Breyerfest Auction Prices and History
- Sara Roche
- Jul 4
- 5 min read
I've been attending Breyerfest since 1995 and one of my favorite parts has always been the auction. It is so exciting to see the unique pieces they auction off every year and watch the bidding action. Live auctions of any kind are so exciting, especially in person, and it's even better when it's your special interest! But oh my have things changed since those early years. In the early 1990s when Breyerfest was still new the auctions had way more lots than they do today - there were tables and tables full of test color models.
These included true test colors and many were not in perfect condition because they'd been floating around the factory. They had a wide variety of molds too - vintage and newer molds and different scales. It was not unusual to see classic scale models in the early years. They would even auction off things like tack prototypes or real horse memorabilia - similar to what you might see in the gift baskets in the silent auction today.
Towards the end of the 90s the standard offering started to take shape and the number of models became much more limited and the quality across the board got a little bit higher every year. Below are some of the 1999 auction models. Oh, to know where that Lady Phase is today!
The real kicker is the prices though. Oh the prices. I am so grateful that I was able to purchase a handful of auction pieces over the years when the prices were not in the stratosphere. As a collector I both love and hate it - I love that the hobby has really hit the big time and these really special pieces they create each year are bringing in significant bids! But selfishly of course I miss the days of setting aside a little money during the year and being able to have a chance at a model. We all are wishing for that time machine!
Here's the chart! It's really something to look at. For the first 20 years, other than the OG top seller Alborozo in 2008, the prices were very steady. The low end was around $500-$800 and the top seller was $2500-$3000 for many years. If you had $1000-$2000 saved you stood a good chance of winning a bid on a model. It sounds delusional to say it now, but it had become a tradition for me to try to bring home an auction model every year. I wasn't always successful but very often I was, and well within my personal max of $1500.
Things started to slowly creep up in the early 2010s. I am not exaggerating when I tell you I thought I was going to throw up after spending $2700 on this roan Carrick in 2013. I was always the one saying "you should set a max in your head and stick to it!" and then there I was blowing way way past my own rule in the heat of the bidding. I went back to my CHIN room and asked my roommate to tell me I wasn't crazy for spending so much on a model and that I hadn't just made a huge financial mistake, LOL. Luckily, just a few short years later, I was so glad I had bought him because by 2017 the average selling price was over $3000.
2019 was the year everything changed. Almost everything was $4000 and up. I remember sitting there with my friends and being just absolutely shocked. This was another Alborozo year and I had set my sights on him. I was ready to go to $10,000 and I naively thought I was still a player, ha. We sat there and lot after lot went for $5000, $6000, $7000, $8000... when the SILVER sold for $10,000 I knew I was out. And sure enough I barely got a bid in before the price on the Alby was well past 10k. He ended up at a new record of $22,000. I left the auction in a state of shock. The first thing I did when I got home from Breyerfest was buy the "Ultimate Breyer Experience" OOAK portrait model, which was still on their site for $5000. A price which only a couple years earlier was considered outrageous by many. I believed they would be raising the price or taking it down after an auction like that. That turned out to be prescient.
But still - we wondered if it was a fluke. Maybe everybody had come prepared for that Alborozo and so the money was flowing. It sure looked like an anomalous year if you looked at the history of the auction. But then the pandemic hit and as we know it changed the face of the entire hobby (and frankly the entire world). Everything went virtual and ever since the bidding has also been available to people online. That opens up a huge audience and with so many more bidders who can participate, prices are certain to go up. And go up they did. People also had plenty of extra spending money since they weren't doing anything else and the hobby exploded. From 2019 to 2022 the auction prices just went up and up and up, culminating in the record sale of the pegasus Silver in 2022 for $65,000.
However, there is a bit more to the story than that. Word got around that many of the online bidders were bidding auctions up but then did not pay. There were excuses like oh my kid got on the computer or my cat walked on my keyboard. Many hobbyists received unexpected calls late at night letting them know they were the underbidder and now winner on many lots and could they pay right away. This meant that many of the recorded prices were inflated and well over what the models actually sold for. They changed the rules so that if payment was not received by the end of the auction then the model would go back up for bids after the last lot. But it was too late, the paradigm had shifted and these were the prices that people now expected and budgeted for.
What will we see this year? The secondary market, even for rarities, feels as though it is down a bit this year and there have been a TON of rare things for sale. My gut says there will be a little bit of a pull back in the auction prices this year - but I don't feel especially confident. Unfortunately for me, my favorite is the Murgese and he seems to top most everybody's list too. The amount I think I might want to go to is most likely comically low compared to where he will likely end up. But there are quite a few in there that I would also love to have and I am always excited to see them using vintage molds! But don't make the mistake of thinking they might go for cheap. I thought that I might have a chance with the Roy that ended up going for $14,000 - so nope!
No matter what happens it is always a really fun time - I love being there in the thick of the action whether I am bidding or not. Based on the trends, if you think you want a shot at one of this year's models you should expect to pay somewhere between $8,000 and $15,000. It honestly still feels wild for me to even write that down but it does look like the days of $3,000 and under auction models are well behind us. People are predicting the Alborozo could break the $65,000 record. That's hard for me to imagine but it sure would be amazing to see a number like that again.
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