Luckily I can't remember a worst experience (and I decided not to try to think hard to remember one
), but I have several good ones - I cannot choose a best one. I am the type of collector who enjoys her collections the most when found accidentally. I think it is in the associated situation, the circumstances - if I intentionally search for something on eBay and buy it, or go to a shop and buy something that is sold in stores at that time, I never enjoy it as much as I do collection items I accidentally stumble upon. Thus most of my collections are made up of items found in charity shops, thrift stores and second-hand stores. This makes it hard for me to choose top ones, but here are top pony-related ones that come to my mind now:
- finding a whole bag of G1 ponies (12 IIRC) - looking these up to ID them was what got me into collecting ponies more actively (=I always bought G1 ponies if I found them in the wild ever since my childhood, but after this I started to just randomly search for them on online auctions too. And this was the lot that made me stumble upon, and then register to the Arena
). The lot also included Macau Lemon Drop <3
- finding Mountain Boy Lightning in a toy bin in a second-hand children's clothes store
- entering a small shop in the evening, to find Seashell sitting on a shelf facing the door, looking right at me as if she was waiting for me to arrive and pick her up after school
There was a second-hand toy shop I accidentally stumbled upon as a university student, when visiting a fellow schoolmate living on the other side of the city, to get something from her. Most of my best memories relate to this shop (and now that I re-read this before posting, I guess the wors memory too). It has since closed (due to bad management after an owner change), about which I was initially sad, but today I wouldn't even be able to visit it regularly, so maybe it's better then - I would just be sad about all the possible missed opportunities. Back then I visited the shop on a weekly basis, and found some awesome finds there. That's where the above mentioned lot comes from, but I also found tons of Furbies (another main collection of mine) and Moxie Teenz Tristen (the first doll I bought as an adult, the one who started what since then grew into a huge collection...). The lady who was first the owner/manager knew me and put Furbies aside for me without me asking for it - when I entered, she pulled up a bag of sometimes 5 Furbies, and said "I knew you would eventually come again, so I put these away for you". She was just so lovely... but then she went on matermity leave, and wasn't able to handle the shop stuff anymore. The new manager prohibited putting stuff away and introduced other weird rules which eventually drew customers, and then a shopkeeper away, who started up her own shop (which was also lovely - and she herself too! But back then I already was a worker and wasn't able to visit that often due to my working hours clashing with the opening hours of the shop. That's where I found Seashell), and customers slowly started not to visit the old shop anymore. It really wasn't worth it anymore: they didn't restock (it used to be a pay-per-weight shop which completely changes its stock on a weekly basis. Later they switched to changing monthly, offered visibly lower quality items for the same price, and then never restocked anymore), the manager and shopkeepers were rude, and I guess after awhile it just wasn't affordable for them to run the shop anymore. The shopkeeper who started up a new shop also closed down her shop due to rental issues, and the last time I heard of her she moved to a part of the city very far away from me. I don't know if she ever managed to reopen her shop there (she did plan to), but I think at this point it's OK. To go to that part of the city, spend time at the shop, then come back would literally take half a day away from me. I just let it go, but I do miss those days...
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