Soo..What got you into ponies? (Story post)

[PandoraFox]

Ponies were one of the few "girly" toys I enjoyed when I was young. My parents quickly learned I much preferred my action figures and video games over barbies and other dolls, but I loved my ponies.

Over the years my ponies disappeared into storage in our attic. I never did loose my love for toys though, and by the time I rediscovered ponies, I had a slowly growing collection of both my childhood action figures that I never did away with, as well as new transformers and other figures I much enjoy. Then FiM happened, and I quite enjoyed the show, and maybe having ponies on the brain helped me to spot my old show stable when I was in the attic to grab our Christmas decorations. The stable had been used to store my old ponies, but it had fallen over with the doors open somewhere over the years, and the mice had been all over and through my childhood herd. I remembered just how much I loved these toys though, and decided I'd try and see what I could do to restore them. Looking for information on this is what led me here.

I'm still in the process of restoring my childhood girls. Next to, shall we say, "hygiene problems" (mice pee....ew...), and a few cases of manageable tail rust, I've found they're in surprisingly good condition. And by now, somehow, I was donated someone else's childhood herd, and when I spot ponies at our local charity shop, they somehow always end up coming home with me. 
They sneak into my bag I tell you. Since they usually need work too, I'll not run out of restoring work for a while yet, but I've found I really enjoy it, and the finished ponies have a shelf right next to my transformer toys, video game figurines, and old action figures.

Now if only I could learn to tame clear tinsel, it's my current restoration mortal enemy..... 

[hathorcat]

Amazing stories everyone.

I had ponies as a little girl and they were treasured toy; toys I have very special memories of. However I was not a collector as a little girl so when I got older the ponies went into storage.

One day when I was all grown up I decided to look the ponies out only to find they had at some point many years previous been given away by my kind hearted mum. Suddenly if I couldn't have my own ponies I still at least wanted the same ponies second hand...i hit the internet and there began the pony collection.

[rosesare]

I had ponies as a kid but they got packed up over the years.  I did remember playing ponies with my sister a lot and it's funny how ones I thought were ugly as a kid I love now, like Twist.

What got my into collecting was purchasing my very first pony from Ebay in Spring 2000. An Up Up and Away with faded white hair for $3.  I still remember how fun it was to get her in the mail.  From there I started reading up on them and hit up a local flea market in search of them.  That was my best pony hunting summer often coming home every Sunday with a few.  I met some local toy/pony collectors and still keep in touch today.



and the story continues....  Sadly after that summer it became much harder to find ponies especially after the G3's came out but I kept up the hunt for years and of course buying on Ebay.  I would sell some to help feed the addiction and immediately spend the money on more. After a house fire that damaged a lot of my collection it sort of spiraled out of control trying to replace what I lost and more.  At one point I had over 100 MOC's and a couple thousand ponies.  Sadly I sold most my MOC collection to put the downpayment on my house.  I don't regret the decision but sometimes I look at my old collection pictures and have a moment of "omg how did I ever let that pony go!!" lol  From there I disapeared off the boards..busy with life and resisting temptation. 

Going to the pony fair in 2011 sort of renewed my love and I bought a few here and there and got into the FIM series. 

I quit collecting for years, but now I have a special bin where I keep my must haves and favourites.  Some of them are even quite common but I always loved them.  I think some day they may suck me back in    

[Sugarberry]

So many neat stories!  I'll share mine, but be warned, it's a bit of a rollercoaster.  Back to the 70's--- I was a very active little kid.

Ballet, gymnastics, horseback riding lessons, swimming, Brownies, helping dad with the boat and at the die casting plant, fishing, softball, sailboating, rollerskating-  it was a fun time! (The horseback lessons were the best though, and a highlight every Saturday!)

And then '80 and '81 rolled around and life changed dramatically.  The die casting plant where my father worked had several murders happen- one of the owner's two sons was killing off the rest of the family.  He was caught (and eventually put down by lethal injection), but the plant was shut down while the remaining brother recovered from arsenic poisoning in the hospital.  During that time, there was no employment and our family had no insurance and no income.  A dangerously high fever and strep throat hit me, wiped out my immune system, and arthritis set into my joints.  At 8 years old I was paralyzed temporarily for two weeks in the hospital, and the bills nearly bankrupted our family.  My little body couldn't manage activities for a long time, nor could we afford the paid ones.  (Don't worry, there's a happy finish!)

Bet you can guess what the one bright shining happiness was!  Around Christmastime that year, they showed up... there on the shelf in the only grocery store in town- smiling faces, pretty colors and enticing shiny hair. Best yet- they were not incredibly expensive.  At $3.25, they were just manageable for my mother to buy for me.  One every two or three weeks- as long as the schoolwork reports came back with good feedback.  Ponies weren't horseback lessons, but they were almost just as much fun.  When you can't afford much, you tend to really treasure the things you do get, and I took very good care of the ponies I received.  The following year the remaining son was well enough to reopen the plant and my father returned as manager, where he still works at age 82.  As for my original ponies, they're all still here too, with new ones joining all the time.   Had 300 by high school, over 900 by university, and it's well beyond counting now.  (And now we have 2 live ones out back as well!)       

[josiekat]

I was given a My Pretty Pony (well to share with my sisters) for Christmas. I loved her. I learned to braid hair on her. Then the following year, under the Christmas tree were smaller versions of her. In multiple colors! I was given Bluebelle...and quite possibly Cotton Candy, but I distinctly remember Bluebelle. That was it. I was in love. I could take this pony anywhere. And I did. After a while, my sisters got over their ponies, and they became mine. Sadly, when I was in college....they were all sold in a yard sale.

Which is how I got into collecting ponies. I joined ebay in 99, and realized that people were selling ponies. I figured this was a great way to get the ponies I had as a child again. Then I got the ones that my sisters had had. Then I got the ones that I had always wanted. Then it was a G1 free for all. lol. My mom started picking up ones she found at yard sales....but only the vintage ones. That's how I got my first boy pony. She did come home with 2 G3's once. She had been at Target, and thought that the ponies in halloween packaging were cute, and thought I might like them. She was right. So even though I was not going to collect the new ones, I had Pumpkin Tart and Abra-Cadabra.

Finally I joined the online communities. I started to see all the pretty G3's that I had missed out on. So I started buying those as well. I jumped right on G3.5's and G4's as they came into stores. I was hopelessly hooked by then. lol.

I finally did something I didn't think I would ever do. I took another look at G2's. I hated them when they first came out. HATED them. I thought that hasbro had ruined My Little Pony. I'm not even sure why I reacted so strongly. It's not like I was in a place in my life where I would have bought them anyway. But when I started to REALLY look at them, I realized that I didn't hate them after all. Especially all the gorgeous ones that were released in Europe.

So yeah, that's how I got into collecting. It was a total snow ball effect for me.

[SailorSonazaki1995]

Bumping~

And amazing stories, guys! I really love them!  Let's try to hear some more stories! 

[spookysage]

Ponies and horses both passed me right by... I read books, drew, played with Barbies and Hot Wheels and other toys. I had exactly one pony - a So Soft Fifi a neighbor kid had passed on to me. Okay, there was one other pony, but I can't even remember what it was because I preferred the fuzzy pony so much - from what I remember of her color scheme, I suspect G2 Sweet Berry?

Anyway, the years went by and I got into other things I'd somehow missed out on as a kid - video games, comics, science fiction, making friends. Finally, a few years ago, I started hearing good things about Friendship is Magic. My girlfriend's college friends highly recommended it at their yearly get-together, trying to goad us on with out-of-context musical numbers (which can work on her, since she knows a Sondheim allusion when she sees one). When we finally got around to watching the show several months later, it was pretty good and we decided to catch up - and then her favorite Star Trek character showed up, more or less, and we were doomed. Now we're planning cosplays.

So we got a few blind bags and a McDonald's toy, but I found myself missing my childhood pony, to the point of price checking, and picking up a brushable G4 blue unicorn as potential custom bait. Luckily, I found my Fifi last month, and it'd be a shame to remove Snowcatcher's adorable cutie mark now... Hey, maybe I could try collecting the other So Softs! Gosh, wouldn't it be nifty to make a sci fi custom for my girlfriend's birthday? I wonder if I can find a pony at a thrift shop-- well clearly this enormous G3 styling Pinkie Pie is a bargain for less than $2. So yeah, my childhood pony showed up, and I was doomed. Now I'm collecting ponies.

[Roseprincess1]

Cool stories every one..
Ok my turn..
Well most of my ponies had originally belonged to my grams... so when i went up to her house id play with them on the steps ... she had a totaly awsome stair case ...
and eventually she sent them all home with me beacuse i loved them so much.
Out at the trailer we lived at first.. then here in the house... id have these all over the place and play with them a lot.
My dad had a consistant job but.... more than once he was on contract(strike) so money could be iffy from time to time. Tho occasionally i got one... and began to save up my own money to get them.
So i had about 18 or so of my own.
I played with them clear up until middle school when a few things happened.
the most important being that my sister, my evil snipe of a sister, came home pregnate.
Now this in and of its self is not an issue. I appalude all women who decide to keep their children when they find out they are going to be a single parent.
However most women in that situation are not the spawn of evil like my darling half sister.
She pretty much wrapped up all of my mom's time and attention getting ready for her child to be born and then started in on me.
One day we were chatting and I told her that i couldn't wait to show the baby my ponies when it was old enough.
She blatantly informed me that this was NEVER going to happen because I was TOO OLD for them. And it was time to ACT like and ADULT.. keep in mind i was 12... and get ready to help take responsiblity for the baby. That i needed to get rid of the stupid horsies, and stop waisting my time. And that IF i didnt get rid of them SHE was going to.
Meaning throw them away.
That left me with two unsavory choices... let my beloved ponies be tossed into the trash...or do something else to save them.
So i packed them all into an old back pack.. said my good byes and put them in the atic for the next decade and a half... maybe even longer.
My sister now swears up and down that she said those things just to mess with me.. and that she was pregnate and hormonal and i should never have taken them to heart.  I think shes lying and i still believe in my heart she would have callously tossed all of them into the trash if that's what it took to get me to help with her child.

Fast forward to about two years ago.
After another bout of my sister moving in and out of my house... iwas in the attic cleaning.
Low and behold i found a dust covered old red back pack that i didnt remember what was in it. So i hauled it out into the light unzipped it and dumped it out.
There they all were smiling up at me like i had put them in there just yesterday. My ponies... my friends... from child hood.
I gathered them all back up and put them back in the bag and moved it out to the collection side of my loft.
Slowly but surely i started the work of cleaning them up and putting them out on display.
In the process i realized how much i loved the lil things and started going on ebay to see if someone out there had them.
THEN someone showed me FIM... and i was pretty much doomed when i found them at the local family dollar for 3.00 a pop.

I have a few ive paid more for.. but honestly the whole collection has only cost me about id say.. 3-400.00 to assemble.
I have found something that brings me a lot of joy.. and with my mom passing and my family being such a mess... these lil ladies.. and guys we love you SA--have offered me some happieness in an other wise depressing enviroment.

[brightberry]

Wow... lots of interesting stories.


For me it was the "Rescue at Midnight Castle" special.  I had always loved horses but, that special changed me forever.  I wanted nothing other than to go live in ponyland.  I tried to collect one from each set and held on to them for all of my life.  I stopped displaying them late in high school but I always made sure they were close by.  Looking at pony faces cheers me up so much,

[moonsugar]

I despised girly stuff when I was a kid! Pink, Barbies, My Little Pony, Cabbage Patch Dolls, Care Bears... Ugh. I'd already realised that most people seem to think that boys and boy stuff were better than girls and girly stuff, so I wanted to be one of the boys, so I completely shunned anything girly. Imagine my bewilderment years later when I learned that a whole bunch of grown men were suddenly watching My Little Pony... and loving it I decided I had to watch at least one episode, just to see what all the fuss was about. "Hey Dad," I laughed in disbelief, "I'm watching My Little Pony." By the end of the first double episode, I was hooked for life!

My first pony was a Twilight Sparkle, a Christmas present from my auntie (doubly special, because we were never allowed to celebrate Christmas). Now my herd numbers in at around 50, and I can't stop! I've never been happier. Ponies have changed my life for the better so much. I even met my new special somepony through my local brony group c:

[foalpatrol]

I had G1s as a little girl.  They were long since packed away and forgotten about, when in about 2005, a friend told me she had seen the "new" MLPs (G3s), and how cool they were and how she wanted one.  Her birthday was coming up so I went to the shop and bought Tangerine Sunset for her.  A few days later, I went back to the shop and bought Thistle Whistle for myself.  And that was that.  As my birthday was a few days after hers, she bought me a Play 'n' Carry Fluttershy, I bought myself Daisy May and Daybreak.  Then I saw some G1s online and started buying those too.  500 ponies later... here I am.

[invaderhorizongreen]

I got into MLP because when I was very little I was at a sort of day care that was stationed in a school for a summer, I don't remember much but I do know I was about 4-5 years old at the time. I can say there was a flutter pony as well as the carrying case, some earth, and one unicorn one. I do recall fondly playing with them for the first time and falling in love with them. I had many throughout childhood and at some point they got stuffed in a bin in the attic. Years later we are organizing the attic and I found them. I fell in love all over again and I went to a toy site that had MLP and saw the non US ones.  That made me even more found of them and the rest is history.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

I've never NOT beein into ponies.  Well, I've one in my hands since I was 2-3 years old anyway...

[mlpkatie]

I had G3's when I was little, when I was maybe about 8 at the time around 2007 I was done with ponies. I thought I was too old for them. So they just laid around in my room. When I was 9, we bought 32 acres of farmland so I was able to get a real pony. We built a house on that land. When I was 10, we started packing up to move. I threw out lots of my play sets and some ponies, but 60 ponies made it through the move. When we moved, all my old toys and stuff that were packed made it to the attic. They sat up there from December 2009 until we had to get in the attic January 2012. When we did, I saw my box of ponies and I got them out to look at them for memories sake. There were the 60 that made it, and that one G1 pony I stole from my aunt (lol I told her and she laughed). I realized how much I loved those ponies from the bad haircuts on few and pen marks on some. So I got them out, and kept them out. Then I thought "I wonder if eBay or something still has some I can get." and bam. From that 60 last year, to 550+ now.

[Lightning Twirl]

I was actually introduced to pony when I was little. I have a big family, LoL, and I have an aunt who is only 15 years older than me! =o She loved 80's toys and shows, one of them was my little pony! She left some ponies at my g-mas in the toy bin for the grand children to play with. I remember they were: Bouncy, Seashell, Sunbeam?, and a few others I cant remember.... I liked to play with them! At the time, I never thought I could get so hooked into My Little Pony and imagine how awesome both the shows and toylines would become!


However, I wasnt too interested in the entire franchise until G4. I was walking with a few friends at a Target and one of my friends went to the toy isle looking for Fluttershy. I kind of googled the new g4 series and fell in love! I mostly watched the show and didnt start buying the toys until late last year.... I bought Lyra and Sunny Rays in the Wedding single because I really liked their design. I planned on leaving them in the package in case I wanted to collect or sell them....but then when I saw people with their g4 herds online as loose figures....  I opened mine! 0_o I felt kind of a stress release when I styled their hair, as if it were meant to be. There was something magical that day that I felt about opening them, was if I were a kid again! ^-^ I love each pony I own, and after a long stressful day at work-brushing a pony's hair is all I need to feel better! I made some friends who also feel the way I do about mlp, and I cant say one bad thing about them! Im glad to meet a lot of people here online too! I love how inspiring MLP is.... Ive seen some amazing pony art, listened to harmonious vocal masterpieces based on the G4 series, and read some interesting fanfics. I soon realized that mlp is a healthy and fun hobby where everyone can relax and be creative. Thats how I got hooked!