Collectors Pose Sundance

[Ember1]

I have several prototypes in my collection found in the UK. I am not saying they were made in the UK. Just found there.

And the UK has been referred to by lots of collectors as a dumping ground for international protos. Weather or not this is an official hasbro dump or a coincidence if traveling pony owners certainly many prototypes have been found in the UK.

The prototypes i have in my collection that were found in the UK are prototype sunnybunch, prototype painting time, prototype cp sundance and the confirmed reverse gusty. I remember those alternate uk babies found in different poses too and prototype playtime and music time that were found with prototype painting time at a carboot sale.

And the records ive located for the delaneys confirmed reverse gusty found in the late 80s stated she was found there too.

[splitting this from the Rusty thread Love pkw xxx]

[Taffeta]

I can't explain your Sparkler Sunnybunch pony. Aside her being amazing, I have no clue what Hasbro were thinking when she happened. I wish I did. I think she's great, but yeah. I got nothing.

I would LOVE the UK to be a dumping ground for prototypes, but my point was that it's not especially good for prototypes over all other locations. All the ponies you mention except the MGR and Sundance are connected to the UK, which is what I said above. It makes sense for them to be here because probably the PR stuff was being coordinated by Hasbro UK. The catalogue LadyPinwheel posted shows Susie and Billie in those poses but those images were transmitted across Europe and the first image I was sent of Billie came from France, not the UK. The images from the catalogue are the same in the Spanish and English language versions of Hasbro's trade catalogue for that year.

Yes, my Susie is British and so is LadyG's Billie, and right now they are the only ones we have tangible evidence for. But we don't know that that image from France is the same Billie as Lady G's. And we don't know that these weren't sent across the whole continent for promotional purposes. I also wouldn't be surprised if your painted ponies weren't used for the same purpose, and ditto resin baby Explorer. I expect prototypes of UK and Euro release ponies to appear here because the UK was instrumental in their creation. But we've seen many actual prototypes from the US as well - Glowing magic/GnS ones, the Bluebelle I mentioned. The idea that the UK is a 'dumping ground for prototypes' is misleading. We've actually seen prototypes from all different places. It's just true that there are some relating to Uk releases that have appeared here.

As for Sundance, you didn't buy her from the UK and you only have the seller's story that she was ever here. The story really doesn't make sense in context with the timeline she gave, so until we have more evidence, it's unproven what her origins are. It's important to remember that the UK didn't have a Hong Kong Sundance release. Ever. I think you have more to do before you can call Sundance a UK pony.

[Ember1]

I want to clarify i did not say these prototypes were actually from the UK - only that these ponys were found there. Please reference my earlier post.  So the UK might have served as a type of headquarters for international releases. This is my hypothesis.

[Taffeta]

I want to clarify i did not say these prototypes were actually from the UK - only that these ponys were found there. Please reference my earlier post.  So the UK might have served as a type of headquarters for international releases. This is my hypothesis.

I already mentioned that, and it's not so much a hypothesis but there's enough evidence to indicate its truth. I expect a few Euro/UK release pony prototypes to show up here and that's what we've found - although we still have to qualify that with the acceptance that a lot of prototypes existed for which we don't know the whereabouts.

RG is always problematic because she's not a UK or a US Gusty, but because of the packaging situation with Scandinavia, it is possible she showed up here. I accept the provenance of two RGs - yours and KPF's - not because I am a passionate believer in RG, but rather because there is a detailed record of their history going right back to the original finder. A pony like that needs such a provenance. We know what those two ponies have done and where they have been from the point of first finding to now.

It's taken 20 years to find clues about Billie and Susie, and we still don't 100% know how many of them were made/if they were all over Europe as promotional or just the odd one or two that now survive. Billie is harder to pin down because of the existence of the French photograph. My Susie came from a UK ebay seller who knew her name but didn't register her pose was different in the listing, back in about 1999. Susie's been with me since. I have never assumed her to be a UK prototype. It's only now that I have enough evidence to even hypothesise that she was part of the promotional campaign. That's taken 20 years to get to this point, and I am still open to the possibility that Susie's origin might not have been the UK, even though I bought her from here 20 years ago. Even so, I've had her a long time and many people have seen her in the meantime and we now have a workable theory. She was also sold in Europe and the UK so there's no real strangeness about her being found here.

Most of the above doesn't apply with Sundance. It's one thing to hypothesise about ponies that were released in Europe and the UK but not in the US - it makes sense for prototypes of those ponies to show up in Europe, and a very few have (although not the majority that existed, we need to remember that too). It's a different thing to claim that all prototypes got 'dumped here' or 'brought here by travelling'. We have exactly no evidence of that happening. HK Sundance is not a UK release pony. You did not buy her from the UK. We do not have a detailed ownership provenance going back to the middle 1990s that can be verified to here. Your seller claimed to have got her from a pony meet here 5 years before there were pony meets here. At that time, all UK people knew each other online, and we would have known about her then.

None of this disproves Sundance as a real prototype, of course. The problem I have is not with that, it's with the fact we don't have evidence that foreign prototypes were dumped in the UK. In order to make that claim or even as a hypothesis, you need more than a very questionable story told to you by an Ebay seller. We no longer live in a world where all weird can be explained just by calling it a UK pony. Most collectors now need more than that. For my part, I'd find it easier to link Sundance to the UK if she had been a NC prototype. The fact she isn't throws the door wide open to other possibilities and all of those have to be eliminated before she can be ascribed to the UK.

[Ember1]

CP subdance was probanly intended for international release perhaps after US plans for her release didnt work out since the catalogue photo we have of her reflects her with an early show stable. There was a cp applejack made where in the US they released shy pose applejack. I think this is the case with cp sundance but plans did not go through to mass produce her in the states so the idea was taken to the UK.  We dont know how the prototype creation process worked or what offices were in collaboration with one another. The idea could have come from the US and was transfered to the UK office with the prototype . Who knows.

[Taffeta]

@Ember - so long as you have no actual proof to connect her to the UK, we're going to have this conversation. The seller's story is impossible, so you need to take on board the possibility she's mistaken or misled you. But you also have an obligation as Sundance's pony guardian to find out her real story, not just cling to one that a lot of people can't believe in. If you want to research her possible roots in the UK, maybe try with Hasbro catalogues in 1986. I have 1987 and I can rule her out of that one, but I don't have 1986. Also try to track the magazine down that PKW mentions - where did the image come from and when? It's not a perfect answer, as we know US ponies were used in UK promotion and UK babies at least once in German promotion, but it's a start as we don't have a reliable collector provenance.

I am happy to accept anything that can be proven. But I dealt with enough rumours and plain lies connecting variants to the UK in the past that I don't accept anything as a UK pony until there's good evidence that she was even in the country. If you'd bought her from the UK, then that would be evidence. But you didn't, so we have to ask the question.

I am not sure what was settled in the end with Babydoll's Reverse Gusty. I admit I am uneasy about any other existing Reverse Gusties out there. Unless she's not a prototype but a factory error, in which case there may be more of them, it's difficult to countenance. And the fraud craze to copy her didn't help. That said, a lot of the fakes probably had aqua eyes, because we didn't identify the green eyes as a key feature right away and Scandinavian Gusty hadn't been properly identified. So it's probable that if she has green eyes, and has a long history, she's more likely to be real than not. The more that we can authenticate, the more likely she looks as a factory error batch, rather than a prototype. At least until we find a magazine or promotional flier which pictures her or indicates she was used in that way.

If she was only ever taken out to toy fairs, I guess we'll never know for sure.

[Ember1]

I dont understand why she couldnt have been at a gathering in the UK in the  late 90s and she said they had other toys there than just my little pony.  I had a follow up conversation with her and it wasnt an massive gathering. She said it was a small group of 25 people. I remember going to such gatherings myself in the 90s that were a small group of peoplr getting together. So the story doesnt sound so unplausabld to me.

[Taffeta]

I don't want to derail this thread more on the SUndance question. I do have thoughts and theories about the catalogue image in the stable and its date and other things which I think maybe at some point may be worth discussing, but not here in this thread.

As for your question, I've already answered it many times. There was not a UK pony community of any size in the middle 1990s. I've talked to other people in the UK from that time and they all agree with me on that. The first UK meet was in 2003ish, I think. In Sheffield. Run by Linnie. That had about 25 people. I was there and I have pictures. There was no Sundance at that meet. If it was an online arranged meet, people would have known about it. There were even fewer Europeans then and we knew them too. And if it were a private local get together, a stranger would not have randomly been invited to attend. I feel like the US is more welcoming that way, but it's not usual for British people to randomly invite complete strangers to their private gathetings, much less post adverts inviting anyone to drop by. Maybe a bit more now with facebook - but definitely not in the 1990s. The story only makes sense if the seller was visiting the US.

I also recorded all the rumours that were circulating in the middle 1990s in my notebook. Some later got proven, and some dispelled. At that time Kim Shriner was trying to pass off all variations and prototypes as being UK even though she took most of the images from US adverts or US Hasbro booklets. She told everyone the dolls with the pony friends and baby sundance with the first tooth were UK ponies, blue heart dazzleglow and lavender woosie were UK ponies. Everything she didn't have from her childhood was automatically a UK pony. That's one reason I kept the notebook of rumours, to try and break the ones that weren't true. We know now that the dolls were not made for sale but were in the US, and we know that Woosie and Dazzleglow are more common in the US than the UK, but there are still people who cling to those old ideas. For this reason I want proof that a pony came from the UK before I will believe that it really did. I am sure you can understand that. We all want to get to the truth.

In any case, in all these rumours, stories, errors, mistakes, there was never a mention of a CP Sundance.
The only people who talk about remembering a CP Sundance are on your side of the ocean, which implies they saw that image somehow when we didn't. I think that makes the most sense with the image in the catalogue as well, but that's a whole other story. Right now all I'm sure of is that your Sundance didn't come from a pony meet in the 1990s. I'm also pretty sure your Sundance isn't the one in the catalogue - but that's for another discussion. Let's take this one back to Rusty.

[Ember1]

I completely disagree Tafetta. I am pretty sure that my sundance is the exact one in the catalogue. The same exact symbol size and location. Hair looks identical too. And everyone stateside that has seen her in person agrees with this as well.

This pony is a true treasure and i am truly thankful to have an amazing piece of hasbro history like her.

[Taffeta]

I completely disagree Tafetta. I am pretty sure that my sundance is the exact one in the catalogue. The same exact symbol size and location. Hair looks identical too. And everyone stateside that has seen her in person agrees with this as well.

This pony is a true treasure and i am truly thankful to have an amazing piece of hasbro history like her.

I haven't seen Sundance in real life, and I'm not really interested in questioning her integrity as a prototype or trying to upset you. I am not undermining your pony or questioning her legitimacy. Please note that  I didn't say she wasn't a prototype pony. I said that I don't believe she's that pony in the image. I tried superimposing your image of her on the one in the catalogue and the symbols are at different locations, the eyes don't quite match, and the hair falls naturally on the opposite side of the pony's head. The forelock also appears shorter than the one you have. I think the one in the picture is ready for shop distribution. I don't think yours is, as she hasn't had her hair cut to the normal factory length, and her eyes and symbols look painted like you mentioned with Paintingtime's. I would estimate that if we were calling her a prototype, she's earlier in the production chain than the one in the image.

I think we can more or less date the catalogue image you posted to 1984. When that was posted lots of people made assumptions but I saved the image and I've been thinking about it for some time. This is my best guess hypothesis, though I can't absolutely centre it to a location. The other image that it so closely matches, if you superimpose them together it's clear they are from the same shoot as most of the other stuff hasn't moved. I have other evidence from a UK magazine in November 1984 which features a drawing based exactly on the Lemon Drop and stable image, suggesting it was taken in 1984, probably in the summer. The fact it appears in a non-Argos affiliated magazine suggests it came from Hasbro and was indeed stock imagery, not one of their own images. Looking at more Argos stuff, some images have the Hasbro logo and some don't. I think the ones that do are from Hasbro's copyright. Most of these seem to be playsets.

I think there's a high chance the image was taken in the US and sent out to other countries. I at first wondered if it was a prototype pre-Lemon Drop image but the exact match to the 1985 layout makes me wonder about that. We have one prototype image from Hasbro US, probably, for the Grooming Parlour without Peachy from 1983, so I thought it might come from there, but I can't pin it to that timeline. Right now 1984 Summertime is the best I can do for date. Because the image we received in our marketing is the one with Lemon Drop and stable and we can prove this, best guess it was either something the US were considering, or it was something sent to a European country for consideration. I still like the US link as the best idea though. It's the most persuasive in establishing Sundance as a real prototype, because it makes sense for HAsbro US to experiment like this and suggests a thought process towards the Sears Megan's Place exclusive. For all we know that image was sent to Sears to consider the possibilities, with an early version of Sundance to seal the deal.

This more or less rules out the idea of the picture being taken in the UK though. The reason is that Hasbro UK began their proper programme in 1985. I have that from them direct in my correspondance with them in 1995, along with their lists. Show Stable appears often but always with Lemon Drop. 1984 is a long time before SUndance in the UK, but not before it in the US. I even wondered if Sundance could have been at the concept stages very early but got delayed in favour of other characters. Either way, while I don't know which market the image was produced for, I'm pretty sure it predates Hasbro UK's inception as an independent production body. THat also predates the creation and sale of CP variants as Hasbro UK didn't do that stuff in 1984. Admittedly, they came out in 1985, but that would have been after official 'inception' and that CP concept was exported across Europe. It isn't unique to the UK. And, if your SUndance is earlier int eh production chain than the one in the catalogue, that makes her even older. That may take her back to early 1984 or even 1983...well before stuff in the UK gets going enough to create it's own variations. That date matches better with the US, where CP ponies in 1983 are nothing unusual at all This also fits with the fact that the people who seem to remember seeing a photo of CP Sundance are in the US as well. It suggests that image may have appeared in some US promotional material, some time back. I remind you that DV misrepresented a lot of prototype and variant stuff to the UK even given the copious amounts of evidence she had that those things were from the US. I think it likely your seller told you she was from the UK for that reason, because unfortunately that still happens.

It makes most sense for the prototype of any pony character to come from where the pony was first invented. I don't think your Sundance has to be the one in the catalogue to be real, but I do think she has to have begun her life in the US. We need to find that thread, because that's where the truth lies.

I'm glad Sundance is important to you. I value baby Susie very much as well in my collection. But part of having her means I need to be willing to change what I think she is if new evidence or theories surface. It doesn't mean I or anyone else thinks Susie is fake. It just means that we're trying to find out her true story. It confuses me that you don't feel the same about Sundance O.o.

[Taffeta]

Thank you PKW for splitting this. It was derailing the Rusty thread and the truth is, the Sundance mystery is really interesting.

[pinkkittywinks]

I am sorry if this thread is messy

I have tried to remove the non-relevant posts from the Rusty thread and merge them into a new CP Sundance thread The posts should all be in chronological order

For those who are not sure who CP Sundance is, you can see pictures of her here:

http://mlparena.com/archive/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=472889

The original thread on her is here:

http://mlparena.com/index.php/topic,366660.0.html

There is more about her here:

http://mlparena.com/index.php/topic,384185.0.html

Love pkw xxx

[Ember1]

The forlock is behind the stall door. It looks to be the exact same pony. I have the pony in hand so i have done comparisons by recreating the scene and it looks exact to me.

[Noasar]

Taffeta, you write really long posts...

You are both super lucky to own 'one off' propotypes/variant ponies, I find them really interesting! I think I saw a variant pony pop up on a lot on eBay a few weeks ago - a yellow pegasus in bouncy pose with fading pink hair. No symbol. I missed out on the lot but I've been trying to find out if that variant/prototype has been seen before. No joy so far!

[Nappercasper]

Taffeta, you write really long posts...

You are both super lucky to own 'one off' propotypes/variant ponies, I find them really interesting! I think I saw a variant pony pop up on a lot on eBay a few weeks ago - a yellow pegasus in bouncy pose with fading pink hair. No symbol. I missed out on the lot but I've been trying to find out if that variant/prototype has been seen before. No joy so far!

Sounds like Bobbie he seems quite common in the Uk I’ve had two or three, and I have seen a lot of others. It’s actually tall tales without the spinning tail.

The comments above are too long winded for me...
I wonder if any more prototypes will be found now that would be interesting...