Will the Chinese sellers impact the G4 value in the longrun?

[cloud_weaver]

I have been thinking....  with all of the sellers in China that are selling official versions of released ponies, but out of packaging, is this something that will affect the value of the ponies?  As it floods the market with extra ponies that should be HTF...it seems like there's a surplus.  I've been buying G4's but keeping them MOC to prove that they were legit releases from the stores. I'm not opposed to buying a loose set from China on eBay, but I keep one set sealed as well.  Thoughts?  Opinions? 

[Lhianneth]

I think buying any toy with the expectation of it becoming a valuable collectable down the line is pretty hit or miss. Beanie Babies are probably the best example of this, with all the tag-protectors and keep-me-safe anti-UV boxes that were sold to keep them in mint condition, only for them to fall out of favour and have little value down the track.

That said, because it's hard to predict, it doesn't hurt you to keep a few in packages (or all in packages if that's what you want). It all comes down to how you want to collect and display your collection, in my opinion.

[Kazzellin]

It's my understanding that many of the ones they're selling unboxed are ones they're allowed to take home because they're "flawed" in some way - or at least, not ones the factory is able to pass on to the commissioner (in this case, that would be Hasbro).

[LadyMoondancer]

No.  The amount of people buying the China-direct ponies is tiny compared to the amount of people buying them "legitimately" off store shelves.

Also, IMO it's pointless to buy modern toys as an investment. There are too many toy collectors around these days.  The reason G1 MOCs are rare is because adults collecting them was unheard of, so the ones that "made it" are random ones that were hidden in a closet for some kid's birthday and forgotten about, or that languished in a backroom of a store for 20 years.

[Leave a Whisper]

No. Why would it? It hasn't before.

[Jinxxy]

If you want to protect an investment you should always keep things MIP.
That being said I never ever keep mine in the packages. For me the joy of owning them is displaying and styling them and such. I just don't get that with MIP ponies.

G1 fakes are sure easy to spot compared to G3l4 though. I don't even know how to tell really.

Ladymoondancer-I tell myself that every time I open a new pony. :p
Of course I wouldn't ever decard a G1, but thats because I'd rather trade and find mintloose.

[Taffeta]

There were people in the 1980s who bought and collected MLP in packages just because they liked how they looked. My MOC Night Glider in my collection came from one such collector, and I remember another who had all the 1987 TE ponies - she had a relative in the community, and she also had 2 MOC Mimics. So people did do it. But probably not because they thought of value. They just liked them. And even I have at least seven baby ponies that we picked up from a carboot sale still in package which I kept entirely because they were like that, and looked pretty. I was just too young as a child to think that way, but if you were a late teen or adult and you saw them and liked them, or if you grew up with them but wanted to keep them pristine at the end of the line, it wasn't unheard of at all.

And that is really the more important thing, especially since its impossible to predict what will happen and what trends in popular/unpopular the future will carve out.

Besides, in my view, the moment anyone starts collecting with the view of it being a value/investment thing, they're taking a huge risk. It's not worth it, because MLP is not made of gold. And if you accept that, then future value really means nothing at all, because liking them and thinking they're pretty trumps prices.

[WingsOfMasquerade]

It did affect it once.
If anyone remembers G3 with PuzzleMint. She came with a (reportedly terrible I guess?) PC game or something and it was like maybe 25.00 or something for the game which had the pony in the package. The problem was nobody wanted to pay that much for 1 pony and a bad game they had no intent of playing. So, not a lot of that pony ever really sold well in stores. And she ended up rare(ER) as a result. She was fairly pricey when people were first hearing of her. Then, the 5 dollar Puzzlemints stormed Ebay and the value went to where the Chinese sellers set it at.

*And that was fine with me because I wanted her and not the game

Another one people might bring up is Thistle Whistle G3.
She was vivid & pretty (like Waterfire and how that one is also desirable on beauty merits and unusual-ness) but not too common and a tad costly. She also had a speaking part in some animation which also makes people want her. Then, somehow loads of her showed up with a white magnet plate in the foot (original has pink, I think) and the price went down.

But, that's G3 a whole different animal to G4.
G4's got probably the most buyers out of all of them. And Ladymoondancer's right that only a small minority knows of the Chinese sellers. But, if say...Star Dreams was suddenly 5 dollars everywhere on ebay, would that mean you couldn't sell YOUR StarDreams for as high as you used to? Probably.

Newstyle vs old
We still don't know what's going to happen with these new type G4s. Like, if you DONT like them compared to the brushables of now, what are that collectors going to do? Like, Lemony Gem, and DJ....those right now, now that they've done the change, you can be guaranteed those are the ONLY "regular brushable style" versions of those characters we're going to see.......unless Chinese sellers come up with them in the future. In this way, you could "Rest Assured" holding onto your Regular-Trixie that she'll go up in value somewhat because Hasbro at least will never let out another.
But, also, as mentioned too, MLP buying's not a stocks investment for value later...they're all in good fun.

[lostpony]

I bought  bunch of G4 blind bag-size chinese ponies on eBay when i was new, under 2 years ago before I knew any better.  I enjoyed sneaking up on ponies under $1 and chased some to $3 not realizing that when they arrived, they would be absolutely horrible with flashing, messed up paint, bad assembly, just plain deformed and because it took weeks for them to start arriving, i ended up with a little boxful before I stopped.  Do I regret it?  No.  It was small money and was fun but it was a waste.  Have i seen them at all since I put them away right after buying them? Nope.  They're junk.  I wouldn't even sell them really, maybe at some point when I need some rocks to put under a potted plant or something I'll use them that way.

Now, I know they aren't all as bad as that but, the licensed ones are pretty cheap anyway and, except for some few that seem to have dried up here and there, plentiful

Plus if you figure in inflation, very few G1s have gone up drastically in value anyway over purchase price and how would you predict which few those were?  Mimic for example was simply unpopular....sure she runs $100 but what's the opportunity cost of buying them, keeping them pristine for decades, then trying to make profit?  It's pointless. There are far better investment vehicles.

It's more a case of pleasant windfall here and there for some, and not a matter of "investment".  For example in the 90s I was obsessed with the stupid and painful card game Magic the Gathering and I bought many cards including some "dual lands" that cost in the 20s at the time.  In 2010 I sold those off for prices over $150-$250.  Especially cool considering like so much else of what I owned then, the remainders got stolen anyway so hoarding them would have done me no good. 

I'm more concerned about having a nice pony to trade with a friend later, or to replace one if I screw it up or something, or just to display in mint condition if it looks great in its package.  For those reasons, I'll buy 2 of a new pony I like:  One to keep in package, one to play with.  Whatever happens to the one I plan to keep, I am certain the one I take out of its package to play with is a far better return on the investment. 

[Taffeta]

Plus if you figure in inflation, very few G1s have gone up drastically in value anyway over purchase price and how would you predict which few those were?  Mimic for example was simply unpopular....sure she runs $100 but what's the opportunity cost of buying them, keeping them pristine for decades, then trying to make profit?  It's pointless. There are far better investment vehicles.

What evidence do you have that Mimic was unpopular? On the contrary, she was the main character in a popular animated episode, so I suspect that wasn't the case. I don't know whether there were more or less of her produced based on the old idea that pink ponies outstrip green ones in distribution (proven with some sets, absolutely not proven with others) but when I came online in 1997-8 Mimic was my first trade pony because of that animation, even though she wasn't sold in the UK. So when you think she wasn't sold globally, but the animation was available globally, you create a bigger potential market than can acquire her. On top of that, in 1997 when I did that trade, my trade partner then told me that Mimic was harder to get hold of and more expensive because she was very popular/sought after. That's only ten years after she was on sale, and predominately, among US collectors. The online collecting community was small and somewhat embryonic in the middle 1990s, but Mimic had already carved herself out a pricy niche even by that point. Not many other store ponies who today we think of as valuable (eg Red Roses) had that kind of presence even back then.

If she was genuinely unpopular, you'd think that her price hike would be a much more recent development - but it was there even back in the days when ponies turned up regularly at second hand sales. My assumption would be that a lot of kids wanted her due to the animation, and that she sold out quickly because of that, making her hard to find.

Which would also explain the fact there are a lot fewer known MOC Mimics than other ponies from that set in US packaging. There used to be a whole thing about the idea of a MOC Mimic being a myth, although all of the others had come up in the meantime. Of course, eventually one came up, but it took a very long time in comparison to her setmates. But, she's an expensive pony. If people had found her as leftover stock in great quantities, the market would've been flooded with her. That just hasn't happened, suggesting they don't exist. That implies the ponies that Hasbro put out were sold, which indicates popularity at the time - or at least, her production was not more generous than her appeal.

 I am pretty sure there are fewer surviving Mimics because she was popular and sold out, and her quick rise in collector pricing indicates she was probably not produced in quantities enough to meet the demand created by the animation.

It's theorising without Hasbro's figures, but I see no reason to assume she was unpopular.

If any of G4 do the same thing, with or without the Chinese involvement, it will probably be on the same level. Ponies with demand that outstripped their supply. Holly Dash is the one that springs to mind, because of her broken distribution during the US port strikes. She isn't in an animation, but then again, when Chinese sellers were selling her, it didn't change the demand for the pony on card. She was out in limited places for a short time, and there are still people looking for her now both Chinese sources and UK etc stores are no longer selling her.

I would estimate that is what happened with Mimic (minus the port strike and Chinese sales, of course) - that she was on shelves not long enough to really sate all the children who wanted her.

Whether Holly Dash will continue to hold a price into the future though is unknown. Mimic has held a high collector price for two decades together at least. Holly Dash has only been in demand a short time in comparison. It will take a lot longer before we know if they really are comparable.

[LadyMoondancer]

Pretty much all the G3 devaluing have been down to G3s in general losing value as the thrift stores got inundated with them, IMO, not outside sources like bootlegs.  Like, Guava Lava used to be worth $50+, and now I could pick her for $15 in a lot with 5 other ponies, or for $5 on her own.  I'm not saying Thistle Whistle didn't have some 'grey market' counterparts, but I don't think that's a particular reason why she devalued.

It's worth noting that Thistle Whistle had two 'real' releases, which points to another reason that toys can't be counted on to retain value or go up in value:  Hasbro could reissue them at any time, and they frequently do!  This was true even in G1;  Hasbro would often rerelease previous ponies as mail orders.

[lostpony]

Taffeta, my only evidence of Mimic having been unpopular was hearsay, so thanks for jumping in with all the great information as you always do.

At any rate, I got my Mimic now so I don't really care so much about her value or why etc.  I just care about prying out her plastic eyeballs to put in some nice green zirconias without ruining her eyeliner and lashes.  Which is all off topic so, please excuse me.

[Baby Sugarberry]

Mimic is not any rarer than the other ponies in her set, she's sought after and has high demand, which is a different beast from scarcity.

Now as a recycled gimmick from the previous year, it's quite fair to say that Mimic and her non-reissued setmates are far less common than the first release Twinkle-Eyes.  This holds true for almost every G1 'type' - all but the biggest stores often had leftover stock from the previous issue and were more apt to pick up a new type of pony than one they still had on the shelves.  That's why we see far more of Fizzy, Galaxy, Whizzer, Masquerade, Sweet Stuff and Gingerbread than Mimics, Quackers or Bright Eyes, especially coupled with the fact some of them didn't get an international release.