What's up with yarn-haired Hasbro Softies Bowtie?

[MintyMyndi]

I stumbled across this girl on eBay, where she's still for sale. She's quite the enigma!
She looks just like a normal Hasbro Softies Bowtie, but with multicolored yarn hair (purple/green/red/pink in the mane, only pink in the tail) and no evidence of a tush tag. Her hair is thin and short; the pictures don't get close up to her mane, but her tail looks original. I don't know what to think about her.

If she was from Rhode Island, I'd definitely think she was a prototype, but she's from Georgia, which is still on the east coast, so who knows? She's obviously been played with, as evidenced by scratched-up eyes, but is in decent shape otherwise. If she was a custom job, she's really cleanly done- but why bother removing the tush tag? Why use those clashing colors? If she was a prototype, the yarn was probably cheaper to test than the synthetic hair, and they used four colors they had on hand, perhaps to test color distribution for the Rainbow Ponies.

What do you think? Is she a restore job with questionable taste, or an escaped prototype? I'm thinking about buying her, but I'm not sure. She's cheap for a prototype, but way expensive for a custom that looks like... that. If you beat me to her, though, you wouldn't break my heart. Just let me know you got her!

[Taffeta]

I would guess it's a rehair. I did look it up xD.

If you're removing/replacing hair, then it's possible the tag got lost along the way.

Mind you people kept trying to tell me Honeycomb was a custom when I first posted about her years back, because she had Bow Tie's eyes (shading). And then someone found one with the label...

Still, she had her tush tag. So I suspect this one began as an actual plush and got repaired. The damage to the eye also suggests it's been worked on.

[Safflower]

Found the listing and I would say it’s a rehair. I don’t think we’ve ever seen a softie prototype? Someone probably just replaced the hair with whatever colors of yarn they had lying around (it looks like they didn’t have enough pink, haha). There’s nothing to suggest she’s a prototype so it’s best to assume she’s not.

[Barnacle_lady]

She looks like that yarn hair plush Parasol I posted a while ago. And don't have official proof yet how much she is legit. It's the same yarn hair type but for Bow Tie it's off to have rainbow hair.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/tqhGsjTSMEbhXDAaA

[MintyMyndi]

I guess I'm an optimist with these sorts of things. What wild oddball ponies are out there that we've yet to find? There's a certain thrill to it, and even if it's nothing, I feel like I have a duty to report something unusual. It could be something big that I discovered! you guys that have been here longer have probably seen thousands of false alarms (white Windy, anyone?), though, so I can understand the skepticism. Don't want to have rumors of something that doesn't exist.

But just when I was ready to accept her as a custom, Parasol appears.

She looks like that yarn hair plush Parasol I posted a while ago. And don't have official proof yet how much she is legit. It's the same yarn hair type but for Bow Tie it's off to have rainbow hair.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/tqhGsjTSMEbhXDAaA

The plot thickens! Her tag looks like the kind that would tear right off if you pulled it. I feel it's likely they're of the same origins, whatever those might be. I'm not getting my hopes up that we'll have a definitive answer soon or even ever, but I feel like there's a connection here.

[Barnacle_lady]

I think it's just a matter of waiting until a flyer shows up with proof that they are legit or someone who used to rehair a lot as a hobby. 

[mlp4me]

She's making rounds again, eh? Shows up on my Facebook Marketplace. I've taken a softie apart and added new hair. It can be done, repairs made. However that poor Bowtie did not become bionic awesome with her repairs...

Remember in the 80's there were plenty of lower quality knock-off's of popular toy lines. I have a few fakie Rainbow Brite sprites and even a RB that look like they could be legit.

[MintyMyndi]

They were both made in Korea (or at least claim to have been), so I have a theory. I know of this happening with other toys, but those are more modern than this. Still, I think it's a possibility that I couldn't really support/disprove further without a physical reference I can touch.

The materials all LOOK the same, except for the hair and the tag on Parasol. So, what if the pony bases were factory rejects which were smuggled out and completed with materials from elsewhere? Then they could be released the same way a knockoff would. If someone had access to one of these and touch/inspect it more closely, perhaps even taking a small sample of fur(!) to chemically test/observe under a microscope, we could see if the materials really were the same.

There were a lot of cheap PokéDolls on eBay in the early 2010s from China, where they were manufactured. A lot of these were theorized to be stolen/rejected factory stock. I think my then-complete Eeveelution set my parents got me for Christmas in 2012 may have been like this. They looked legit, but only half of them had paper tags (all had tush tags) and they had a lot of little flaws, most notably Umbreon's foot not being stitched completely closed. They could still be complete fakes, though, as I've seen some pretty good counterfeits. The only other PokéDoll I own is Mew, with similar sketchy origins, so I have nothing to compare them to.

Another thing is Blythe "factory dolls," made from legit parts but all coming from different dolls, so the eyes, hair, outfit, etc. would be in a combination you wouldn't find on a released doll. There were warnings about buying these, as they were stolen stock and the money wouldn't go to the manufacturer.

I don't know of anything that would definitively prove that theory, but it's what I've got for now. If it is the case, I don't think there would be too many of these out there. I could see this sort of thing being a grail for fakie collectors.

[Taffeta]

I would agree with potential bootleg fakie given that I'd forgotten about the existence of parasol. Her tag also suggests some kind of knock off.

The scale of it though...in the eighties? I'm not sure...it's a long way from 2010 in terms of its timeframe, and the way the market might have been then. But there definitely were fakies in G1, and fakie plush - why not?

Refurbished/doll hospital is still an option though.

[Barnacle_lady]

Now that you mention doll hospital I remember something but didn't connect the link I was under the impression Parasol was Brazilian because that's the info I had way back then. I read the spotlight of Brazilian ponies in the Nirvana section and it mentions the doll hospital.
So it's possible Parasol and Bow Tie were rehaired in such place. Maybe a coincidence its the same type of hair?
We are getting somewhere but more proof is needed

[lovesbabysquirmy]

Yeah my first thought was, what if this was a repair done by a loving grandma or family member?  They wouldn't have thought about any of those details that we as collectors think about. 

[MintyMyndi]

The doll hospital makes sense to me! Their hair seems to have similar colors- I could buy the pink, purple, and green being the same colors, either initially or just in person. The type and quality of yarn is similar, too.

If they were brought to Estrela's doll hospital, they wouldn't have had original pieces, as they would have been imports and not Estrela-made, though why they'd choose yarn instead of pony hair is beyond me... Cost, perhaps?

They did reroot some ponies in alternate colors, perhaps at the request of the child who owned them? It wouldn't surprise me if Bowtie's hair was just some kid throwing their favorite colors together.

Then, they'd replace the tush tag with a simple one stating country of manufacture, perhaps due to damage to or lack of the original. I still stand by the theory of fragility being the reason Bowtie lacks hers. If this is the case, though, Bowtie's had quite the journey... but weirder things have happened! I'm not willing to drop the similarities between the two due to something as silly as current geographical location.

[Galactica]

Given how loved that pony is- my vote is also doll hospital or parent repaired goods.

[slyons]

After looking through all of the pictures I am inclined to agree with the others that she is re-hair of a well loved butt-tag-cut-off original Bowtie.

[LadyMoondancer]

IMO either it's a bootleg or a family member with sewing acumen replaced the hair.

Synthetic doll hair is a poor choice for "bedtime buddy" toys that are actively cuddled so it's possible the original hair ended up in a tangle and an adult decided to replace it.  (And the Hasbro Softies have noticeably lower quality hair than G1 vinyl pony toys, which makes them more prone to tangles.)

I wish they would stop using doll hair on plushies (lookin' at you, Build A Bear ponies), there's a reason all the G3 plushes had yarn or fabric hair.