Curating - am I doing it wrong? - part 2

I have always been the collector who, when faced with a choice between two versions of a character, chose one to keep and that was that.

Then I became an army collector, basically because I couldn't decide on a single version of Princess Twilight Sparkle.

Now I find myself having a difficult time deciding on which version of a pony I want to keep.

If you were to look at my want list, you would clearly see that green-haired Napper was on it.  However, I found purple-haired Napper second hand a few months ago and figured I would keep her as a placeholder.  Well, that worked well until I had both in hand and decided that I actually liked them both.

This is something I've noticed about my pony collecting. Often I'll change my mind about a pony when I see her in person.  I attribute this to the small differences on individual ponies - the way the hair sits, the slight differences in paint application, the way they've worn over the years.  It gives them a personality.

And now I have two Nappers in my collection.  I suppose they're twins.

Elf

Curating - am I doing it wrong?

Recently, I came into possession of this:

A big bag of ponies, almost 100, nearly all of them G1s.  Of those ponies, about a third were ponies I didn't already own, another third potential upgrades, and all of them in very good to mint condition.  It's the kind of local pickup lot that collectors dream of.

Original curl and near-perfect symbols that still change?  Yes please!

I'm still sorting through the lot, but I naturally started by cleaning the ponies that were on my want list. As curating goes, adding these ponies to the collection was easy - they were added to my want list because I spent time at some point deciding that I wanted to own them, the mental work had already been done.  Seeing them in person only confirmed my previous decision.

She's pretty, she's mint, but she's not on my want list.

There were also ponies that I didn't own, but who weren't on my want list.  What to do with them?  Some were easily "rejected" - nope, I'm still not interested in you, sorry.  Some were harder to dismiss.  Happy Glow (above) is one.  She was, in fact, the only pony of her set that wasn't on my want list.  Probably this goes back to when I detested this pose combined with my preference for the other ponies in this set over her.  But now, here she is in my house, clean, mint condition, and paid for.  If I'm going to keep her, now is the time.  But is the fact that she's here and in perfect shape reason enough to keep her?

Different pony, same problem.

I don't think there's a right answer here - only a collector can decide what is right for her collection.  The point is to make a decision, not to collect blindly, or by habit but to say "I want that!" and know the reason why you want it.

Elf