Conga! Conga! Conga!

According to the dictionary, a conga is a Latin American dance of African origin, usually with several people in a single line, one behind the other.  In the model horse world, however, it has a different meaning.  More or less.  A conga in the model horse world is a group of horses on the same mold, but different models / colors.

This is a photo of my Ravel conga.  It's since grown by a couple of models and lacks the original Ravel, but it's still a conga to me, but I'll get more into that in a bit.

I had never set out to be a conga-er.  (yes, that is a word!).  It just sort of happened.  And I never even knew it was a thing until I discovered Model Horse Blab and saw people would intentionally buy the same mold but in different colors.  Back in the day, I was a "buy all the horses" type collector so if I had money and it caught my interest, I bought it.  I didn't pay attention to whether or not I had another one at home, but in a different color. So, by the time I discovered the model horse world version of a conga line, I already had several unintentional ones.  Fast forward to today, though, and I now have several intentional ones.  None of them complete.

Lady Phase

Stone ISH

Latigo...another missing the original

San Domingo

All of the above photos are out-dated and have grown some, but not a lot.  Except Lady Phase.  That photo was taken when they could all fit on one shelf, but now they take up 3?  I forget.  Now, you may be wondering why I'm using outdated photos...to be honest, I get lazy.  I work full time then go home and take care of my elderly mom.  Well, I don't "take care" of her, but it's kind of like it.  Most of my free time after work is spent with her and trying to keep her...I don't know how to describe it.  She has memory issues and needs to be kept to a routine and gets bent out of shape if something deviates the routine or whatever so it's my "job" to help keep her from getting bent out of shape..  Weekends are spent doing the same thing and just basically being lazy.  So if I didn't use outdated photos, this blog post would be full of OTHER peoples' conga photos or wouldn't exist at all.  hahaha.

I will use some photos of other peoples' congas in this post, though, because I conga the same molds.  They are the Standing Stock Horse Stallion

photo by many mini hooves

And the standing Thoroughbred

photo by heather forrest

My Stock Horse Stallion conga is considerably larger than my Standing TB one, though, since I've only recently started collecting that one.

I also conga the Para Dressage, the loping Quarter Horse, the Clydesdale and Django, to name a few others.

Now, some people may wonder, what is the point in buying the same model, but in different colors?  And that's a very good question.  I sometimes wonder that myself.  I'm sure everyone has their own reasons for it.  Some do it for the color variations.  These Stormy models are actually all just Stormy, but have quite a difference in coloring...

Others may do it simply because they really like the mold and want it in every color they can get, including custom colors.  I'm probably in that category.

Mentioning custom models is actually a good segue into the subject of what constitutes a conga.  Many people believe that in order for it to be a "legitimate" conga, you have to have every single model on that mold that is out there, customs included.  Others don't include custom paint jobs since those aren't widely available.  Some people think a conga includes One of a Kind and Auction (as in Breyerfest) models while others don't include those.  To be considered a conga, you have to have more than one of that mold, right?  Not necessarily.  If it's a new mold then the first model released is a conga in and of itself since no others have been produced yet.  So you get a lot of people joking, saying they have a complete conga of Model X.  There are a lot of people, however, and I'm in this category, who think a conga is what the collector makes it to be.  I don't have the room or the money to buy every single model on the Lady Phase mold or the San Domingo mold.  Also, there are some that I just simply don't want.  So to me, a conga is just a group of models on the same mold, but with different colors.  Also, as collecting space becomes a premium, I have to be a little more selective on my model buying.  hahaha.

So, do YOU conga?  And if so, why?  Care to share which molds you conga?