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Messages - goddessofpeep
1
« on: April 05, 2024, 11:32:43 PM »
There’s a seller from Europe that’s listing shipping to the USA for one pony is $100. $100! One pony! And I don’t even think it’s insured.
2
« on: February 21, 2024, 11:50:24 AM »
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.
3
« on: February 03, 2024, 03:25:48 PM »
I think the “Core 7”/“Mane 6” was the original beginning of the end for MLP, and most of the issues that came after stemmed from that. MLP was about variety and always something new to buy. As a kid, I never wanted doubles. I always wanted to see something new. G1, G2, and the prime G3 years were all about new ponies constantly coming out. Having access to repeated characters does give kids a chance to get their favorites if they missed them originally, but having nothing but the same group of characters over and over makes everything stale. And no parent is going to cough up for a 10th Pinkie Pie at current market prices. The first few years of G4 was a decent balance of Mane 6 and new ponies, but they managed to screw it up in later years by putting out nothing but the Mane 6. Churning out G5 on the heels of G4 led to the new toys sharing shelf space with the unsold crap that was sitting on shelves for over a year, killing the new stuff before it had a chance to even get rolling.
Hasbro went for cheap and lazy(endless boring iterations of the same characters) and catering to the fad group(all the stuff marketed to bronies). Mattel knows how to make a great toy for kids, and how to cater to collectors at the same time. I often envy Mattel collectors. They get respect from Mattel. MLP only got noticed once the bronies took over, and even then Hasbro wasn’t great.
4
« on: February 01, 2024, 10:40:37 AM »
I found it very depressing how quickly Hasbro decided to cater to the bronies after watching this community beg them for literal decades to listen to us. Collectors have gotten meager scraps from Hasbro for years. To have Hasbro give the bronies whatever they wanted was like Hasbro spitting in our faces. And they were catering to a community that had a significant problem with some of the worst people imaginable. Fortunately, the collector community went through its own issues several years ago, and moderation was already in place to mitigate the worst of it here and a few other places. Still, the bronies certainly befouled the My Little Pony name to the general public. I still have nothing to do with most facebook groups since they lack a lot of the moderation that keeps things civil here.
This was a big reason I felt Hasbro should have taken a break after G4. It would give the toxic subset of “fans” a chance to really clear out and give the MLP brand a chance to recover. You know, give the general public a chance to forget about pony love pillows and plushes with…holes. Maybe get the “alt right” people a chance to find some other more fertile ground to use to spread their hateful messages. We’ll see how it goes. G5 is already limping. Maybe Hasbro will take a break at the end of it, and being it back in a few years.
5
« on: February 01, 2024, 02:31:38 AM »
It’s unfortunate that Hasbro’s decisions screwed up the brand so much. Having a popular generation in stores benefits the collector community in ways besides the obvious giving them product to buy. We do benefit from excitement over the brand. We get to enjoy the third party licensed products. There were a ton of goodies aimed at adults during the G4 craze.
The real benefit is the new fans it creates. Not all people who buy ponies come into the collector community, but a percentage do. And a few years down the line, we can expect an influx of nostalgic “I had these as a kid!” collectors. As a community, we need new members. I’ve been in this community since about 1997ish. I’d say that less than 5% of the people who were active when I joined are still active now. It’s true that if something is *too* popular, it can cause issues(like bringing problem people into the community as we saw with the G4s), but without a constant influx of new members, this community will eventually wither away to nothing.
I hope G5 does well enough to get a G6. I hope Hasbro pulls itself together and turns MLP in the right direction. I hope the toy industry as a whole does better. The loss of TRU and the large toy stores in general was a blow, but kids today are going more for electronic stuff instead of toys. The long term consequences of this are unknown, but I feel bad for kids these days. I think the culture as a whole makes them grow up too fast, and their options for toys that encourage imagination are dwindling.
6
« on: January 26, 2024, 11:48:39 PM »
They came towards the end of the G1 MLP line. The pattern for the end of line for pretty much all the generations has been as interest in MLP started to wane, Hasbro starts throwing all sorts of gimmicks to see what sticks. The declining years of G1 saw different forms of ponies(Petites and Dream Beauties), different animals(Lil Litters and Pony Friends), and all sorts of just weird ponies(Soda Sippin’, Sweet Pocket, Secret Surprise, etc). Fashion Star Fillies were having their moment, so I guess Hasbro wanted to try for a little bit of that.
Dream Beauties are rare and prone to damage that regular MLPs don’t get(broken legs, severe paint loss), but they also can get overlooked as generic horse toys since they’re so different. I’ve found Dream Beauties in the wild twice. Once at a thrift store for 50 cents(High Flying Glider in *excellent* condition), and once at a collectible toy store for $3(Songrider in good condition). People just don’t recognize them as MLP, even some resellers, so it is possible for the very observant person to find them if they’re lucky and keep an eye open.
7
« on: January 21, 2024, 03:12:38 PM »
I personally thought Hasbro should have killed MLP at the end of G4, and then brought it back in a few years with a lot of fanfare. Ponies had technically been on shelves somewhere since 1997(in some places G2 and G3 had overlapped). Everyone was exhausted.
The G4 line had some serious baggage, and giving it a few years would probably clear out the most toxic elements of the whole brony thing as they found something else to befoul. The end of a line is almost always preceded by wave after wave of crap releases, and by the time Hasbro finally pulls the plug, there is no excitement from any segment of their customer base. Everyone is bored, and rebooting into that just makes the next generation feel like a crappy extension of the previous dying line. It would also give Hasbro time to work on the next line so it’s actually…good, and it would give time to build some hype and excitement for the new line.
But stupid and greedy won the day, and I’m betting that the thought process was along the lines of “the bronies aren’t buying as much, let’s push out something new ASAP so we can pump more money out of them”.
The G5 line came out too close to G4, and it inherited the apathy that came with years of disappointing releases, and the toxic fanbase issues of the G4s. It was probably rushed, so it wasn’t really well thought out. It kept the bad quality toys, boring repetitive characters, and overall issues from the G4s. It started out poorly, and with the other issues the company as whole are dealing with, it really never had a chance. The pandemic and the closure of TRU didn’t do it any favors either. But a well run company would be able to turn it around.
Hasbro was doing crazy well for a while. They were the number one toy maker in the world. It wasn’t even close. They had their own cable network (The HUB). They had a huge movie franchise(Transformers). They had several high value toy lines. MTG was a money printing machine. They had it all, and flushed it down the toilet.
It always boggles my mind that the people who make these decisions get millions and millions of dollars to do this. They even go to school for it! These people have degrees in business! They still seem to lack even the most basic understanding of their customers or the product. Or they just ignore them in favor of squeaking a few extra dollars for the quarter’s bottom line. No thought for tomorrow or next year, just squeeze a few extra bucks for the shareholders and to get that sweet, sweet executive bonus for the year.
8
« on: January 17, 2024, 02:23:24 PM »
Yeah, for a few weeks, Hasbro’s stock freefall was all over the news. It was nuts. It was so bad, Bank of America downgraded them to “underperforming” and a poor investment risk. They slightly improved with a few big releases since then, but they’re still not out of the hole.
I’m not really into Magic that much anymore, but I buy a bit here and there for nostalgia sake, and I keep an ear open. It all went down about a year or so ago, but apparently the general community has been complaining for years about too many sets, too fast, bad quality cards, too many types of releases, too expensive cards, cards that warp straight out of the pack, smell bad, etc.
I knew the mess would ripple through the rest of the lines, it was only a matter of time. And I figured a lot of the choices they made for Magic would also start showing up for MLP in some form or another.
A few of the things they did:
1) Released sets too close together for even the most hard core players to keep up just to keep a constant flow of money going.
2) Due to the breakneck speed of releases, the cards were frequently just not great for the game, so basically substandard cards design-wise.
3) They cut manufacturing costs the bone, resulting in poor quality cards that were damaged right out of the pack. And this was while they were making record profits. They didn’t need to reduce costs(and how much can it cost to manufacture playing cards really), they just wanted to maximize profit, and the customers can go screw themselves.
4) They reprinted cards that were on the “Reserve List” which has existed since like 1995. The Reserve List was create to preserve the collector’s market as some cards on it can sell for $10,0000-$100,000+. They did this AFTER one of the main people behind Magic swore they wouldn’t be reprinting any reserve list cards, so now nobody believes a damn word anyone says.
5) As a “celebration” of 30 years of Magic, they made the Collector’s Set that was a reprint of the first set of Magic. They sold it as a “box” of 4 packs for $1000. The cards were random, so you were most likely going to get crap(only 9 cards in the set were really worth the price, and only if you could actually use them). They were only available directly through Hasbro, bypassing the local gaming stores and other online retailers completely. And this was the ONLY 30th anniversary “celebration” they did. If you couldn’t cough up for the $1000 box, no celebration for you. If you wanted to get a complete set, you were probably looking at $100,000+ to assemble it from the random packs. The whole thing was a giant middle finger to their customers and retailers.
6) They started to create an unending stream of “Secret Lair” releases - reprints of non-reserved cards with new art, available only from Hasbro directly and at crazy prices(usually $50-$200 for 3-10 cards).
7) They started to not only bypass local gaming stores for the big(profitable) releases, but they started to randomly dump product on Amazon for the rest of it. A game store has to pay for the product regardless if it sells, and the profit margin is already slim. If Hasbro is randomly dumping stuff on Amazon for below the cost of what the game store pays for product, they can’t stay in business.
8) They turn a blind eye to the myriad of scammers selling opened packs/repacks on Amazon, and don’t really invest in fraud deterrents so you never really know if you’re going to get scammed.
9) They got rid of the “manufacturer’s suggested retail” price so they could charge whatever they want for each set, and then started releasing all sorts of different packaging versions at different price points for every set. All the best cards were always in the Collectors packs which usually retailed for $25-$35 a pack.
10) They released multiple versions of each card in every set, making it nearly impossible to keep track of things and basically ruining the whole chase card concept for almost everything.
Basically in the last few years Hasbro tried to use their customer base as cash machines in any and every way they could think of, destroyed the local gaming businesses and communities that kept their brand going and brought in new customers, “celebrated” their 30 year anniversary with a product that was a giant middle finger to customers and hastened the demise of hundreds of local gaming stores, allowed fraud to run rampant, destabilized the entire single card market, and repeatedly and blatantly lied to its customers.
They are currently attempting to “fix” things, but it’s not enough and they still haven’t really learned.
9
« on: January 17, 2024, 10:28:55 AM »
I think the problem is more to do with the state of Hasbro than anything else, though they did not make good decisions about MLP’s G5 from day one. I personally thought they should have taken a break from MLP for a few years after G4 ended, and then brought the brand back with a lot of fanfare to build excitement. Anyway, bear with me. I apologize for this getting long. Hasbro has been in freefall for a while now, and I’m betting this is a symptom of that. Hasbro is not doing well at all, and their leadership has been actively destroying the company with very, very bad decisions for a while now. I keep a toe into Magic the Gathering, and about a year or so ago Hasbro tanked that entire brand. I didn’t know this, but Magic the Gathering cards were basically so profitable for Hasbro, that they were propping up the entire company. It was basically a money printing machine for them. Unfortunately Hasbro took this as a justification to try to squeeze as much money as possible from players, so they have been making decisions designed to not only gouge players, but to keep as much money for themselves as possible(cutting out the local stores which were vital to the health if the brand). They’ve been churning out sets at an unsustainable pace for years, cutting costs on production leading to warped cards and low quality products even from their “premium” sets, and overall just abusing their cash cow. This came to a head with the 30th anniversary set which was $1000 for 4 packs of random reprints that were only available direct from Hasbro(bypassing the game stores that basically keeps the tournament community alive and vitally bring in a steady stream of new players), and weren’t even tournament legal. The cards were reprints of cards that were on the “never to be reprinted” list, basically destroying the entire second hand market for cards as well. A lot of people buy Magic cards for investment purposes, and Hasbro violating their “will not reprint ever” list ruined the investor/collector market for cards as well. This did two things: it pissed off the player base so badly that the *entire* community revolted as a whole to reject the set and Hasbro as a company, and it caused hundreds of local mom & pop stores to close. Apparently, profit margins for local game stores are razor thin, and Hasbro’s polices made it impossible for many stores to survive with the repeated bad sets and keeping the most profitable stuff to be sold exclusively through Hasbro directly. That’s a big one since it was those mom and pop stores that ran the local tournaments and “Friday night Magic” events, and that was a huge factor in keeping the demand for cards high and bringing in new players. Hundreds of game stores went out of business due to this, and players were *pissed*. This all came to a head a little while ago, and the community backlash was so bad that it actually tanked Hasbro’s stock price. It was so bad, Wall Street downgraded them. https://www.thegamer.com/magic-the-gathering-release-fatigue-leads-to-plummeting-hasbro-stock/Magic the Gathering was basically propping the entire company up, and kept Hasbro alive though the pandemic. Unfortunately the same idiots that ran MLP into the ground got greedy and destroyed the brand keeping the company in the black. Everything that Hasbro touches is affected by this. I can’t overstate how important those cards were to Hasbro’s overall health as a company. They’ve been trying to claw back from this, but they broke the community trust and destroyed the entire local game store system that drove the game’s success for 30 years, and even destroyed the collector’s market to boot. Those stores that closed are never coming back, and the new place to get cards(Amazon) is filled with scammers repacking boxes. The 30th anniversary reprints of cards that were never supposed to be reprinted also blew a nasty hole in the secondhand/collector market, and several of the biggest online stores stopped selling loose cards. So basically, Hasbro is run by greedy stupid people who slaughtered their cash cow for a quick buck. This is affecting all the Hasbro brands, and they’re in panic mode. They’re looking for quick cash, and they’re not going to be supporting anything that isn’t going to line their pockets asap. The G4 brony fad is over, so unless G5 unexpectedly suddenly takes off, I think we can expect Hasbro to cut back on releases, and for stores to cut back on orders. Odds are, what’s coming out now is stuff that’s been in the pipeline since before this all happened. Nobody fired the greedy stupid people that did this, so they’re still in charge and as greedy and stupid as ever. Also, selling directly on Amazon is Hasbro’s new thing, so we can expect a lot more of that. They like keeping all the profits to themselves. The leadership at Hasbro screwed up so badly, and they didn’t learn from it. It’s not “maybe G6 will be better”, it’s “will Hasbro still be in business to make a G6?”
10
« on: January 05, 2024, 10:20:35 AM »
I think there were probably several factors, but a big one was likely that it wasn’t popular, and the line got killed off in the USA very quickly. It wasn’t just unpopular, it was violently hated by a very vocal group of people. There was a nasty backlash with the design of the ponies, and about half the pony collecting community was directly harassing Hasbro about them. Like, they were actually *flooding* the Hasbro customer service line with complaints about G2s. There was A LOT of hatred towards G2s for a long time. There was an actual nasty war between the two factions of the pony community (the ones who liked G2s and the ones who hated them). People were driven out of the community due to harassment, major collector websites were closed down due to anti G2 faction harassing the owners, it was a mess. And the anti G2 faction went after Hasbro *hard* as well. They may have not been the only factor in the early death of the G2 line, but lackluster sales + constant virulent harassment of any Hasbro employee that had a public facing email or phone number they could find didn’t help.
Also, the golden age of toy animated shows had ended in the USA. In the 80s, there were no rules, so almost every decent sized toy line ended up with some form of cartoon. In the 90s, several laws came into effect that limited what you could show to children. Shows that were just glorified toy commercials became actually illegal to make, and there were a lot more rules about what you could and could not do with commercials aimed for children, so even the ad breaks during children’s programing were less profitable. A toy company had to put a lot more effort into any potential show for it to be shown on tv. It had to meet a new standard, and the ad breaks couldn’t be blatant attempts to manipulate kids into begging their parents for the toys. I think this is why all the G3 animated stuff was only on home media, usually as a pack-in with a pony. I don’t think any of the G3 stuff was shown on tv. I think I remember one thing was shown as a special one showing release for kids in movie theaters once, but nothing approaching a regular tv show.
It is possible that Hasbro lost some rights around this time as well, but I’m not sure on that. I’m not as up on he animation history of MLP as I am the toys, but I so remember some grumblings of Hasbro no longer having the rights to some MLP stuff(G1 molds in particular I think), and part of the G2 line in Europe was made by another company(still officially part of the line though, so at least partially licensed).
11
« on: August 31, 2023, 11:37:50 PM »
I have all the USA outfits, including several variants. I have an extensive Greek ponywear collection, also with several variants. I have the Argentina outfits, again with some variants. I have the Spanish Piggy outfits, and almost all non-Piggy versions. I have the UK line, again with variants. I have most of the Italian line MOC. I have the Indian outfits that you saw. My Brazilian collection is only missing a couple pieces. I also have some of the Takara Japanese outfits.
12
« on: August 21, 2023, 05:58:34 PM »
If you have something that was only available locally, you’ll get a lot of interest and customers from all over. And if it’s something they can’t get anywhere else, shipping becomes less of an issue. I have no issue paying for shipping for items I need from overseas. The only exception is I don’t do ebay’s global shipping. It’s always stupidly overpriced(2x-4x the real shipping costs) and someone else opens the box and repacks is, often badly from what I’ve read.
Some items won’t sell internationally well. Nobody’s going to pay international shipping on something they can get at home for much less. But if you have things that you can’t get in the Americas or elsewhere, you’re missing out on a lot of potential customers if you exclude nonEuropeans.
13
« on: August 15, 2023, 04:09:45 PM »
Playsets can be hard to move due to shipping costs and space issues, but the rarest stuff will still sell. For the more common stuff, the selling price will need to be low to compensate for the shipping costs. Some of the later G2 playsets aren’t too big, and they’re pretty rare. Those can go for a pretty penny, especially if they’re something really fun(like the boat set). The Mansion is rare enough that it’ll probably get snapped up despite the shipping issues, especially if it’s got the ponies with it.
G2 collectors aren’t a huge group, but they are passionate. There is a market for the playsets, but it’s complicated. I think the fact that it’s a smaller line might help it. It’s the one generation that it’s logistically possible to actually complete, and I think that may contribute to the playset market. The fact that the later stuff rarely comes up also means that people who are going for a complete G2 line tend to grab whatever they’re missing as soon as it hits the market because who knows how long it’ll take to come around again? They’re also more likely to be willing to pay for the high shipping costs as well.
If you have the early large playsets, you’ll probably have to sell them at rock bottom prices, or hope to find a local buyer. The later, rare stuff will get a lot more interest, and you should be able to sell it for a reasonable amount. If it’s a smaller playset, and it’s a late one, those should get snapped up pretty quickly since shipping will be less of an issue.
14
« on: August 14, 2023, 10:05:43 PM »
Like everything else G2, the real interest and value is in anything that didn’t come out in the USA. If it was in US stores, it’s usually not that popular. So Ivy’s Parlor, the Rainbow Forest, the wedding playset, and the Garden Carry Case aren’t too much in demand. It will still sell to the right buyer, but the big ticket items are always the European items. Some of the smaller 1999 releases (Sweetberry’s Kitchen, Queen Sunsparkle’s Throne, The Ballroom playset) were hard to find in the US, and they’re not such storage and shipping issues, so they can be a bit more midrange in price.
And as for the rest of the playsets, the later in the line, usually the more valuable. The same is true of the ponies. As the line went on, it started to disappear from shelves in certain countries. By the end, only a few places still got new stock, so the last year stuff tends to be the hardest to find. Because of this, even the less inspired ponies and playsets usually command decent prices. Really rare stuff like the Mansion can be pretty pricy since it comes up so infrequently.
15
« on: June 27, 2023, 09:20:54 PM »
G1 Pic: The hat and the saddle are from the Pretty Parlor. Both are not worth much, maybe about 50cents. http://mylittlewiki.org/wiki/Pretty_ParlorThe shoes are G3, not G1. The two brushes are probably not worth much either, unless they’re from a rare pony. Try this site to ID combs/brushes: https://mylittleponyaccessories.weebly.com/The bottle’s also not worth much. If the diaper and box are in excellent condition, together they’re probably worth a dollar, maybe a little more. G3 Pic: I don’t know the G3 loose accessory market at all, if there even is one really. So I’m sorry, no prices. The long pink comb is G1, not G3. The raincoat is an exclusive from Disney Build-a-Pony. http://mylittlewiki.org/wiki/Disney_Build-A-PonyThe large pink brush is probably from one of the oversized So Soft Newborn ponies. https://data.mlpmerch.com/g3/series/so+soft/The necklace is from Crystal Lake: http://mylittlewiki.org/wiki/Crystal_LakeThe green felt skirt and the orange plastic butterfly wings are from the Butterfly Island playset: http://mylittlewiki.org/wiki/Butterfly_Island_AdventureThe bead clips, the clips with ribbons, and the blue glitter comb are probably from some Styling Ponies(probably at least a few are from Styling Rainbow Dash): http://mylittlewiki.org/wiki/G3_Rainbow_Dash#Styling_Rainbow_Dashhttps://data.mlpmerch.com/g3/series/styling-ponies/The pink with fur trim hood is from the Christmas pony Mittens II: http://mylittlewiki.org/wiki/Mittens_IIThe little pony charms were free bonuses that came in some of the first G3s: http://mylittlewiki.org/wiki/KimonoI’m not sure who the rest of the combs/brushes are from(it’s HARD matching up G3 combs/brushes to their correct ponies). I think the large blue brush is non-pony though. I don’t know what that dark purple/magenta thing is.
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