Discussion on the 'Fable' Set and G1 Pony releases in Scandinavia and environs

[Taffeta]

So I know that this has been discussed somewhat before, but I'm under the impression that the set included ponies not pictured on the card...

I am curious to know if we have a definitive list of who those ponies were?

I believe the card shows Surprise, Heart Throb, Skyflier, Sparkler, Gusty, Firefly. But this is also the set that included Moondancer (yellow) and I am pretty sure I've seen Powder mint on this card too. Are there any others who were in this set but not pictured?

(Looking at this card still breaks my inner five year old's heart, lol).

So what about Glory? Medley? Twilight? Sunbeam? Did any of them make the cut? Are these all sold on the same card?

Is Firefly the curly haired 2nd release?

(The card is pictured here from ZuluSeashell's collection by NightGlider)
http://mlparena.com/index.php/topic,391115.msg1715520.html#msg1715520

Grateful for any information I am only looking for information about the HK releases on English language card.

I figure its time I dealt with this properly...

[tootie_tails]

Surprise, Heart Throb, Skyflier, Powder, Sparkler, Gusty, were sold on that card.
Also yellow Moondancer and curly Firefly. They were for some reason added to the set when it was sold here. (Kind of like how Snowflake and Hopscotch was added to the early earth pony set here).

I know someone has suggested Glory, Medley, Twilight, Sunbeam was sold on the same card as well, but I doubt it. They never show up in auctions here (other than imported ones of course). While the others do, although yellow Moondancer and curly Firefly less often than the others.

If I'm wrong let me know.. I would love to see Glory etc moc on that card if they actually exist.

[Taffeta]

Thank you. That pretty much tallies with what I've heard other people say, but I wanted to clarify. I actually hadn't realised Powder isn't on the card, because that was the first one I ever saw MOC.

I did remember that you guys had Snowflake on 1985 Groom & Style cards (and I have seen that MOC before as well) though so I wanted to check if this was another of those sets. It makes sense to be curly Firefly.

So as far as we know the set numbers eight but the card pictures six?

I've seen white Tootsie on cards that match the Groom & Style card here, too - are those from Scandinavian origin? I have seen Dutch ones but the artwork matches the US card instead, so I am guessing...?

[tootie_tails]

So as far as we know the set numbers eight but the card pictures six?

That is my opinion yes, and it used to be consensus. But I'm a bit out of the loop, I don't know if any new information has been found. I'll see if I can find the thread I was thinking about.

I've seen white Tootsie on cards that match the Groom & Style card here, too - are those from Scandinavian origin? I have seen Dutch ones but the artwork matches the US card instead, so I am guessing...?

Not sure what exactly your question is here but the Tootsie we got in that set is white, yes.

[Taffeta]

I've seen white Tootsie on cards that match the Groom & Style card here, too - are those from Scandinavian origin? I have seen Dutch ones but the artwork matches the US card instead, so I am guessing...?

Not sure what exactly your question is here but the Tootsie we got in that set is white, yes.

Whether they were in Scandinavia on the UK style of card or the one with the US artwork Sorry

[pinkkittywinks]

There is a thread on this somewhere, I will see if I can find it

I can't quite remember all the details off the top of my head.

ETA: found a thread with some info in it, it starts out on white tootsie (something I have finally got my brain round) but it includes some other information on other releases including the Fable set

http://mlparena.com/index.php/topic,290686.0.html

Love pkw xxx

[tootie_tails]

I've seen white Tootsie on cards that match the Groom & Style card here, too - are those from Scandinavian origin? I have seen Dutch ones but the artwork matches the US card instead, so I am guessing...?

Not sure what exactly your question is here but the Tootsie we got in that set is white, yes.

Whether they were in Scandinavia on the UK style of card or the one with the US artwork Sorry

White Tootsie was on the same type of card as Snowflake.



This is the post I was thinking of, regarding a possible Glory etc:

It's cool that you're interested in these details, I'm fascinated by those variants too.

The carded Baby Firefly was from Sweden and has glittery symbols, I have seen the same version sold in the Netherlands. With Baby Firefly I also got an adult Surprise with the original card from the same owner and according to the seller both were bought together with some Rainbow ponies from the same shop at the same time.

Surprise was from the Scandinavian Unicorns and Pegasus set which included Powder, Skyflier, Gusty (green eyes), Sparkler, Firefly (curly), Medley (curly), Heartthrob, Glory, Moondancer (yellow). Interestingly Moondancer, Powder, Glory, and Medley were not shown nor mentioned on their backcards. The Rainbow ponies had similar European art and were the second set (Confetti, Trickles, etc...).

(from this thread: http://mlparena.com/index.php/topic,392523.15.html)

[Taffeta]

Oh yeah. I remember that thread now!

I guess what I wanted to ascertain for absolute sure was whether Glory etc were or were not sold on this card. Since I know SA had some US carded imports for this set...and since I know Scandinavian countries had ponies on cards where they weren't pictured, like Snowflake, I guess maybe it's a hard thing to prove for certain. I don't want to include them if there's doubt. I don't like including things unless there's firm proof because the past 20 years has shown it's much harder to dispel assumptions than it is to create them.

But I also don't want to omit them if there is good reason to believe they were also part of the set.

The other thread also mentions Powder being paler. I don't have any ponies I can confirm as Scandinavian release for the set except Moondancer, so I am super curious about all these minor variations that maybe exist...

[tootie_tails]

The other thread also mentions Powder being paler. I don't have any ponies I can confirm as Scandinavian release for the set except Moondancer, so I am super curious about all these minor variations that maybe exist...

I'm curious about that too. I have seven out of the eight ponies from that set. Six of them bought on card in a toy store here so I know they are the fable version. One of them being Powder. But I don't have the other version of them (US sold) so I don't have anything to compare with.

[Taffeta]

The other thread also mentions Powder being paler. I don't have any ponies I can confirm as Scandinavian release for the set except Moondancer, so I am super curious about all these minor variations that maybe exist...

I'm curious about that too. I have seven out of the eight ponies from that set. Six of them bought on card in a toy store here so I know they are the fable version. One of them being Powder. But I don't have the other version of them (US sold) so I don't have anything to compare with.

My Powder came from the US so I am fairly certain of her origin, but I have the opposite problem in that NO Powder is native to the UK, so all of them are imports and who knows, these days, what has got where. Especially since it seems SA may have had both the Fable and the US release (judging by ZuluSeashell's card) of Powder.

Maybe Katrine will have something to add as I think she's the one who mentioned paler Powder...?

Sigh, it annoys me so much that we can regurgitate over and over the US releases of these sets until we can do it in our sleep but we still can't ascertain this kind of detail. A lot of it was probably left behind at the same time everyone was assuming stuff was either US or UK and Europe just had UK stuff except maybe Germany...It makes me sad that we've wasted so much time and energy as a community repeating the facts from the least complicated pony release, while much more interesting ones are neglected. That's one reason why I want to tackle and include this properly...but gah.

The design of the Fable card still grabs me. It's not quite one thing or the other in terms of its style. I wonder if it was designed for export all along, and the marks for the UK are just a red herring. Is it stamped 1986 or 1987 does anyone know? I assume 1986 because that's where all the chaos happened in Europe over ponies and missing ponies and multiple sets and confusing cardage...but I might be wrong.

This discussion makes me want to buy a lot more ponies from Scandinavia.

[katrine2309]

Oooh! Love threads about the Fable ponies!

I have been researching this set for a couple of months now, and I have not yet seen any hard facts suggesting that Twilight, Sunbeam, Medley or Glory was sold with the fable ponies. That does not mean that they weren’t of course! If anyone have any more input I would be thrilled to learn more! This is a difficult set to pin down!

I have seen pictures of curly-haired Firefly MOC on this card, I think it is pictured in one of the threads that has been Linked to in this thread. So it is fairly safe to state that it was the curly- haired that was sold with this set.

When it comes to paler Powder: I first read about this at a swedish mlp forum a couple of months ago. The discussions and posts on paler Powder was years old so I never got the chance to ask questions about her to those saying that she was real. However, the main source of this information was norrskenljus/ponyland and she is fairly knowledgeable about the swedish releases I think the MOC Powder(referred to earlier in this thread) that was found on the fable pony card was what confirmed that the Fable Pony version of Powder was indeed paler.

I will try to dig up the threads I read on this, I think Ponyland also say something about this in several threads here on the arena. At least she mentions it in this thread, in the last post: http://mlparena.com/index.php/topic,290686.30.html

I have Powder from this set, found in the wild here in Norway. However, I have no other version to compare her with yet...

[Taffeta]

I am pretty sure that Norrskenljus/Ponyland was the owner of MOC Powder and allowed me to use the image for my site, so it seems likely that if the information came from that source, it's probably correct.

This is her image:

Spoiler

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On ZuluSeashell's cards it looks like a sticker is mentioned as being included but I don't see one in Powder's package. Maybe it's behind her? I mention it because I am 99.9% sure that Movie Star ponies in Scandinavia didn't have stickers. But other sets of course did...so I am mentioning it more in terms of timeline and figuring that out.

Card also mentions brushing long curls, so that makes sense with Firefly too. Albeit in the UK when they made a thing about curls, they tended to specify on the cards of curly ponies and something different was on the straight haired pony cards (Groom & Style). You can't see it on ZuluSeashell's card but on the MOC image of Snowflake on the G&S card I have it looks like they matched it up with her having straight hair- she seems to have straight hair text on her card. But it doesn't seem like all the fables had curly hair!

It's so annoying not having a card in person to work from...I really need to fill that gap somehow.

[katrine2309]

Hmm, that is interesting. I don’t see any puffy sticker on that MOC picture of Powder either, but I have worked with the assumption that the Fable Ponies did have puffies. My main source for that is again norrskenljus/ponyland and the discussions about puffies in this thread: http://mlparena.com/index.php/topic,371938.0.html

EDIT: I now found the reason why I always thought fables did have puffies. Norskenljus/ponyland comments on the MOC Powder picture saying that she can glimpse the puffy sticker under her tail (Even though it is not visible in the picture). It has the same yellow backing that the other puffies from this set has.

I recognize the picture of Powder as norskenljus/ponyland’s btw So now we know the info and the picture came from her.

I also think you are correct on the scandinavian movie Star Ponies lacking stickers. I think I remember something about this and the timeline, but I haven’t found back to where I read it.... *grumbles*.

Looking at the timeline, it would support what I personally remember about when the ponies were released in Scandinavia. We had both Surprise (fable) and Gusty (movie Star) in our childhood collection. I am almost 100% certain that we got Surprise first. Gusty came later. Looking at the issue with the puffies as well, I am fairly confident in suggesting that the fable ponies were released before the movie star Ponies.

Not sure about the curly-haired issue on the card - it might be that hasbro didn’t bother to change it for the straight-haired fables? I know that Surprise, Firefly, Heart throb and Sparkler all had curly-hair. Where as Moonie, Gusty, Powder and Skyflier did not. This was a really strange release in several ways, so maybe they didn’t bother with the different hairstyles at all? 

[Taffeta]

Movie Stars were the cut off for stickers over here as well. Some in the UK had them and some didn't. We only know this because people like Babydoll have had both MOC in their collections. I don't know if my childhood Shady had a sticker or not. I lost a few stickers over a few moves (including my 3 Mountain Boy ones!) so it could've been lost, but then again, I could've not ever had one. I do have one now, though, and they definitely exist.

Just on a geeky hunch, although the rainbow through the middle of the Fable card reminds me a bit of the UK TE card design for 1987, I also think the Fables predate the 1987 Movie Star set. Just for the simple reason that the Fables have blue name text on their cards. And many 1987 cards have black name text instead.

Not a great way of proving things, I know, because the fable card doesn't really meet conventions for either 1986 or 1987 in a lot of ways, but just my hunch that that makes the most sense. And also that Fable Gusty is a kind of production bridge between the US Gusty and Movie Star Gusty.

I still have the theory that Gusty wasn't meant to be in the Movie Star set, but got shoved in there at the end. Again, circumstantial, but I feel like maybe Hasbro UK, who seemed to be driving a lot of this, suddenly realised that Gusty had been so prominent in the UK and yet had never been out here. But it's Ribbon, not Gusty, who is illustrated in the borders of the 1987 pony club material for the UK -along with the other 5 members of the Movie Star Set. Ribbon is also in the story for Megan and Sundance in 1986, so I feel like Ribbon was in the pipeline but got replaced by Gusty at a late point.

I've always assumed Hasbro UK thought they were going to sell the Fables here but ultimately didn't. What I don't know is whether it was because stores here didn't want them or because at the time the UK was somewhat in recession and it was seen as a risk to throw so much product at this market when there were other potential markets to export them to. But then 1986 is also the year they invented Gypsy and sold her literally nowhere but the UK and a few export sites...so I have no clue.

Great about the sticker though It does make sense that they'd have those.

[katrine2309]

Yes, one other indication that the fables pre-dates the movie star ponies is that the fables all have glittery symbols. Hasbro is still producing by the rule that the unis and pegs come with glittery symbols, whereas the movie stars do not.

I think personally that it is more likely that they are 1986 release, than 1987. That is however mostly based on my own recollection of when we got Surprise. I know I have some old ads from the 80’s. I can’t really remember if any fables are there, but I’ll double check