retro toys

After I interviewed Hillary DePiano about her My Little Pony collection, I interviewed her about another one of her collections: She-Ra, Princess of Power. Since Hillary is the author of The She-Ra Collector’s Inventory: An Unofficial Illustrated Guide to All Princess of Power Toys and Accessories, she sent me a copy of the second edition of the collector guide for review.

The She-Ra Collector's Inventory, by Hillary DePiano

As I stated in my interview with DePiano, I’m admittedly not at all familiar with She-Ra, He-Man, or the Masters of the Universe (MOTU) (although, I must admit my interest is growing rapidly!). However, I don’t think my inexperience makes much of a difference reviewing this collectors’ guide because most people use such guides for two reasons: One, to identify specific items properly and two, to get a ballpark idea of monetary value. And in both those cases, a guide book ought to help a collector (or seller) who is unfamiliar find their way about; and The She-Ra Collector’s Inventory does just that.

After a brief overview of the MOTU world and the Mattel line of toys, DePiano gives an account of her pricing process and grading evaluation, including a very wise word on pricing which all collectors, regardless of category, should heed:

Though some sites, or your local collectibles store, may try to insist on a higher value, I have found in my many years as an eBay seller that the only true value of an item is what someone is willing to pay for it, which is why I have based the prices in this guide on the average completed sales over several years rather than higher priced unsold listings. (The same is true in reverse, however, for if two bidders get in a war over your item, it may go for far more.)

After gaining understanding of her pricing and grading, the author gets into the individual Princess of Power toys and accessories.

Arrow: Princess Of Power Horse (page 17 in The She-Ra Collector's Inventory)

Dolls Action figures, including winged horses and other figures, are listed by year, each with color photo, description, checklist of clothing &/or accessories included, variations (if any), along with a price guide, listing values for those “Mint in Package” (MIP), “Complete,” and “Loose” toys.

The Fantastic Fashions section gives a general overview, with a centerfold-style color section showing you the fashions in their packaging. The Accessories and Playsets chapter is much like the chapter on the action figures.

In the Appendix, you’ll find Princess of Power prototypes never released in stores, international variations and packaging, detailed descriptions of wing types & combs, items commonly mistaken for She-Ra (including Golden Girl: Leader of the Gemstone Guardian), other She-Ra items (books, magazines, mini-comics, lunchbox & thermos sets, Shrinky Dinks, etc.), comments on custom dolls made by She-Ra collectors, and a checklist of MOTU Evil Horde figures who featured on the Princess of Power series (with photographs). While the Appendix has less pricing information, there are plenty of color photographs and information to assist the collector in identification and, therefore, in performing their own pricing research.

The She-Ra Collector’s Inventory: An Unofficial Illustrated Guide to All Princess of Power Toys and Accessories is a slim 55 pages in a trade-sized (6.6 x 10.3 inches) paperback, but it’s easy to understand and packed with color photos plenty large enough to be useful in identification. All of this makes it easy for a collector (or someone who discovers a box of the retro 80’s toys in their basement) to identify what they have, discover what they are missing, and learn how much it may be worth — which is exactly what a primary collector guide book ought to do.

An interview with Hillary DePiano, a fiction and non-fiction author best known for her play, The Love of Three Oranges, and her e-commerce blog, The Whine Seller. Hillary is a collector of both My Little Pony and She-Ra: Princess of Power toys and has authored collectible guides to both (the MLP book is The My Little Pony Collector’s Inventory: A Complete Checklist of All US Ponies, Playsets and Accessories from 1981 to 1992). She is also a frequent contributor to the blog at My Little Pony Collecting.com.

Hillary DePiano With Project Pony 'Silver' At My Little Pony Fair, 2008

Hillary, when did you first fall in love with My Little Pony?

I was pretty young when My Little Pony first hit stores but I think it was a given that I was going to like them from the start. There was a stable that offered pony rides near my house growing up and I was a frequent visitor there until they turned it into condos. There were also unicorns on my childhood wallpaper long before MLP existed so I may have been conditioned from birth. While I am not sure quite what distinguished them from any other toy I had as a child, I know they remained my favorite toy long after I had tossed others aside because I didn’t have to dress them. I am a very low patience threshold when it comes to putting on tiny doll clothes and I used to feel really weird about leaving my Barbies naked so I just never played with them because they took too long to dress. Ponies had clothing but if I got bored before I finished dressing them, I could just leave them naked because horses’ aren’t supposed to wear clothes!

Another thing I think cannot be discounted was the affect of the cartoon show. My Little Pony Tales was often very weird and very dark. I think that strange mix of sugary sweet from the toys but weird and dark from the cartoon series really captured my imagination as a child and made me keep returning to them again and again. I think that unlike a lot of cartoons from the 80s and early 90s, instead of advertising the new toys as most shows did, the MLP show really just made me like the pony toys I already had all the more.

When did you consider yourself a collector?

The first time I ever even though of MLP being something collectible was when I saw some MLP figures at a doll show I went to with my mother. I was still pretty young and all the ponies they had for sale I already had so I didn’t buy any but that planted the seeds. I looked at those MLP figures that were only a year or so old alongside all these dolls, some of which were hundreds of years old, and an association was born. Even then I started to realize that these were my generation’s collectibles.

The real moment I became a collector came many years later, however, when a toy store called Lionel Kiddie City was going out of business. My mom and I found hundreds of mint in box MLP items, some from the very first years of the toy line, and bought a ton of stuff I didn’t have. I was older at this point and I came to the sad realization that I probably shouldn’t open a lot of what we bought that day because it would probably be worth more someday if I left it in the box.

DePiano's MLP Collector's Inventory Guide Book

I could kick myself, because if we had bought everything in the store back then, now, it would be worth over 10 times what we would have paid. Items that are worth hundreds of dollars today were on clearance for pennies! We could have make thousands of dollars. But there was no eBay back then so I couldn’t conceive of the online community of collectors that exists today so there was no reason to buy anything with the anticipation of selling it. So as much as we did buy, we left a lot of really good stuff behind.

But at the time, at that awkward age between kid and teenager, I sat there surrounded by toys I couldn’t wait to open rationally knowing I really shouldn’t open them. That was the moment when I became a collector before a kid with toys. I was thinking more of the future value of the items over the desire to open the packages.

Describe your collecting habits… Are you methodical, with a list of “needs” or do you serendipitously discover & buy? Do you own multiples of the same pony or piece or do you replace pieces so that you only keep the pieces in best conditions? Do you find your collection spreading & sprawling, branching out to include other related items (knock-offs, other plastic ponies, horses in general, toys from the same maker, time frame, etc.)

I decided long ago to only collect parts of the My Little Pony line instead of everything. Many of the subsections of the main toy line (such as Petite Ponies, Dream Beauties, Plush, etc) I sold off long ago when I decided to focus only on the basic ponies and playsets. There are a ton of MLP items and I felt like it was insane to try to get everything so I focused on certain elements. As large as my collection is, you definitely couldn’t say I had a complete collection.

I used to keep two full sets of MLP but I sold one entire collection off so that I now only keep one of each pony. This decision was both financial and a real space saver. Ponies are small but when you have them in the quantities I do, boy, they can start to take over.

I run across a lot of ponies when selling items on eBay through PricedNostalgia.com and I always make sure to check my collection before I sell anything. If I come across something in better shape than what I have, I do a trade and keep the better one. I also make sure to keep anything I didn’t already have in my collection. The one exception is if the lesser condition pony is one from when I was a kid, I usually keep my old pony as well as the nicer one.

Hillary in Priced Nostalgia's Booth At MLP Fair, 2008

As I get older, I find that I spend more time streamlining my collection rather than expanding it to include more. My Little Pony is a massive toyline spanning several decades so if you really wanted to collect every single thing, it could easily be a lifetime quest. I find myself making decisions based on space a lot of the time. For instance, I recently decided to sell off all of my mint in box pony items. Perhaps this preference stems from the Lionel Kiddie City incident, but I have always preferred the loose ponies to those MIB. I like to be able to touch them and the mint in box ponies are worth a ton so it just made more sense to me to sell off the MIB for the money and keep the loose ponies that take up less space. I also don’t aggressively seek out international or variants like some collectors. If one crosses my path and I like it, I’ll keep it but I won’t get involved in crazy bidding wars over a rare piece.

But some collectors only collect mint in box items. There are some sellers who focus on just a single pony, getting every possible variation of that one character. I think one of the big appeals of My Little Pony collecting is that there are a lot of different ways to collect so no two collections are exactly the same.

Tell us the story of one of your collecting ‘holy crap’ moments — best deal you ever got & thought you’d pee your pants, the most you’ve ever paid for a piece, the longest lengths you’ve ever gone to get a piece for your My Little Pony collection.

The Lionel toy store find was a really great Holy Crap moment but another great one was pretty recent. My husband and I were at a flea market and we are both pretty good a playing it cool when we spot something rare but I saw a rare pony mint in box. I asked the seller how much casually and actually handed her a wad money before she had even answered with the price. This should have been a sign to her that I was a little over eager but I only paid $10 for this pony that I later sold on eBay for just shy of $400. You see ponies so rarely at flea markets or garage sales that when you do, it’s hard not to grab them really quickly like another collector is breathing down your neck. When I was younger and we didn’t see any ponies on a flea market trip, I would assume another collector had been through first. Now I think people are just smarter about their value.

My dad is my favorite person to go pony hunting with. He is totally useless at spotting them and refuses to rummage in bins to look for them. But he loves it when I find one I didn’t have before. Every time we would get back into the car he would say, “So did we get any we didn’t have before?” and would eagerly examine whichever one was “new.” It always made me feel like we were a team because he got so excited for one we didn’t have. My husband is also getting rather good at it. My brother-in-law called to say that he picked up an MLP item for me at a garage sale and, upon hearing the description, my husband was able to identify the pony by name. I think he may have lost street cred for life with his brother for that but whenever he busts out a random pony fact he earns major brownie points with me.

I have never really paid ridiculous amounts for a pony. To me, part of the fun of collecting is getting the pony I want for the price I want to pay. I try to leverage trades, coupons, gift certificates, credit card points, whatever I can. It means that my collection grows more slowly than the collection of someone who just outright buys what they want instead of waiting for the deal but, for me, the thrill of the hunt is half the fun of collecting. The only time I ever just outright buy a pony is if it is at a convention where I can physically touch and examine the pony before I purchase. I am usually willing to pay a little more in person if I get to really get a good look at it in person.

Is your collection complete? Are you still searching for a ‘Holy Grail’ piece?

Since new My Little Pony items are still in stores to this day, it’s impossible for anyone’s My Little Pony collection to be complete. New ponies come out every day. Mine will never be complete. I tend to pick a random pony to obsess over and that becomes my current grail. Then, once I get that pony, I pick a new one. I get an $100 eBay voucher once a year from my credit card so I always spend that on an MLP item since that is just a bonus so completing sets I am after usually moves at a rate of about a pony a year.

DiPiano At The 2005 My Little Pony Convention

For the longest time, my grail was Twice-As-Fancy Munchy. Most ponies have flowers or other cutsie things on them but Munchy has hot dogs and hamburgers on her. I was amused by the randomness of her and was after her for a long time until I snagged her at the 2007 convention. My current obsession is getting all of the Twice-As-Fancy baby ponies. These were a mail order only offer so they are hard to find and, as such, more expensive. I just ordered what should be the final one of those on eBay about a week ago.

Then once that set is complete, I will obsess over the United Kingdom exclusive male ponies, the Mountain Boys. I just used this year’s eBay voucher to get my very first one so now I am going to work on bit by bit, getting the rest of the set.

And so it goes, bit by bit, as every collector knows…

Whenever it comes time to write the old CQ column, hubby & I find ourselves wondering what to write about. Today I went to consult the wise oracle, the old Magic 8 Ball — but, being the old Magic 8 Ball, it was dried up and so there was no blue-black liquid to bounce a reply to me (not even a “reply hazy, try again”). Sure, hubby has a Simpsons Magic 8 Ball (not the talking one; the classic one, with a yellow top and red-ish bottom), but I don’t like, let alone trust, the Simpson’s. And he couldn’t find his CDW Tech Support ball — but even if he could have found it, it has 18 answers — none of which would help me at all.

Aghast, I could have turned to another of my vintage divination devices; but this would not rectify the problem of no Magic 8 Ball. And life is difficult enough without living sans Magic 8 Ball. So I need a replacement Magic 8 Ball. But in looking for one online, it’s easy to be distracted by all the other possibilities…

The Helpful Instant Excuse Ball

There are a plethora of licensed Magic 8 Balls, like Disney’s Hannah Man-Hand-a Montana Magic 8 Ball; there’s the Magic 8 Ball Date Ball (for the insecure &/or immature dater), the Instant Excuse Ball (certainly useful for women who still have not learned to say “no”), the Sarcastic Ball (for those who, perhaps without excuses who ended up doing too much and are now too tired to deliver their own snark), and Dr. Freud’s Therapy Ball (which, like any good therapist, never gives you answers, but makes you work to find your own).

But before I buy & collect such spheres of influence, I must get the original Magic 8 Ball. Not just because it’s the one I remember from my childhood, or even because it’s the iconic toy oracle, but because it’s always been right. Even today, unable to “play,” it performed well, instructing me to write about Magic 8 Balls. So here’s a little history on the retro classic.

Vintage Syco-Seer

According to Tim Walsh (in Timeless Toys: Classic Toys and the Playmakers Who Created Them), the Magic 8 Ball was invented by Albert C. Carter, son of a supposedly famous Cincinnati clairvoyant named Mary, and then Carter sold the patent to Abe Buchman. But this is all umm, hazy… As Walsh reports, there are many confusions due to similar names; read his book for the dizzying details. But in 1946, Carter’s “Miracle Home Fortune-Teller” was first produced by Alabe Crafts, Inc. (a novelty company formed by Max Levinson, Al Carter & Abe Bookman, with Alabe being derived from Carter & Bookman’s first names). Called the Syco-Seer, the 7 inch tall tube toy is the earliest version of the Magic 8 Ball. Next came the Syco-Slate.

At some point the tube became a ball and the oracles went from being made by Alabe Crafts to, at some time in the 1970’s, being manufactured by Tyco. In 1997, Mattel took over Tyco and therefore the rights to the Magic 8 Ball name and market. Since then, well, the outlook’s been great for the Magic 8 Ball.

Along with all the different themes, there’s been plenty of character licensing & movie tie-in items, including Magic 8 Ball mechanisms inside other shapes & figures, like the Empire Strikes Back Yoda (1980).

If you’re looking for a collectible that is easy to find year after year, the Magic 8 Ball has plenty of new incarnations, including ornaments, keyrings etc. And the long history of the fortune telling toy means there’s plenty of old versions & ephemera to collect as well as interesting themed items. Who knows where collecting will lead you? Old or new, Magic 8 Ball is sure to delight you. Without a doubt.

Vintage Alabe Syco-Slate

Thirteen scans from the November 1964 issue of Family Circle.

Things remembered; things learned… And some mocking.

#1 This Lady Norelco ad reminds me to tell you that retro hair dryers sell; but shavers and beauty kits do not. Is it the resurgence of retro hairstyles, or the ick-factor of personal products which have been just a little too personal? Feel free to discuss.

#2 An ad for Oneida silverplate flatware you could ‘earn’ and buy with Betty Crocker coupons. Collectors may find this helps with pattern identification; the rest us are reminded that it really has been 43 years since we replaced our camping silverware.

#3 Hubby and I actually have owned an old Hoover Shampoo-Polisher. Ours was a lovely retro pink, and sexy — as far as old Hoovers can be — too. Though it traveled from Wisconsin to North Dakota, it ended up being donated to a thrift shop because no one would buy it. Not in an antique store, not at (the endless summer) rummage sales — it would not, could not, be sold.

#4 We’re having Beefaroni! It’s beef and macroni! Beefaroni’s full of meat. Beefaroni’s fun to eat. Beefaroni’s really neat. Hooray! Whee! For Chef Boy-ar-dee!

While uncredited, the illustration for this ad must be done by ‘the guy’ who did Alvin & The Chipmunks. Does anyone here know?

I know it can’t be just me; the tall kid in the band with glasses looks a lot like (the original) Simon Seville. Then again, so did lots of boys in band — especially the ones who ate Beefaroni.

#5 I don’t go ga-ga for planes, trains or automobiles (unless it’s the movie!). Just ask my husband (about me & transportation &/or the film) and you’ll see. But this retro “Jet-age flier” by Wen-Mac is too cool.

#6 This Playskool clock-radio is vaguely familiar… I don’t believe I ever owned one. It’s more likely I’ve seen it at thousands of rummage sales through the years.

#7 Playskool was big in ‘64 — and appeared as hand-me-downs in kids’ closets everywhere for at least a decade (and for two more decades at garage sales and thrift stores). Here’s a look at the ad for the Big, Big Workbench which I ‘remember’ even if there were no boys in our family.

#8 & 9 Here’s an ad for the Playskool “Door Knob Telephone play pay telephone”. Amazingly chunky-ugly, yes; but it certainly isn’t as ‘classic’ as the Pop-Pop Sweeper. (I know people, young and old, traumatized by this toy — ‘pop pop’ didn’t go well with hung-over moms and dads.)

#10 The Playskool play pay phone has this annoying toy phone beat. It’s not even a contest in looks, but this Talk-Back Phone by Sunset House likely made more noise than a chatty kid. As we say, that loud toy’s a gift just right for Grandma’s house.

#11 I literally said, “Oh. M. Gawd.” when I spotted this “Enchanted” Mirror and Comb Set because I’m absolutely sure I had one of these. A felt face with ‘real’ eyelashes and hair (made of yarn), I remember startling my young self when I had the mirror turned the wrong way. Oh yeah, and her face peeled up eventually… Frightening, that.

#12 Ah, smoking Fiji dolls. What else can I say?

#13 I know you think I liked the smoking dolls the best (what’s not to love?), but I did save the best for last.

“Slide Rule Tie Clip Really Works!” Hot-diggity! With all the geeks, engineers, mechanics, and Mr. Smarty-pants in my family I could use a case of these for the 2008 holidays.

Matching but non-moving cuff links? I’m soooooo there.

From Spencer Gifts? Huh. Maybe there’s a case hiding in a warehouse somewhere… Like behind those cases of crossword puzzle toilet paper or something.

Why they keep selling that when they could have continued the slide rule men’s jewelry is beyond me.

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