I've found that on the bottom of both Pinkie and Lyra's hoof is the trademark "My Little Pony" but not on any of my other vinyl figures

well when it comes to gems you also have to take into account flawlessness, I mean Rarity does find these just lying around. Gems are given value based on the quality and a gem can be honed down to create flawlessness. So as you can figure finely cut gems are worth much more then a recently dug up uncut gem. Given the size and look of the gem Rarity gave to Spike, and the amount that the sale of said gem accrued, we can assume that the gem had been finely crafted. So for something so small it would garner quite a value making it a very generous gift. It would still go to saying that Rarity is not hurting for bits. Also this fact makes pinning the value of a gem down much more difficult.

Not sure if I'm to late for this post but my ID name is Fractured_Rain.
I've sent several requests but I'm not sure if they get through. Firstly being that while it recognizes that I've logged on to the game (because it welcomes me back) every time I go to the social feature it asks me to log in. secondly it won't keep me logged in when in the games social feature. it says something like you have no friends in your friends list and I'm not sure if this is a problem for anyone else or just me, but I would greatly appreciate any friend requests.

the Hub Marathon actually comes on this Saturday according to my TV guide