'Old' collectors: how have things changed?

[scarletjul]

I started collecting midway through the G3 line (end of Butterfly Island/beginning of crystal princess) so I don't know how "old" of a collector that makes me. 

I do remember the excitement for every new G3 line released.  People would scan in pics of the brochures that came with the ponies.  People would report as soon as ponies showed up in their area, especially holiday ponies.  I seem to recall the exclusives being a big deal.  People offering to pick up the Costco and Menards exclusives for members.  Anchors Away being a big deal. 

I remember when the meet was in San Francisco.  Still bummed I missed that. 

I remember when the arena changed servers and people got lost/confused during the transfer.  Wasn't the site down for a little while or am I misremembering?

And while not strictly pony related, I was an early eBay adopter, too.  I remember when there were no photographs, only descriptions.  I'd often have my mom send a check and then wait *forever* for my stuff.  PayPal made things a lot quicker. 

[lovesbabysquirmy]

It has been SO LONG it's hard to remember...  I was online looking for MLP as early as 1991-92 and I lurked and printed checklists and that sort of thing.  Used LOTS of library computer time!    I didn't start participating and shopping until 2001...

I do recall that the MLPTP has moved like 3 times.

I am Baby Love Note on the MLP Name Registry - my Baby Squirmy handle actually comes from my ex-girlfriend LOL

There was a LOT more drama back in the day because there was a small number of us and many of us knew each other in real life! 

Yeah, pony meets happened at each other's houses, there were sleepovers... YAY whack-a-fakie! 

There have been 2 -3 incarnations of "Watch Lists" for scammers - I think mine is the only one still up and running?

Lots of people have come and go....

[Mermaid]

Pinwheels blinkies anyone?

[joce]

I just feel old thinking about how long I've been on the forums lol!

I miss some of our old forums I don't think are there anymore. Or at least I can't find!!

  I miss the surprise of finding new things. Now you kind of know what's coming.

And you kind of knew everyone. And everyone had an opinion. But they still do hahaha!

 

[plushroo]

I enjoy reading everyone's stories and memories about MLP's heyday. I didn't come aboard until early 2006 but didn't actively start collecting ponies until a year later so I can't comment on the adventure of buying ponies offline/online. I do remember having to really work to get what I wanted off ebay when it came to bidding and paying for stuff. The joys of going to the post office. buying money orders and then waiting up to two weeks before getting my parcel. I was on internet forums in 2000, but sadly missed out on the MLP stuff. Ponies were on my mind in some way since I kept my childhood Kingsley on my bed post from 1997-2002. Being on the forum back in 2007 was entertaining to me. G3's were still in stores and I loved reading stories about other members obtaining ponies and me discovering there were so many different ones. Before I got into actually collecting ponies, I would look at the ones Prancer or Tabby had on their website. I ordered off them many times for my other collections.

[Taffeta]

I also remember Donna's auctions! I had totally forgotten but I think my white and blue Bluebelle error pony came from her. It was a very long time ago!

The name ... came from my website, as did the name "Bobbie"...

Had someone over last night to "tour" the pony room and we were talking about you and Bobbie when she noticed her on the shelf.  We pulled out things like the original Pony Bi-Monthly newsletter that Nola Brooks used to publish  in 1996-1998, our original pony book (which was basically a binder with print outs of Dream Valley and other internet pages and list serve lists to look everything up),

I have a very similar black folder with DV printouts in. I don't think most of them are the original ones I printed at the library in 97, though, as they were in black and white and these are dated a year or two later and in colour. The European sections are also incomplete - I remember I used DV as my resource for US ponies back then, as there were a lot of US sets I didn't know about till I came online.

 I also have a notebook of ponies which are all neatly listed with initials next to it (mine and my sister's) and ticks by the ones we had obtained.

I still feel guilty that it was the name Bobbie that caught on, as Sel (Reaperfox, then Boingobaby) actually had her before me, and named her's Syntax Error, and that's a much more fun name...

This whole discussion makes me think of so many friends who have left the community, with whom I lost touch. People like Lieneke and Melissa/Pillow Talk and Li'l Tot and Steamer and many others. I think I've seen Wiggles around sometimes. I can't remember his more recent handle though. I remember we started off hating each other but ended up really good friends. I still have the customs he made for me - Baby Jellyfish and a Twinkle Eyed sea pony, plus a newborn Jellyfish and another one - a unicorn. Also a Cupcake he sent to me as a rescue mission as a deflock long before we knew a real Cupcake without fur existed.

I also remember, bizarrely, having really early morning conversations with LM about Forever Knight on ICQ...

I also used AIM back then. But I stopped using it after some not so pleasant happenings and ultimately moved over to MSN. Now it's all the annoying Skype.

Mind you, ICQ was pretty annoying, with its funny sign on noise.

Bidding on auctions was so weird back then too. I remember when the first auto bidding software programs came in and people got all hot under the collar, saying it was 'cheating'.

I actually think Ebay was better when you could see who bidders were. Although it did lead to people going after other people, there was also a sense of cameraderie where often, if you saw a friend bidding on something, you'd just not bid on it. Open auction posting was not banned, and often caused arguments because someone would find something hidden and go, look, I don't need this pony but everyone else can bid on it. And everyone who had found it as a hidden auction saw the bid go up and up and got angry. Then the rules about open auctions began - that was definitely a ponypeople mailing list thing, or a DV mailing list thing, not a forum thing in the first instance.

(I still call pony collectors ponypeople because of that mailing list

The reason I think it was better to see the names, though, is that it was very easy to locate and prove shill bidding was happening. These days, it's much harder. There are very clear signs when shill bidding happens, but the problem is now that there's no visual evidence for an ebay member to report it. So while sometimes things look suspicious, it's not like in the old days where you could conclusively point it out and do something about it.

[Clipper]

What a great topic. I started collecting online in 1996/97 right before g2 came out. I think most was covered, but my favorite memories was the dream valley page, with all the back card images to ID ponies for the years.
I loved the chat room too, I would hop on there after school everyday, and would love trading ponies with other collectors (apparently I was a scammer because I had good ponies to trade, and was maybe annoying I'll never forget that) . I know in one of my first trades I was scammed tho, won't ever forget the persons name either .. *waves* to KARA .

My first Ebay purchase was a princess dawn and taffeta in a lot for $11.40 shipped. I will never forget when my mom wrote the check, and I got in trouble for buying 2 used ponies for so much money. (LoL)


I remember when g2 came out, no one liked them.. I remember when they were discontinued, and toys r us happened to buy all the liquidation of the g2 line and they had huge dump bins filled to the brim with moon shadow's and tipsy tulips.. A huge wall filled with the secret surprise friends (wind song and secret tale - at the time those two were htf.. I remember picking up lots of them for people in the community).
I remember when g2 was discontinued, hasbro opened up a web page called hasbrocollectors.com , and they actually imported a bunch of European g2 only available on the page!
I got several hip hollys, merry moments, queen sun sparkle, the sun sparkle playset with the tree, and I think sweet berries kitchen!

If I recall, I was one of the first people to know G3 was coming about.. I had a post on the mlptp about it, and I remember the image I mashed up had a g1 and a g2 with a question mark. My dad worked for a sticker company, and hasbro approached him at a trade show asking about licensing out MLP.. He said there was a pink and blue pony on it..

I remember when mylittlepony.com came about. I still have print outs of the orginal G3 sketches from the under construction "coming soon" page.

Things today are so different. Just with how technology has evolved, it has made everything faster, and more accessible.
I prefer back in the day. I think just with how the world is today, our lives have sped up, and time seems to be moving faster. It feels like yesterday to me, yet it was almost 20 years ago.

[Mermaid]

Clipper I too remember the bins and walls of tipsy tulips and moonshadows at toys r us! My toys r us never got secret tale and sweet berry and wing song. I never knew about the hasbro site! I would have jumped at hip holly! I was one of the handfuls of collectors that loved g2. I was always defending them!

I also remember your post on the trading post about G3! It was a marvelous day. I called every toys r us in my area every day to get them. I was one of the first to find Minty and kimono. I remember sharing pictures and people freaking out. When they first came out sparkle works, sweet berry and sunny daze were available first, but for some reason my tru had kimono and minty!

I also was one of the people to find a liscensing show pinkie pie mib at toys r us! I traded mine for a gold mine of euro ponies.

[Sunset]

The name ... came from my website, as did the name "Bobbie"...

Had someone over last night to "tour" the pony room and we were talking about you and Bobbie when she noticed her on the shelf.  We pulled out things like the original Pony Bi-Monthly newsletter that Nola Brooks used to publish  in 1996-1998, our original pony book (which was basically a binder with print outs of Dream Valley and other internet pages and list serve lists to look everything up),

I have a very similar black folder with DV printouts in. I don't think most of them are the original ones I printed at the library in 97, though, as they were in black and white and these are dated a year or two later and in colour. The European sections are also incomplete - I remember I used DV as my resource for US ponies back then, as there were a lot of US sets I didn't know about till I came online.

 I also have a notebook of ponies which are all neatly listed with initials next to it (mine and my sister's) and ticks by the ones we had obtained.

I did this, too!  Right around the same time, in '98 the summer after graduating high school.  My mom had internet access at her work and she would let me sometimes come to her work place during the lunch hour or on Saturday to use her computer.  So of course I had to print out DV so I would have something to pour over.  I would color in the backcard illustrations with colored pencils and mark which ponies I had.

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[Leave a Whisper]

The name ... came from my website, as did the name "Bobbie"...

Had someone over last night to "tour" the pony room and we were talking about you and Bobbie when she noticed her on the shelf.  We pulled out things like the original Pony Bi-Monthly newsletter that Nola Brooks used to publish  in 1996-1998, our original pony book (which was basically a binder with print outs of Dream Valley and other internet pages and list serve lists to look everything up),

I have a very similar black folder with DV printouts in. I don't think most of them are the original ones I printed at the library in 97, though, as they were in black and white and these are dated a year or two later and in colour. The European sections are also incomplete - I remember I used DV as my resource for US ponies back then, as there were a lot of US sets I didn't know about till I came online.

 I also have a notebook of ponies which are all neatly listed with initials next to it (mine and my sister's) and ticks by the ones we had obtained.

!

I did this, too!  Right around the same time, in '98 the summer after graduating high school.  My mom had internet access at her work and she would let me sometimes come to her work place during the lunch hour or on Saturday to use her computer.  So of course I had to print out DV so I would have something to pour over.  I would color in the backcard illustrations with colored pencils and mark which ponies I had.

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looks great!

[LadyMoondancer]

I love the Dream Valley binder!  She used backcard images back then . . . Eventually she switched to photos of real MLPs, which I didn't like as much.

I remember image theft and bandwidth theft were serious issues, as it took a lot of effort to create a decent image for your (usually Geocities ) webpage, and you were only allotted a certain amount of bandwidth or something.  Speaking of Geocities, I was in the Shadowlands/Area51.  I once won an Area51 limerick contest.  (I don't remember it, though.  Just that it was about D&D.)  Oh, that was another thing--most webpages had an "awards" page.  People would create their own awards for "Great webpage" or "Awesome customs" and award them to other community members . . . it was really fun!

I remember the excitement of Hasbro buying up mylittlepony.com (which someone in the community previously had) and showing the G3 sketches. Also a very small image of the first eight G3 ponies.  (Minty had green hair.)  However, before then we somehow knew their names (probably from a press release or something) and no one could quite believe that Hasbro was seriously naming a pony "Pinkie Pie".  (Some days I still can't believe they named a pony Pinkie Pie.)  I remember someone drew a tongue-in-cheek concept picture of Pinkie Pie as a super buff male pony with dark colors.

Hasbro sold "First 50s" of all the first MLPs, with their boxes individually numbered 1 through 50.  This was timed before the G3s hit store shelves.  However, I did a lot of toy shopping at a surplus store and they either didn't know or didn't care about Hasbro's official release dates, because I found the G3 ponies there while the auctions were still running, LOL.  I remember buying the Celebration Castle and doing a big review on it.  I was over the moon when I discovered it played the original MLP theme song.