What Mimic cost in 1998

[STLGusty]

My, my, how the times have changed...  

I will second KellyPonyFeathers' statement on having less money back then; that may have had a part to do with it, too!  Either way, I'd love for those prices to come back NOW, lol.

[LadyMoondancer]

A bit of a sidetrack but I loved Moondancer's Dream, especially the clip art bits and the ugly pony and bad pony name sections! Ah nostalgia

Ha ha, thank you!  Looking at it today, it is so quintessentially a 90s Geocities site (it really was on Geocities, too) that I have to chuckle.   

OMG I wish I had been collecting back then, but I was a too-cool-for-school little goth girl so all my money went to clothes and CD's (Remember CD's?)

I wonder if it was easier or harder to find Nirvana ponies back then, and what they sold for. Maybe easier, because there were fewer collectors looking for them, but maybe harder, because the internet and e-bay wasn't what it is today so not as many international connections to find them? Anybody?

CDs, CDs . . . oh, you mean those shiny frisbees?   

I think you'd be shocked by how much non-US ponies went for back then.   The internet was much more widespread in the US than in any other country at the time (and even in the US it was by no means taken for granted that someone would have it.)   So there were barely any non-US collectors.  ReaperFox, Taffeta, and Locket were some of the earliest I remember.

eBay was also around, but most listings were from the US.   Boy, if you could compare the eBay of today to that of yesteryear . . . You didn't even have to buy an item from someone to leave feedback!  I mean, you were SUPPOSED to, but you didn't HAVE to.  Also you could leave an unlimited number of feedbacks on someone's account.   If a seller and buyer were really furious at each other, you'd see a whole string of negative replies on each of their feedback, as they growled at each other like they were fighting on a message board.   It was like a soap opera!  Anyway, some pony collectors used eBay's feedback system to provide positive feedback for MLPTP trades, so it had it's uses.

But getting back to non-US ponies . . . When they first started up, you could expect to pay at least $30 for any non-US pony.   Baby Applejack?  At least $30.  Musictime?  At least $30.  In fact, a lot of ponies came from an eBay seller named Esk (who else remembers Esk?) who was not a collector, but was probably just going to carboot sales to pick up ponies.   Esk always had a reserve of $30 on his UK ponies.  So it's actually much cheaper to get a transAtlantic collection going today.

As far as Nirvanas go . . . well, it wasn't a concept that existed, really.  As far as most collectors were concerned, there were US ponies (available in the US) and UK ponies (ponies not sold in the US . . . even ponies not sold in the UK were called UK ponies).   Most of what we now call Nirvana ponies were totally unknown.  We did know about Italian ponies.  And then there was "Pretty Bow" (actually Argentinean yellow Flutterbye). Someone incorrectly told Kim Shriner that she was a pony with bow symbols who came with the German Pretty Parlor.  But the only evidence of her was one tiny picture;  no one actually owned her.  Also the Argentinean candy cane pony, Ivy found her at a thrift shop!   I remember alternate birthflower Holly appearing on eBay once, to everyone's puzzlement.  Some people suggested she was a customized Minty!

Now, that said, sometimes you got lucky . . .

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This was the first ever appearance of a Dutch pony in the collecting community.  I bought her from a chancy looking eBay auction with no pictures and basically no description except "mint on card love letter pony".  The seller had no feedback and in those days most international sellers asked for US cash.  (PayPal didn't exist.)  That is probably why I was the only bidder and won Love-Pony for $20.  Boy, was I surprised when I opened the box!  I scanned her (oh yeah, also no one had digital cameras at the time) and the community consensus was . . . "????".   Eventually the other Dutch ponies were discovered, but she was a real mystery for a time.

[SkyCakes]

I think those prices are great. Though I really think back to when it was the 80s and all those ponies were less than 100 dollars. I think it kinda makes me kick myself because I gave up 100 of my childhood ponies back then.

[achab1984]

WOW!!!! Those are some nice prices!!! But then that most likely was a high price back then.

[FantasticFirefly]

Because of our currencies exchange rate I actually pay less now for ponies. The conversion was awful when I started buying ponies in USD- and then I had to buy postal money orders and pay to ship that to pay for them as well. Shipping prices were better though, gone are the days I could mail or receive a pony for $2-$3. What I really miss was finding big boxes of ponies at fleamarkets or thrifts.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

What I really miss was finding big boxes of ponies at fleamarkets or thrifts.

This is what I really, really miss.  I loved that every week you could go to the thrift stores/garage sales and have a trunk full of ponies at the end of the week.  Now it's a thrill if you find ONE rusty manky pony. 

[ClosetAvalanche]

I remember my first huge pony score. I think its was 98-99. Found bags and bags of ponies in a thrift, including sea ponies with floats, starry wings, leaper, crumpet and so many more. I guess the girl who had them had grown up and donated them. These days its so hard to find g1's in a thrift.

[BabyInBlue]

Oh how I wish I could go back to the 80's, for many things not just ponies LOL! CD's? Gosh, I still have tapes from my teenager days!

I broke out my MLP Collectors Price Guide the other day, needless to say, those prices would be awesome!! Rapunzel was listed to be worth only $35 in NM condition, Mimic was just another $8-10 pony, heck even Dibble & Dabble were only $50 Mint condition!

I told my hubby he can use that book for a guide for prices, but add $10 and ask me for the current "going prices" for the higher priced ones in the book because some have sky rocketed!

[PinkRosedust]

-weeps-

[LadyMoondancer]

We-ell, even at the time the prices in that book weren't accurate.    See, the writer (Summer Hayes, wasn't it?) didn't want to put a price guide in.  And a lot of people in the community feared that a price guide would result in higher eBay prices.  But the publisher refused to publish without a price guide (and also refused to put in a section about cleaning ponies, for "liability reasons").  So she purposely lowballed a lot.

But, yeah, Rapunzel, probably worth $50 or so at the time and $50 for Scribbles and Dabble.  Red Roses and Diamond Dreams used to be worth no more than the others in their sets.

[Ginger]

Ooooo, *swoon* how I wish I had a time machine! I was too young to be a part of the collecting community back then and was swept up in Beanies. I was still on the internet (nerd parents), but didn't talk to people...and I doubt they'd want to talk to a 9 year old anyway LOL. Plus I didn't have extra spending money in my poor little pocketses.

I am grateful for the wealth of info that you guys have since discovered!

[Ivy]

Yeah but that was also when I spent $60 on a NSS Wind Whistler - and anything that came from the UK was super, super rare and expensive.

I got my Mimic for $1 at a Flea Market - I remember back then I used to come home with 10-30 ponies every week from my flea market... I miss those days.

And yes I found Felecedades - a good 3-5 years before we even knew about Argentinean ponies - at a flea market in Michigan no less. Everyone thought she was a custom of some sort. She was just my Candy Cane Pony for the longest time - no one knew anything about her.

[hathorcat]

What an awesome find

I think it has almost evened out with time - you could say we are 15-16 ish years into G1 collecting now on a larger scale - yes there were collectors before that but most people at the start did seem to come to it mid to late 90s. At that time the general lack of internet communities [although of course some did exist] and collective community information meant largely how rare some items were was unknown, heck many ponies were still largely unknown - therefore it is always difficult to price something. We know what is hard to find now, we know what is rare - therefore rares/sought afters which sold cheap have gone up in price whereas commons which sold expensive have settled down in price.

It seemed to work the opposite way from either side of the Atlantic. Magic Star is my perfect example - I remember having 2 of her from car boots at one point, my best friend had her when I was a little girl - she was a super common pony and the "normal" version for me so she didn't hold lots of value. But looking back at prices she would go for early on when she first started turning up is crazy. And for me the opposite - I first came across SS Magic Star on ebay - I hadnt ever seen a rearing MLP and although not using ebay at the time I would probably have paid a pretty penny for her as she was so "rare" to me.

[Aurora]

I do remember when ebay was new, and I thought $200 for any pony (I think it was Mommy and Baby, though it might have been Rapunzel) was insane. That anyone could spend that much on a toy, even a toy that I love SO MUCH....
I'll be it was harder to find things like nirvanas, but they were cheaper because there was no good way to estimate their value. Now anyone can hop online and check how much something should cost, but way back when, the average person didn't realize how much a toy could be worth. All the ponies seemed the same, so they all sold for the same price! Twenty-five cents! Hahahaha!

[KarentheUnicorn]

I remember buying Argentina ponies on card for $15-20 back in the 90's. Wish they were still priced that way :/