Why do you collect toys?

[NoelVS]

I don't consider them toys. They're my little friends.

I totally agree

Even if I have to say people I'm a collector, I don't consider that myself, as I only seek for the littles I love. I'm 37 so for most of people I should be a mom, so if I have toys I must be a collector or the crazy-toy lady

[Kittywhiskers]

For me, it is because as a child growing up I was not allowed to have toys except for birthdays and Christmas. Growing the large collections my friends had was impossible. Once I had my own income in college, I began collecting those toys I had wanted as a kid.

Understood. That's basically how it is for me too. "Oh wow! I can actually buy all this cool stuff! ...And now I need more shelves!"

[Twizel]

For me, it is because as a child growing up I was not allowed to have toys except for birthdays and Christmas. Growing the large collections my friends had was impossible. Once I had my own income in college, I began collecting those toys I had wanted as a kid.

Understood. That's basically how it is for me too. "Oh wow! I can actually buy all this cool stuff! ...And now I need more shelves!"

yup! I'm so glad there are so many collectors out there for MLP. It was hard watching my friends outgrow their huge toy collections (my best friend in middle school had a walk-in closet full of Polly Pockets and a bookshelf full of troll dolls), and then throw them all away when they got older! I would have loved to have taken some off their hands, but never had the courage to ask!

I still don't have any Polly Pockets (they are so expensive now and MLPs are better lol), though I've picked up the odd troll doll from thrift stores. I'd love to get more trolls haha, I've only got 3-4.

[Blue Haired Ken Doll]

I was kinda the same way, I still loved to play until I was 11 or 12, and I had a little sister so my excuse was it was for her haha, I stopped playing after that though, I became interested in Japanese fashion around 14 such as Fairy Kei and Spank! Style, and those fashions are very inspired by old 80's toys and the more I was seeing pictures of them on Tumblr and stuff the more I wanted them. The ponies were always my favourite, I bought my first one just about a year ago and I'm already at almost 100 

[lovesbabysquirmy]

Because I have always loved toys.... 

I was teased mercilessly throughout school for playing with them - I think the kids just wanted to pick on anyone who was different, and I sure was different from them!  Thank goodness as soon as I hit 11th grade, I really didn't care what people thought anymore.

I wanted to go to school for industrial design and design and make toys, but I encountered so much chauvinism that I stepped away from that.  I tried from the art school angle too, but realized that Art School is for people who have rich parents with no nervous twitch when they see the tuition bill! 

So now I am comfortable with the fact that they make me happy because someone designed them with that purpose.  And I love my Wall of Happy (as I call my collection wall)!

[Crowning_Glory13]

I was like many of you. I loved toys. They were also my only friends. I was picked on my whole school life. Some days they were the only peace and joy I had. My mom forced me to box them up...well they were not boxed properly and the attic life made them yucky. So my mom threw them away. I lived out in the country and we burned our trash. I snuck a few out and hid them. So I am collecting my herd back. All by memory so it's hard. Sometimes I add more to the original herd.

[Taxel]

If you want to get heavy and psychological, it probably has something to do with my terrible childhood. I mean, I had toys and I played, but it wasn't great. I have a feeling that's not what you meant

But really, it started with dolls as a teenager. I never liked them as a kid. Well, that's not true. I liked a very small number of dolls, mostly ones I couldn't have. But I grew out of that in middle school, I think 6th grade. Middle school was when I got way into Neopets and started my first collection, as opposed to just owning some Neopets stuff, although no one ever called it that. Its actually bigger than my MLP collection, at least double the size. So it was pretty impressive for a kid!

Anyways, the dolls really started in high school, but it was all collector-aimed stuff. Adult stuff, fancy expensive dolls, no kid things. I first saw custom MLPs at this time and I was fascinated, I loved the artistry, but I didn't like MLPs or kid toys. I stuck with my dolls for years, until FiM came out. My best friend is an MLP collector and started watching it. She'd tell me about what happened, the characters, and so on. It was just fun to chat until one day I decided it to give it a shot. I was hooked, and that's how it all started.

I didn't get into the toys for a while longer. I started out with a simple G4, a gift from my boyfriend's mom. And then that molded hair set with Pinklestia, from my boyfriend's uncle for my birthday. Then I bought a cheap custom. Next up was Sundance and after her there was no going back!

The main reason I collect things, all the stuff I collect, is to take photos of them. Toys make excellent models and its really fun to try and bring out all the details that are easy to miss in person. And beyond that, I just like having them around. They're bright and fun and happy and innocent, all things this world seems to lack a lot of the time. Its calming to enjoy them, either just looking at my displays or taking photos.


This post is so scatterbrained but really, so is my collecting. I guess that makes it fitting.

[SkyCakes]

They make me happy. At the end of the day that is all that matters to me. I look at them and get excited about them. I never seem to have lost my childhood spark with them. I seem to never wonder why im so preoccupied by toy horses. I just know I love them. I have so many and it gets overwhelming but there is always something fun to do with them.

[Leave a Whisper]

They make me happy.

[Queeny785]

They are packed away at the moment until we move but I have them where I can get them out if I want. They make me happy. I get so excited when we go vintage toy hunting around the city. That rush I get when I find something I have been wanting. I also love watching groups and ebay for really good deals. When I get toy mail I get so excited. My husband shares my love of toys. We also love to see our kids getting excited over toys. I think its a break from being adult and the stress even for a little bit.

[Shenanigans]

I have always loved toys and just never grew out of loving them. I get just as excited seeing a new toy now as I did when I was 8 I also get this strange high when buying toys, even if they're not for me. Especially if I win a bid on ebay or get something on sale or clearance. It just makes the high that much better I can't explain the major high I got when I bought Monster High Lagoona Blue's Dawn of the Dance shoes on ebay

So I guess toys just make me happy. Really, really happy. I didn't stop playing with my Barbies til I was 18. I had to shove them under my bed and in my closet so many times when my friends came over so they wouldn't find out I still played with my dolls

[lostpony]

I love this thread.

Growing up I was more into things I could use:  finding tools at thrift, salvaging materials like wood and bicycle parts out of the trash, that sort of thing but I also remember having one of those plastic horses you ride on that attaches to four big springs and long after it had crumbled I remember keeping it around and I don't know what happened to it but I remember after it was gone I found another one, just the horse part, completely age inappropriate for a young teenager and when I was dragging it home I had no explanation for why but I wanted it.  I always loved stuffed animals.  A few years ago I went through a foreclosure debacle and lost everything and when I came across FiM stuff I simply wanted those cute little ponies...mostly Rainbow Dash trinkets and T shirts, pillowcases and cups etc, Funko ponies and Build a Bear plushes and finally just last December watched the show and then I found my way here and met people that collect G1s and G3s and when I got my first G1s just months ago, they made me happy.  Now I have more than 100 G1s and I think my buying frenzy might taper off a bit because I mostly have everypony I wanted...I look at them and wonder if I will lose interest in them and simply can't imagine it happening and hope it never does. 

I have no rational explanation for why it works but they do something to my brain.  I trawl the toy section in the stores I go to, especially Target and a thrift store close to me where I found Likety Split, some G3s and some fakies so far and lots and lots of plush horses...I'm envious of the flea market hauls people post here and think about going to flea markets.  I really like restoring damaged ponies and especially sharing pictures of them here and meeting other people as obsessed as me.  I carry a pony or two around much of the time and I find it amusing when people think that's odd...I never fit in anyway so why sneak around?  I like to put clothes and hairstyles on ponies and plushes, the kind I don't get to wear due to social norms like tutus and circle skirts with lots of crinoline and pigtails (also called high ponytails or twintails) most of all...obsessed with that hair style.  So there is the toys themselves and what they do to me, there is living vicariously through them, and there is sharing with others that feel similarly...if someone pinches me I don't want to wake up.   

[Wardah]

I never really mentally outgrew toys but there was a point where I stopped getting them as gifts and my toys basically became my sister's. Star Trek action figures were okay tho and even then only a few but no more LPS (probably because my dad collected scifi models and felt action figures based on a "grown up" scifi show were more age appropriate for a teen than "kiddie toys"). At that time I started playing with The Sims games and Petz and I think that really took the place of toys for the time being. I collected and customized files in the games. I continued doing this until after I had moved out. I still looked at toy aisles occasionally and eventually saw the new LPS in stores, got some as a birthday gift for my youngest sister who was just the right age at the time. After I got a set for her I found a second set with a pet that resembled the family pet so I ended up getting that one instead with the intent to return the first set but I just ended up keeping the first set. Soon after I stumbled onto a few second hand G3 ponies while searching yard sales for knick knacks. I stumbled onto the collecting community online and it's been an addiction ever since.

[katrine2309]

yes, like so many others in here - I have ponies for nostalgic reasons I love being reminded of my childhood - a carefree and playful time, I strive to be more filled with the same ideals I had as a kid in my adult life. I think we all need to remember what that was like from time to time.

I love this saying that C.S. Lewis writes in one of his Narnia books  "Some day you will be old enough to start Reading fairy tales again". It reminds me that it is perfectly okay to enjoy the same things you did as a kid, in many cases I think the best People do

Kat

[Radiance]

Well, my family was never very well off, so I didn't have many toys as a kid. And when I was in the first grade we moved out of state and all of my toys, I mean every single one except for one yellow teddy bear (which I still have) were given away or thrown away before the move. So there I was, in a new state, new school, no friends, no toys save one pretty ugly bear (I love him though!) so I guess I suffered some toy trauma as a child. I picked up a few toys and dolls, but then we moved back a year later and they all went again. So I never had a lot of toys and the ones I did have I had to let go of pretty early in life. Well, now that I'm an adult and have my own income I can buy all the toys I want, lol! I like vintage toys because of the nostalgia factor, and I also like toy history. Having toys around makes me feel connected to my imagination in a way that a lot of my peers are not. They make me happy.