How do moc/mib ponies happen?

[kingluke]

Hello everyone,

I was thinking about moc/mib ponies. Most original buyers would unbox them I think. With that in mind, moc/mib are more rare. But my main question is, how did these ponies stay moc/mib? Where they left over from lots from stores or bought early by a collector?

I don't know a lot about mib/moc ponies os I would love to hear about this/them

All gens are welcome but I'm specifically looking  for stories about older moc/mib ponies.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

Most were bought with "collecting" intentions.  Many were bought for gifts and then forgotten about.  Some are old stock from warehouses or storage units.

[cowboyopossum]

i assume theyre from gifts that were never given, or backstock from stores and hasbro themselves. for older gens most modern collectors keep them on card/in box. for me, i have some g4 mibs and i need to supress the urge to open them every time i see them haha
there were collectors when g1 was still in store, but theyre harder to come by because of age.

[BlackCurtains]

A friend of mine when I was a kid kept Barbie and MLP and some other things in the box unopened. She displayed them on a dresser in her room. I remember specifically she had a pony bride. I would ask her why she kept them in the box and she said they'd be worth something when she was older but I didn't understand how she could stand not being able to play with them.

I did get back on touch with her on Facebook a few years ago but I didn't ask what happened to her MIB toys. She was only on Facebook for a while and deactivated her account, so now I don't know where she is.

I had another friend who collected Breyer horses and had a whole bunch still MIB in her room. She had some loose and did play with them, and would let me borrow some so we could play together, but the majority were unopened and untouched. I don't know what ever happened to her.

So that is one way, kids who never open their toys.

[Taffeta]

I think the vast majority are actually old store stock.

I know that when MLP ended in the UK, Hasbro sold all their old boxed stock to a toy company in London who then sold them off to the public generally as normal end of line toys. We had some from them, and I know that a couple of online collectors did as well. This was in 1995, before I was online, and my sister were still a kid, so we didn't know about keeping them MIB at that point - but later we did and acquired a couple more which we kept that way.

Back when I was first online at home in 1998ish, maybe 1999, there were bunches of old stock surfacing in various places and being sold off by people. Clutches of similar packaged stock turned up with greek and argentinian ponies as well along the way. Sadly most of these were opened - at the time the prices were a lot lower but the reduction in MIP vs the growing demand sent the prices up over time.

I've also seen some people have boxes of certain ponies in the original Hasbro distribution boxes, so were probably acquired like the ones from Hasbro UK but in other places.

Some countries also refresh stock on shelves each year even if the previous year's stock did not sell out, so probably some of those also got shoved away in warehouses.

...But there are also some people who did buy to collect and those appear as well.

At the end of G1, I found some MIP ponies at market stalls over here. Some at carboot sales, so who knows how they came about. But most of the ones I have I think were ex shop stock that were being sold off by people who had bought job lots from warehouses.

Here in the UK, we were also a dumping ground for end of line stock from other places. As a kid I remember several ponies in French and German packaging after the UK ones had sold out. UK stores also tended to keep items on shelves until they were completely gone, however...which probably explains why it is a lot harder to find some early UK packaged ponies than it is early US ones.

When Hasbro UK sold their stock to the toy store I mentioned, the only very early pony release that was included were Baby Applejack's set. All the others were from 1989-1994, so it doesn't seem as though there was a lot of surplus stock for the other sets in the years between.

[kingluke]

Thanks for all your input. It's very interesting to hear about this