What's making you want to re-start, Loa?
I miss it! I miss getting packages in the mail & colour on my shelves!
This is how I've been feeling lately!
I never stopped collecting or got rid of everything, just a bit of a downsize recently, but it got put on the back burner because so much else was going on. I didn't have money for ponies and was prioritizing my dolls when I could afford new stuff. But I miss getting new ponies and now that I've got the freedom to be myself, I'm gonna get back into it. I miss getting new ponies and having cute colorful horses around haha. It just has to wait until I can get some Billys!
At this point I don't know what "complete" looks like for me, but I don't think I'm close! Not with the Basic Fun repros, HQG1Cs, and all the fun retro merch that's been coming out.
Hmm... I don’t think my collection will ever be complete. I like to think of myself as a sort of hobbyist “toy historian”... I read up on the history of toylines, brands, and manufacturers, I watch old TV commercials, I browse old catalogues... Not just MLP, but dolls, action figures, plushies, and lots of other things. I like to watch the changing trends and patterns in new toys, too. As long as there are awesome things to collect, I will collect them.
This somewhat resonates with me too, though I am more specific (mostly G1 ponies, though I did some stuff with Jem some years back). It's a project, it's about the toys but also their history, who was sold where, when, and so on. I think the historian in me has taken over a little bit, but since pretty much everything mainstream online focuses on only one geographical region of MLP release, and I didn't grow up there, it's always driven me to find out what happened here instead.
The US line is the only mlp line that is logical, well publicised and clear. For those reasons it holds zero investigative appeal to me :) I love the ponies the US had but couldn't care less about US release dates, set names, pony names except to contextualise other more unpredictable pony releases. The hook is in the stuff that doesn't follow the US timeline, and hunting for that information is a kind of collecting that never ends.
Yeah, the U.S. releases are pretty well-documented. I’m more interested in the overall history of the toy market: what competing companies were doing, how and when fads emerged in the industry, how play-styles and advertising have shifted over the decades... I like to study the ebb and flow of the U.S. toy market in its entirety, more-so than any specific line or brand. :) I lean heavily towards the North American releases, simply because those are what I grew up with and have the strongest nostalgia and feelings for. I imagine it’s much the same for you and the UK releases. :)
For me, toy history kind of represents the brightest parts of any given era. It’s the history of something joyful and fun, invented to make people happy and inspire imagination (and of course, to make money for the manufacturers). A lot of history is full of ugliness and strife, but there’s far, far less of that in something like the toy industry. It makes me happy to look back at times gone by and say: “Whatever else was happening in the world back then, there were still children playing with Barbies, MLPs, superhero toys, and plushies.” That’s oddly profound to me...
Also... I still play with my toys, and that’s something I truly cherish. X3 I love that I still get hyper and excited over a new pony. XD So I guess shifting toy trends fascinate me in part because they still impact me, haha.
Have you heard of Mel Birnkrant? He's a toy collector (Mickey Mouse and vintage comic things mostly) and used to be a toy designer. He's got a website that's absolutely packed with all kinds of really cool information about the toy industry. A few years back I binged his whole site and I learned so much. I don't recall anything about MLP (though it may have been mentioned in passing; he didn't work on MLP) but there's tons of info on both "boy" and "girl" toy lines, mostly more obscure ones I don't see mentioned much in the toy communities I'm part of.
Have you heard of Mel Birnkrant? He's a toy collector (Mickey Mouse and vintage comic things mostly) and used to be a toy designer. He's got a website that's absolutely packed with all kinds of really cool information about the toy industry. A few years back I binged his whole site and I learned so much. I don't recall anything about MLP (though it may have been mentioned in passing; he didn't work on MLP) but there's tons of info on both "boy" and "girl" toy lines, mostly more obscure ones I don't see mentioned much in the toy communities I'm part of.
I hadn’t! Thank you for the info, I’m definitely going to check out that site. :)