Finding Ponies at Goodwill/Op Shops/charity shops?

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Good morning everyone from way over here. :)

Just wondering anyone ever has any luck finding ponies at Goodwill/ Op Shop type stores?

Over here we have Savers, Salvation Army and various other Charity type stores. They are quite interesting in that mostly there are no ponies to be found. They are being donated but before they get to the shelves the staff are grabbing them for themselves, many times they just sell them on ebay....

The stores themselves often have ebay accounts also, so anything perceived as valuable goes straight on there.

Wondering if this is a trend elsewhere? Once upon a time many ponies could be found at Goodwill, now its near impossible.

Do you ever find any where you are?
 
In the states many of the thrift stores have an online auction site, or use eBay to sell things that they know have value. Ponies go to the online site for Goodwill (though I do still occasionally find them in the store). Value Village/Savers usually will still have ponies in store, but they are few and far between, it seems. I do also think that employees buy them to sell, since the new popularity of MLP has made the public at large realize they are collection items...

But it was just two years or so ago that I found Mimic at a Savers, and all three of the Paradise Babies I have came from a Savers too. I think it just depends on timing...
 
Definitely a trend in Texas. You almost never see Ponies (or Hot Wheels, Barbies, anything 'collectible") at our Goodwill now days. It's just about nothing but stuffed toys. I had a Goodwill employee tell me that a lot of the toys also get binned, as in chunked in the trash. Apparently they can't keep up with all the toy recalls so quite often if a toy has any moving parts or is small, like the accessories, they just throw them away.

It's frustrating, not being able to find the Ponies and toys that just used to be everywhere. Of course lots of people make their living reselling things they find online, so I'm sure they haunt the stores everyday to find stock. I can't get upset with them, because they gotta eat.

Still wish they'd leave me a crumb, though. :cry:
 
I finally found three G3's at Savers and a handful of ponies at a friend's estate resale shop, but those are the only times I've gotten lucky. Usually I completely strike out. I haven't found anything at Goodwill yet. I see Goodwill online auctions all the time, but they're usually for ponies in bulk.
 
Goodwill has different divisions throughout the country, and your success at finding ponies there will depend on which one is running your local stores. I still find ponies frequently at the Middle TN Goodwills, but the KY Goodwills have very few toys of any kind. I'm not as familiar with other areas. I think the same might be true of Salvation Army - ours only sells plush toys, but ones in other areas apparently do have other toys. The thrift store run by AmVets does have ponies but bags them so that it's extremely rare to find a bag that actually is worth the price (and I've found that often major flaws are hidden by the other toys and the bags are sealed so tight that you can't shift them out of the way to check without opening it). There's one other charity thrift store nearby, but it's tiny and doesn't sell small toys except as "surprise grab bags" (sealed paper bags labeled either boy or girl) if they have them at all. We don't have Value Village or Savers anywhere near here. The rest of the thrifts stores nearby tend to be the kind where if you want to dig through piles of random filthy junk and happen to find something you want, they'll make up a price on the spot for you. (I usually avoid those.)
 
Ugh it's aggravating! I have never seen so much as a g4 comb at my local stores. I'm sort of resigned to the fact that I have to get them online.

I do get lucky at swap meets every once in awhile though:) do you have any swap meets where you live?
 
I find it very rare. I sometimes will go to 8 or 9 thrift shops in a day and come up with nothing. The only luck I have is a 'high end' thrift shop called Savers. I tell you the one in NY flowed ponies! One time I found 24 brushables, a plush Blossom, 4 G3 plushes, 2 board games, and some bed sheets. It was a wonderland! The only problem is sometimes they charge up to $6 dollars for a single pony. :madpony: Boy do I miss the days of ziplock bags of ponies for $1!

The best luck I have are at seedy flea markets. My fiance goes off to look at the illegal stuff while I usually can find dozens of ponies for next to nothing :tongue:
 
Flea markets are great, but I noticed it has to be "Big City" ones. Our little local flea market has one once in a Blue Moon, but if you go into Dallas... cha-ching! I just haven't got to go in a looooong time. It is the suckatude.
 
At the Goodwill I work at we get them in occasionally and I never see them go to eBay and sometimes they go to the store floor its usually up to the people that price the stuff which usually I'm never at that process. But just the other day I saw a handful of G3s go out on the floor with a G3 play set.
 
I guess it really all depends on what part of the country you're in. Funny all the stores have such different policies it seems.
 
i'm located outside atlanta, georgia and it's extremely difficult to find my little pony in thrift stores here as well. i frequent about 5-7 thrift stores and so far my total found pony count is 4... all found at once. they were at goodwill and the staff marked the price on them with sharpie... -_- they would have been pretty close to mint condition if they hadn't ruined it haha.
 
I never find ponies in thrift stores here, and even the antique store finds have largely dried up or are gens I don't collect. Most of what I find locally comes from the big flea market but since March this year there hasn't been a single pony out there, but that may be because I bought them all. ;)
 
Wow that really sucks. What a bunch of morons.


Teen Mermaid said:
i'm located outside atlanta, georgia and it's extremely difficult to find my little pony in thrift stores here as well. i frequent about 5-7 thrift stores and so far my total found pony count is 4... all found at once. they were at goodwill and the staff marked the price on them with sharpie... -_- they would have been pretty close to mint condition if they hadn't ruined it haha.
Click to expand...
 
I used to find a few G1's here and there (yard sales, flea markets), but in the past 8 years or so they've become increasingly scarce. My only shred of luck was stopping by a big toy show several years ago where a guy had a box of 50 G1's for $50. I jumped on it (I think Cha Cha the Llama was in there too) and he only had one bag, so I walked out with ponies bursting out of my purse, pockets, etc xD That was the last good day I've really had in a long time.

The local Goodwill / Salvation Army / etc... Zero luck in forever.
 
Finding ponies at my local Goodwill is pretty rare. I know of only 4 separate occasions where I found ponies, and I only bought them on 2 of those occasions. I've also noticed that the toy sections in nearly all of the thrift stores I go to are severely lacking. If they do have anything, it is usually stuffed animals and board games.
 
The last time I snatched up ponies in my area, was at our local swap meet almost a year ago. There's a vintage toy/anime/comic/videogame collector booth that had bins and bins full of g3 ponies. The guy knew their value and had them marked up~ so I snatched a few at a time then requested the rest of them for Christmas o3o

So after the Christmas raid, my bait supply has been so sufficient, I haven't looked for ponies at our local Goodwill at all Dx
Or other local antique/thrift stores, since last year.

Last year, I snatched up ponies in toy bags at our local Goodwill, constantly. And there are a couple antique stores in our downtown area that I snatched up some G1's at. The person kept putting more out after I snatched some, so I kept going back and snatching them up.

They were so keen on what I was doing, lol~ and they were like "Mmm'kay we'll keep putting more out little by little" lol it was quite... "speshul" that little unspoken relation there~ :tongue:

Then I had my customs at a thrift store for sale, there were eBayers there as well. I snatched up their vintage ponies when they were on display, and they brought some in specifically for me to raid and buy~ The store owner wanted me to get my custom ponies up on eBay as well, but I never got the connection rolling on that. But some thrift stores are real big about hitting eBay~ But they also keep stuff displayed out in their physical venue as well as having stock at home.
 
I haven't had a good score in some time. I found bbe baby shady early this month at a flea market stall but that's it. I suspect a lot of it will be that we are so far out of the G1 era that they aren't even being donated as often. I do see other generations fairly often (mostly the new tiny pony stuff) at the flea markets, but since they don't interest me I have no idea if the prices I see are any good so I don't buy them to resell here.
 
At my work at Goodwill we got in some G1 ponies if there still there tomorrow I will post them up in show and tell. :winkpony:
 
In the last two days, I have driven around my city and been to about 7 or 8 different charity outlets. Of those, maybe 3 said that they had ponies before, but they sold out quick and there was nothing left by the time I arrived there. One nice lady at one of the stores took my number and told me she'd call me if she gets more of them in, but other than that information and my lucky haul on Monday, I haven't seen even the tiniest shred of pony locally. The pawn shop chains don't even carry toys, and I know there are local collectors who aren't part of the online community who are just grabbing everything up at the charity stores and paying stupid amounts to collectible shops for bait ponies that aren't worth half the price they're throwing at them. It's very discouraging. :(
 
I know it must be rare to find ponies now in thrift stores but I keep finding them where I live so I guess I am either just lucky or living in Canada is a great thing.
 
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