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Messages - BabyIceCrystal
1
« on: December 08, 2023, 12:41:15 PM »
It’s seeming like she probably wasn’t on the forums, but was in Facebook groups. She was in the States
As we’ve going through her boxes it seems like she collected whatever she happened to run into across all gens. I’m seeing a whole lot of G4 including merch like books and bags. It seems like she probably found most of her G1s in thrift shops or were her childhood ponies. Her collection isn’t very focused, or organized
2
« on: December 05, 2023, 10:48:59 PM »
The Applejack and Twilight plushies were up for preorder on Amazon.ca for a while in the fall, but they were taken down since. They used the same weird pillow bag packaging mock-up picture as what you posted Taffeta! While they were up I checked out the specifications, and they were marked with a March 1 2024 release. Who knows if that’s true, but it would explain why so little has been heard about them outside of the toy show pictures.
3
« on: December 05, 2023, 10:21:28 PM »
I know this has turned into a discussion about social media, but it still seemed like an appropriate place to pop my head up after years of absence. Sorry if I’m intruding, I’m not sure anyone would remember me…
I’ve definitely noticed forums in general fading as people shift more focus to instant gratification social media. It’s just so hard to have any kind of cohesion there. I miss having drawn out and more insightful conversations about ponies!
4
« on: December 05, 2023, 08:25:05 PM »
Hello! I haven’t posted here in years, but recently I’ve started lurking again. I’ll get more into what I’ve been up to later on if anyone still remembers me… for now, I’m in search of anyone who may know a certain collector…
I’m in contact with a relative of Summer Devine and we’re trying to figure out if she is known in the community, and if so, where she is known. The relative doesn’t know what name she might be known for, but apparently RL she sometimes tells people her name is Pinkie. I’ve seen pictures of some of her large collection, there’s G1, G3, G4 and Equestria Girls. This is a very avid collector, I feel like someone somewhere must know of her! The relative says she mostly buys from eBay, new in store, and thrift hunting.
I know this post may raise red flags. We’re not trying to track her down or look for personal information, we’re just trying to figure out if people know her online.
5
« on: September 27, 2017, 05:25:52 AM »
Once again, I'm being terrible and letting ponies distract me too much. I really have to put this aside and focus on union stuff today if I wish to continue being employed. Again, a lot of points I want to get to in this post at a later date, but for now.... @ShyViolet, the olny thing I can suggest re G1 in Canada is that Canadian collectors start a discussion about what they remember, what things they had, what things they have found second hand. It sort of begins there. This is exactly what I was thinking of doing in the next couple of days. It might be arrogant of me to say, but I think I'm in a strong position to start the discussion off. I am old enough to have been collecting from the very start. I was always very obsessive about ponies and fussy about keeping accessories. I always went to study them in stores even when I couldn't buy. I moved quite a lot and saw many other kids' collections. My own childhood collection numbers just over 50, all but 2 of which I still have. There have been times when I'm not active in the online community, but I have always, and always will be, actively collecting on my own. I've now got 20 years of watching thrift shop stock. Which is why I tend to get a little frustrated when I question things like release years and accessories not lining up with my experience and am forced to assume that I must be incorrect because it doesn't match 'mainstream' knowledge. Oh! Going back to Canada a second (I wish I could, I've always wanted to visit Canada!) I remember years ago there were quite a lot of year 3 adult sea ponies coming out of that part of the world. More so than in the States. I remember there was a discussion about it on a mailing list. I remember this only because at the time I was obsessed with these ponies - I actually think some of my shells and ponies came from Canada, although Sea Breeze I know came from the US.
Here's my weird pony luck again... I agree with you even though I have not once personally run across an adult sea pony in thrift. It seems like other collectors here do. More weirdness: I had 2 White Caps in my childhood. That was the only doubled pony my sister and I had. Relatives made sure we got different ones from the same collection, but in this case we both got White Cap because that's all they could find. I quite distinctly remember seeing them in stores because the big boxes took up a lot of room and I was worried that it meant stores had fewer non-sea ponies. I have a very clear memory of looking over two shelves worth of lined up White Caps. All White Cap. At the time I didn't think much about how they were all the same one when there were six in that set. But now thinking about it..... what kind of bizarre distribution shenanigans were going on there?? Unfortunately, I have no reference for the exact year this happened. Off topic: You really should try to take in Canada some day. But make it scattered. The landscape and culture here are wildly varied depending on where you go. Gosh, wouldn't it be great to have some kind of pony community exchange program? I've always wanted to go to the UK!
6
« on: September 26, 2017, 04:22:26 PM »
I think I'm backwards when it comes to show vs toys. I see people nowadays getting upset because a G4 toy doesn't match the show closely enough for their tastes, which seems to imply that it should be show>toy. But to me, the toys came first and the show is developed around them.
In G1 it was very clearly supposed to be show<toy, with the show being carefully currated to showcase whatever the current toy collection or playset was as an overglorified commercial. I seem to recall kids being excited to see their toy character being rotated onto the show rather than their show character being made into a toy. It seems like there's a lot of love for the G1 show, and I feel like I'm a villain for never really liking it all that much. I found it too shallow. The toys on the other hand, I had endless love for their creativity, character, and seemingly endless variety.
G4 for me is reversed. Static poses and endless repetition on the toy end. Sometimes deeply thought out themes and plots on the show with even background characters getting fleshed out. G4 for me is about the show and I find I don't care enough to hunt down the toys with as much fervour.
Since I grew up with a focus on the toys, G1 all the way. (It's not that I don't like all the others too though!)
7
« on: September 26, 2017, 03:57:17 PM »
Things that seem unlikely now might become commonplace in the future. When I was a kid I argued with a classmate who'd brought in Dancing Butterflies for show and tell. I was quite the pony expert don't-you-know, and I knew for certain that the toy she had brought in was NOT a real My Little Pony because real My Little Ponies only had their symbols on their butts and I'd never seen one in that pose before. Now there's a thread about if this mainstay pony feature will make it into the current generation.
8
« on: September 26, 2017, 03:34:01 PM »
No, your wall of text was amazing. I shall doubtless respond with a wall of my own, since it's been a long day and I'm liable to be incoherent. But what you said was important and really true. I'm glad that someone from Canada came in on this and I admit, I'm guilty of this one as well. The problem I have being in the UK is that I have genuinely no idea what was or wasn't in Canada. And I feel in this quandary where if I say US only, I feel people think I don't know Canada is not the US, but if I say US/Canada, am I making an unfair assumption? Actually same here, it seems I've stayed up all night doing pony things and now it's 1:30 in the afternoon, I don't know which end up up, and I'm still thinking about all the variables that might have been weird about ponies in Canada. So I'll just touch a few points and then likely get back to this thread in the future when I remember how to think straight. I'm also guilty of the same thing that's an issue for non-US 'US' collectors. It's a fact that we did get a large number of 'US' things here, which is why we have to just sort of assume we use the 'US' list. Sadly I also use terms like that because I feel like it's the accepted way of doing things. Which is what this very thread is about. It really shouldn't be the accepted way of doing things. But you made me think of something I hadn't thought about before.
...
Of course, I mean the Commonwealth. This is a trade relationship Canada has with these countries that America doesn't.
Absolutely. And that is something that we in Canada tend to take for granted as normal. We're actually in a strange position here in that we're in much closer proximity to the States and tend to be lumped in with their products and culture (not just talking ponies here of course). Even more so before the internet. But we also have quite a large amount of our own culture that we assume is from the States because everything else is, AND a large amount of culture from our connection with the UK, the Commonwealth, and from other colonial sources. I was well into adulthood before I realized that there were children's shows I assumed were American that they'd never heard of. I thought Polka-dot Door was a part of Sesame Street because it aired right afterwards (it's Canadian). I thought Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings was American as well despite the accent. Obviously that one came from the UK. Seems stupid now, but as a child I was so used to hearing Canadian, American, and RP British accents that I just never even noticed the difference. I am still completely confused when Americans say they can't understand the dialogue in Doctor Who (which, BTW, we also had in Canada growing up). My point is, when we Canadians first started seeing places like DV, we didn't really think twice about being lumped in with the States and just assumed everything stated there was fact for us as well. Our childhood collections were close enough to those lists that we didn't question it. Yes, DV was a huge blessing plus curse. There were so few collectors outside of the US therefore the information available was almost exclusively US therefore anything outside of it's experience was considered outside the norm. Remember how long the argument about yellow Moondancer went on? It was forever before the community accepted that it was real. And yes, I remember there being numerous things wrong with what was listed on DV. But as it was the biggest, closest thing to official we had, it was the bible of the community. Clearly that still effects us to this day. I'm also not trying to argue against the US line, or US based sites listing information, or anything like that. It makes absolute sense that US sites being the foundation of the pony community means that what was built on from there was US-centric. The catch is that now that these ways of thinking are so ingrained in the information stream, how do we allow for expanding that view to include other experiences? The reason I use SS Magic Star and NSS Magic Star is because that is the code that grew up in the community and we all know what it means. If I just put Magic Star on my trade list, how do people know without having to ask if she will be standing on all fours or will be flocked? If I don't want to use the term NSS because it doesn't match half the communities' childhood (which makes perfect sense), how then should I efficiently make it clear that this is what I have? If I say UK Magic Star, now it excludes other countries. I will admit my ignorance here and say I have no idea what the collection this pony was in is called, and I'm probably not alone in that. Should we now expect that the community in general stop using SS/NSS and universally learn a different code? Perhaps whatever that collection is called? Although that would be ideal, such a mass re-education does not happen easily. Another tangent.... this reminds me of reading a German talk years ago about first hearing of SS versions of all these ponies. SS of course having an entirely different non-pony meaning for her. I'm also fascinated that Hasbro Canada's french name is Ma Petite Pouliche, I think? And France it's Mon Petit Poney.
Uh oh, you've noticed a dirty little not-so-secret! Now, I'm not French Canadian, so I might not be relating this in quite the correct way (where's drucilla?), but here's some light on that for you: the Québecois are fiercely protective of being French! So much so that a number of French words weren't French enough. Poney just happens to be one example. The France French word poney was too close to the English word pony, so Québecois developed a more French sounding French word for it, which is Pouliche. This all happened long enough ago that the French they speak in France and the French they speak in Quebec (Québecois) have branched off into their own dialects. Now they're different enough that the two might not always understand each other. A French Canadian friend of mine with a very thick accent told me he went to visit Paris and had such difficulty speaking to a Parisian that they both switched from their native French to English because it was easier! Oh, one other spanner in the works..... import stores. We have a large number of British import stores here because we have a large number of British ex-pats. They bring in direct imports, which they are perfectly alright to sell as long as they follow the packaging rules. If ponies were to have been brought in this way, they would have bypassed Hasbro Canada entirely, yet been legally sold in stores here. What would that mean if that were the case? I don't know if MLP specifically was ever brought in in this way, but who knows? More recently, we have a big chain called Starsky's which is billed as a European Import grocery store. They bring in a large amount of products from various countries in exactly the same way. I used to buy Turkish hand soap from there. If we have so many of these things here, I can't imagine why other countries wouldn't have them as well. So maybe the whole idea of official products belonging only to certain countries is flawed right from the start.
9
« on: September 26, 2017, 11:59:45 AM »
I end up with many Parasols as well, but the strangest mini-collection I got was a one month stretch when I found a So Soft Magic Star four weeks in a row on my weekly thrift trips. Before that I'd only had two So Soft Magic Star finds in twenty years of thrift shop hunting! Now I feel like everyone will think it's a mistake when I list four on my trades! I have to agree on Pony Bride as well. I'd gotten rid of them, but now two have popped up again back to back. Oh, and recently I got two adult Lickety-Splits in the same thrift store bag... along with another Parasol. 
10
« on: September 26, 2017, 10:17:08 AM »
Right, Kenner, not Tonka! Still wasn't a very girly girl company at the time.
11
« on: September 26, 2017, 10:09:08 AM »
Um. To go along with what you're saying, just pointing out, if I may add... Canada is not part of the US. We get totally forgotten because everyone assumes we get the exact same releases as them. But in reality, saying "mainstream" ponies are US/Canada is also inaccurate. I've thought about a similar sort of thing as what you're saying. It's frustrating sometimes that no one seems to realize that Hasbro does not sell ponies in Canada. Hasbro Canada does, different company. Just like there are different Hasbros set up in other areas of the world as well. And just like those other Hasbros, Hasbro Canada may or may not pick up the rights to the various sets of ponies available. The difference between Canada (and other countries) plight and the UK's is that, unlike Hasbro UK, Hasbro Canada does not make their own sets of ponies. So we don't have anything like Mountain Boys to draw attention to the fact that our market is different too. What's frustrating is the lack of information I have as a collector in Canada. It's exactly what Stormness said. I don't know what wasn't available here in G1. I don't know if there's things that I won't run across in thrift (charity) stores that I should be focusing on finding online. I have to just assume that my childhood ponies were the ones I find listed as 'US' now. (How's that for misplaced childhood?) But I have found things that are listed as 'international' (meaning European) in thrift stores enough times that I really question it. In the last few months I've found three supposedly European G2s. I can't know if these were presents from relatives in Europe that were sent here, or if they were store-bought here. I remember G2 coming out, being upset that they weren't like G1 and ever after not keeping track of them in stores. I remember seeing the 'US' ones collecting dust on shelves for a long time, but I didn't note if there were also 'European' ones in later years because I wasn't watching. Now, through the years, I have run across almost the same number of 'European' G2s (6) in my thrift stores as I've found 'US' G2s (7). But a sample size of just-me is nowhere near enough to draw any actual conclusions. Maybe I just have freakish luck and keep getting ponies that were originally imports? But the thing is, if Hasbro Canada could get pony rights from Hasbro US, couldn't they also have got them from Hasbro UK? Way back when I was confused because when I went to look up a pony I'd found, she was listed as a German variant. This was purple haired Pretty Beat and at the time I found mine, there weren't enough of them in the pony community to say for sure about her. She'd only been found in Germany. The community informed me that mine had clearly been brought here from Germany because everyone knows that Canada gets the same ponies as the US. Since then, of course, she's been found elsewhere and is now thought of as European. But.... Canada is elsewhere isn't it? Why was mine brushed off and not the other ones that were discovered outside of Germany? Why was that bit of pony knowledge amended for them but not Canada? I couldn't make a big deal about it because of course it's absolutely true that maybe she was brought here by some kid moving to Canada. Maybe the fact that I've found three 'rare' blue-heart Dazzleglows and no 'common' pink-heart ones is just more of my weird pony luck. I've never actually thought to ask any of the other Canadian collectors if they've found any pink-heart Dazzleglows in store because everyone knows that Canada gets the same ponies as the US. I remember in childhood seeing some of the 'US' mail order ponies in brochures. So I know for sure we got at least some of them. But I know we didn't get the Christmas baby because she was through Rice Krispies (even though we do have Rice Krispies, the send-aways are not the same), and yet she's listed as 'US mail order'. We certainly didn't get the Valentines babies because I'd never heard of the chain that they came from before. So what does that mean about the Chuck-E-Cheese baby? We had Chuck-E-Cheese restaurants up here, but the prizes weren't necessarily the same as the US ones. Would Chuck-E-Cheeses in Canada have to miss out on it because Hasbro Canada didn't have them, or would they be allowed to bring up ones from Hasbro US as an American chain? Or did Hasbro Canada order that one? Did we get her or not? I don't know because everyone just assumes that Canada gets the same ponies as the US. And if one turns up in a thrift up here how do we know it didn't come from the States? You see, packaging law in Canada states that everything written on them must also be translated in French. It doesn't specify what else or where the packaging must come from, so I have seen plenty of European goods sold here legally. But most American packaging only has English, so it is illegal for them to just ship up stock and sell it here. Anything American companies want to sell in their stores in Canada have to be repackaged to include French. (This is a small part of why Target failed so dramatically. They didn't figure in all that extra cost when they promised to sell everything for US prices.) For things that get small runs (like, for example, mail orders), it's often not worth the extra cost to repackage and we just lose out. In G3 we got mixed results. Canadian TRUs carried their exclusive birthstone set, but not their exclusive birthflower set. We only had Target a short time here during G4, so we didn't get the early and late Target sets, but did get the middle stuff. Strangely, a certain Canadian chain was getting the rights to a few early Target exclusives before we had Target here and they saw a limited, non-Target release. But those are still identified as having been Target exclusives online. Canada didn't count. We were the first place in the world that certain G3 Breezies showed up, so they were called Canadian exclusives for a short period.... until they appeared in Europe and they became 'European' exclusives. But look, there it is again! We had them in Canada. They aren't European exclusives. And yet..... Everyone knows that Canada gets the same ponies as the US. And hey, did Australia get those Breezies? Did Asia? I don't know because they're labelled 'European' exclusives. The kicker is that G3 and G4 happened when the internet meant that the knowledge was out there. Yes, Canada did have those Breezies. They weren't easy to find (I never saw them in stores). This brings two things to mind: One, what don't we know about Canadian distribution from the time before collectors were sharing all this knowledge as releases happened? If Canada had 'European' G3s, how do we know for sure we didn't get 'European' G2 and G1? Like, say, purple haired Pretty Beat? And two, what Taffeta says is absolutely true, the community is still skewing things in a US-centric way, despite knowing full well otherwise. Sites that list things as 'UK', 'European', or 'International' actually mean 'outside the US' without any regard as to where it really was. 'Mainstream' actually means 'available in the US'. Sorry. I think I beat your wall of text length... 
12
« on: September 26, 2017, 06:30:52 AM »
G2 was horrifying at the time. Just to paint the picture for you...
Back then on the baby internet it was a small community of almost entirely North Americans because internet was still a luxury. In the UK very, very few collectors had it (I was informed it was too tightly restricted, this is why even common UK ponies were considered rare and ALL were close to $100!). Only a couple people owned a digital camera and if you were lucky, you had a scanner which you used to get a (terrible) image of ponies you had for trade. Mostly you went by description alone. Everypony knew everypony else online. Online petitions were new and all the rage, and we banded together and got what seemed like a massive amount of signatures together to petition Hasbro to start making MLP again. And Hasbro responded! They mentioned the petition when they announced that they would start up MLP again and we were all overjoyed. Back then there were no pony cons or public toy fairs or online previews of upcoming toys. So we literally had to wait until they hit the shelves to actually see them. We couldn't wait to get more of our chubby bodied friends. We had assumed it would just be a restarting of production, using the old molds and design style.
Hasbro had just acquired Tonka, which just made toy trucks, and assigned them the new ponies as their first project. Think about how vastly different G2 is from G1, and no one was expecting any difference at all! Most of the community was too shocked to really give them a chance. After the petition, Hasbro was expecting a market in collectors as well as children. I don't recall much advertising done, I think they were just depending on the apparent popularity to carry it. And most of us boycotted the new line because we were disgusted that they weren't the same as what we'd grown up with. I assumed that parents buying for their kids felt the same way, because they flopped horribly in North America. It was like what G3.5 was. Only a few characters, which stores couldn't really sell. I remember the same ones on all the store shelves for months and months. I'm guessing that stores didn't order more after the first wave. Hasbro didn't push them and just sortof gave up.
For the longest time in the community, G2 were treated like fakies were. A few oddballs collected them, but largely they were unwanted. I guess it took the decade or so for the kids who had a couple in childhood to get old enough to want them again. But they had done so poorly in stores, and then been left in thrift shops by collectors, so not as many have made it into the community compared to G1s.
13
« on: October 02, 2012, 06:05:34 PM »
If I recall correctly, Stickles were available there? They are actually smaller then 80's plushies and are in fact only half a plush pony that's sticky on one side so you can stick it to something as ornamentation.
I thought I remember them being there but I'm not certain, maybe ask over in the Nirvana forum?
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« on: October 02, 2012, 02:59:53 PM »
This is what he looks like in wave six which is scheduled for November if he's cool enough to wait for: visitors can't see pics , please register or loginImage from Strawberry Reef.
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« on: October 02, 2012, 02:46:22 PM »
Sorry I don't have a more detailed picture on it's own, but here's my inflatable pool Moondancer! visitors can't see pics , please register or login
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