Can anyone help me find some picture of ponies in stores in the 2000s?

[paradiserain]

Hey there,

So I've been ripping google images apart for ages trying to find a picture of the MLP toy section from the early 2000s, during the G3 era. I simply cannot find anything. I'm convinced Google doesn't know MLP existed in stores before 2012 cause all the ones I can find are for G4.

I know this is a really odd and specific request, but I just wanted to see if anyone had anything. I know I've seen at least 1 picture of a MLP section on a toy aisle in Walmart before, but I can't find the picture anywhere now.

This will probably get buried and unanswered, but I thought I'd give it a shoot anyway.

[kestral_kitsune]

i think its also more that around then most cell phones haven't had cameras in them, and even then transferring them to computer and then net wasn't most common.

[tailrustedtealeaf]

Since the MLPArena only goes back to 2012 your best bet may be to peruse the TP, which SHOULD have some older archives but I know it can still be hard to dig up. Maybe some folks were sending pictures of store shelves to news sites like Ponytopia.

i think its also more that around then most cell phones haven't had cameras in them, and even then transferring them to computer and then net wasn't most common.

Yes, this, too. I know my mom had a digital camera when I was a kid but we wouldn't take pictures of store shelves with it, lol.

MustBeJewel does have a website that seemed to have featured pictures of the Disney Build-a-Pony at one point, as evidenced by a freakin' Twitter account stealing the photos which are thankfully watermarked, but they aren't hosted on her site anymore. Don't get me started on those Twitter accounts.

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[WingedDragon]

There are some people posting old picture of Toys R Us here and on tumble. I don't remember the exact, but it was obviously G3. I will let you know if I ever reblog any of those.

[ponyproblem]

There is a search option that lets you put in a date that you would like to search from and up to in Google searches. I am not sure if you can use the same tool to search Google images. You might be able to use the same tool in another search engine or browser to try the search as well. 

[skyline]

We had a thread on this a little while ago: https://mlparena.com/index.php?topic=402330.msg1865272#msg1865272

[starbritesprinkles]

i think its also more that around then most cell phones haven't had cameras in them, and even then transferring them to computer and then net wasn't most common.

This. I had my first camera phone in 2004. It was "top of the line" with its front-of-the-flip-phone-is-the-only-one 0.3MP camera. But transferring the pictures that you took from the phone to a PC was difficult because microSD wasn't a thing yet. I also had a nice digital camera at a whopping 5MP, but I didn't take it around to take pics in stores. Because I just wasn't thinking about pics for posterity then.

I took a stroll through my external hard drive to see what I could find since I worked for Walmart from 2003-2009, but I got nothin'. Best I can do is show you the big sign I snagged from the toys dept. mgr. I used to get signage and displays whenever I wanted them. If I get around to it this weekend, I'll see if I can't find some of my old backup discs and check them out.

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[SilverLinedStars]

I don't have any photos to share - but I do remember going to the build a pony kiosk at Disney when I still lived in Florida. It was pretty cool & I'm glad to see photos. Brings back happy memories!

[Taffeta]

I also remember people posting some G3 store pics in a discussioon a while back, but I think it was much more taboo to photograph store stock then than now. I remember having to ask permission to take an early G4 display photo in a store in London...right back at the start of the line. Maybe that's just the UK though. I know I never took any store photos prior to G4, because it just wasn't...done.

[Carrehz]

I found this!
https://heckyeahponyscans.tumblr.com/post/686411170297593856
I'm sure I remember LadyM having some other G3-era store photos on her blog too, that was the only one I found after doing a quick search though.

I know I've definitely seen other shop pics of G3s but taking pics of store shelves wasn't really as much of a "thing" back then. Cameraphones were new and weren't really used for stuff like this, so mostly you'd have to take an actual camera into the store... definitely some people did do it but in general it wasn't really worth all the hassle, esp. since (as Taffeta mentioned) some shops didn't like it anyway.

I'd bet a lot of G3 store photos too just got lost to time... Photobucket ate a lot of old pics, for example, and there's probably some locked away on the now-inaccessible old Arena archives, posted on other dead forums... etc. It wasn't really the kind of thing anyone would anticipate people wanting to see in the future, I don't think.