Anyone who knows me knows how much I love My Little Pony. Ever since I was a kid, Ponies have been my thing. I got my first one in 1983 from my Mom at our cottage in PEI on a rainy day when we couldn't go play on the beach. From that day on, it was nothing but Ponies for me!
Why "The End of an Era", you may ask? Well after years of collecting, I finally stopped back in August of 2011, and packed up my Pony Room (Yes, there was a room in my house devoted to my collection, and there will be pictures in this post, hold tight.). I told myself I'd wait at least a year before I made any decisions as to selling.
Fast forward to January 1st, 2013. I made the decision to sell off all of my G2, G3 and what few FIM items I have. (For those not in-the-know: 'G2' refers to ponies produced from 1997-2003ish, 'G3' refers to ponies produced from 2003-2009ish, and 'FIM' refers to Friendship is Magic, the new television show, and the death of collecting for me).
I made this decision because my heart has always been with the G1s (You guessed it, 'G1' refers to the original ponies, the ones produced from 1982/3- 1997ish). The other generations were kind of a "Oh cool, I can buy Ponies in stores again!" type of thing, but none of them ever looked as cool as the originals to me. And as much as I love some of those G3 exclusives, I really wanted money in my bank account, and space back in my house.
Just as a quick reference:
G1 ponies are cute, chubby, and look like this:
G2 ponies (to me) look anorexic, and nothing like the original, which is why I was never really into them:
G3 ponies were an improvement as they were 'beefier', but still not as good as the originals:
And currently we have FiM (Friendship is Magic) ponies that don't look like ponies. At all:
So like I was saying, as a child, I was obsessed with ponies. Every birthday/holiday/event, that's all I wanted.
I amassed quite a collection this way. Even when I got into my teens, and they had been put away, I would randomly go up to the attic, bring them all downstairs and have a pony spa day. There's something about cleaning ponies that's very calming - most of you will think that's crazy, but collectors will understand lol
So when the internet started getting big, I remember one of the first things I searched for was 'My Little Pony', and I came across a couple of message boards which were whole communities of people who had the same love for ponies as I did! It was so fun to be able to talk to people from all over the world about something I loved so much. That's when my collection really started growing. Imagine my sheer joy at being able to BUY ponies again! eBay and I were good friends lol For years it was fabulous. If I had some spare time, I'd always check in on these message boards and see what was going on in the 'Pony World'.
Fast forward to 2003, we found out Hasbro would be releasing a whole new generation of pony! It was good AND bad at the same time. It was great to be able to go out and buy a pony in the stores again, but they still weren't the ponies I knew and loved. Plus the message boards seemed to fill up with new people posting about these new ponies, and ignoring all the older stuff.
I tried to be open minded and went with the flow and eventually started to like some of these newer ponies. Especially when Hasbro started paying closer attention to us Collectors and started releasing Collector Exclusive Ponies. These ponies looked really cool and were aimed towards the adults, not the children. You could get limited ponies from the Fairs & Conventions (yes, there were My Little Pony Fairs, and no, I was never able to get to one. Sadface.), and even at San Diego Comic Con (SDCC). THESE were the G3s that I liked the most, and the ones I looked forward to.
When we bought our house I had a whole room for my collection. Everyone
called it PonyLand. It was a place I could finally have all my girls
out and on display and enjoy them. Collecting was still fun, and nothing beat getting Pony Mail! Boy do I ever miss getting Ponies in the mail lol
Well a couple of years ago Hasbro decided to make a new pony TV show which was called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. They made this new cartoon, and completely remade the ponies. I can't even call them ponies because they don't even look like horses anymore. Maybe deer. Maybe.
As before, with the new show came new fans. And the majority of these FiM fans are annoying to us Oldbies. I know you are supposed to be welcoming to new people, but this new wave of 'fans' are different. They're rude, entitled, pushy, and obnoxious. Obviously I don't mean all of them, but there just seem to be SO MANY obnoxious weirdos in this new wave of fans. It got to the point that I decided to leave the community after 15 years.
In August of 2011 I finally decided to pack up PonyLand and stop collecting. I was going to sell them all then, but decided to wait a year and see how I felt about it. And here I am, selling off part of my collection. It makes me sad, but
when something you were so passionate about doesn't give you pleasure
anymore, it's time to make choices.
I have decided to keep all of my G1s, my true Pony loves, and sell off everything else. But in doing so I wanted to write something to put out in the universe to show my love of my girls since it was such a big part of my life for so long. So here you go.
PonyLand
I've decided to make this a 2-Part post since I don't want this to be even longer than it already is. The second part will show my collection in detail.
I hope none of you think I'm a crazy person because of this, and even if you do, that's fine. Ponies have brought so much joy to my life and have always been a comfort to me, and for that I will always be thankful.
Part 2 should be up tomorrow. Remember to Follow and Comment, I'd love to hear your thoughts :)
*edit*
I wanted to add in the 'packing process' because I just found those pictures as I was going through the collection ones.
And this is all I currently still have on display, mainly because Paradise Estates is SO huge! As soon as my sales are done I should have a bin to pack these away in too.
And that's it!
Click here for Part 2 "The Collection"
