G1 ponies probably released in Australia?

[Skeen]

The only pony I ever found while living in Australia was Hopscotch.  She was in a thrift store by herself. 

[Taffeta]

The only pony I ever found while living in Australia was Hopscotch.  She was in a thrift store by herself. 

...And there the theory flips on its head

[Skeen]

The only pony I ever found while living in Australia was Hopscotch.  She was in a thrift store by herself. 

LOL!  When I found her I did give her a serious side-eye like, "What are you doing here?  Are you supposed to be here?"

[Taffeta]

The only pony I ever found while living in Australia was Hopscotch.  She was in a thrift store by herself. 

LOL!  When I found her I did give her a serious side-eye like, "What are you doing here?  Are you supposed to be here?"

Expat pony! A lot of Britons seem to like emigrating over there

[reddsetgogirl]

Surprisingly, most ponies traditionally thought of as being UK exclusives were released in Australia.  We didn’t get Mountain Boys but a huge number of other ponies were also sold here.  Hopscotch, Snowflake, Baby Billie/Katie/Susie all show up somewhat commonly.  We had our own version of the Activity Club which released the same ponies and TAF babies were available somehow, though I can’t confirm if it was a mail in offer or not.  A collector wrote to Hasbro about two decades ago now and got a full MIP set directly, long after they were released.

I know people who remember seeing various UK ponies and the kitchen playset in store so it’s not a case of immigrating with them.  Especially when you consider how expensive immigrating to Australia was at that time.  Most families wouldn’t be packing a great deal of toys for their children and would be opting to rebuy them over giving up precious shipping container space.

The most common ponies however are the three newborns Baby Sunset, etc. These were sold in Easter egg packaging and several Aussie collectors remember them but no photo evidence has ever appeared.

[freezestime]

The only pony I ever found while living in Australia was Hopscotch.  She was in a thrift store by herself. 

LOL!  When I found her I did give her a serious side-eye like, "What are you doing here?  Are you supposed to be here?"

Expat pony! A lot of Britons seem to like emigrating over there

I'd second that here! I've seen a lot more Hopscotches than Peachy's online and the pink Melody with star pony (I think that's the dutch one) more than twice but they all popped up at the same time. There's also a MLP lot with g4 blindbags and a G1 MLP Tales Bon Bon on FB marketplace.

Post Merge: August 21, 2019, 06:37:42 AM

Surprisingly, most ponies traditionally thought of as being UK exclusives were released in Australia.  We didn’t get Mountain Boys but a huge number of other ponies were also sold here.  Hopscotch, Snowflake, Baby Billie/Katie/Susie all show up somewhat commonly.  We had our own version of the Activity Club which released the same ponies and TAF babies were available somehow, though I can’t confirm if it was a mail in offer or not.  A collector wrote to Hasbro about two decades ago now and got a full MIP set directly, long after they were released.

I know people who remember seeing various UK ponies and the kitchen playset in store so it’s not a case of immigrating with them.  Especially when you consider how expensive immigrating to Australia was at that time.  Most families wouldn’t be packing a great deal of toys for their children and would be opting to rebuy them over giving up precious shipping container space.

The most common ponies however are the three newborns Baby Sunset, etc. These were sold in Easter egg packaging and several Aussie collectors remember them but no photo evidence has ever appeared.

Yeah, I've seen the red baby the most (I think baby Sunset) included with lots more than twice. Plus that correlates with my Moondream.

[freezestime]

Updated with newer findings

[starstrider]

the alt birthflowers got released there

As an Aussie collector who has spent more than a decade hunting Alt Birthflower Ponies, I have genuine doubt that they were ever sold here.  In more than ten years of actively hunting Alt BF ponies, I've never found one in Australia.  Not once.  Eventually I found all 13 (that's including the reverse Holly), but I had to import them all.  Most of them came from Europe, a few from Scandinavia, a few from the UK and US, and one from New Zealand.  If they had been sold here, it would stand to reason that at some point I would have encountered them in the wild or for sale somewhere.  The back cards came in two versions - the English language version which was on a vertical/portrait card, and the Scandinavian language version which came on the horizontal/landscape card.  I believe the English language version were sold in Europe.  I sincerely doubt they were ever sold here in Australia. I would really love to know where the idea that they were sold here came from , because the available evidence doesn't seem to support it.

[Taffeta]

It's a long time ago now, and I may be wrong, but I believe the information came from someone in Aus that they had been sold there.

But without a paper trail it's open to being debunked as a theory.  It's also possible that it was a regional store or even an independant store that imported them, rather than Hasbro across the whole country. I know a couple of people who had SS ponies new here from that kind of store in the south west, but they weren't sold here formally.

The problem with AUS is that nobody really documented stuff over there at the point MLP finished...so figuring out stuff like that is going to be tough :/

[freezestime]

It's a long time ago now, and I may be wrong, but I believe the information came from someone in Aus that they had been sold there.

But without a paper trail it's open to being debunked as a theory.  It's also possible that it was a regional store or even an independant store that imported them, rather than Hasbro across the whole country. I know a couple of people who had SS ponies new here from that kind of store in the south west, but they weren't sold here formally.

The problem with AUS is that nobody really documented stuff over there at the point MLP finished...so figuring out stuff like that is going to be tough :/

Hmm, that's interesting. I know of one lady in Canberra who was selling her childhood collection (via eBay) and that included a Alt Birthflower pony, the green one with yellow hair and white flower. I did ask her about it and some of her ponies were bought in store, she was there in store for a few of them and some were gifts elsewhere.

However, she said she had a travelling uncle who bought her ponies from all over the world and that accounted for the few nirvanas she had (I can only remember white Tootsie atm)

[skyline]

Hello! Chiming in quickly to answer an earlier question: Dream Beauties were 100% sold in Australia - I got Sheertrimmer for my fourth birthday obviously can’t tell you which ranges exactly, but they were definitely there.

The other thing I can tell you definitively - since as I have mentioned before many of my ponies were inherited from my older sister, and my South African grandmother in Johannesburg would often buy me ponies, so sometimes I am a little unsure about the EXACT provenance of everything in my childhood collection - is that I have a distinct memory of going to Toys r Us and buying Petite Ponies there. I had a set from almost every collection and many of my friends did too, as well as playsets. They were very popular.

[freezestime]

Hello! Chiming in quickly to answer an earlier question: Dream Beauties were 100% sold in Australia - I got Sheertrimmer for my fourth birthday obviously can’t tell you which ranges exactly, but they were definitely there.

The other thing I can tell you definitively - since as I have mentioned before many of my ponies were inherited from my older sister, and my South African grandmother in Johannesburg would often buy me ponies, so sometimes I am a little unsure about the EXACT provenance of everything in my childhood collection - is that I have a distinct memory of going to Toys r Us and buying Petite Ponies there. I had a set from almost every collection and many of my friends did too, as well as playsets. They were very popular.

The Dream Beauties were also supported by Taffeta friend's experience, she got some Dream Beauties from Australia in the 90's!

And Petite Ponies have popped up online as well, although I'm not too familiar with them and they're never in their box, always loose!

(And that explains why I always see big groups of them, way more times than big groups of regular G1s!)

[Taffeta]

I find the DB thing interesting as they were definitely offered here (they're in the UK catalogue for 1990) but they didn't get taken up by stores as far as I can tell. I feel like they were meant to be global.

Do you guys know how far you got with the petite releases? Because again, we were meant to have all of them, but while the ponytail set are pretty common here, the others I don't think I've ever found. Maybe the pony parade ones. Also, I've got the ponytail ones on two different card styles - one European, and one American and I feel like I saw both styles in stores here but can't prove it.

We had all the playsets here with the brushable tail versions of the petites, I've never found the petites with moulded tails here. But I feel like people in the US have said they had both over there. If you can figure out which you had in Aus it might help to date when you got those sets as we had Petites I *think* pretty much from 1990-1.

[skyline]

I feel confident saying we got all Petite sets up till glowing - which isn’t to say we didn’t have those, I just didn’t have a set and I don’t strictly remember any of my friends having them. I had a Twinkle set and a Bright Sight set so I know we got pretty far. I also can’t say for sure we got the carousel or the castle, but we did get all the houses and the shops.

The other ponies I can with total certainty tell you were bought for me in Sydney were: birthday pony, pony bride, Chocolate Delight, Posey Rose, Diamond Dreams, Secret Beauty, the fancy mermaids, Happy Hugs, Sunsplasher, Gardenglow, Beautybloom, and Princess Royal Pink. The rest of my collection could possibly have come from South Africa / I inherited from my sister and don’t remember opening or remember having friends in Australia also owning/owning from the same set.

Post Merge: August 27, 2019, 01:25:00 PM

Oh - to answer your q, we did have the petites without brushable hair!