Brace yourselves...

I was walking to the shops one evening and passed by a local charity shop. Looked in the window as I always do and, uh, noticed some hooves.

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Honestly, I just stood there in disbelief. First of all G1s in charity shops are like gold dust these days. Second of all... that's Ice Crystal! After freaking out on Twitter for a bit, I made about three reminders on my phone of the time the shop was opening in the morning and went home. There was much internal screaming.

Was up bright and early the next morning and made sure I was at the shop before it opened. I tried to be as subtle as possible (thankfully there was a Pokestop nearby I could spin into oblivion) as I go to this charity shop a lot and was trying not to freak anyone out.
As soon as that door opened I immediately had a volunteer get the bag and I purchased it there and then. The price I paid for the bag? £15! Again, tried to be subtle about it the whole time, but once I was out of that shop I was freaking out on Twitter again. I almost felt like a criminal.

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Got the bag home and tipped it out. I hadn't really been able to see the condition of the ponies through the bag, but honestly Ice Crystal was the only one I cared about. I had noted that there were other boy hooves in the bag but wasn't 100% sure who the purple ones belonged to until...

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...it's Thundercloud! Did I seriously just get two Mountain Boys in a charity shop?!  He had his usual flaws of "cancer" spots and a head/body colour mismatch, but I'm not complaining. Ice Crystal was thankfully in beautiful condition. No one in the bag was in terrible condition apart from Sky Rocket (she had this weird green ink stain that wouldn't budge) which was a pleasant surprise.

I don't have the space to actively collect anymore, so I just kept Gusty (I've never had an NSS Gusty). Ice Crystal deserved to be in a nice big herd with lots of friends (plus, I like money ).

Bonus pic, halfway through their spa session:

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So there you have it. Keep the pony faith and you will be rewarded!

I learned to only ever use plain white kitchen roll/paper towels when cleaning ponies, especially if using nail varnish remover. Ended up removing a stubborn mark on a Italian G1 Windy and giving her a new yellow one as the dye leaked out of the piece of kitchen roll. (Thankfully the yellow mark wasn't as bad as what I removed!)

I've wanted for ages but she never seems to come up for sale anywhere!

These fakies are adorable!  Picked up the Celestia pose Twilight Sparkle one for my army and the quality is so good it's scary. If you didn't know better you'd think she was official.

I've seen the new pose ones on eBay if do an advanced search and look for sellers from China. Picked up the set of princess pose ones!

My local Sainsbury's never restocked Wave 1 and have instead moved onto Wave 2.  Coloratura is the only brushable I've wanted in forever.

Also I hope these brushables aren't going the way of G2 Hip Holly or some of the G3 Divine Shines. Their plastic was, uh, not great.

The only pony I've ever thrown away was the most disgusting, swamp creature-esque Glitter Shine G3. I don't know where she'd been in a past life and I wasn't about to find out.

Otherwise no ponies get thrown out, even fakies. There's always someone out there who'll want them!

I will always try to clean and/or restore ponies I come across (or any collectible, for that matter). Heck, I  found some baity G1 ponies in a skip recently (I know, you should have seen my face!  ) and I cleaned them up and sold them on as custom bait.

However I once had a massive box of 60+ G3s that I bought on eBay. Most were in good to OK condition, but there were two baits: One was a Star Catcher (poor girl) and the other was a Divine Shine whose name I didn't get. The reason I didn't get her name is because she was the mangiest pony I have ever clapped eyes on. She had the typical plasticiser leakage and mysterious stains and smelled like she'd been living in a drain her whole life. Instant toss into the bin. I do regret it a little bit, but I don't think the combined efforts of every collector on this board could have saved her.

Talking Nightmare Moon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00FOKOI9K?ref_=gb1h_img_m-4_0887_3541f426 (the deal won't show until it's time)

If you're a Prime member the deal starts at 12:00pm. For non-Prime folks it starts at 12:30pm.

Shadowbolt Rainbow Dash: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00E0RXSTO/ (the deal won't show until it's time)

If you're a Prime member the deal starts at 6:50pm. For non-Prime folks it starts at 7:20pm.

Thought people might appreciate the heads up.