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Author Topic: Starshine Identification Help (3 Variations).  (Read 3404 times)

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Offline crystaldrake

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Starshine Identification Help (3 Variations).
« on: February 28, 2013, 02:25:38 PM »
When I was young, I remember Starshine to have a soft plastic body and rainbow hair. Now that my daughter and I are restoring ponies, most of the Starshine ponies we have are made of a slightly harder plastic that says white and the bodies actually appear to be slightly larger? The hoof marks all show the same year stamp of 1983.

So, now I am trying to figure out if these are are just basic USA (Hong Kong made) variants of Starshine... Or if they are something more or special (well, all ponies are special.... but you know what I mean. Lol!). There are differences in shape, symbol (color and size), eye color, and hair colors. Hoof prints all show as Hong Kong and 1983.

STARSHINE # 1: Smaller body, softer plastic, symbol is golden yellow with slight glint (symbol is different in size and color), body is tan/purplish (maybe aged white). Blue eyes. Hair is normal rainbow colors. (Note: She also has age/cancer spots).
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STARSHINE #2: Larger body, bright white, symbol is gold glitter. Eyes are turquoise blue. Hair is normal rainbow colors.
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STARSHINE #3: Larger body, bright white, symbol is gold glitter. Eyes are turquoise blue. Hair is pastel rainbow colors.
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Re: Starshine Identification Help (3 Variations).
« Reply #1 on: February 28, 2013, 03:21:47 PM »
I'm not an expert, but I'll take a stab at one. XD

I think Starshine #1 looks sunburnt. That, or extremely discolored through age. I would guess that her symbol appears yellow because of glitter loss/rusting.

And I think #3 may have faded hair. I'm only guessing that because her hair is so evenly faded in all the colors. Have you tried deheading her and checking the hair inside the pony? Also, is she missing her blush, or am I imagining things?

And #2 is such a beautiful white!! That's all I can say about her! XD

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Re: Starshine Identification Help (3 Variations).
« Reply #2 on: February 28, 2013, 03:34:58 PM »
yes you can't sunfade the first one but you can the second and third, top is prone to cancer and sunburn (or reaction from the sun) and the other prone to pin dot mold which is the easiest to get rid of, does the top have brighter pink in her mane?
i always thought it to be a country thing like uk v usa but its just a year thing or one is mo, i think some of the rainbows were Mail order. when i had mine softer body one she came with a different version of parasol (all hong kong btw) :)
yeah i love how white those harder body ones come up
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Offline Baby Sugarberry

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Re: Starshine Identification Help (3 Variations).
« Reply #3 on: February 28, 2013, 04:05:25 PM »
They're most likely just factory variations.  Not every factory used exactly the same plastic formula, some shrank more than others (thus the size differences) and some sunburn (like your #1 there, definitely sunburn.) 

#3's hair color is most likely sun damage (which would account for the lack of blush as well).

I'm not sure if the first set of Rainbow Ponies ever made it to mail-order, I know the second set did though.
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Re: Starshine Identification Help (3 Variations).
« Reply #4 on: March 01, 2013, 01:26:51 PM »
You need to think about the sheer terrifying number of Starshines which were produced over the years of her release. She was released in year 2 and year 3, she was released in just about every country where the US rainbow ponies turned up. We are talking hundreds of thousands of the same pony if not a higher figure produced in different batches over not just months but a couple of years. Add in 80's quality control and manufacture in a third party factory 8000 miles from Hasbro before the days of emails and internet. And in some ways its amazing they got so many ponies to be so similar never mind minor variations!

Your Starshines are lovely but I do agree with Baby Sugarberry that the differences are a combination of original manufacture and of course then the couple of decades in which each pony has lived a different life, exposed to different conditions and atmospheres.
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Re: Starshine Identification Help (3 Variations).
« Reply #5 on: March 04, 2013, 03:46:47 PM »
Thank you so much. :) I am trying to learn and its a slow process.

When I was young, I collected all the MLP from their first initial releases and so that was fairly easy to track and understand because I knew their histories. Basically, my mother would buy the ponies for me as soon as each one was released in the store. So, I literally owned all of the original ponies from the time they showed up at the store or were available for mail order (approximately the first 250 that came out). The only real variations(?) that I ever noticed growing up was the light blue vs. the secondary darker blue rendition of Bow Tie, and some of the first and second year re-releases of the original set (they sold them, then they disappeared for a bit, and then suddenly reappeared with very slight modifications or shade differences).

However, now I am trying to restore ponies and am receiving all these funky things from different global locations! Lol! So, its been a wonderful and fantastic experience, but can be a bit challenging when trying to make heads and tails of some of the mold differences, variances in color, etc. and then combine that with the craziness that seems to have afflicted some of these poor pony's lives.... ;) Fun stuff!  :P

Post Merge: March 04, 2013, 03:55:43 PM

yes you can't sunfade the first one but you can the second and third, top is prone to cancer and sunburn (or reaction from the sun) and the other prone to pin dot mold which is the easiest to get rid of, does the top have brighter pink in her mane?
i always thought it to be a country thing like uk v usa but its just a year thing or one is mo, i think some of the rainbows were Mail order. when i had mine softer body one she came with a different version of parasol (all hong kong btw) :)
yeah i love how white those harder body ones come up

From my youth, the original release was the softer/smaller body here in the Southeast USA (Florida). The harder plastic ones must have been released later on or in a different area. Their white is quite brilliant and definitely has held up better.

The top one (# 1) has a darker pinkish red color. Surprisingly, her mane and tail are have a better feel and better overall color. Her body sucks, but the hair seems to have survived and is close to the original color look/feel that I remember. The hair fibers of the other two seem a bit thicker in feeling... its a very slight difference.

My initial impression of the one with the pastel or faded hair color (i.e. # 3) was that somebody tried to bleach her, but I tried an experiment with scrap hair and couldn't duplicate the results? So, I concluded (prior to posting) that the fading effect was either some method that I was unfamiliar with (or) factory coloration. I have never tried sun bleaching, so I am not sure how strong the effects would be? Yes, she is also completely missing cheek blush.... literally appears that *all* of her cheek color is gone.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2013, 03:55:43 PM by crystaldrake »

Offline Baby Sugarberry

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Re: Starshine Identification Help (3 Variations).
« Reply #6 on: March 04, 2013, 05:45:14 PM »
Missing blush might be accounted for any number of ways, from improper cleaning, to getting none at the factory by mistake, to total sun fading.  The sun is incredibly powerful, and over enough time quite capable of bleaching out blush entirely, especially since it's red based, the least stable of the pigments.

As far as I know sun damage is the only thing that alters pony hair color like that.  Seashell's hair color is prone to changing from green to a more aqua hue, and of course the notorious "fading pink" is a prime example. 

Amazing that you remember all that from your youth!  I wish I had half as good a memory about my own ponies, I'm pretty sure I don't even recall all the ones I had.  :blush:
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Re: Starshine Identification Help (3 Variations).
« Reply #7 on: March 05, 2013, 05:09:29 PM »
Its the best thing about being a collector sometimes..thinking back to the ponies you had and then finding out about all the other amazing ponies which could be found the world over and as kids in the 80s we had no idea about!

Have fun!
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Re: Starshine Identification Help (3 Variations).
« Reply #8 on: March 05, 2013, 05:55:55 PM »
The softness of a pony can just be an age factor and nothing more.  The more they age depending on the environment they have been in the plastic begins to degrade and the pony will become harder.
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Re: Starshine Identification Help (3 Variations).
« Reply #9 on: March 06, 2013, 03:01:42 PM »
The softness of a pony can just be an age factor and nothing more.  The more they age depending on the environment they have been in the plastic begins to degrade and the pony will become harder.

Yes ^ this

The plasticiser leaking from the plastic obviously reduces the flexibility and softness of the plastic causing the plastic to become hard. While I am not 100% on this, I believe this also causes the plastic to contract slightly hence the change in size we see sometimes.
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Re: Starshine Identification Help (3 Variations).
« Reply #10 on: March 08, 2013, 05:51:05 AM »

There appears to be two different plastic types... For example....

Softer Bodies: Moondancer, Gusty, Glory, Her Majesty

Harder Bodies: Sundance, Pony Bride

The harder bodies seem to be more resilient to aging and keep a truer white color. The softer bodies tend to easily get alot of discoloration and age spots. They really do feel like two different kinds of plastic being used and have different qualities..... ????

Again, I am still learning, so this is just what I have observed to date.

Offline Sugarberry

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Re: Starshine Identification Help (3 Variations).
« Reply #11 on: March 08, 2013, 06:15:37 AM »
Here's another possibility-

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The Rainbow ponies (and the original Earth ponies) were reissued a while back.  Mine are still in the box, so I'm not sure about all the differences besides brighter colors, but I recall some of the members opening them when they were released and commenting on how much harder the plastic was.  Maybe someone with open ones would be able to say more.
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Offline DannyAzazel

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Re: Starshine Identification Help (3 Variations).
« Reply #12 on: March 08, 2013, 07:10:34 AM »
Here's another possibility-

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The Rainbow ponies (and the original Earth ponies) were reissued a while back.  Mine are still in the box, so I'm not sure about all the differences besides brighter colors, but I recall some of the members opening them when they were released and commenting on how much harder the plastic was.  Maybe someone with open ones would be able to say more.
If you're talking the 25th anniversary, yes they seem harder. I have a Minty from that set and her body didn't seem quite as soft as I'd imagined it to be, even harder than some G3s.

As for if it's original release then age can have something to do with it.

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Re: Starshine Identification Help (3 Variations).
« Reply #13 on: March 08, 2013, 03:42:52 PM »

There appears to be two different plastic types... For example....

Softer Bodies: Moondancer, Gusty, Glory, Her Majesty

Harder Bodies: Sundance, Pony Bride

The harder bodies seem to be more resilient to aging and keep a truer white color. The softer bodies tend to easily get alot of discoloration and age spots. They really do feel like two different kinds of plastic being used and have different qualities..... ????

Again, I am still learning, so this is just what I have observed to date.

I am not sure if its as straight a cut as that unfortunately. I have a Sundance army - some soft, some hard, some in between, some a beautiful white and some in various degrees of cream.
 
I certainly agree that there is a difference in some of the later released ponies [perhaps from year 4/5 onwards] which are white as they seem less prone to breaking down. Perhaps its as simple as different factories producing different sets?
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Re: Starshine Identification Help (3 Variations).
« Reply #14 on: March 08, 2013, 05:11:07 PM »
Here's another possibility-

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The Rainbow ponies (and the original Earth ponies) were reissued a while back.  Mine are still in the box, so I'm not sure about all the differences besides brighter colors, but I recall some of the members opening them when they were released and commenting on how much harder the plastic was.  Maybe someone with open ones would be able to say more.

Those don't look like the rereleases to me. Those really do look quite a bit different from the originals. It can be hard to see the differences in pics though when you can't compare them side by side. However, there is a way to rule out the rereleases for sure. Check the hooves. The rereleases say "2007" on their feet. Since the OP said they all say "1983", these aren't the rereleases.
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