New Cuppa Coffee Mugs in stock now!

We've been waiting for these since February! New Trail of Painted Ponies 15 oz. coffee mugs made by Cuppa, arrived last night. Cuppa boasts the World's only brand name coffee mug. 22 new designs. These mugs are FDA approved, industrial dishwasher safe, microwave safe and UV safe. We're working hard to stock the store with inventory today so that you can make your purchases. They'll be in stock not later than this evening. The regular price on these mugs is $9.95. For a limited time we're promoting an introductory offer at $8.95 each. Get yours now!

Stock Status 3/28/07

We received a Breyer delivery Monday that brought our stock levels back up to a pretty good level. We are still on back order for #302 the Breyer deluxe wood barn. We still have no idea when those will be delivered. We are also on back order for 2 of the Breyer "Where in the World is Pegasus" horses. We are told we can expect delivery sometime in April. We placed another Breyer order yesterday to try to keep up with the demand.

Last night we started receiving Trail of Painted Ponies "Run for the Roses", and we received another delivery this morning. For those of you who have placed your order, we will be shipping those today.

Trail of Painted Ponies shipments have been few and far between. We are still on back order for quite a few items. We're hoping to see shipments coming in all through April although we're hearing many items will be delivered in late April.

Introducing - The Crystal Twins!

Our auction starts tomorrow, Monday. We're starting off with the Crystal Twins both 1st editions both issue #1996.

The image on the left shows the base of each figurine. What you see is that both figurines have identical numbers. This is extremely rare. In the auction you will be bidding on the set. We need an opening bid of $100.00 to begin the auction.

All proceeds from this auction go to HealthWorld a (501)C3 and will be allocated specifically to the Horsense Children's Camp. For more information on the auction and our charity please view our earlier post "Auction".

Update: Run for the Roses

We've already sold the first 4 "Run for the Roses" figurines we acquired. The good news is that, this morning we found 6 more in Oklahoma and in Utah they're telling us they can get us another 12. So, keep sending those emails and we'll keep trying to find more for you.

Happy Hunting!

Great News! Run for the Roses!

Okay, thanks to one of our "best" clients we have located 4 Run for the Roses figurines at a Dillard's in New Mexico. They are shipping them to us now. We already have one request on the books for these, and if you still haven't found yours yet, email us and we'll hook you up with one of the other 3. We're still out there looking and we now think there may be a chance we'll find more. We'll be shipping these back out as soon as we receive them.

Happy Hunting!

Painted Ponies delivery scheduled for Friday!

We received an email from Westland last night that they had shipped 3 ponies we've really been missing. UPS confirmed delivery for Friday. Coming on that shipment will be "Copper Enchantment", "Sounds of Thunder", and "Silverado". Remember, these will not be first editions, those have been sold out for months. They may be second editions or they could be third editions. We won't know until they are delivered.

Update on "Run for the Roses": We have been trying to contact Dillard's to check availability. So far the only information we have received is that the smaller stores may not get any at all. That was the word from the store in Prescott, AZ. We have since called the Dillard's in Scottsdale, and they are trying to get some for us. They are telling us we may not get as many as we've asked for and that they would probably have to be shipped to us from one of their other stores. We'll keep you posted, on this blog.

Run for the Roses!

Late this week one of our customers asked us for information on a new figurine from Trail of Painted Ponies. We checked into it and found out that "Run for the Roses" had been produced for Dillard's, exclusively. In other words, we cannot purchase this pony from Westland because The Trail of Painted Ponies has given Dillard's the exclusive rights to this particular pony. This is similar to the situation with the Phoenix Pony that was produced exclusively for one of the concessionaire's at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix.

Okay, so why are they being sold on ebay? Well, the people or companies selling on ebay have purchased some of these figurines from Dillard's and are now re-selling them at a huge mark-up. Capitalism - what are you going to do?

Our suggestion would be to purchase these ponies at your local Dillard's, you'll get the best price there. If you don't have a Dillard's nearby email us at sales@lookagifthorse.com and we'll try to get them for you. We will have to take a mark-up on them, but you'll still get them much cheaper than you can on ebay. Given the fact that only 2,500 were produced and there are over 350 Dillard's stores, they may be hard to come by.

Our goal has always been to get you the lowest available prices on Trail of Painted Ponies and Breyer Horses products - that will never change. In this particular situation, the lowest available price will be Dillard's. While you're there, check thier prices on any other Trail of Painted Ponies figurines, you'll find we are far, far below their price.

Rockin' Moon Collection

We are proud to announce the addition of "The Rockin' Moon Collection" to our product lines. These pieces are essentially home furnishings and decor and can be found on our site under the "Home & Office" category.

About the artist: J. Frank Hobbs was born and raised in a ranching and rodeo atmosphere. As a native son of Colorado, and a former professional rodeo contestant, Frank brings his impressions of livestock and their spirit to his artwork. Frank's involvement with metalworking began at an early age. Formally schooled in design and metalworking the artist combines various metals with his own images of the West to create his one-of-a-kind pieces. Not only are Frank's designs original, they are created by the artisan to last a lifetime.

The Rockin' Moon has agreed to drop ship this merchandise for us due to our warehouse space shortage. This is a large line of products and we will be adding more to the line as time allows.

We really think you're going to like Frank's work!

St. Patrick's Day thoughts

When I think of St. Patrick's Day I think of things like luck, shamrocks, leprechauns, and of course, the color green. Don't forget to wear green today! Anyway, when I think of luck I think of horseshoes and the luck that is reported to be involved in hanging one over your door. That brings me to my story, the story of the Devil and St. Dunstan.

It has been said that the Devil went to St. Dunstan to have his horse shod. Evidently, St. Dunstan nailed a red hot horse shoe to the Devil's hoof which of course caused him great pain. St. Dunstan agreed to remove the shoe only after the Devil had agreed never to set foot (hoof) in a home that had a horseshoe nailed above the door. Thus, the lucky horseshoe legend.

If you have any other stories about lucky horseshoes, please post them in comments. We'd love to see them!

Painted Ponies Stock Status 3/14/2007

Westland emailed us information yesterday on what is coming on our shipment tomorrow. Evidently, we are still on back order for Snowflake, Year of the Horse, Renewal of Life, Sounds of Thunder, Copper Enchantment and Silverado. I'm sure these items will be shipped as soon as Westland receives them from China, so we'll probably be getting product in every week for awhile. I am hoping that some of these items will be in before April, but I really don't know for sure. In the mean time we'll be posting updates as we get more information. On a more positive note, we will be receiving the new Woodland Hunter and Fancy Dancer Lamps on Thursdays delivery. Can't wait to see them!

Stock Status 3/12/07

We received a Breyer delivery last night that brought our stock levels back to, what I would call, acceptable. We are still back ordered on #302 Deluxe Wood Barn and a couple traditional accessories, #2461 English Rider Accessories and
#2462 Western Rider Accessories. For the most part we are in pretty good shape. We are placing another order today to try to get a little ahead of the game, it should be delivered in about 2 weeks.

We placed a substantial Trail of Painted Ponies order a couple weeks ago which we are to receive this Thursday. We have been back ordered on Snowflake, Copper Enchantment, Sounds of Thunder, Silverado, and Renewal of Life for quite some time. We don't have any definitive word as to whether those items will be on this shipment. We do know that for this particular order we have been back ordered on War Pony, Caballo Brillante, Earth, Wind and Fire, Medicine Horse and Heavenly Pony which are not expected to ship until late April. We know that our friends at Westland Giftware are doing the best that they can to keep up with the demand.

We hope this information is helpful. We'll post another update after we receive our Painted Pony delivery on Thursday.

Auction!

When we began cataloging Trail of Painted Ponies first edition figurines, we never knew how important it would be to our clients. Now that it has become part of what we do, we wanted to share some irregularities with you. Very rarely, 6 sets of ponies over the last 3 sets of new releases, we have come across figurines of the same edition number with the same issue number. We call them twins. We realize sometimes irregularities can be very valuable to serious collectors. However, we have no idea how valuable these sets of twins really are and could not come up with any way to find out other than auctioning them off. Since most companies do not catalog their first editions, as we do, there may be other sets out there, although owned separately by different individuals. Because of the way we do things, we are able to bring these sets to you as "twins" plus one first edition figurine with no issue number.

Having said that we do not know how valuable these sets may be, we do not feel comfortable profiting from this fortuitous situation. So, all the proceeds from our auction will go to a not-for-profit organization specifically to fund a program that we helped to start several years ago while we were in the horse business. The organization is Health World and the program is the Horsense Equestrian Youth Riding Camp. This is a fantastic program that puts children, that would not otherwise have the opportunity, with horses. And of course, we believe the saying, "the best thing for the inside of a child is the outside of a horse".

About the auction: The auction will be conducted via email. Opening bids on each set will be not less than $100.00. To participate simply email us an alias you would like to use for the auction, the email address you would like us to send information to concerning recent bids, and a contact telephone number. We will send you an email when the bidding opens on each set and the date and time the bidding will close. We will notify you of other bids as they come in and the highest bidder after the close of bidding. We will call the winning bidder to collect funds and prepare for shipping at the close of bidding. If the winning bidder is unavailable or unable to pay for the set the next highest bidder will be contacted and so on. In the case that there are two sets of the same figurines with different issue numbers the winning bidder will receive the lowest issue number and the second highest bidder will be given the option to take the next set at their last bid. If they decline we will begin the bidding over for the higher numbered second set.

Items to be auctioned off:
Set of 2 Crystal Figurines - Item#12238 - 1E/1996
Set of 2 Horse With No Name Figurines - Item#12229 - 1E/0915
" " - 1E/1616
Set of 2 Bedazzled Figurines - Item#12245 - 1E/1649
" " - 1E/1818
Set of 2 Viva Las Vegas Figurines - Item#12246 - 1E/2321
One only! Bedazzled Figurine - Item#12245 - 1E/No Number!

Please email us at sales@lookagifthorse.com with your information. We are planning to start the bidding with "The Crystal Twins" on Monday, March 12, 2007. Happy Bidding and Good Luck!

For information on our charity go to http://www.healthworldoutreach.org/ click on Arizona and then click on Horsense Program.

Barbaro

The rumor is true! Due to the passing of the mighty steed "Barbaro", Breyer has decided to reproduce the 1/9 scale traditional benefit model #1307 for the last time. Breyer will donate $10.00 of each sale to support the Laminitis Fund recently established at University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center where Barbaro was treated.

Unfortunately, no Breyer retailer is allowed to purchase more than 6 models per location. Since Look A Gift Horse has only one location we have purchased all the models that we are allowed, "6". With such a small number available to us we will not be putting these in the store. Rather, we will search our customer base for our largest Breyer customers who did not get one of the original Barbaro models and offer them to those clients first. We intend to go down the list until all six have been sold. We really wish we could get more of them, but there's nothing we can do. We are expecting delivery in late July.

The good news is that you can get these models from Breyer directly for $45.00 + $8.00 for shipping and handling. These orders must be placed at www.breyerhorses.com not later than March 31, 2007 and are limited to 2 per household.