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Pony Talk => Pony Corral => Topic started by: mlp4me on February 14, 2019, 05:58:30 AM

Title: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: mlp4me on February 14, 2019, 05:58:30 AM

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Happy Thursday & Happy Valentines Day! XOXO, love all you pony peeps!
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mylittlewiki.org

Do you have them? What do you think of them? Share some more pics!

I have them both, like their poses a lot!!

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: Einhornbaby on February 14, 2019, 06:08:07 AM

Happy Valentines Day :D <3<3<3

I have them both and I love them to pieces!

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: tailrustedtealeaf on February 14, 2019, 06:25:50 AM

I've got White Valentine! She had a pen mark on her but I was able to sunfade it in the January sun without burns.
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I love Purple's pose but I think she would look better with a more pastel shade of purple.

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: Taffeta on February 14, 2019, 06:36:24 AM

I have both. I've always called the white one Red Rainbow as it was the common collector name for her back when I got her, although I don't think it has any actual basis behind it. I don't remember if I named the other one. They are very unalike twins, but I like them both.

That card as well <3.

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: SaraMari on February 14, 2019, 06:50:15 AM

It took years but I finally found a nice condition white one with no stains or ripped legs from the FB marketplace in December 2018. I found the purple twin in a Craigslist lot, she didn't have a tail but luckily I had a donor for her, I just haven't put the tail in yet. I got her in July 2018...

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: Safflower on February 14, 2019, 07:04:09 AM

I came across the white one at a thrift store when I was younger, but at the time, my parents said no. I would like to have both, specifically the white one!

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: bladed on February 14, 2019, 07:52:05 AM

i'd love both, would probably keep one for me and send the other to my bf because that sounds cute :P sadly i have neither.

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: Leave a Whisper on February 14, 2019, 07:59:50 AM

Happy Valentine's everyone! May you all have a fun day! :grouphug:


I would love to have the purple twin.

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: TheBeatlesPkmnFan42 on February 14, 2019, 10:01:12 AM

Don't have either, want both.

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: SkyCakes on February 14, 2019, 11:53:38 AM

I have both it was hard for me to track down the purple one but I have her. they are both very cute. :D

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: Miniature Sheep on February 14, 2019, 12:27:13 PM

Happy Valentine's Day! :heart:
They're both very cute, although I'd like the purple twin better without the tooth - that always bugs me for some reason. If I encountered them in the wild, they'd be more than welcome to a home on my shelf, though. :)

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: Gator on February 14, 2019, 03:28:01 PM

I have two of each, just by luck of lots.  I should trade one pair.  Purple has always been one of my favorite baby ponies.

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: hilamb on February 14, 2019, 10:18:49 PM

I want the purple one.  :biggrin:

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: Ringlets on February 15, 2019, 02:41:58 AM

Pretty sure I have one of each  (.... why am I even doubting this lol!!  )  a purple twin and a white twin works for me ;) :lovey:

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: Carrehz on February 15, 2019, 07:14:09 AM

I'll pass, I think.. they're super cute, but I'm just not a fan of FTs and it'd be a shame to have one without the other ^^;

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: NightGliderSA on February 15, 2019, 08:23:41 AM

Now these I would really love to have, they have been on my list for ages however I have not as yet seen them in SA. They will probably have to be imported as have most of the rest of the herd.

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: Skeen on February 15, 2019, 10:32:22 AM

I have both.  The purple one is my favorite.

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: BlushingBlue on February 15, 2019, 10:50:12 AM

I only have the white one. I don't know why the purple one has been so much harder for me to find, but at least I'm not alone in that. Surely Hasbro made equal numbers of each twin...? :shrug: Love is a mystery.

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: Marlin on February 15, 2019, 04:30:56 PM

I have both; but the purple one was hard to get hold of!! I must have picked up about three of the white one in lots before I finally struck it lucky and got her sister!

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: rtattles on February 15, 2019, 07:54:27 PM

Ok interesting quick question! I was chatting with Clipper about these ponies, and I'm old kid on the block for pony collecting. I've been around for a long time. I've always known these two as the Valentine's Day Twins ponies, probably courtesy to Dream Valley. However, Clipper had the purple one as a child? He said they were not sold together but were released within a year of each other - how does that work out for being twins??? Someone please solve the mystery!

The baby comes in a mail box partitioned into sections, and baby was placed in the top right hand corner. Packed together in the package were note books and stickers and so on? (Clipper please come forward to describe childhood memory lol)

Like Taffeta, I also remembered the name Red Rainbow flying around for white baby. Someone had a name for the purple one but I don't remember, I just call her Cupid because that seems self-evident from the symbol.

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: Taffeta on February 15, 2019, 09:28:13 PM

I remember too someone saying they were available separately, albeit I thought it was at the same time...I dunno. Needs someone in the US to fill in that gap I think.

One of the problems is (as I am certain you remember ;)) that DV had a tendency to play loose and hard with the facts sometimes, so it's possible this was another of those times. A few other nameless MO ponies acquired names around then as well (like the mum and baby set), but from the little I know, I think they didn't have official names. I am pretty certain 'Red Rainbow' came from DV, like Mother Love and Beachy Keen and a whole host of other incorrect release names on the European side.

I don't have any other real info to add to this, except that the information probably did come from DV in the first instance, and DV information should generally be cross-referenced before being taken as fact. But I did notice that, on the Wiki, the two MIP twin examples both say 1988 on their bags. That would make them the same year of release.

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: rtattles on February 15, 2019, 11:28:47 PM

@Taffeta - DV was fun while it lasted. It was mostly nostalgic value to me. It was the first and only resource in 1995/6 when I first got on the internet, and while it didn't quite keep up with some information, it was pretty much the backbone of MLP collecting. For a time, the info on some new discovered pony would appear there, because people saw the site as some sort of an authority and everyone emailed Kim Shriner. I wonder how she is now, oh well!

I see that Strawberry Reef listed them as Purple/White Valentine Pony, no twins, so you can safely assume the "twins" part is arguable. Even if they were both available on the same year, but were not offered together as a set but rather as an option because it's too boring for a company to offer only 1 baby pony (lol), then they can hardly be called sisters or even twins, so I presume the twins part is an assumption imposed from us collectors. At any rate, I guess it is whatever floats your boat, but I'll be interested if there are additional promo materials to prove for sure that they were intended to be twins or even siblings. DNA test perhaps? ^.^'

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: Taffeta on February 16, 2019, 12:56:14 AM

Quote from: rtattles on February 15, 2019, 11:28:47 PM

@Taffeta - DV was fun while it lasted. It was mostly nostalgic value to me. It was the first and only resource in 1995/6 when I first got on the internet, and while it didn't quite keep up with some information, it was pretty much the backbone of MLP collecting. For a time, the info on some new discovered pony would appear there, because people saw the site as some sort of an authority and everyone emailed Kim Shriner.

It was the only source that existed for MLP collecting for a while, which was part of the problem I guess - she set the benchmark for most everything else that's come since. I also loved it at first. But having tried and failed to both send DV information and even help her manually update the site, I gave up. If she had accepted there were errors and admitted she needed help fixing them, fine. She laid the groundwork and someone had to do that for MLP ID sites going forward. But instead, whenever someone queried something on the site on a mailing list, she'd complain that nobody ever tried to help her, or send her any information, which was frankly untrue. Still, I have my website now because she refused to update hers then. I don't know if that's a good end result, but they do say it's better to do something constructive than just criticise.

In any case, the more important point is that while it's well known there were issues on the international sections, there's always been less attention to some of the issues in the US sections.

I do know that sometimes she based stuff on what she remembered, so it's not impossible that she considered them twins, so called them that way. This may just be one of those childhood misconceptions that's been taken as verbatim because of the lack of other source material. I feel like DV's modus operandi was to record something that might be true rather than admit a lack of knowledge, and the problem with 'might be true' is that a site like DV had the clout to make it true.

I would also love to know if anyone has pamphlets or paperwork for these two ponies. I remember all kinds of rumours around them, how they were issued, etc...and the myth name Red Rainbow - but I have never seen anything concrete, I don't think.

As for Strawberry Reef, that site has just as many accuracy issues as DV, so I don't think we should take anything it says as being more valid than what DV said. We need actual paperwork proof, otherwise we're just theorising.

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: Carrehz on February 16, 2019, 03:13:52 AM

I was curious so I checked what DV had to say about these two back in the day (https://web.archive.org/web/20031209163629/http://www.dreamvalley-mlp.com/special_offers3.html):

Quote

I heard that these ponies are called Valentine's Day Twins (Earth ponies), but I don't know if each baby pony has her own individual name, though it has been said that they were simply called "White Baby Valentines Pony" and "Purple Baby Valentines My Little Pony". Other possible names are mentioned below. They were not a traditional mail order, as they very only available through a stationary company called Current and never sold through a totally My Little Pony offer.

The first is white with curly, bright red hair, and blue eyes. Her symbol is a red heart with a pink & red arch above it. Her name may be Red Rainbow or Rainbow Heart.
The other is purple with pink hair, and pink eyes. Her symbol is a pink heart with a purple arrow going through it. She has a First Tooth. Her name may be Cupid, however that info may have come from a second hand shop, not a Currant or MLP source).
It is believed that they were available anytime from Valentine's Day season 1989 through around the same time as year 8 (approx. 1990). The red & white pony was released first, with the purple & pink pony following a few months later, though it is also believed that the two ponies were sold as a set.
Currant also offered other My Little Pony items around this same time, including Dress the Pony Stickers set, Cut-Out Birthday Cards, Lace-Up Cards, Pin the Tail on the Pony Game, and Birthday Gift Wrap and Cards.

so.. idk if that helps any or how legit it is (it was all submitted info, so take it with a grain of salt, I guess). It's interesting to go back through all these old sites and look at info about previously-unknown slowly coming to light through the years, though...

(I like "Red Rainbow" and "Cupid" as fan nicknames, personally :frolic: Better than just calling them "White/Purple Valentine Twin", haha.)

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: BlushingBlue on February 16, 2019, 03:54:04 AM

Oh boy, I may be misremembering so don't quote me on this, but I think the catalog I saw way-back-when did have both ponies at once (code ABC for white/code XYZ for purple style, not together as a set) and I think it was 1989. It's possible that the white one was sold singly at first, and then again along with purple later, which might account for the difference in their apparent numbers?

I feel like the sales blurbs in the catalogs were too bare-bones to have explicitly stated they were sisters/twins, but I could be wrong. "Setmates" is probably a more accurate term, but that's about as lovey-dovey a relationship as "coworker" and seems contrary to the theme. ;) I'm 99.9% certain they were not given official names, and they may not have even been called White and Purple... I don't know if I've never heard the fan name Red Rainbow or if I just blocked it from my memory because it's so bad, but I do call the purple one Cupid fwiw. Whether that's residual DV interference or just common sense, I can't say, but I've never believed it was her "real" name.

My mom actually worked for Current back when we lived in Colorado. They had a warehouse full of old stock that employees were allowed to rummage through once a year, and I always begged her to look for the Valentine's babies, but she never saw them (or more likely never looked :P). I found it extremely unfair as a child that the universe denied me these babies, of all ponies. And now as an adult, I'm more regretting not conserving the catalog page. :lol: The circle of Valentine angst is complete.

Someone out there is bound to have a copy of the catalog in question, but I don't think Current has quite the cultural presence as the Sears Wishbook, so it may not be online anywhere. Current is still kicking around, although the company has been sold many times since the 80s. It couldn't hurt to hit them up on social media and see if they know a resource for back issue scans.

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: Taffeta on February 16, 2019, 12:22:18 PM

Thanks for sharing that Carrehz. That's from the later version of DV though - what we were talking about is the late 1990s version which didn't have as much info. She made a lot of changes around 2003 to the site, which was a lot better than the earlier version, but it's the earlier version from which I think the name Red Rainbow came...

I may be confusing it with something else though. I can't get at my 90s DV printouts right now.

@BlushingBlue, that's super interesting that there was a catalogue. Someone must have it somewhere. It's really rare for a US release thing not to have a surviving example in someone's collection...

The date being 1988 on the bag doesn't preclude the possibility being a 1989 release either.A lot of ponies have the prior year on the cards to the year they were actually sold, so that might make sense. I feel like the clues are there. I suspect they didn't have names, like the Rice Krispies baby didn't, but fans felt like adding them.

Cupid would be a cute name for the purple one. I have this feeling we called ours Marshmallow. I have absolutely no idea why, though. I checked my own notebook from 1998 and I just list them in there as valentine baby ponies (white) and (purple), with an additional note that some people call the white one Red Rainbow. No information on what source that came from, which is probably as much info as DV (my source for US ponies still in 1998ish) had then. I didn't use DV for international ponies but for most all the US pony releases I copied names and descriptions from the DV printouts I took into that book so I am pretty sure that's all that was widely available about them back then.

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: BlushingBlue on February 16, 2019, 01:55:44 PM

Quote from: Taffeta on February 16, 2019, 12:22:18 PM

@BlushingBlue, that's super interesting that there was a catalogue. Someone must have it somewhere. It's really rare for a US release thing not to have a surviving example in someone's collection...

It's not really that interesting. ^^; Current was solely a mail-order company (aside from the outlet stores) so of course they were in a catalog, possibly more than one. I'd say Current put out around eight catalogs a year. It seemed like they were always cluttering up the mail, especially around the holidays. In that sense, it would be surprising if there wasn't a surviving record somewhere, but not very surprising that no one has thought their contents were worth preserving. Current catalogs were a pox! :lol:

Current didn't really have a lot in the way of pop culture tie-ins, mainly just Peanuts from what I remember. And Suzy's Zoo and Mary Engelbreit type stuff. I doubt they would have carried Rainbow Brite, Care Bears, SSC, or other such properties because Hallmark & American Greetings were their direct competitors. (Man, why were greeting card companies such a big deal back then? lol) I was really surprised that they sold actual ponies, as that was very much not their usual fare.

I feel like the Valentine's girls have a lot of similarity with Baby Stockings: nameless baby ponies that were offered through very random-seeming third party mail order programs. Makes you wonder what Hasbro was thinking they would accomplish with such non-standard distribution. They still had their own MO program going strong c.1990, didn't they?

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: Carrehz on February 17, 2019, 11:25:43 AM

Quote from: Taffeta on February 16, 2019, 12:22:18 PM

Thanks for sharing that Carrehz. That's from the later version of DV though - what we were talking about is the late 1990s version which didn't have as much info. She made a lot of changes around 2003 to the site, which was a lot better than the earlier version, but it's the earlier version from which I think the name Red Rainbow came...

Yeah, I checked earlier versions of the site too and they said basically the same as the one I linked before:

https://web.archive.org/web/19990501121938/http://www.cybercomm.net/~mglmlp/dreamvalley/special_offers2.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20010427035710/http://dreamvalley.freeyellow.com/special_offers2.html

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: Taffeta on February 17, 2019, 02:32:33 PM

So somehow I managed to completely miss that Red Rainbow the name was included in that longer quote from 2003, Carrehz. I don't know how but meh. Sorry about that xD.  But it is a lot more detailed than what was there when I first got online.

The information I was remembering was from this, I think:

Spoiler

    I heard that these ponies are called Valentine's Day Twins (Earth ponies), but I don't know if each baby pony has her own individual name. They were not a traditioal mail order, as they very only available through a stationary company called Current and never sold through a totally My Little Pony offer.
    One of them is white with bright red hair and her symbol is a red heart with a pink and red arch above it. Her name may be Red Rainbow.
    The other is purple with pink hair and her symbol is a pink heart with a purple arrow going through it. She has a First Tooth. I don't know what year they were available.

I had thought DV was the source of Red Rainbow but DV didn't give an explanation as to why that name. On other pages DV credited if an individual gave information, so this seems to be something she's remembered or thought was true from her own experience instead.

What's interesting is that a lot more possible info has been added between this and the 2003 later version. I wasn't in the community then, I was on hiatus, but I was told by friends that DV came under fire for not being up to date and for having big gaps in around that time. And she decided then to focus on US stuff, so I guess that's when she did more research. BUT in terms of the name Red Rainbow, it doesn't offer us any more information as to where it came from, instead it adds a few more theoretical names to the puzzle. I guess it doesn't totally matter, it's not like other ponies don't have unofficial names, but I am a detail geek and I'm really curious to see scans of the catalogue that BlushingBlue was talking about ;) and it doesn't seem like DV had that information either.

DV is the backbone for all US-format ID sites, including the Wiki, Reef, etc. So if DV didn't have the info, probably other sites wouldn't have it either unless someone produced it at a later point and added it somehow. That that didn't happen suggests maybe there ISN'T a surviving example of this catalogue..? At least, not in our community. Maybe in a catalogue collecting community. That's where I got most of my argos scans from...

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: achab1984 on February 17, 2019, 06:04:40 PM

I use to have but no longer have her.

Title: Re: POTD 2/14/19 Valentine Twins
Post by: rtattles on February 17, 2019, 08:55:26 PM

I'm so glad DV survived through the archives!!! I kind of miss having it float around. I prefer the original site when Kim Shriner used the pictures from backcards and catalogues instead of the real photos, and I remembered having a scanner that could scan out the ponies was a huge rage. I had one but all it scanned out were black shadows. Then we started to have a digital camera - WOoooOOoooo. lol

I guess the whole backstory to these two babies are still inconclusive huh? I've also remembered other names being tossed around like white baby being called Lovebeam, Heartbeam, Heartbow ...etc. Purple baby was pretty much standard Cupid, although I seem to recall someone calling the two "Bow" & "Arrow", which ....kind of makes sense? Even though it was all speculation, it was kind of fun.