Ponies Galore! "Thrifting" in Tokyo (with lots of pictures)

[MintyMyndi]

If I stepped into a store and saw a display with that many ponies, I'd need to be resuscitated! Then I'd be broke. So very, very broke...

I'm super jealous that ponies are so readily available! Sure, the prices aren't ideal, but from the sounds of things they're on the upper end of reasonable and probably no higher than you'd pay to ship a pony to Japan from elsewhere.

The thrift shops close to where I live suck. One definitely has an employee/volunteer intercepting ponies as we've not seen so much as a McD's pony for months! One is like a hoarder house to walk through and the lady that runs it is super impolite. She seems to be paranoid about customers shoplifting the garbage she sells there. The toy bags scarcely have any sort of theme, and they don't take back what you don't want to sell again... Most of their toys are broken or some kid's art project nobody wants, anyway; the rest of their merchandise follows a similar pattern. I've found dead roaches and live spiders in their toy bins- it's awful! The others have odd hours and/or limited space to have any decent toy selection. You get some that pop up now and again, but they always end up closed (I'll never forget the "Consignment & Tanning" store). You have to travel quite a bit to find good stores!

Also, the Bumblelion peeking up at the bottom of one of the photos got me excited for a second as I mistook it for a G3.5 Sega Prize plush! I love those things and would love to have one, but they're oh so rare. I scoured the images, but no dice. Just Bumblelion pretending to be Scootaloo.

[Leave a Whisper]

If I stepped into a store and saw a display with that many ponies, I'd need to be resuscitated! Then I'd be broke. So very, very broke...

I'm super jealous that ponies are so readily available! Sure, the prices aren't ideal, but from the sounds of things they're on the upper end of reasonable and probably no higher than you'd pay to ship a pony to Japan from elsewhere.

The thrift shops close to where I live suck. One definitely has an employee/volunteer intercepting ponies as we've not seen so much as a McD's pony for months! One is like a hoarder house to walk through and the lady that runs it is super impolite. She seems to be paranoid about customers shoplifting the garbage she sells there. The toy bags scarcely have any sort of theme, and they don't take back what you don't want to sell again... Most of their toys are broken or some kid's art project nobody wants, anyway; the rest of their merchandise follows a similar pattern. I've found dead roaches and live spiders in their toy bins- it's awful! The others have odd hours and/or limited space to have any decent toy selection. You get some that pop up now and again, but they always end up closed (I'll never forget the "Consignment & Tanning" store). You have to travel quite a bit to find good stores!

Also, the Bumblelion peeking up at the bottom of one of the photos got me excited for a second as I mistook it for a G3.5 Sega Prize plush! I love those things and would love to have one, but they're oh so rare. I scoured the images, but no dice. Just Bumblelion pretending to be Scootaloo.

*imagines Minty trying to give CPR to her poor, defeated wallet*

[brightberry]

So glad to see so many G1 ponies are considered treasures.  I love these photos.  The Newborn twins would have been my downfall.

[LadyAmalthea]

Also, the Bumblelion peeking up at the bottom of one of the photos got me excited for a second as I mistook it for a G3.5 Sega Prize plush! I love those things and would love to have one, but they're oh so rare. I scoured the images, but no dice. Just Bumblelion pretending to be Scootaloo.

I had to go back and look at the pics to try to find the Bumblelion...it was kind of like a Where's Waldo of sorts. He's right next to a Hoppopotomus...I had him back in the day.

I wonder how much they wanted for the Soft Sleepy Newborn...I used to have her, too.

[dannahbanana]

The Soft Sleepy Newborn was 22,000 yen, about $212 USD.

Post Merge: December 14, 2020, 11:23:42 PM

Wow, how fun that must have been to see them like that! What's interesting is how they are displayed; they are sorted by type, and even that one place has the newborn twins bagged up together. So somebody is in the know about the ponies, and likely knows what prices they fetch, which is probably why they're so expensive!

Wish it were in the cards for me to go there to browse around, but I'll probably never make it to Tokyo!

They definitely are in the know! At the 2000 Toys store, I would pick up one of the ponies, and the employee who unlocked the cabinet for me would make a comment like, "Ah, (insert name of pony here), of the (insert pony series name here. e.g. Big Brother), good choice."

On Japanese Mercari, however, sometimes you have people who aren't quite in the know of how much their ponies can go for, so you can get them for quite a bargain if you catch them in time. But it's tricky! They go so quickly.

Post Merge: December 14, 2020, 11:40:08 PM

Ooooo, those look like fun stores to visit!  Thank you for all the pics!

I’m not surprised by the prices.  I’m not knowledgeable about the distribution of G1s during the 80s, but since they had their own line from Takara, I doubt many of the ponies we know and love made it over there.  I also get the impression that cheap sources of used items(flea markets, goodwill type thrift stores, garage sales, etc) are less common over there.  Most of those ponies were probably imported from elsewhere(likely the USA).  I know a local vintage toy store often gets at least one regular Japanese buyer who comes in and cleans the place out of ponies. He’ll buy up every pony in the store when he comes through.  I’ve unfortunately been in after one of his visits, and there’s nothing left.  I’m happy to see where those ponies end up!

I'm also not very knowledgeable about the distribution of G1s in Japan, but that is something I'm very interested in reading up about. I always wonder about the backstory of each pony I see here. There must be a very interesting story behind each and every one about how they got here, who owned them before, etc. Many I have seen in stores or Mercari have names of their owners written on the bottom of their hooves, usually a Western-sounding name. One of my ponies I got here has the name "Trixie" on her hoof. So I wonder if they had been owned by a child perhaps in the US etc, and then somehow migrated to Japan.

It is true that there are very few cheap sources of used items here. "Thrift" stores are becoming more and more common, but they are branded as cool hipster places to go and are ridiculously overpriced. There are some temple flea markets that sell things such as used kimonos, pottery, and an occasional toy here and there for cheap-ish, but I would say the chance of finding a pony at one of those markets would be one in a billion. There is a chain of stores called Off House/Hobby Off/Hard Off (I know...interesting name choice for that last one) and sometimes you can find something for a fair price there, but again it would be very rare to find a pony, and it is still quite expensive compared to garage sales/flea markets you would find in the West. Japanese Mercari is probably one of the best ways to find used items, but they are usually overpriced.

I also follow some Japanese toy vintage toy stores on Instagram, and they do a live video box opening to reveal new items that have been sent to them from the US. So they must have some people going around wiping out all the thrift stores in order to fill those giant Home Depot boxes!

[Esbayne]

Ahhhh, so that's what heaven would look like....

The kind of place that makes me wish I had to money to walk in, like, "Alright everyone, the store is mine now. It's been a good run, but I'm just going to live here now, so..." lol.


Tokyo is definitely on my bucket list. You seem like you'd be a wonderful shopping buddy!

Thanks so much for the beautiful & interesting photos!

[tebrighteyes]

@Banditpony

Oh interesting! Did it happen to be Tricky Tails by chance? I bought one when I was in Nakano Broadway.

[banditpony]

@Banditpony

Oh interesting! Did it happen to be Tricky Tails by chance? I bought one when I was in Nakano Broadway.

I wasn't too familiar with the birds so unfortunately I can't remember. u_u It was about 7+ years ago when I sold it.

[achab1984]

Oh wow! That would be amazing to come across store like this where I live! Thank you for sharing with us!

[brightberry]

They definitely are in the know! At the 2000 Toys store, I would pick up one of the ponies, and the employee who unlocked the cabinet for me would make a comment like, "Ah, (insert name of pony here), of the (insert pony series name here. e.g. Big Brother), good choice."

That's so beautiful some how.  Ponies loved like they should be.

[tebrighteyes]

@Banditpony

Ah okay. It wasn't me then since I got her about 2 years ago. Would have been quite a coincidence if it was though!

[starrynights]

This is what heaven must look like! 

[shabbychicdee]

oh my goodness me, this is like died and gone to heaveness and then die again when i can't afford anything
this is truly amazing, what a find

[Shaymin568]

Ouh thanks for the advice! As someone who was supposed to go to Tokyo in both 2018 and this April 2020, this only adds to the list of places to visit!

[FernMariposa919]

Oh, wow, that's amazing! It's almost like going back in time and seeing the ponies from my childhood. Obviously the big difference is that these ponies aren't in their packaging. Sometimes I wish I could do that...just go back in time, like to the little toy shop where I picked out Sparkler that my dad bought for me. I would love to see which other ponies were my choices. I would also love to go back in time to the Toys R Us where I picked out most of my childhood ponies; it would just be so much fun to see rows and rows of ponies still pristine in their packaging.

But your photos are the next best thing! Seeing all those beautiful ponies on display (and they're such great displays!) makes me so happy. I bet you had a lot of fun! I would've been in heaven!