Can Anyone tell me why G1 is hard to find?

[LightingElectricDream]

So let me clarify the title here.
I am near over half a US pony collection with accessories.  I've been at it off and on since about 2011 but for the past 3 years I've gone hard on the accessories.
Some I simply can't find anymore..or if I do it's like $50 to $100 ect.. and it seems like so much money. I've spend way more than I would like to admit. But some things just simply do not come up for sale. I might see one of these items in a years time. So what's the deal here?
People are not selling?
People have stopped collecting and not bothering to sell?
It's not popular anymore?
It's too popular and there is not enugh to go around?

[Leave a Whisper]

People are probably holding on, as prices jump and the economy isn't doing well

[Snapdragon]

I think, for accessories especially, you're dealing with a very niche market. Unless you go to a lot of toy fairs or garage sales and specifically look for the small, easily-discarded little bits of ephemera (or get very lucky and find a meticulous child's adult garage sale!), there's not a lot of 'new' accessories getting added to the market. You'll occasionally see "new" G1 ponies pop up from eBay or the like, from an adult selling their childhood playthings, but a lot of it is from people who don't know the value of all of the little fiddly bits, or already lost them in the past 40 years. So if you're looking for (for eexample) a Happy Tails clip, you can't just hope it'll pop up on eBay from some sweet grandma in the midwest; you're gonna have to wait for someone who is upgrading or liquidating their own collection.

So when you're looking to buy G1 accessories, you generally have to buy them from other collectors, and if other collectors aren't selling, you're kinda out of luck! I know we've seen a big shift into FB groups for buying/selling, and unfortunately a lot of those seem to be turning into "live" style sales, or auctions, which are some of my least favorite sales methods. It's hard to keep up (unless you can clear time for that specific sale), there's often almost no written record of the final sales, and prices often get quite hysterical from what I've seen, while people fight for popular items. I'm sure it's the same for accessories, although I don't follow those as closely. So if you're seeing sky-high prices, I do wonder if that may play a role.

I want to say that, in the current recession our economy (in the US anyway) is in, it seems like people would be needing/wanting to offload their collections, not necessarily cling to them. But it may be that folks are hoping for more of the big price spikes we saw during the pandemic, which I'm not sure is a reasonable goal, either. We may never see those prices again, but I can't fault folks for hoping! (Especially if they bought a pony for $100 and suddenly they can't get that price back, for example. Folks hate to take a loss, me included!)

Phew, that got wordy! I'm super curious what others might be thinking, since I don't follow the accessory market as closely as I do the ponies themselves. And I hope you can track down some of your grails!

[Barnacle_lady]

You are mentioning the past 3 years. Most of the world was closed due to the pandemic. And if you can't go out to the post office then you don't sell online.
Those who did sell were able to ask a lot more money for something that was way cheaper back then. Even I noticed even though I am not on your side of the pond.
But now that it's possible to thrift and go to conventions again there might be a chance you find something you are looking for so long. And when buying from pony people the price could be better too.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

If you want accessories, you really have to put on gloves and go dig in the Goodwill bins all the way to the bottom. or really pay attention to estate sales where Grandma's attic and basement are cleared out. 

all those tiny pieces just end up in the trash, once people don't remember what they are.

a LOT of G1 collectors have their stuff in storage or are not actively collecting, OR they want "what it's worth".  Ponies used to be $1 apiece (or less!) at yard sales.  Thrift stores sold a bag of  ponies for like $5.   It was easier to buy them all and sell/trade what you wanted or needed. 

With price guides easily available, nobody with 2 minutes of Google-fu is going to sell Munchy or Mimic for cheap! 

 also, shipping prices are INSANE.  In Canada, I cannot ship anything other than a greeting card for less than $14.  Packing the item safely is very important and there is no cheap way to do that.  Ebays Global Shipping System, in the name of price and convenience, will open your box, condense it into something lighter and smaller, and fling it out into the postal system.  Customs from a number of countries sometimes have to inspect "innocent" items like toys because of the drug trade.  So South American ponies get beheaded and their packaging destroyed. 

[LightingElectricDream]

I think think that we are in a drastic shift of popular releases as as well. I am a collector veteran from way back in 2002  and I rember the first 4 years of pony was sought after like crazy. People where paying a lot for posy, apple jack, and Sundance and the original pink castle back then and listing lavender dream castle for $10 on ebay. It was like there wasn't enugh to go around.
leaveing the color swirl ponies and second wave princess ponies behind. And calling some of the mail orders ugly.

I recall that time. It's completely flipped. Yea I can get a show stable very easy and I don't even collect the first 3 years of ponies. I might eventually.

There where tons of people that hated the dance and prance ponies and I would get as many as I wanted accessories wise. Now it's so scarce and rare I had to buy one MIB to complete them and I am still missing the gold clip to one of them.
The second way of princess ponies forget the crown clips let alone Taffeta's wand color.
I've gotten 3 of the 6 crowns just by pure dumb luck.
The orange wagon for the pretty pals as well as the stack toy it's hard to find alone atleast I have had to buy multiple incomplete sets to complete mine.

The list goes on and on..

[Taffeta]

It's just so long since G1 ended, it's natural that it's harder to find stuff.

I was carboot sale hunting from around 1995, which was right after MLP ended here, and I picked up lots of accessories. Whole tubs of them. Ponies dressed in them. Dragons, wands, hats...flutter wings. Enough broken wings to rewing all my flutters, seriously.

But as time went on, that got less. And now all of the factors mentioned up the thread are key too.

There are, I think, quite a few dormant collectors, who may not be online in the same way anymore.

There are quite a lot of accessories which were only sold in certain locations as well. You mentioned the crown clips. I have three of the princesses from that set MIB (Pristina, Sunbeam and Moondust iirc), and I have Taffeta's clip and wand loose. But I've given up even trying to get Misty's or Dawn's because the ponies weren't sold here, and as LBS mentioned, shipping is nuts. It's also not helped by hiked up import duties and Ebay's own 'we'll ship it but you can pay us massive fees' options that has allowed lazy sellers to obtain top dollar for minimal effort.

I think there were more sellers back then who were willing to send internationally because it was easier, cheaper, and people also saw there was benefit to both sides in doing so. Now pony = $$ for as little effort as possible, and shipping prices are astronomical...

[Ponyfan]

Years ago, a very good friend wanted to give me Merry Treat and her Christmas tree comb.  She told me after I had opened her about the comb and how she never heard back from the person that was going to sell her the comb.  To this day, my Merry Treats is still missing her comb.  I know Merry Treats comb is more rare than most other MLP combs.


Ponyfan

[KarentheUnicorn]

Wise pony once said: Diamonds are harder to find than granite.

I'd say one issue is most regular non-ponypeople don't know what they're looking at. So even if you went to a toy convention most people can't ID a real MLP from a fakie and if you're talking accessories it's probably even more difficult.

Lets put it this way, my dad has lived around MLP since I started collecting back in 1983-4ish. He can't identify a real MLP from a fakie.

Then you get into the people who think they know about ponies and want to charge you $50 for a common pony who's got a hair cut. Places like ebay and other online buying sites similar are you fighting against however many people on the planet are wanting to buy the same item. So prices can be crazy because it's those who know and those who know nothing both buying and selling.

You'd be better off hunting within the community of collectors and/or going to MLP toy collecting centered events/meet/convention. You're usually going to get a better price and deal than trying to buy off places like ebay/mercari.

And as others point out, you're gonna have to dig when looking for accessories. There have been a number of times at flea markets and yard sales where I've seen MLP items sold with other toys or believed to belong in another toy line or put in a ziplock with other toys that have nothing to do with MLP.

You're also dealing with a treasure hunt that is 30+ years since the items were actually in a retail store. I hate to say it but a lot of ponies and especially accessories probably got thrown away by parents. I know folks who they're parents didn't even go through the process of reselling their childs toys, they just junked them...so there is no telling how many MLP items are somewhere lost in a landfill somewhere.

[cowboyopossum]

My Mom has been getting better at ID-ing fakies. She knows g1 from other gens as well.

[goddessofpeep]

Accessories have always been harder to find due to several factors.

First, they’re not labeled at all. Ponies are labeled with “Hasbro” and a date, so even the most unknowledgeable reseller can correctly ID a legit pony and figure out the generation. With accessories, you really have to know what you’re looking at. And they also tend to get mixed in with the accessories of other toys, so that makes things much harder. 

Also, looking up pony ID isn’t too hard. There are lots of sites, and they’re pretty easy to navigate if you’re willing to put a bit of time in. Even just having the hair/body color and the symbol is enough to track down an ID. Accessories…not so much.  There are a few sites, but they’re harder to find, you need a fairly high base understanding of what you have to even begin to find what you’re looking for, and most sites have holes because some accessories are so rare, it’s hard to get a photo of them.

Another is what I like to call the “survival” issue - how likely is it that something will survive a normal childhood.  Ponies are robust, and they’re large.  Your average pony is likely to survive being played with. They may not look nice anymore, but they’ll still be around.  They’re not likely to disappear into a couch for 20 years or get sucked up by a vacuum.  What makes an accessory rare outside of the rarity of the pony it came with is that a lot of accessories have low survivability. They can be small, delicate, or a combination of both. Some accessories are made of easily destroyed things like paper, cloth, or even straw. A lot of those types of accessories can get destroyed really easily. And the tiny accessories get lost so, so easily. There’s a reason the PE silverware is so rare and expensive. One sneeze and they’re all gone into rug piles or under furniture, never to be seen again.  And of course, accessories are more likely to get tossed in the trash than ponies, either on purpose or by accident.

And then there’s how the accessories hit the market.  It used to be someone would either find a pile of accessories in a box in the basement or at a garage sale, and just toss them up on ebay and see what happened.  In the last 40 years, many of those caches of childhood collections already got sold off, donated, or just plain trashed. And the great online garage sale that is ebay has become hostile to the small seller just trying to clean out a basement. The result is that the best stuff(collections from random small sellers that have been sitting in a basement for 30 years) are not hitting the market anymore.  Ebay used to be the place to go sell, but now it’s set up to punish the small seller, so there’s less of the “just cleaning out the basement” type of seller, and more of the professional picker looking to get top dollar.  And a lot of the huge piles of goodies have already been found and sold off. Since the good lots are becoming rarer, the prices go up when something good hits the market.

[Artemesia's Garden]

My wish list hasn't moved for nearly three years. So you can see that some items, even though not the most popular, are getting rare. I just don't have time to keep monitoring sales any more. But even before that I had slowed down to only one or two purchases per year, mainly from kind people on the Arena. I don't use ebay any more, for the reasons below.

One happier thought about accessories though, they are mostly not made of UPVC so they are more likely to survive being stored in a loft, whereas ponies get plastic breakdown. So if you do find a childhood collection that's been stored in a loft, the ponies might be in a sad state but any accessories might be salvageable.

[Beth3346]

yeah worries about the ponies breaking down was a reason i sold off a lot of my collection way back. i grew my collection back over a few years. but i always have a feeling that i should sell them before they deteriorate.

lately i feel reluctant to sell because i know they will be hard to replace. it's also more of a pain to sell on eBay now IMO. everything is more locked down in a way that makes it harder to sell stuff if you're not trying to have a larger business. the international shipping is weird and not transparent. i have duplicates i need to sell and i haven't bothered to. i think eBay really went downhill when they started trying to be a place for people to sell new stuff.

anyways my point is it's just more of a pain to sell online so maybe people who would have listed stuff just don't bother. i don't use Facebook so i have no idea if their marketplace is any good. i'm not looking to interact with anyone face to face. also maybe people who grew up with ponies and had them stored away have already sold those collections.

[Carrehz]

First, they’re not labeled at all. Ponies are labeled with “Hasbro” and a date, so even the most unknowledgeable reseller can correctly ID a legit pony and figure out the generation. With accessories, you really have to know what you’re looking at. And they also tend to get mixed in with the accessories of other toys, so that makes things much harder. 

I've never thought of it like that before, but now I suddenly understand why most modern toylines plaster their logo all over the accessories :O I mean, like...

(photos from MLW)
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This could be from pretty much any toy line

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No doubt where this one came from, though!

Huh. It looks kinda tacky to have logos all over accessories but it really does make them easier to identify, come to think of it...

[Taffeta]

Some larger accessories do have Hasbro on them at least. Not the ponywear and stuff, but I'm thinking things like the newborn twin strollers and stuff. Hasbro have a lot of toys, though...easy to get them confused.