Saturday, December 3, 2011

Marked Toys: Initials & Names

When you were a little kid did you or your parents write your initials or name on your toys? My mom did this occasionally with toys that were brought to school for show and tell (so they didn't get mixed up with other kids things), and my sisters and I marked our My Little Ponies on the bottom of one hoof with our first initial. I still have all my ponies, and it is easy to tell my childhood ponies apart from any of my other collection ponies or ponies I am in the process of selling because of this.

However, sometimes toys go astray - sold at garage sales, left at friends houses, donated to thrift stores. Do you ever wonder where your childhood toys are now? Since I buy and sell vintage toys and kids books I think about this quite a bit. Who was the original owner? What kind of adventures have these toys been on? Did this toy have a special nickname?

Someone on the MLPArena posted about a project she is working on that involves marked or initialed My Little Ponies. It is a website that has pictures, descriptions, and locations of marked and initialed My Little Ponies. If you are looking for a child hood My Little Pony, and initialed it you can look in the database and see if you can find it! Right now there are just over 60 ponies listed. It isn't a lot, but hopefully it will grow.
The website project is called "The Toy Loft: Where in the World is My Childhood Pony?" and can be found at this address: http://thetoyloft.com/wwcp/index.php

 I dug around in the boxes of ponies I have for sale and found four marked ponies. I submitted these four to the website:

Skydancer is marked with a "C" in blue pen, Applejack with an "L" in black pen (and her forelock has been cut off), So-soft Paradise is marked with a lower-case "b" or "6" in red marker (and has a tail cut), and newborn Tumbleweed has an "E" marked in hot pink or orange marker. I wonder if anyone will recognize them?  Maybe a year or so ago I read a thread on one of the pony boards (either the MLPArena or MLP Trading Post) about someone looking for her childhood ponies - and each were marked with a hoof that was colored at the bottom with a hot pink marker. I was so excited when I found one in my box of ponies for sale! That pony was reunited with her original childhood owner. :)

3 comments:

  1. All of my childhood ponies were marked with "NP" or "Paytosh". I'm hoping one of them will crop up again sometime, but as the wingers didn't have wings and my ponies came in the tub/pool with me, I'm pretty sure they have been baited ....

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  2. I actually had a toy return to me long after it had been lost by garage sale. I found it at the thrift nearly a decade later. And it wasn't just any plush caterpillar...it was MY plush caterpillar. The one with the "JJ" initialed on the butt tag. Talk about karma!

    <3Jackie @ Let's Go Thrifting!
    http://LetsGoThrifting.blogspot.com

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  3. Niccole - you never know! The pony I reunited with the original owner was definitely a bait (I think it was missing the tail and most of the symbol glitter & had brown splotches). Maybe they are still floating around. :)

    Jackie - what a great story! Thanks for sharing! That would have been so exciting. :)

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