I would love to actually find some that are of larger piece counts so I can put them together for fun myself.

I would love to find some of those as well! I wish they would have made some with 300+ pieces.

Also love those little multi-coloured star thingies xxx

I got them at the Japanese equivalent of a dollar store. Japanese dollar stores are far superior than the ones I grew up with in the US. The items are of much better quality and there are soooo many cute things. Most of what I use as props for my pony photography is from 100 yen shops!

I don't own her yet, but when I see Caramel Crunch for sale, she is either a beautiful purple, brown, or somewhere in between. Any theories about this color change? What color is your Caramel Crunch? If you have a photo, I'd love to see her.

Do you ever have dreams of ponies?

Last night I had a dream I was walking down a hill, but it was very icy so I was slipping and sliding down. As I went, I was noticing stores full of G1s for sale. I specifically remember seeing Starglow on a shelf and I really wanted her. But I couldn't get any traction to walk back up the hill to get to her. I think this stems from me seeing Starglow and Brightglow being sold as a set on Japanese Mercari for 3,000 yen (about $30 USD), but were sold before I had a chance. So I guess they "slipped" away from me.

Please share if you have had any pony dreams that you could remember!

Here are some pics I’ve taken with it (and with some of your suggestions!) to give you an idea of how it performs. These are all unedited raw photos I took with my phone.

Thank you so much! Your photos are lovely.

With your advice I just bought a similar lightbox on Japanese Amazon!

I love it so far!

I have her! Love her to bits. Her symbol is adorable.

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2020 was my very first year collecting! I went a bit crazy at first...purchased too many ponies over the course of a few months because I was just so excited.

My goal for 2021 is to be more mindful about my purchases.

The Soft Sleepy Newborn was 22,000 yen, about $212 USD.

Post Merge: December 14, 2020, 11:23:42 PM

Wow, how fun that must have been to see them like that! What's interesting is how they are displayed; they are sorted by type, and even that one place has the newborn twins bagged up together. So somebody is in the know about the ponies, and likely knows what prices they fetch, which is probably why they're so expensive!

Wish it were in the cards for me to go there to browse around, but I'll probably never make it to Tokyo!

They definitely are in the know! At the 2000 Toys store, I would pick up one of the ponies, and the employee who unlocked the cabinet for me would make a comment like, "Ah, (insert name of pony here), of the (insert pony series name here. e.g. Big Brother), good choice."

On Japanese Mercari, however, sometimes you have people who aren't quite in the know of how much their ponies can go for, so you can get them for quite a bargain if you catch them in time. But it's tricky! They go so quickly.

Post Merge: December 14, 2020, 11:40:08 PM

Ooooo, those look like fun stores to visit!  Thank you for all the pics!

I’m not surprised by the prices.  I’m not knowledgeable about the distribution of G1s during the 80s, but since they had their own line from Takara, I doubt many of the ponies we know and love made it over there.  I also get the impression that cheap sources of used items(flea markets, goodwill type thrift stores, garage sales, etc) are less common over there.  Most of those ponies were probably imported from elsewhere(likely the USA).  I know a local vintage toy store often gets at least one regular Japanese buyer who comes in and cleans the place out of ponies. He’ll buy up every pony in the store when he comes through.  I’ve unfortunately been in after one of his visits, and there’s nothing left.  I’m happy to see where those ponies end up!

I'm also not very knowledgeable about the distribution of G1s in Japan, but that is something I'm very interested in reading up about. I always wonder about the backstory of each pony I see here. There must be a very interesting story behind each and every one about how they got here, who owned them before, etc. Many I have seen in stores or Mercari have names of their owners written on the bottom of their hooves, usually a Western-sounding name. One of my ponies I got here has the name "Trixie" on her hoof. So I wonder if they had been owned by a child perhaps in the US etc, and then somehow migrated to Japan.

It is true that there are very few cheap sources of used items here. "Thrift" stores are becoming more and more common, but they are branded as cool hipster places to go and are ridiculously overpriced. There are some temple flea markets that sell things such as used kimonos, pottery, and an occasional toy here and there for cheap-ish, but I would say the chance of finding a pony at one of those markets would be one in a billion. There is a chain of stores called Off House/Hobby Off/Hard Off (I know...interesting name choice for that last one) and sometimes you can find something for a fair price there, but again it would be very rare to find a pony, and it is still quite expensive compared to garage sales/flea markets you would find in the West. Japanese Mercari is probably one of the best ways to find used items, but they are usually overpriced.

I also follow some Japanese toy vintage toy stores on Instagram, and they do a live video box opening to reveal new items that have been sent to them from the US. So they must have some people going around wiping out all the thrift stores in order to fill those giant Home Depot boxes!