I want to make tack again, not only because I like to but because it brings in cash. The plan of selling horses to tide me over has not been followed 100 percent.
In other news, we have raised the price of the Guide by a couple of dollars. As I've said on the main page, this book cost $55.00 plus postage for most of its life (1998-2016). I'm thinking that the Advanced Braidwork might land in the $15 range.
Contact Info:
Timaru Star II Model Tack Shop
Susan Bensema Young
210 West Hamilton Avenue #104
State College, PA 16801-5218
sbytsii@verizon.net
THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE!
The TSII in a NUTSHELL.
The TSII began as a mail-order business in 1979, and continued up through the marriage of its owner in 1988. In 1990, largely as a result of his advice, we switched to a Lottery approach, putting customers through a random drawing before we accepted their orders. At first held every year, then every other year, the TSII Lotteries became famous.
In 2010, serious medical problems arose and were dealt with, but they slowed down an already very slow production rate. In 2013, responding to ever-greater demands on my time (mostly familial), I made the difficult decision to stop the Lotteries, finish out the last cycle of winners' orders and then go on with auction pieces, trades and artist-initiated orders. I didn't realize it would take til 2017, but eventually we filled the last Lottery order. Today (2020) pieces are auctioned variously on eBay, Model Horse Place, in person or by taking offers on MH$P.
Having done Lotteries for model tack orders for 23 years generated a TON of wish orders! In that time I have evolved towards my favorite subjects: Western Braidwork and Silver Parade. I am now in a position to make only those pieces I wish to make, on my own schedule, and for whom I desire. The Timaru Star II blogspot opened in December of 2012; its FaceBook page, April of 2015. Response to these 3 online venues (there are two FaceBook pages, one for the tack shop (Timaru Star II Model Tack) and one for me (Susan Bensema Young)) has been pleasing, if not addictive! They have grown to be the main source of information about our pieces. My vision for this website is for documentation, equivalent to the Scrapbooks, hopefully expanding in future to provide pictures of every piece made (so far as we have pictures). It's not impossible to think of a model horse tack museum space here, with pages for many other artists I have known and collected over the years.
Meanwhile we have a surprise up our sleeve: The Draft Collar Tutorial, long promised, is now a reality! For twenty dollars ppd ($20) you too can have a copy of this disc, with 83 pictures depicting the step-by-step creation of a Scotch Peak model Draft Collar, 15 pictures of its harness put to a variety of vehicles (it was made for the Standing Stone Drafter), and 7 pictures of cards of instructions on switching between a Single and a Pair harness. This is not covered in the Guide! The price includes postage. Just PayPal me. My PayPal address is my email address, seen above.
TSII TACK PAYMENT POLICIES. Our policy is that tack purchases via auction wins are to be paid for within ten (10) days. The 10 days (a week and a half) can be extended if you contact me and explain why you need more than ten days. If you do not completely pay for your winning bid within the ten days, any amounts paid will be returned and the piece re-auctioned, sold or kept. If no explanation is forthcoming or is deemed unacceptable, paid amounts will be FORFEIT.
TSII policy on tack orders and trades are that they be completely paid for within 60 days of completion of the piece. This deadline can sometimes be extended if you contact me and explain why you need more than the standard 60 days (60 days is two months) to pay for it. If the piece is not completely paid for after a final, mutually-agreed deadline, any amounts paid will be returned and the piece auctioned, sold or kept. If you vanish, paid amounts will be FORFEIT.
This also applies to horse sales.
PLAN AHEAD: I once had a customer pay for a $450 bridle in installments of $25. Go ahead, use up my paper: I'd much rather play bookkeeper than lose a customer. :) C'mon people: this is model tack, so you're into little details!!
TRADES. My Willing to Trade For list looks like this. Props: I'd love a detailed model sleigh.
Resins: I'd love a good driving Pony such as Flint's Fancy Enuf; the thoroughbred Affinity by Rose, preferably unfinished; Amelit, an almost unknown Russian trotting gelding by Margarita Malova.
TACK: I'd really like to get my hands on a Kathy Maestas Western saddle from the 1970s & 80s.
My personal Hobby Holy Grail is an O.F. 1964 Copenhagen Running Mare. "wanted since 1975"
REBUILDS, REPAIRS & RESTORATIONS: Conservations and other updates of vintage Timaru Star II tack are accepted on a time available and individual basis. Contact me for quotes.
If a TSII piece breaks or is damaged under conditions of normal use, we will replace it or repair it FREE during the first three years of the life of the piece. After that, repairs will be charged a minimum of $50.00.
If the piece is broken "only a little", needs cleaning, polishing or minor overhaul, my "three-hour" rule can be invoked. If the work needed will take only three hours or less, you have a much better chance...!!
In cases of more thorough overhaul and updating, (such as restoring a silver-tape Parade set or cleaning and re-buckling a harness with gold instead of brass or stainless-steel instead of silver-color hardware), you will need to obtain a quote and an idea of my current schedule. As a general rule of thumb, updating costs about two-thirds the price a new piece and takes around three months. The enhanced intensity, strengthening, beauty and UNIQUENESS of a cleaned and updated piece will more than reward you. Rebuilds teach the artist lessons they would not otherwise learn, and improve future pieces. It is indeed a lucky piece of tack that falls into my hands twice.
Note also that often vintage TSII pieces sent in for updating have turned out to be acceptable trades! and you get a brand-new piece of tack, much more detailed than the trade-in, at alarmingly low cost. This has happened several times.
APPRENTICESHIPS. If that isn't enough, we've been known to host apprentices. Show me pictures of your tack, negotiate a fee and time, and come visit: we have guest quarters. It's been done: ask Heather Downing, Heather Moreton and Mary Lineman. :)
Don't overlook the secondary market. It is now over 45 years since I started selling tack... that's a LOT of pieces. In my experience, TSII pieces turn up at auction once or twice a year. Sometimes a piece can be found at BreyerFest. As a general rule, the best chance a "man on the street" has of obtaining TSII pieces is on the secondary market, and the chance is raised if the piece is older.
(Below) Sue in the canoe on the New River, Florida, with Rinker the Appy Etch enjoying a moment of turnout. 
TSII HISTORY
November 22, 2020. Let the amount of time from my last update (7 months) be an indication of the extreme stress-tests my country has been put through. There seems no end in sight. I have been very distracted. Still the election brought a strong ray of hope. Here at the TSII, #457 was finished Sept 30 and delivered (in person!!) October 4th. This makes 2 saddle projects completed this year, which is more than last year's production (one Teke set and some headgear). I note that visions of a pictorial Western saddle have unfortunately died.
On April 21, through once-in-a-lifetime loss of control, I broke my right hand and right foot and they took 6 weeks to heal. In late June my own mother went into hospital (again, it wasn't Covid19) and then into rehab July 24, emerging Sept 14. To have a family member pass that close to the Angel of Death a second time (my own 2010 case is the first) was a nerve-wracking experience for all involved. I shall always regard her recovery as a miracle.
The above Current Order of Go is as close as I can get right now to a plan for the future. Nonetheless, if we ever emerge from this tunnel, I count on showing up at BreyerFest (I still hold reservations) and helping out with NAN. Whoever is praying for us, THANK YOU!!!.
June 18, 2020. Now that our new lives have gone on much longer than we wanted or expected, everything I said in April is still true, except that the dishwasher is indubitably broken, and I don't know how to fix it. Mourning will go on for years; there is so much healing to be done. But there is life to be lived. I am sorry I couldn't finish the second Goehring, #457, sooner. Doing the tutorial on TSII Western Saddle #89 just seemed more important in an overarching view of my life, which is the usual effect of a death threat. I also finished Brasenose's breastcollar for IMHM in May, only 15 days late. Currently I am anticipating #457's finish relatively soon and then launching into headgear and Akhal Teke stuff both. I feel pent up for braidwork. I miss BreyerFest terribly. I normally work at home and save a year's worth of socialization for 10 days in July, which is unusual and inhuman enough! To be denied even that is horrible. But there is hope. I am alive and healthy and kicking.
For all of you reading this page over the years: Ruth my mother-in-law passed peacefully on April 20. "No it was not Covid." Since all our mourning for her was largely finished by the end of 2013, you can imagine our relief.
April 12, 2020. The past month has lasted for years. An age has ended and I am in mourning, not only for those who have died, but for our old way of life. And yet, thanks to Geo and our Governor Tom Wolf, I seem to be in a very pretty position. I can stay home and make tack to my heart's content. This all feels so like my cancer cases. I feel like I'm very old - 87 or so - with a healthy 60-yr-old's body. It's all very strange. All those things I complained about replacing last year? They were huge blessings in disguise. The dishwasher? I finally fixed it (by swapping which pocket I put the soap in, go figure).
Tackwise, the past month has seen much work done on TSII #457, and a couple of cloth masks made, from old Peter Stone t-shirts.
March 10, 2020. The past 5 months have seen a new car, a new computer, a new bank and just about everything else that could break needing replacement (as a typical example, the dishwasher died today). I have often said the function of the TSII was to be shoved aside so I could do something else that desperately needed doing. If slivers of time can run a tackshop, then that's what we'll use. It would be grand to finish #457 by early May, when we leave for 7 weeks.
I did have a great deal of fun with NaMoPaiMo, finishing a Trad scale Akhal Teke Mare in a color I'd only dreampt of before. Although I have no intentions of abandoning tackmaking, the pleasure and success of painting have done much to inspire me within my hobby during a time of potential burnout.
The much-promised Advanced Braidwork book seems a dream. It may be classed with the Big Projects of the Jennifer Show. It has been consistently derailed by a combination of lack of time and overwhelming size of assay. It's not dead, for whatever comfort that brings; but until things stop breaking and until I can control FaceBook and other distractions much, much better,... and until I can figure out how to divide it into do-able chunks, oh and bring to bear an irresistible drive... it gets to wait.
I could not have known the very next day would bring a change of axis to the entire world...
Sept 23, 2019. Yes, it's been 3 months. No, we haven't made much progress on our "big three" projects, 2 saddles and a book. At the moment the Mexican Silver Parade has got the upper hand; after all, parts of it are already made, and since we've done one, the path forward on it is easier than the others. This does not excuse me from the dismal production rate of the summer. What got done in all that time after the Akhal Teke No. 1 Presentation Set (red)? One Bosal Hackamore and a second mecate. As of this writing the No. 2 Teke Emerald Set is still without its breastcollar...! So it's been slow. On the good side, I was very pleased with the Hackamore.
I have no real excuse. Nothing is really wrong with me save an addiction to FaceBook and time-wasting online. Web-free Wednesdays are a partial cure. There is no shortage of inspiration, least of all after TJS. I am hoping the onset of cooler weather will help me focus more. It's always possible short orders could sneak out during work on the larger saddle. But that's what I always say.
June 28, 2019. It's been 6 months since an update. I'm afraid this is typical! Of the three goals I had at the start of this year, only one is even partially begun: The second Goehring saddle has its reins mostly done, its blanket made and its tree started. Of the pictorial Western saddle, Zip! Of the next braid book: I bought some new pens; they remain unopened. So what have I done in 6 months?
I participated in NaMoPaiMo, with excellent results; A golden Akhal Teke filly has joined my herd. I participated in NaMoTackMo, with excellent results. The resulting Carnelian Akhal Teke set, with its prototypical design, is up for auction during BreyerFest. I also started a second Akhal Teke set, with emeralds, for myself; I got done everything except the breastcollar. I accepted the request of selling a great old Prism Tape Parade Saddle for a friend, TSII #401. This saddle, Koi & Water Lilies, will be auctioned off during BreyerFest too.
For the rest of the year, I can only press on with my original goals. With care, my last grandfather order, the Goehring, can be completed or nearly done. Smaller braidwork pieces like the mecate can come forth. The pictorial set could be started. The book, Braidwork for the Model Horse, is more problematic, but the table is set up and the materials are assembled. That should help matters; now for discipline and encouragement.
January 6, 2019. Happy New Year! After a long canoeing vacation in FL I am ready to take up the reins on my trio of book, saddle & saddle. Since the Roby set, only one pair of romal reins has been made in 2 months, kind of a low. I do like having a long order in progress and all 3 of my current goals are certainly that, yet I cannot rule out the allure of short orders as refreshers and fund-raisers. The pictorial saddle will be for sale; the book will be for all, yet it still seems as far from completion as ever. If only I could really get going on it, and find a good working rhythm! The question is one of balancing between specific pieces and an encyclopaedic approach.
In other news, my mother-in-law is within a month of being 99. No one ever thought she'd last this long - certainly not after 2013 when we had to put her in Skilled Nursing. She's now in hospice. As ever I am completely torn between The Call could come any hour - and Nothing Ever Happens. Prepared for anything at any time?! gets old after 5+ years. I am not close to this lady and never have been, but it will be the first death we'll've had to handle and I'm sure I'll be in administrative terror. As ever your patience is deeply appreciated!
October 21, 2018. The Roby Canyon Hackamore garnered but a single bid after one of my longest and best advertising stints; fortunately, it was a winning bid. Thank you Andrea! Either the market is poorer than I thought or TSII tack is losing its allure. Even if these ridiculous assumptions have any truth, I shall continue to make these pieces, for my heart is in them. But we might have to change our advertising approach! What would you think of more FaceBook straight sales? That was one experiment which succeeded beautifully in the past month (thank you Beth!).
November 6th, 2018, among other things, marks the 20th anniversary of the publication of the Guide to Making Model Horse Tack (1998).
My visions for this fall include starting two saddles and continuing to try to work on the book, Advanced Braidwork for the Model Horse. I am ready for a larger piece and not quite as interested in harness as I was in the summer (which doesn't mean I won't be later). Also, surely, sometime this fall the now-5-year-saga of mother-in-law in Skilled Nursing will conclude (she is 98), but God only knows how it will finally play out. Your patience will be appreciated. In December we will attempt the usual 3-week Florida canoe trip over Christmas, returning in the first week of January.
September 1, 2018. In the past 2 months, the 2 King's Herd's Hackamores were sold, another vintage TSII set sold, and the Roby Canyon hackamore set was begun. Some questions have been answered: taking offers did indeed work as a sales method, thank you! I will be using this method more in the future. I think we can thank Evelyn Munday for pioneering it for me... But other questions remain. For the first time since 2009, I took a couple of orders, "because I wanted to." A single mecate, intended to be a few days' work, morphed into a three-week time-sink, while the Roby sat on the sidelines. Now that it is done, the customer doesn't want it! but wants another. That's 3 mecates when once there was one... That one, Roby's grey, as of this writing, is done. It is a beautiful piece, and I'm proud of it. Skills were updated and good notes kept. But that grey mecate's the tip of an iceberg of small piece expectations! Still to go: Roby's hobbles, their connector hangers, Roby's second bosal (the first was not large enough for True North); the customer's second mecate; a second order taken at BFest, for some romal reins; a fiador, partly because it would be so good for the book and partly because it could be combined with the unwanted mecate and the small bosal; and maybe a headstall for such --!! What this all spells is doom for larger promises, such as saddles and the next book. Self discipline appears to be just as much a problem as ever. What I think I'll do is forgo a second hackamore and concentrate on selling the pieces I've got: a mecate and a bosal. I'm unwilling to completely leave eBay, and the bosal will probably go to that venue, while the Roby will just take offers through MH$P. The fiador might well get made, for reasons of book; they are good backstock to have around. As for the saddles, once the Roby is done we'll just have to see.
June 30, 2018. Obviously it's been a while!! In all that time, Kim's Carousel was finished - and shipped from Boulder! She liked it! In Boulder I finished the second sales hackamore, now known as KH2B (King's Herd's 2 Brasenose). I'm hoping to auction it soon, if I can figure out how!! I feel eBay is too expensive for such a small piece, Auction Barn is hard for me to use and doesn't seem to have the draw I'd like, and 'taking offers' is new for me as well. I don't usually have so many questions in one of these updates, but, well, it's the truth. Perhaps I should raffle it! Now there's an idea...
Future plans, once home from BreyerFest, include buckling down on the Roby Canyon Hackamore. I have at least 2 saddles in the pipeline, one Mexican Parade and one Western pictorial. I need to make some kind of progress on the logjam that is BFTMH, Braidwork for the Model Horse, my next book. We have some drawings and a table of contents, but a concrete path forward remains elusive. I appreciate your patience with this glacially-paced tackmaker.
March 26, 2018. If Kim's Carousel could ever be finished, I'd be in a better position to start some smaller pieces for auction; but like most restorations it's taking forever. It's up to 71 hours and barely past halfway. Still hope springs eternal. I did sign up for NaMoTackMo with the unutterable affrontery to make a piece for myself. Even to the model horse crowd I barely dare admit those long shanks are for greater control, power and feel...! I salve my conscience (and my wallet) with promises of a second sales hackamore. Maybe, if the gods are kind, I can resume progress on my next book, which would mean more braided headgear pieces in general although slower since they get to be thoroughly documented. Believe it or not I still have dreams of making saddles later in the year, and these would be auctioned. Also, I confess there is a second parade set to be restored, but since I took it on only a year ago it does not have the psychic weight the last 'grandfather,' a Mexican Parade saddle, does. Since 2008 if you're curious...
January 11, 2018. Having cleared out so much dead wood in 2017, what do we start the new year with?? MORE clearing out!!! Whether it's NaMoPaiMo helping a spirit of finishing off long-held projects, my own readiness to do so, or just returning from vacation with fresh discipline, I am ready to tackle one of my last 2 grandfathers. Restoring TSII #378 has been hanging around for 10 years, so it's time. Cleaning, silver-braiding, fastening down errant plates and re-prism-taping will hopefully result in a brilliantly shimmering carousel-themed set. Of course this means other pieces will have to wait. Hopefully they will use the time to sort themselves out into which ones I want most next.
December 2, 2017. The Snow Shoes are currently up on eBay. I believe I am doing nearly everything right in advertising, but only time will tell; they could be priced too high, but we shall see. Regardless, they were a successful experiment and well worth it if only for my Braidwork book. They also could still lead to a sleigh or other wickerwork vehicle, which of course would also mean harness.
I dream of joining NaMoPaiMo. The horse, purchased but not arrived, is Gazyr, an Akhal Teke stallion (Trad) sculpted by Russian artist Margarita Malova. The color would be flame-mane copper liver chestnut. The fact the original resin has no mane perfectly expresses my ambivalence about the whole project! I am so averse to crowd-joining, yet from the moment I saw him this horse has spoken to me most powerfully. It cannot be that I could not acquire the skills, even to giving him a thin mane of Apoxie. The whole idea is a dream... but that is what this is about, no?
I am feeling more than usually lost about which piece to pursue next. The year 2017 has been an explosion of new techniques, from Silver Parade set pictorials to wickerwork to rawhide snowshoes; if I follow my heart, it will lead even further afield, to painting. But I do want to get back to my roots. Saddles are calling my name and so is harness, though to a lesser extent; and the braidwork book can be tackled a bit at a time. It is tougher than I thought without orders, but I don't want to go back.
October 20, 2017. Now that the snowshoes are done, the logical next step is to auction them. That should have been this week but other chores got in the way, so it might well wait until after the 21st. One happy chore is the processing of the 952 photos taken at Intermediaire/INTERSPORT model horse show on October 15th! What fun that was!! Another diversion is working on my own saddle blanket. Having started it, I find myself not stopping, as it's so easy to put down and take up. I am trying not to feel guilty about its constant distraction from other, larger tack projects. Surely I will soon buckle down and start either a Hackamore or a Saddle, bound for the auction block and proving I'm still in the tackmaking game.
August 22, 2017. The Peacock Hackamore sold for what I asked and is going to a good customer. That said, it was, once again, a case where things did not go as planned. You may have seen that the Hackamore did not make reserve, something that's happened only once before (March 2009, on Auction Barn). I contacted the high bidder and made a deal, basically asking for the reserve in time payments; eventually she agreed. In the interval, another bidder was offering the same amount. I was then stuck choosing between a bidder who had already won 2 previous TSII auctions and a fresh new one who had misread the auction closing time! It had been my intention to resolve such conflicts via the mechanism of an auction... but that didn't happen.
What did happen was I learned. I learned, first off, that I'd forgotten my Notification List, a mistake so terrible I worry about memory loss! Second, I learned I'd better announce auction closing times, in 12-hour time. Third, I learned that posting 3 blogs at once and then starting the auction that day was probably another mistake. In this frantically-paced 21st C, where a high premium is placed on speedy transactions, folks still need time. And fourth, however I felt like hiding it, I learned to publish the reserve asking price a little more obviously. The auction didn't meet reserve, but, as my husband is fond of pointing out, I still wasn't charging enough.
There will be more auctions for TSII pieces, have no fear. But the snowshoes, if and when they finally appear, will probably be flat-out sold. I, too, need time.
August 15, 2017. Here we are, where I planned to be: auctioning off headgear and trying to decide which piece to do next. As also planned, it is more difficult to choose without a customer breathing down my neck -- but more fun! You might think the 2 grandfather orders would have some weight here, but they don't; they're sufficiently large enough to be easily shoved aside, which sounds contradictory but is true. Easy, smaller pieces get done first. The choices are also going to depend much more on whim.
That said, I have decided, based on the satisfaction of the Wicker Chair, that I'd like to do more wickerwork. But not a large piece. That leaves only snowshoes; and I've been saying I wanted to do snowshoes for at least 10 years. That's about the right amount of waiting for a wish-order to finally be gotten to around here...! Note that the goal for the snowshoes is to be sold. I also have the more personal goal of making a pair of saddle blankets for saddles newly acquired, from artists I respect, Moreton and Geyer.
P.S. TSII #456 was paid for and well received, and all is well on that front, for which I am very grateful.
July 6 2017. After more work and psychic effort than even I could have envisioned, TSII #456, Star Wars, has been completed. It took 9 months and more than 220 hours. This Parade set was complicated not just by its sheer ambition (13 pictorial panels, some of them requiring new techniques, and complete silver edge braiding)... but by its strangely difficult restrictions. I do not wish to keep tack projects secret in the future. While the owner was boundlessly encouraging, I discovered I needed a more steady diet of real and timely attention, which was eventually supplied by several people; you know who you are. I also had the good luck to benefit from NaMoPaiMo and NaMoTackMo. Without these blessed groups, I doubt I could have finished -- it was that hard. As of this writing, the saddle has not yet been paid for. (Note from the future: It was shortly paid in full, Thanks!)
With the completion of our last and greatest Lottery piece, the world opens out in front of me. For 20 years I have both feared and wanted this. Feared, for I doubt my self-discipline: it really helps having a good customer to work with! Wanted, for I desperately desire the freedom to pick my own projects and truly feel they must be auctioned, not sold. The Current Order of Go list, and the 3rd paragraph of Feb 27, list my pool of choices at this time. As ever, great thanks goes out to all my customers, past, present and future. In what other field would such miniatures as mine be valued so highly, despite their long gestation?!?
A third row to hoe would be the updating of my website. I really would like to get the contents of our 2 Parade scrapbooks, 2 Western saddle scrapbooks, Harness scrapbook and Peruvian Paso set scrapbook (in that order) up here... Oh, it's just a couple thousand photographs, covering a mere 38 years!!
February 27 2017. Contrary to previous hopes, TSII #456 Star Wars will not be finished in February; it will be a miracle if it is finished before May. It's clear to me it is taking as long as it possibly can and will be a true monster to finish. As of this writing it has been underway since September, yet it is less than a third done, even after 80 hours! The corona blanket alone has taken more than 30 hours. I have two deadlines, a soft one in May and a hard one in July. When I think that I accepted this order in August of 2009, it is a wonder the owner does not call the cops on me!! All I can do is buckle down, hopefully utilizing the impetus of Jennifer Buxton's excellent NaMoPaiMo.
In some mild defense I would claim that my life is now very busy, but the truth is I know what has stolen much of my time: FaceBook, blogging and surfing. I am as busy as I have been for the past 5 years, but FaceBook distraction is growing. For someone who has deliberately removed TV from their life since 1988, this is embarrassing.
As far as future tack plans go, I have the idea of recreating my favorite Braided Headgear pieces, such as Malaguena's Bridle and Tissarn's Hackamore (not to mention Fancy's Hackamore, already depicted in our blog), and documenting them for the book. Drawing Plates for my next Braidwork book could be supported by auctioning the pieces as they were finished. I also have ideas about CollectA tack, pony sleighs, snowshoes and grandfather orders of very long standing, not to mention the ever-present whimsey of headgear pieces. We'll just have to see.
It is also always possible that my mother-in-law, in Kansas in Skilled Nursing since the fall of 2013, will be called home to the Lord at any time (she's 97), so we must be prepared for the unexpected.
November 2 2016. The success of the Ricky's Bridle and Pony Hackamore auctions has been extremely gratifying! Thank you so much everybody! At the moment I think I will pursue both eBay and Auction Barn venues; the former for larger pieces such as saddles. Over the winter I am hoping to finish the huge Star Wars set, slipping in smaller headgear etc pieces as necessary to keep the soul sane. I truly don't know how long it will take; several months seems logical, based on past performance. When it is done I currently see three paths to follow, and nothing says I can't follow all three: working on Braidwork book pieces (all headgear); working on certain grandfather orders (saddles); and working on various 'whimsey' projects of one sort or another, ranging from hitched horsehair to pony harness to CollectA scale pieces to whatever catches my eye. The pattern of having only 1 or 2 days a week to make tack in seems, unfortunately, to have settled in stone.
July 30 2016. The Round Button Auction Bridle, although successfully sold to a fine tack collector, garnered only two bids. This was not my intent. If anyone out there would like to help manage my advertisement campaign, their advice would be welcome! Meanwhile a seductive idea has taken hold: why not combine working on my next book, which would generate headgear pieces, with selling (auctioning) them?? We have already started with Ricky Rocker's bridle, which I saw in person at the 5K Race and otherwhere, at BFest. This bridle is elegantly simple with its continuous slit braiding and beautiful braided keepers. It would be a great starter piece for the book.
May 3. Now that the Guide is available in pdf, you'd think I would naturally fall back on the last remaining order, the Star Wars set. Instead my heart wants to do small pieces, such as CollectA scale bridles or harnesses, braided Trad headgear or reins, or single bosals, as a way to pick up steam again after the incredible effort of the Guide pdfs. I need to recover - and what should happen but a road trip! Plus, the inspiration for the next book is stronger than it's ever been. Star Wars is undesigned. I know from experience that what actually gets done will be the simplest and easiest, so stick with me and we'll just see what happens!
March 28 2016. What was already slowly progressing now picks up speed as I decide to go flat-out on digitizing the Guide, hoping desperately to finish before we leave for Colorado in early May. I'd love to be done by my birthday. No tack will be made this next month, no sales horses advertised; nothing but scanning, PhotoShop and rewriting from now until completion. The goal is to be able to answer each PayPal order with an email containing a link to a folder. That folder will have a one-time name. Its contents will be available for 2 weeks for each order. The Guide in pdf, with its over 220 pages of drawings and color photos, will be readable on desktop computers, laptops, tablets and notebooks. (It is not designed for SmartPhones.) If you want to print out your own copy, you will be able to do so. It will be SO much more affordable! Stay tuned as we shove ourselves into 21st Century publishing!
January 28, 2016 Once home from Florida and without much encouragement from the Star Wars customer, I find my highest goal has become working on the Guide. For 17 years this book sold steadily. Technology has been changing wildly around my ears and it is time to catch up. I have reached the stage of needing other fulfillment agents than myself, and the Web appears poised to allow just that. I apologize to everybody who wanted this book in the interval it was not available. Climbing this mountain and bridging the gap between books and digital print will take all the integration skill I've got.
In other tack news, I find the burden of this page moving ever more to my 2 FaceBooks and blogspot. However I'm not ready to lose my own website. It is my hope that it will become more of a museum and records venue than it currently is; and it still functions for horse sales! of which we have many.
November 29, 2015 This close to finishing the TriColor, things are looking up! The success of our TWO FaceBook pages is encouraging. The difference between the two seems to be that tack sales, orders and in-progress pix go on the business page, Timaru Star II Model Tack. Please 'like' us there and check it first! Everything else, be it model horse blankets or canoes, goes on the personal page. For the remaining 3 weeks of this year (before we go offline for vacation), I look forward to working on a few small repair/update jobs, starting again on the Guide pdf-ing (this is not a curse), and, of course, our Christmas letter! Longer term, I'd like to sell some horses; about 30, half of them new-in-box, must go. We also want to start up the habit of supporting NAMHSA again! Which means making tack and selling it and donating a percentage of the proceeds, and not only in July but all year long. Once the last Lottery Order is done (it's looking like February or March 2016 at this point), I plan to alternate long, grandfather orders and short sales pieces. Once all the grandfathers are out of the way, which might be much later in the year! we shall really be able to indulge! balancing longs and shorts as ever, and selling at auction. I have a feeling our FaceBook pages will be the scene of the action. Stay tuned!
September 22, 2015 If I did nothing else, it would take another 4 or 5 weeks to finish #455, the TriColor. After it, I confess things look unusually unpredictable. I need to get going on the Guide; I need to get going on the last Lottery order, which suffers from a great deal of neglect on both customer and tackmaker's parts. How to balance the grandfathers (I have 3 at minimum: a Peruvian, another Goehring, and a Western) with the stated, and still desired, freedom to follow whimsy, i.e. braidwork pieces, small scale harness or saddles for sale? Should I build 2 at a time? That would satisfy the conditions but exhaust the artist if the piece is larger than a hackamore. You'd think I knew how to manage this artist, but it's a moving target! And I need some way to handle the desire to write the second book, promised for... hmmm... let's see, about 15 years now??! Stay tuned, and visit us on FaceBook, under Timaru Star II Model Tack.
July 7, 2015 Everybody should know I gave myself a FaceBook page on my birthday, at the end of April. It's so clear that my ideas of what it should be, and FaceBook's ideas, were radically different...! I thought a business page could friend! I thought the personal page would be restricted to just the very few family members of my life that were not model horse... WRONG... There's a reason I didn't have a FBook page for years and years: I couldn't figure out how to handle the 200+ people and acquaintances and customers and fans I'd gained over 36 years in the hobby. Even now I'm not sure. All I can ask for is more time while I work my way through a thick book on the subject. If you've asked for friending but not gotten it, that doesn't mean I don't like you...! it just means I'm still trying to find a way to reconcile my ideas with FBook's. I suspect I'll eventually include everyone. My goal is to advertise and have more people read this page... or its equivalent... that's all. Thanks so much for your patience!
April 10, 2015 The great TSII #454, The Gold-Tipped, was completed on March 31st. It only took 5 months!! In those 5 months at least 6 trips happened: by numbers, a third of my life was spent on the road. We finished Rinker, a great joy -- see his blog posts! Tackwise, Fancy's Hackamore is technically next, battling for supremacy over D.M.'s great TriColor Parade set, fresh from the triumphs of #454. The saga of Fancy's will be on blog posts. And: I am a lot closer to having a FaceBook page!
January 11 2014 December and January have (so far) worked out as fantastic. Much progress is being made, and long-frozen dreams and plans of production are moving once again. The caregiving front is stable. My blogging has kept up, and seems to be positioned to take over the website as the "place to go" to find out what's latest at the TSII.
November 5 2013 After the golden halcyon of the fall, the storms roar back. Mother-in-law needs to be moved yet again (she's 93) as the perfect Assisted Living home we tried so hard to find decides she isn't safe with them. This time we've got less than a month to move her in, because of the field experiment taking December. Truly: anything could happen, at any time. Strangely, perhaps aided by the halcyon, perhaps by the prayers of friends (thank you), I feel that there is life after caregiving. It is something I am having proven to me. Tackwise this means that, after taking nearly a year to do the bridle and breastcollar, we may well be looking at next spring for the rest of the Goehring saddle... over 14 months so far... for a piece that normally would've taken maybe 6 weeks. Small wonder I sneak in other, smaller pieces, or work on my saddle blankets. Sisyphean. A good analogy of long-distance caregiving is building a ship in a bottle. Big ship. Little bottle.
December 2012: There are two potential problems developing. One is the desire to have auction pieces: "spontaneity, greed, exposure, excitement, fulfillment." The other is the drift to a halt in Lottery order completion: "glaciation." Nine (9) out of 15 orders are still standing even after 3 years. Much of my tackmaking skill evolved in a world of unlimited time. That world is no longer mine.
Although it is a difficult decision, we have chosen to discontinue the TSII Lottery altogether. Every other major artist in the hobby uses an auction venue. It would allow more spontaneity for the muse; less time between ideation and completion; and a truer relationship with actual market value. I've been doing the Lottery for 22 years, long enough to know all its faults intimately. I'm tired of firing up a cold forge. I look forward to following the muse a little more closely. And it's not out of the question that I would need the services of an experienced online auctioneer...!
Our alternate website, Herein Lies a Tail, is the place I have set up for all the stories of the 2010-2011 chapter of my life. It's "people" as opposed to "model horses." The stories will mainly be of interest to other survivors.
The old Notification List is discontinued as of 2020, a casualty not so much of Covid as of FaceBook. If you want to know when a piece will be for sale, keep an eye on our FB page.
Policy on Pictures. Picture-borrowers are granted permission to copy illustrations ONLY for their own in-home personal non-commercial use. Re-posting is allowed ONLY with appropriate crediting. Asking permission is respectfully requested. "For as ye do it to the least of these...""