Pony Terms and Forum Membership

[tulagirl]

I have a question: Wouldn't you say that if someone uses the term G1 and bait that most likely this person is a collector/possible forum member?

I didn't know either term until I joined the online pony collecting community.  I always referred to my 1980s ponies as vintage My Little Pony verses the moderns until I saw there was in fact a term.  Ponies in poor condition to me were just called fair, until I joined an online community.  Is it possible for a seller to know these two terms well and not be a forum community member?

I am just noticing that sometimes people use these two terms and deny membership on public forums.  It makes me suspicious only because, that was how I learned those terms.  Could a collector/seller pick up these terms somewhere else other than online?

I know it may seem like a dumb question but I feel like sometimes there are some people that seem to know a lot of pony details for the claim they are not a collector or forum member.

[Sunshine]

Hrm... my personal experience is also online - when I started collecting there weren't any other generations, so "G1" didn't exist... once the 2nd set started coming out, and they became dubbed G2... I picked that up online, and that's where they started referencing the older ones as "G1".

I suppose I wouldn't say that you're necessarily a "collector", but if you go on eBay, type My Little Pony I'm sure some people are smart enough to notice that some of the auctions for ones made in the 80s said G1, maybe they looked that up (like, people look up other acronyms if they don't know them, EUC, OOAK, whatever) - and found out that way? I don't think it's all that... mysterious though, I think anyone could determine the "generation" thing even if they weren't a collector...?

That's just my take on it!

[tulagirl]

Yea I suppose you are right they could scan auctions. I had not thought of that.  I was suspicious because, I get these instances where people make serious mistakes with describing things but then it seemed like they played dumb even though they had all the collector terms to suggest otherwise. LOL

[Baby Sugarberry]

Many sellers use whatever terms they see other sellers using - "G1" and "bait" are very, very commonly used in auction descriptions.  So are "Vintage" "Rare" (lol.  this one is so overused) "Collectible" "HTF/Hard to Find", etc. 

Just because someone's using those terms doesn't mean they're part of the collecting community. 

[achab1984]

I did not know any of that stuff either till I joined this site.

[tulagirl]

Many sellers use whatever terms they see other sellers using - "G1" and "bait" are very, very commonly used in auction descriptions.  So are "Vintage" "Rare" (lol.  this one is so overused) "Collectible" "HTF/Hard to Find", etc. 

Just because someone's using those terms doesn't mean they're part of the collecting community. 

Yea and the word Mint drives me crazy as its never used correctly either.

[Marigold]

You pick it up on ebay.  I learned "mlp" and "G1" from ebay.  If your not a collector you figure it out when you search what other listers have done. 

[tulagirl]

See that is so odd because I didn't learn MLP from ebay, I learned it in online forums.  When I sold my first lot of ponies I didn't know any of that stuff.  Maybe that is why that lot did so poorly lol.  I didn't really know to search around for special terms. I mean how would you know to even notice that? I bought all of my original collection ponies from one person rather than ebay.  Come to think of it though, I did see an auction one time where someone had a bunch of G2s and were calling them G1's.  I guess they knew the term G1 and thought it only meant vintage.  Well, its a thought anyway.

[Baby Sugarberry]

Anyone who's doing more than casual business on eBay knows to do some research into whatever they're trying to sell - it's smart business.

Without labelling your auctions correctly, the odds of getting good bids on them is greatly diminished.  Of course it often happens that sellers don't do /quite/ enough research and thus you get things like G2's marked as G1's, or G3's sold in the Vintage/80's category.  *shrug*

And the "Super Rare HTF VINTAGE 80's Collectible Cotton Candy WOW MINT!" for an outrageous price.

[hathorcat]

You don't have to be an active member or even a quiet member on a pony forum in order to be a collector or pony/vintage toy seller.

I was collecting for many years before I even knew about the Arena [mind you it was not actually about when I purchased my first pony so I guess that's not too surprising ]. And I went on to be a long time lurker before I even signed up to any forum. I know several collectors who are neither members of the online community nor do they wish to be. But if and when they sell on ebay then they know all the terms the community go by of course.

Also many of the terms we use in the pony collecting community are the same across many collecting communities and existed before we were using them - e.g. bait, MIB, mint, G1 [you can have a "first generation" of just about any product line and you will normally find them called "G1" or "Gen1"]. So I dont think its surprising that someone who does not collect and has only a limited knowledge, but Google at their finger tips, would be able to find out the best way to describe items they are selling.

[Icecrystalline]

Exactly as Hathorcat said. Before I started collecting, I started selling off my ponies on eBay. I noticed others saying 'anything less than perfect is bait' and followed suit. Of course, that meant my mint Gypsys X2 ended up in a bait lot with no ponies that actually qualified as baits selling for only £10, so yes, you can know these terms by following suit. (And generally, that's not a good idea, since most of these people haven't got a clue what they're talking about)