As many of you already know, the site curator / owner of www.Identifyyourbreyer.com passed away in the spring of 2021. Janice's site has been a mainstay of our hobby community for over 18 years, and everyone is justifiably concerned about the future of this great reference site.
As of now, we haven't heard any updates from Janice's family, and we assume that her estate (which will include the website, since it created some income for her through showing ads) is still held up in Probate Court. In the US, Probate takes a long time to settle in a good year... with the addition of COVID deaths, I'm sure things are horribly backlogged. Her family has paid for the hosting to keep the site online while her estate gets legally sorted. Once that happens, we expect that they'll choose another hobbyist to pick up the reins by transferring ownership of the site to that person. Until the estate is settled, though, they cannot access the site nor transfer ownership.
Meanwhile, there is still need within the hobby for updated release information, and several "supplemental" sites have popped up. Two are run by reputable collectors, which show new releases since Janice passed. Below are links to their sites so you can choose and bookmark whichever one suits you best. Both of these site owners are now working together to make sure their sites have fully updated information, which is great, and both are doing this out of respect to Janice as well as the whole community. They both also have asked for (and been granted) permission to use Triple Mountain photos.
It's great that these folks are doing their own work, and both plan to turn over their work to whomever takes over IDYB once Janice's estate is settled, to help get the original site up to date more quickly.
Meanwhile, another site popped up that was an exact duplicate of the original IDYB... It was called IDYB2, and you guessed it - The only thing changed was the addition of the number "2" in a couple of places. This site stole Janice's work and legacy and tried to make it their own. They even still had Janice's name at the bottom of the page as the contact. That is NOT acceptable in our hobby - Janice spent more than 30 hours per week keeping IDYB updated for all of us, so we won't allow the theft of her work. The counterfeit site was reported to its registrar and has been taken offline. We encourage anyone who wants to build a site to create it themselves - Never steal someone else's work.
10 comments
My heart goes out to Janice’s family. Losing somebody in your family or even a dear friend is very tough! My mom passed away last August. I think about her all the time and I wish she was still here. My name is Joel. I’m 58 and I’ve been collecting breyer models since the age of 5. My collection is around 2100 pieces now. My mom liked my hobby. When I was a little kid I’d do housework to save money for breyer models. Every once in a while we’d go to Toyland at Camp Pendleton California to buy models. On the base in the late 70’s the traditional models were around nine dollars each. I love the IDYB site very much. May Janice RIP. Joel C. of Drafty Acres in Port Washington WI.
Thank you for keeping us updated
Thank you
Thank you for sharing these two sites as a supplement. I know I will be book marking them. Hopefully it will be sooner than later when they can get her probate taken care of.
Eleda, Thank you so much for posting this. Janice is greatly missed and she will always be remembered. I’m so glad that all of her hard work will still be there for future generations of Breyer model horse collector’s. And bless those two reputable collector’s for continuing her work.