I was lucky during the G3 release.  I worked nights, and I had 2 Targets and a TRU nearby close enough that I could easily check daily, and 4-5 Targets, 3-4 TRUs, 2 KB Toys, 2 Walmarts, a Kmart, and a collectible toy store I could hit up if I had the time to do a full search. The local TRU was always very proactive with stocking, and would get their shipments early, so most of the time they’d have the new stock in the shelves at opening. It was easy for me to get the full set, but I was going *hard* for them once I found the first ones. However, I do recall the restocks being sparse.  They only got one or two cases of 6 ponies in at a time.  Since only half the set was in each case, and there was only one of each pony in the case, they sold out quickly. 

I don’t remember seeing the birthflowers hanging around long, or in any real numbers.  If you were looking for a specific month, any given TRU would only have one out on the shelf at a time, if you were lucky.   They did get restocked occasionally for a few months, but no store I saw had multiples of any pony on the shelves..

I got a Brazilian Baby Tiddlywinks with accessories from my mom.  A friend of mine gave me 4 Mexicans(Baby Northstar, 2 Sundae Best, and Starshine) as well.  I’m not sure if it’s officially a nirvana pony, but I also got one of those funky UK princesses with the weird symbols.  It was a very pony Christmas!

I am NOT a lawyer, or an expert on copyright law, but I once watched a video about this issue that involved bootleg Star Wars toys. The general theme of the video is that usually the toy manufacturers do have the rights to all forms of the toys, and could sue, but they tend to turn a mostly blind eye to fan works most of the time.  The general consensus is that  as long as the fans don’t cross certain boundaries, the toy manufacturers will leave things mostly alone since going after fans is costly, time consuming, and creates horrifically bad PR with their core customers.   

The most common boundaries that would make a manufacturer take notice are:
 
1) Creating something that “defiles” the brand - an example of this is when Hasbro went after a popular G4 website that was joking about…inappropriate touching of children. Hasbro didn’t want their brand associated with that, especially since it was popular enough to be a top hit when searching “My Little Pony” on google, and children and parents were seeing it. They also killed a Street Fighter style fighting game with G4 characters probably for the same reason.

2) Mass producing something close enough to the official brand, and in enough numbers to be a direct competitor to the official brand.  I think Clipper’s G1 retro line skirts this a bit, but as the ponies are G1, and they are going for a completely different market than the official ones in stores, Hasbro lets it slide.  Should Clipper start making toys from the current generation of MLP in direct competition to what Hasbro is currently making, odds are Hasbro would take notice.
The same is probably true of the people making replacement accessories.  Hasbro is currently not making anything similar, so they ignore it. However, if Hasbro decided one day to start making official replacement G1 Princess wands and Sea Pony shells, they’d probably shut down all those etsy sellers asap.

3) The person making the items doesn’t try to trademark their work, or attempt to assert a copyright claim on the manufacturer’s intellectual property.  The copyrights belong to the toy manufacturers, and trying to claim otherwise will force a reaction from the company’s lawyers.  Copyright holders must defend their copyrights or risk losing them, so this is an almost guaranteed way to trigger a reaction from the copyright owners.

So basically Hasbro owns My Little Pony in all its forms, but Hasbro is reluctant to try to stamp out every fan work out there due to the hassle(it’s like playing Whack-A-Mole), and the outrage it causes with its customers.  Hasbro may or may not have lost its specific copyrights on the original physical G1 moulds, but they still own the My Little Pony name, and everything using that name. So they can *potentially* come after anyone making and selling things using the My Little Pony name, but they generally don’t unless the copyright violations in question are more egregious than the average.  They still have the right to, though usually they start with a cease and desist letter instead of the full lawsuit for damages.

I like how different she is from the TAF Milky Way. She’s just so…weird.  I’m picky with the Nirvana ponies I collect.  I’m most interested in ponies that 1) were never released in the USA, or 2) are really different from the USA versions.  I don’t have the space for 12 Blossoms with minor differences - I want something unique. I also really like ponies that should have been released in the USA, but weren’t, like Baby Minty or Baby Butterscotch. 

My husband is pretty supportive, but not really all that interested in it. He listens to me talk about collection stuff, helps me with whatever I need, and often buys me collection pieces(often very nice and expensive items).  However, he’s not exactly excited about ponies, and he’s not a fan of the space issues it causes.  When we bought our house, he gave me the third bedroom for a pony room with the understanding that the ponies stay in there and out of the rest of the house.  It worked well for both of us. I got my pony room to do whatever I want with, and he gets a house free of pastel plastic clutter. 

I was an active collector when G3s came out, so I hit every TRU in the area when they were first reported to be out.  If a TRU had one pony in stock, it had them all, so my first G3 was everything that was available at launch(including the Cotton Candy Cafe).

What I remember most about G3 was being the first in the world to get some ponies.  Due to some distribution quirk, I was blessed to live near the TRU that got new stuff in first. Often, first in the world.  I would check the place daily.  If I found something new, I’d rush home and take pics to share with the community.  Some items we knew were coming, but occasionally I’d stumble on a pony nobody had any idea even existed.  Sparklesnap was one of those. No announcement, no brochure pics, nothing. She was just there one day. I was the first to find the Star Catcher with video set(posted pics of the pony and screenshots of the video).  Half the G3 Birthflowers, the first wave of Scooter ponies, Hidden Treasure, and a few others were some of my “first finds”.

Personally, I’d give them a basic scrub and a hair conditioning before deciding what to do with them. There are a few reasons for this.

First, you can’t know what the real condition is until you clean them.  It doesn’t have to be too involved, but a good scrub and a bit of hair care can go a long way. I have had more than one pony clean up a lot better than expected. 

My personal best was a Sugarberry that was in my “bait” box. She looked wretched - disgustingly dirty, matted hair, sticky,  just awful. I didn’t want to touch her, let alone work on her.   I fully expected her to end up discolored with bad hair even after cleaning. I just washed her and did a basic hair treatment(wash, comb, condition, air dry).  She cleaned up into a basically mint, pure white with beautiful, silky factory curl.  She’s now my collection Sugarberry, and she looks almost straight off the card. I was shocked!  I didn’t do any special kind of restoration - just a good wash and a hair treatment. I don’t have before/after pics. I wish I did. I was not expecting her to turn out at all. She was in my “hopeless bait” pile, which are the worst condition ponies I have.

Second, you’ll probably get more for even flawed ponies if they’re clean.  You’ll be able to more accurately describe them, they’ll photograph better, and buyers don’t like getting nasty items in the mail.

Third, you can practice your cleaning methods on low value, low risk ponies.  Make any mistakes, try out new products, and develop your techniques on a bait Peachy - not that lucky thrift store Mimic find. I ended up doing a massive amount of ponies in a short time for a pony meet, and I got fast and good at it.  I tried out new combs and products to do it, and I learned a lot.

I had several ponies I was after for a while. 

The first two were from when I was a kid - Baby Glory and SS Wind Whistler.  They were top of my Christmas/birthday/whatever lists for years, but my mom was never able to find them in stores.  In 1997 when I discovered the pony community and then ebay, those where the first two I went for. But after all that time, I decided to go for them MOC. 

I got Wind Whistler first, sometime around 2000-2002. I ended up in a bidding war with the biggest MOC collector in the community at the time. I was one of the very few who ever managed to outbid her on a MOC, but it ended up being the record for my most expensive auction for about 15 or so years. It was one of those insane auctions that goes so high, it brings similar items out of the woodwork. A second MOC Wind Whistler, it better condition came up soon after. That MOC collector that bid me up got her for $50 a week after my record breaking auction ended:/

My husband got me MIB Baby Glory a few years ago for Christmas. If you add up all those childhood wishlists, it probably took me close to 30 years to get her.

Other long hunts include about 15 years for Greek Baby Minty, and at least 13 years for G2 Springly and Springdy(the last two G2s I needed to complete the whole line).