The Dangers of Fad Fans

[PonyPancake]

Wow, a MIP Rapunzel? That sounds pretty....unlikely. :I Some pics would be appreciated.
Honestly, this sounds more like a story to make new FiM fans look bad. Especially the title.

[moondancer1]

I think  I might cry!  It isnt even about the monetary value of the pony.  For me ponies were the unattianable toy that I always wanted and never got.  I grew up very poor.  We rarely got toys let alone the real ones.  I finally got some real ponies when my mom got a new job and she took us to the store and let us pick out a new toy!  I got Megan and Sundance and I actually felt bad about pcking out the real ponies because they were expensive.  Over the years I got Moondancer, Surprise and Baby Moondancer.  Then for Christmas one year I got the Pretty Parlor.  These were my treasures!   I am not sad that I grew up poor because I appreciate everything!  I still have all of my childhood pony things.  My childhood ponies are played with but not destroyed.  So it makes me incredibly sad when the treasures of my youth are destroyed by the thougtless actions of someone who would never treasure them like I do.  I do not have a real Rapunzel but I do have a beautiful custom.  That pony could have been a real treasure to some collector somewhere who dreamed of having her as a child.  This in my opinion is the real tragedy! 

[Varkolak]

i kinda agree. at first i was like "OH MY GOD....." but if someone were so angry that it happened, why wasn't anything said to the little girl? i would have given up all my g4 pinkies to get it, even if it did have rhinestones all over it. and pinkie pie doesn't have rhinestones on her body, so if she wanted it to look like pinkie, why did she give her rhinestones? and keep her blonde hair? it just doesn't really make sense why she'd use that for a pinkie pie. and it always seems like with these stories, the posters camera either was broken, or they didn't have it. not saying it wasn't true, but that's always the case. camera phones are more common now than anything. and can't you just go back and ask to snap a pic?

[lovesbabysquirmy]

I can totally see what this thread was going to be about, and the topic is always going to have a strong reaction from us all.    

[Dragonflitter]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only person who thought "This story is a bit fishy" when I read it.

[BrightIdea]

Sure this is unfortunate, although the girl who customized it should be feeling the worst because its like she set 500 bucks on fire.


I wouldn't be so quick to blame the new fans though. There are always going to be a percentage of people who do dumb things in every fandom. When a fandom grows bigger, the number of people who do dumb things is clearly going to increase.


Also, I don't like the way this thread started. It is stirring the pot in a bad way.

[Rhini]

Wow guys....rude much? I hope next time I post a brag without pictures, everyone won't accuse me of being a liar. Raven has no reason to fabricate anything and it's awful rude of everyone to make her "prove it" when it wasn't her pony and it's a girl she doesn't even know well. Her mom likely had no idea the toys were worth anything and couldn't care less if her daughter played with some old dirty toys of hers. I know my mom would have been like "go for it!".


Personally Raven, if I were you I'd offer to buy the Rapunzel and the rest of her mom's collection so no more get "customized" or blinged out.

[xkelpiex]

I don't want to put any blame here, but I am also a non believer. If it was me in this situation, I would give her anything to get my hands on that pony and have it fixed and within the pony community. I know not everyone is the same, but a collector would likely have said something.

[Rhini]

I don't want to put any blame here, but I am also a non believer. If it was me in this situation, I would give her anything to get my hands on that pony and have it fixed and within the pony community. I know not everyone is the same, but a collector would likely have said something.

Well according to her she did say something "I did tell her but she insisted it looked better this way and whats the big deal it was just an old toy. I didn't push the issue as I was just too upset.  "

It's not like she could have ripped it out of the girls hands, and if the girl didn't want to part with it what was she supposed to do? Start a screaming match with some girl she doesn't even know?

[PhyllieBean]

Wow, a MIP Rapunzel? That sounds pretty....unlikely. :I Some pics would be appreciated.
Honestly, this sounds more like a story to make new FiM fans look bad. Especially the title.

THIS.  Honestly, I'm not a fan of the fad itself either, but...this is a kind of crappy way to passive agressively get other people on an anti-brony bandwagon.  I have to agree that it seems a little too far fetched to be true, but hey, that's just me.  I'm cynical and skeptical of most things. 

What really bothers me more about this post is everyone being up in arms over how this girl could have done this without researching beforehand.  If she's not a collector, and doesn't know anything about ponies, why would she bother?  Of course it makes sense to us to look up values and do research on things, whether they're MLP or not, because that's the nature of a COLLECTOR.  If this girl wasn't a collector of any kind, she's not going to think like that.  Most people don't go wander through life assuming EVERYTHING has some kind of value.  Plus, it's like it's been said a million times before: her toy, her rules.  She can do what she wants with it.  It's not the collecting community's job to hunt down and save ponies from non-collectors.  It's none of our business what someone wants to do with their personal property.  If this really did happen, just write it off as another cautionary tale and move on.  Why make yourself crazy over something that's really none of your business? 

[Malicieuse]

I don't know if the story is true or not but am i the only one who thinks it would be akward/impolite to blurt out someone just wasted a lot of money? Someone who is a young girl and you don't know that well? And to jump on top of it to take pictures?  O_O
It's really not that wierd someone would have no "proof" of it.

[Mapago]

I can totally see why there's no pictures; I wouldn't feel confortable asking to take pics while saying how much money she tossed away doing that; but maybe there isn't any chance you might mistaken the pony for another one?
Maybe it was Goldilocks or another pony with Rapunzel's pose that got painted the same colors as her

[KiwiSquirtBottle]

I don't know if the story is true or not but am i the only one who thinks it would be akward/impolite to blurt out someone just wasted a lot of money? Someone who is a young girl and you don't know that well? And to jump on top of it to take pictures?  O_O
It's really not that wierd someone would have no "proof" of it.

I'm with you on this one. If someone just unknowingly made a huge mistake, my first instinct wouldn't be to whip out a camera and "document" it.

... Rapunzel was released in 1991, 21 years ago, so how could a mom who had her in her childhood collection have a 17 year old daughter?

[size=78%]No one said it was her childhood collection. Simply that it was a bunch of old ponies from the 80s. And truthfully, I don't find it odd that someone who likes ponies, and liked ponies 20+ years ago, could have a teenage daughter. (Diamond and Toth come to mind, [/size]actually[size=78%].) Mom could also have gotten pregnant early on, or could have liked ponies as an adult, or... Etc, etc.[/size]


I'm really sad to hear that she customised a possibly mint condition G1. I'm not a huge Rapunzel fan, or MIP fan, but even those aside... It was possibly mint. Maybe you could approach the mutual friend and ask about contact info, then offer to trade for it. It was so pretty and you'd really like to have it as part of your collection. Then attempt a restore? Or someone here could restore it for you if you're not comfortable with that?


I hope she's happy with her pony, at least!

[PandaBerryInSpace]

Wow guys....rude much? I hope next time I post a brag without pictures, everyone won't accuse me of being a liar. Raven has no reason to fabricate anything and it's awful rude of everyone to make her "prove it" when it wasn't her pony and it's a girl she doesn't even know well. Her mom likely had no idea the toys were worth anything and couldn't care less if her daughter played with some old dirty toys of hers. I know my mom would have been like "go for it!".


Personally Raven, if I were you I'd offer to buy the Rapunzel and the rest of her mom's collection so no more get "customized" or blinged out.

Well, are you going to brag about going to a thrift store and finding a box full of nirvanas with no picture to prove it? Then, yes, you probably will be called a "liar". It's not the fact that there are no pictures that we're skeptical, though, pictures do help a lot in confirming a story. It's the fact that the likelihood of this girl finding and customizing a Rapunzel, MIP, no less, is very slim. She's not exactly a common pony -- she sells for $500+ for a reason. I have seen a lot of MLP fans who are not kind to bronies, so making up a story like this to stir an anti-brony thread wouldn't surprise me.

[lunar_scythe]

*shrugs* I don't know if this is true or not, but if it is, this isn't the first time something like this has happened.  I know error white Blue Belle has been customized once or twice by *collectors on here* even.

In short, my opinion would be:   point out the value of the pony to her *mother*, and offer to help them clean up and price the collection.  After all, to some teens, money isn't something they ever have to think about, but I bet the parent would take you more seriously.

Punzie could probably be cleaned up some and still sell for a decent amount, even if she has a major haircut, and if it *was* MIP, then they should have the accessories, and those alone are worth something!

I'm not sure I believe this, though.