Do you have Baby Countalot in your collection?

[Taffeta]

So I am just curious.

If you have Baby Countalot, which one do you have?

Beads at the front of the abacus?
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or beads at the back of the abacus?
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(excuse the yellowing, sister's decidedly better one was in storage when I was doing the pictures)

It's been my impression that the latter is the more common one, but I thought I'd put this to the test.

Also, if you remember where you got yours from,that would also be interesting. I've been told the first one is more common in Europe, but both ours came from the UK.

[starbritesprinkles]

Display side, beads nearest to her tail.

Unfortunately, I can't help with original location. I'm in the US and got her locally in a $5 Facebook Marketplace lot. No idea how or when she made it across the pond.

[Rhaegar]

Mine is the second photo and I also don't remember where she came from. Ebay or a Pony Fair most likely.

[Barnacle_lady]

Gosh, I didn't knew a variation existed. 
I checked mine, beads towards the tail. I think I bought her at the UK ponycon many years ago. I have her quite some time.

[Carrehz]

Oh wow, I had no idea there was an alt version of her :O Cool. Can't help since I don't have her myself, but I'm eagerly stalking this thread all the same!

[Taffeta]

I have seen the forward beads one sell on ebay a few times unflagged, so Iam not sure how well known the variation is, but I know I am not the first person to notice it, I've seen it mentioned by others in the past as well.
I think it's one of those things that you notice if you are looking for it, like straight haired CJ, but otherwise it can fly right past

[pinkkittywinks]

I love things like this

I checked the pictures of the one I had through my hands and she had beads towards the back Also on her non-display side, the beads were towards the back.

Do any of the other babies have flipped symbols?

Love pkw xxx

[Taffeta]

You mean the other school babies? I haven't spotted any yet, but it's a good question and I'd love to know if there are any others out there. I would especially love to know if there are any Alphabets with the ab symbol, rather than the e-e. I've never seen one...but...*shrug*. I do know there are some variations on the shade of Alphie's hair...maybe similar to Blackberry Pie (who I think is the year before in UK terms).

I mean, there are (at least) 6 versions of Baby Mischief and that's I think the same production year, so I wouldn't rule it out. There are also multiple prototype variations for the school baby set - Countalot I think only has 1, but Schoolbag has 2 and neither look like the released final version. So stuff was going on in 1991. o.O.

It's not quite as bad as 1986 or 1992, but it was there all the same...the weird.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

I'll check my photos, I don't have one anymore, but I did once.  what an odd oddity

[Griffin]

Exciting, I didn't know there were different versions! Mine also has beads towards the back. I'm not sure where she came from.

[MintyMyndi]

I don't have her, but went to do some detective work. I decided to look for MOC examples, then tally up what I found on what language card. Unfortunately, all of the ones I found had beads at the back. I found many English, a few in Spanish, two in German, and one on a bilingual Dutch/French card. Not a single reverse-symbol baby. That's obviously a small sample size, but how possible is it that the back-beaded version is the most common wherever she was released?

[Taffeta]

I think it's most likely that the back beaded one is standard and the other is maybe one or two batches where the symbols were printed the wrong way around. This is part of my reason for asking where people acquired them, since there's the lazy habit of assuming it must be a foreign variant that seeps into all of us sometimes when we don't have another explanation. I have seen this version on German ebay a couple of times, but like I said, mine was from the UK.

Thank you for your detecting, MintyMyndi The information is useful even if you didn't come up with a front beads example. It reinforces the idea that back beads is both normal and universal...and that we probably can't assume front-beads is a regional variant so much as a batch glitch (or two). Even as a small sample size it's representative of a wide geographical area so still useful.

Unfortunately because people aren't usually looking out for this kind of variation it's hard to know how many there are in total. I would imagine even if it was only one or two batches we'd still be talking about a few thousand, but I don't think I've seen more than four or five when I have been actually looking for it.

[pinkkittywinks]

You mean the other school babies? I haven't spotted any yet, but it's a good question and I'd love to know if there are any others out there. I would especially love to know if there are any Alphabets with the ab symbol, rather than the e-e. I've never seen one...but...*shrug*. I do know there are some variations on the shade of Alphie's hair...maybe similar to Blackberry Pie (who I think is the year before in UK terms).

I mean, there are (at least) 6 versions of Baby Mischief and that's I think the same production year, so I wouldn't rule it out. There are also multiple prototype variations for the school baby set - Countalot I think only has 1, but Schoolbag has 2 and neither look like the released final version. So stuff was going on in 1991. o.O.

It's not quite as bad as 1986 or 1992, but it was there all the same...the weird.

Yes, the other School Time Babies

Makes you think if one has flipped symbol, others might or they might have other little difference.

It has got me scratching my head and looking at pictures I have (nothing good I am afraid). I also had to do an eBay search and google search as well

You often see flipped symbols on nirvana ponies, but that is more to do with the "hand crafted-ness" of the individual toy factories that made them.

Having seen pictures of a symbol stencil, it is actually moulded to the shape of the pony's body, so I don't think it is a case of it getting switched round accidently by a worker. It could be there was one or two of the flipped symbol stencil and the rest were regular. This means it would fall under "normal variation".

Love pkw xxx

[mlp4me]

Towards the back on both sides. She came from an arena purchase quite some time ago.

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[Leikin]

I was aware that both existed, but have never given much thought about it. Mina has the beads towards the tail on both sides. Bought in Sweden.