Baby Leaper value?

[Taffeta]

She's not, just uncommon and sought after.  'Rare' really only applies to certain mail orders and international exclusives, most of the time.  There are few store releases that can really be termed rare.

That's a bit misleading. 98% of "International" exclusive Releases are store releases. All of the ones that command high prices come in that category.


(On another note: The meaning of international : "existing, occurring, or carried on between nations.")

@LAW - Hip Hop & Baby Splash? I think Splash is harder/more expensive. A lot of the last year of release are a bit obscure. But finding Hip Hop with intact wheels is probably harder now than in the past? It does seem like green ponies get a lot of attention.

I think it's also important to mention that rarity is also relative to location. I've had maybe ten or twelve Ice Crystals from the wild here, but never a Powder or a Medley. But Ice Crystal is considered rarer than both of those *shrug*.

 Prices ultimately factor in a lot of things:
-Geography (available in my area?)
-Popularity (is this pony a favourite/strongly sought after?)
-Availability (was this pony shortpacked/released over multiple years/via mail order/through club/in a limited release/at the end of line?)

Going back to the start topic - $5 is great for Leaper. He had limited geographical availability (as did TAF Buttons actually) but he was sold in the US and Canada which is the biggest market (thus more produced). While I don't think fewer of him were made, there is a strange thing with green (and yellow) ponies that they often end up a little pricier due to collector demand. Maybe an assumption that pink ponies are more common?

With the Playtime Baby set in the UK, I know they were sold to stores in boxes of I believe 24, which would mean 4 of each pony (at least according to hasbro catalogue...?) If the same was true for the Playtime Baby Brothers, then they all should be equally common except the 2 who were sold in Europe and the US (Paws/Drummer), so clearly personal preference is playing a big part in this somewhere along the line...

[Water Lily]

She's not, just uncommon and sought after.  'Rare' really only applies to certain mail orders and international exclusives, most of the time.  There are few store releases that can really be termed rare.

That's a bit misleading. 98% of "International" exclusive Releases are store releases. All of the ones that command high prices come in that category.


(On another note: The meaning of international : "existing, occurring, or carried on between nations.")

@LAW - Hip Hop & Baby Splash? I think Splash is harder/more expensive. A lot of the last year of release are a bit obscure. But finding Hip Hop with intact wheels is probably harder now than in the past? It does seem like green ponies get a lot of attention.

I think it's also important to mention that rarity is also relative to location. I've had maybe ten or twelve Ice Crystals from the wild here, but never a Powder or a Medley. But Ice Crystal is considered rarer than both of those *shrug*.

 Prices ultimately factor in a lot of things:
-Geography (available in my area?)
-Popularity (is this pony a favourite/strongly sought after?)
-Availability (was this pony shortpacked/released over multiple years/via mail order/through club/in a limited release/at the end of line?)

Going back to the start topic - $5 is great for Leaper. He had limited geographical availability (as did TAF Buttons actually) but he was sold in the US and Canada which is the biggest market (thus more produced). While I don't think fewer of him were made, there is a strange thing with green (and yellow) ponies that they often end up a little pricier due to collector demand. Maybe an assumption that pink ponies are more common?

With the Playtime Baby set in the UK, I know they were sold to stores in boxes of I believe 24, which would mean 4 of each pony (at least according to hasbro catalogue...?) If the same was true for the Playtime Baby Brothers, then they all should be equally common except the 2 who were sold in Europe and the US (Paws/Drummer), so clearly personal preference is playing a big part in this somewhere along the line...

I will trade you a common powder or medley for your common Ice crystal!! 

[Baby Sugarberry]

She's not, just uncommon and sought after.  'Rare' really only applies to certain mail orders and international exclusives, most of the time.  There are few store releases that can really be termed rare.

That's a bit misleading. 98% of "International" exclusive Releases are store releases. All of the ones that command high prices come in that category.

And that's why I prefaced it with 'certain', implying a subset and not all, since we're now nitpicking over word choice?    There are plenty of mail orders that aren't rare; see collector ponies, MO Rice Crispy Baby, Birthflowers, Lucky, etc.

'Certain international exclusives' would be, as an example, some ponies made by Hasbro / licensed 3rd party manufacturers that had small production runs destined for certain countries/markets, often of a lower quality, many of which can be OOAK or only known from a handful of individuals.  Pretty hard to get any rarer than only one known surviving example of said pony.

[Taffeta]

My point was that we don't have mail order ponies here. It was more about the misleading comment that store release ponies were never rare or expensive, when all our rare and expensive ponies without a single exception are store releases.

I thought in the interests of not misleading newer collectors into thinking something is set in stone, it was good to point that out. Store release ponies can be both rare and expensive. I think even most Nirvana ponies are also store release ponies.

And international ponies are ones sold in more than one geographical location. Which applies to most every pony in some way. That may seem nit-picky but it does matter because you're more likely to spend more money on a pony if you know it wasn't sold in your country. But there are very few non-Nirvana ponies who were only sold in one country. Even some Nirvana ones were sold in multiple countries, eg Greek ponies I believe were sold in Cyprus as well.

@Water Lily xD The stupid thing is that, back in the mid 1990s, I might have done a trade like that because as a kid, I coveted Powder and Medley but never found them. And Ice Crystal was far from being the rarest Mountain Boy in my area back then.

[Baby Sugarberry]

It was more about the misleading comment that store release ponies were never rare or expensive,

Read my post again - I did not say 'never'.  I said 'few'.

[Taffeta]

It was more about the misleading comment that store release ponies were never rare or expensive,

Read my post again - I did not say 'never'.  I said 'few'.

And 100% of non-US ones plus a fair few N. American ones is not few.

[Baby Sugarberry]

It was more about the misleading comment that store release ponies were never rare or expensive,

Read my post again - I did not say 'never'.  I said 'few'.

And 100% of non-US ones plus a fair few N. American ones is not few.

100% of non US store releases are not rare.    Are you confusing sought after with rare?  Because there are lots of sought after ponies, with high prices versus their set-mates or less popular sets, but truly rare ones?  Not that many. 

[banditpony]

I think it's also important to mention that rarity is also relative to location.

I don't quite agree with this. In the past, yes. Now, not really because the internet allows us to buy / sell worldwide.

It would of been nearly impossible for me to find an Ice Crystal as a kid (Lived in a rural midwest town)... but now I can find quite a few listed on eBay.

Anyway, congrats OP ^_^
I've been searching second hand for that pony for years! It's really awesome when you can get a "expensive" pony for a good price!

[Taffeta]

I think it's also important to mention that rarity is also relative to location.

I don't quite agree with this. In the past, yes. Now, not really because the internet allows us to buy / sell worldwide.

It would of been nearly impossible for me to find an Ice Crystal as a kid (Lived in a rural midwest town)... but now I can find quite a few listed on eBay.

Anyway, congrats OP ^_^
I've been searching second hand for that pony for years! It's really awesome when you can get a "expensive" pony for a good price!

I think that shipping costs are making that more prohibitive, actually. There was a time when that was the case, but more people are shipping within their country and buying within their country. GSP is making it more difficult for people here to get ponies from the US, for example, as is the higher shipping rate. Though it might be different the other way since a lot of UK and European ponies shipped out to the US in the mid 1990s, probably more than went the other way...?

Although I do agree that if you are willing to deal with the shipping and stuff, then yes, it's easier to source those ponies than now. Also easier to be aware of them existing. SO from that point of view you are probably right.

I still think it's relative, but maybe not entirely on shop release rules.

@Baby Sugarberry, sorry, I wasn't totally coherent - I meant 100% of rare non US ponies are store releases.

[Baby Sugarberry]

@Baby Sugarberry, sorry, I wasn't totally coherent - I meant 100% of rare non US ponies are store releases.

Okay that makes more sense, yes.  Only US/Canada had a significant Mail Order program from what I understand.  The UK had very few, and most of their 'promos' were associated with the Activity Club or magazine freebies, right?

I think most of the discrepancy here is because we're all using different definitions of 'rare'. It's sort of a poor word choice, all told.  For me (and that will not be for everyone) rare implies something of which there are very few existing, whether or not that same something is considered valuable, though rare is often concurrent with both valuable and desirable.

[Taffeta]

@Baby Sugarberry, sorry, I wasn't totally coherent - I meant 100% of rare non US ponies are store releases.

Okay that makes more sense, yes.  Only US/Canada had a significant Mail Order program from what I understand.  The UK had very few, and most of their 'promos' were associated with the Activity Club or magazine freebies, right?

I think most of the discrepancy here is because we're all using different definitions of 'rare'. It's sort of a poor word choice, all told.  For me (and that will not be for everyone) rare implies something of which there are very few existing, whether or not that same something is considered valuable, though rare is often concurrent with both valuable and desirable.

I think there's reason in that. That's why I say it's relative depending on lots of factors. Maybe I should also add in that "how much a person wants it". Although rarity and desirability aren't necessarily the same, and rare ponies are not always expensive...because they're not as sought after as some ponies (like Mimic) who are more available but hugely popular...

You're right about UK releases and MO. We had the Embers, Lucky, and then some ponies which were also store available like Magical Breeze. And we had the club babies (but I don't think they're that rare in context with some of the US ones, so I wasn't including them in the same category. They would go in the 'sought after' category you mentioned earlier, although not everyone seems to want to seek them out). Whereas Mountain Boys, Jewellery Babies, etc - all store sold. I don't think there were magazine freebies - sometimes giveaway offers but always store available ponies, usually as a promotion. The only weird one is Ribbons & Hearts who seems to have begun as a MO, then turned into a Club giveaway, and ultimately ended up in stationery stores for cheap in bags O.o.

[Water Lily]

I think it's also important to mention that rarity is also relative to location.

I don't quite agree with this. In the past, yes. Now, not really because the internet allows us to buy / sell worldwide.

It would of been nearly impossible for me to find an Ice Crystal as a kid (Lived in a rural midwest town)... but now I can find quite a few listed on eBay.

Anyway, congrats OP ^_^
I've been searching second hand for that pony for years! It's really awesome when you can get a "expensive" pony for a good price!

Thank you! I didnt know at the time he was rare! I also got A few along with him one other is a bit rare i think she is a greenish see threw pony?

[Baby Sugarberry]

That's just it, Baby Leaper isn't rare.  He's sought after (and thus commands a higher price than his set-mates), most of them also having had a semi-limited distribution.  Paws and Drummer are more common due to how the UK handled the set, combining those two with four Fancy Pants babies.  All of them come up for sale pretty regularly. 

[banditpony]

I think it's also important to mention that rarity is also relative to location.

I don't quite agree with this. In the past, yes. Now, not really because the internet allows us to buy / sell worldwide.

It would of been nearly impossible for me to find an Ice Crystal as a kid (Lived in a rural midwest town)... but now I can find quite a few listed on eBay.

Anyway, congrats OP ^_^
I've been searching second hand for that pony for years! It's really awesome when you can get a "expensive" pony for a good price!

Thank you! I didnt know at the time he was rare! I also got A few along with him one other is a bit rare i think she is a greenish see threw pony?

This one?

http://mylittlewiki.org/wiki/Star_Hopper

@tafetta oh I totally agree about shipping prices. But shipping price isn't related to the fact the internet lets us buy worldwide. I pay out the nose for my Japanese middleman service *shrug* but I can still buy many places I had no hope to before

[Taffeta]

No...that is true. If you can or need to then acquiring things globally is easier now by far. I also have the expensive Japanese middleman cost experience...but it is still possible to get the books I need for my research.

So I guess rather than rarity it is often a question of cost and access. Just people will pay more for a pony that they have less chance of finding in the wild.