The MLP Arena
Pony Talk => Pony Corral => Topic started by: Barnacle_lady on July 20, 2019, 04:48:00 AM
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I promised in the plushie thread that I would make a topic about this mystery plush Parasol. I say mystery because I have never seen pics or other mentioning since I got her. Here are the pics. Because I don't have a cp Parasol plush I took Starshine for comparing.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/tqhGsjTSMEbhXDAaA
And here is the background story.
It was about 2006-2007 that a member joined a dutch ponyforum. She showed the pony off mentioning she was Brasilian. That member didn't stick around long and the plush went somewhere in my memory. It must have been Queens day 2008 (now Kings day) that I saw this pony again. I was ponyhunting through my usual location and there she was on the ground. I picked her up quickly, paid for her and moved on. It did cross my mind to ask the selling girl how she got the pony but on the other side if this was a collector it would not have ended for sale on such a day. Back home, showed her to my fellow dutch collectors. There were mixed responses and not everyone thought she was legit when I linked them to the former member. I deciced to keep her anyhow hoping some more info will show up through time. I have joined the Arena earlier and knew I had to follow this forum since this would be the place where new pony stuff pops up. Throughout the years I checked the Nirvana sections, South American Ebay, google pictures and started to go to conventions. But never saw her again.
So now the time is right to find out who she really is.
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clever fakie
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I'll be honest, I haven't really kept up with the plushes that well, but what makes this one "mysterious"? Is it the yarn hair? Because I had a Parasol plush just like this one years ago that I found at a fleamarket in Florida. I just figured yarn hair was another version of them? *shrugs* Was she really a fakie?
This is the only pic I have of her:
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Interesting - I don't know if I would call her a fakie just yet. She looks like a normal Parasol plush, same body material and color, same pink string loop, same eyes, and same symbols down to the placement. The only differences that I can tell are the hair and the tag.
The possibilities for what she could be are:
A fakie
A prototype / test run / other (Hasbro made, at least)
A modified, standard, regular Parasol plush
I'd lean towards Hasbro made. If someone were to rehair her, I don't see why they would change the tag, so that rules out the possibility of a modified plush for me.
Regarding the tag, I believe companies will use whatever tags they have on hand for a prototype or test. These tags are just placeholder tags and don't relate to the plush at all, since they don't have to, so tags on a prototype plush could have inaccurate dates and or other markings.
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I'll be honest, I haven't really kept up with the plushes that well, but what makes this one "mysterious"? Is it the yarn hair? Because I had a Parasol plush just like this one years ago that I found at a fleamarket in Florida. I just figured yarn hair was another version of them? *shrugs* Was she really a fakie?
This is the only pic I have of her:
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Thank you for the picture, it proofs there might be more. The yarn hair is not common :)
Why I call this mysterious?
I don't want to look like I am bragging but I have been collecting MLP over 15 years, saw and bought a lot ponies and met a lot of pony people. So you can say I acquired some pony knowledge throughout the years. So with the internet and social media era you would expect that someone would have posted this pony somewhere either as a brag or on of the known mlp sites marking her fake or real. Or in the released MLP books. Thats why I call this mysterious :)
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Regarding the tag, I believe companies will use whatever tags they have on hand for a prototype or test. These tags are just placeholder tags and don't relate to the plush at all, since they don't have to, so tags on a prototype plush could have inaccurate dates and or other markings.
I didn't think this was true.
This treat heart pig is an example of having a normal tag (although its inside out): https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Vintage-Care-Bear-Prototype-Treat-Heart-Pig-Plush-1984-/292037664256?_trksid=p2047675.m43663.l44720&nordt=true&rt=nc&orig_cvip=true
(This is an ended auction, so should be ok).
Although maybe being inside out is an example of that? I dunno. that made in korea one is odd.
I thought at this time period a prototype would be created in house. Something from the factory would be a factory sample.
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Regarding the tag, I believe companies will use whatever tags they have on hand for a prototype or test. These tags are just placeholder tags and don't relate to the plush at all, since they don't have to, so tags on a prototype plush could have inaccurate dates and or other markings.
I didn't think this was true.
This treat heart pig is an example of having a normal tag (although its inside out): https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Vintage-Care-Bear-Prototype-Treat-Heart-Pig-Plush-1984-/292037664256?_trksid=p2047675.m43663.l44720&nordt=true&rt=nc&orig_cvip=true
(This is an ended auction, so should be ok).
Although maybe being inside out is an example of that? I dunno. that made in korea one is odd.
I thought at this time period a prototype would be created in house. Something from the factory would be a factory sample.
Maybe - I know the Mario/Jumpman prototype that was found had a tag with the wrong date on it, and the company used a different tag. It may have been just Etone, the company making that Mario plush, that did this though. The tag is odd either way :what:
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Her umbrellas are sewn very badly off-position, and the Made in Korea tag is nothing like the Hasbro Softies tag. and yarn hair vs. brushable hair.... Rainbow Brite's horse Starlite has yarn hair.
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Her umbrellas are sewn very badly off-position, and the Made in Korea tag is nothing like the Hasbro Softies tag. and yarn hair vs. brushable hair.... Rainbow Brite's horse Starlite has yarn hair.
Her umbrellas match a real Parasol plush. The umbrella near her tail is always strangely far away from the other two, if that's the positioning you mean.
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Her umbrellas are sewn very badly off-position, and the Made in Korea tag is nothing like the Hasbro Softies tag. and yarn hair vs. brushable hair.... Rainbow Brite's horse Starlite has yarn hair.
The Softies tags from the other plushies also have "Made in Korea" on them.
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Her umbrellas are sewn very badly off-position, and the Made in Korea tag is nothing like the Hasbro Softies tag. and yarn hair vs. brushable hair.... Rainbow Brite's horse Starlite has yarn hair.
The Softies tags from the other plushies also have "Made in Korea" on them.
lovesbabysquirmy was saying that the tags are nothing alike.
Maybe my memory is bad, but back in the 80s when something was a fake-- it really didn't resemble the original at all. And were poor quality.
Now fakies are high quality, and many of them look exactly the same as the original.
I feel like so many things are similar rather then different... that maybe it's possible that this was for another market. And that the tag could be wonky because that country didn't need safety stuff on the tag.
Just the thing that is odd about is that you'd think if it was 100% official then you'd see MLP on it.
Maybe it's something like the mirage pokemon plush...
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I've never paid a ton of attention to plush and I don't know the answer to this one, but I remember when I first posted about Honeycomb as a plush years back she was slated as a fake because nobody had ever seen one before and her eyes looked like Bow Tie's eyes (because she has the blue eyeshadow going on). So even though she was so much like a Hasbro plush, she got dismissed because she wasn't 'normal'.
It was only when people found one with an actual Hasbro rosette tag that she was taken seriously. Of course, Honeycomb has normal hair. But we still don't officially know her range of release or her year of issue.
Even now I have still not seen a catalogue that advertises her. I think she must be in a catalogue somewhere, but it's been at least 15 years and I don't have any paperwork for her either.
I don't know about this one. I have a feeling that usually there's the hasbro house on the tags of the softies, but that doesn't necessarily prove anything at this point. If all the plushes were made in Korea - and I can't remember - then *shrug*. If there are more than one of them showing up in diverse locations, that suggests either a very well done fakie by a company that potentially could have excited copyright issues from Hasbro...or something official but maybe licensed rather than mainstream production, possibly for a specific market.
I don't know. All I will say is that in the eighties global trade markets were different, hence why we have so many Nirvana ponies made in different places.
I think more information is needed to fix on it either way.
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I feel like so many things are similar rather then different... that maybe it's possible that this was for another market. And that the tag could be wonky because that country didn't need safety stuff on the tag.
If I had to guess, I would say this. I would guess this plush was made for a limited run in a European country or two, perhaps because MLP was more popular there than expected. Maybe there's no copyright information / MLP logo on the fabric tag because it was all on the paper tag that has been lost to time?
As for yarn hair, I would say that is probably because it's cheaper than nylon hair and Hasbro was expecting to sell these plushies for a cheaper price than in other markets (USA)
If it's a fake it's really good, and better than any other fake toy of the era.
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I feel like so many things are similar rather then different... that maybe it's possible that this was for another market. And that the tag could be wonky because that country didn't need safety stuff on the tag.
If I had to guess, I would say this. I would guess this plush was made for a limited run in a European country or two, perhaps because MLP was more popular there than expected. Maybe there's no copyright information / MLP logo on the fabric tag because it was all on the paper tag that has been lost to time?
As for yarn hair, I would say that is probably because it's cheaper than nylon hair and Hasbro was expecting to sell these plushies for a cheaper price than in other markets (USA)
If it's a fake it's really good, and better than any other fake toy of the era.
This makes sense. Especially if one was found in the Netherlands. Things do travel around Europe.
Over here I am fairly sure we had both the standard Parasol plushes (closed and open mouth) but then we didn't go in for italian ponies and such like continental european countries did, and we did have the telitoy PJ cases which were clearly made under licence for the UK. Maybe this is the same but for certain European countries instead?
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I would have to say very clever fake. If you think about it, there were a lot of plush knock-off's the in 80's. I've got some Rainbow Brite fakes, they're close, but not close enough...
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About the mlp sign on plushies. If its "the rule" it has to have mlp on the pony or the tag then I think a lot of g3 and g4 plushes are fake while they might not be.
As for the origin she was claimed to be Brasilian when I first heard about her and Teddy found hers in Florida. Otherwise she must have been more common over here with people getting ponies on holidays in those chinese knock-off stores. Or it was in one of those Eastern Europe countries discussed in a topic.
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About the mlp sign on plushies. If its "the rule" it has to have mlp on the pony or the tag then I think a lot of g3 and g4 plushes are fake while they might not be.
As for the origin she was claimed to be Brasilian when I first heard about her and Teddy found hers in Florida. Otherwise she must have been more common over here with people getting ponies on holidays in those chinese knock-off stores. Or it was in one of those Eastern Europe countries discussed in a topic.
The first stage would be to try and find catalogue papertrails. Either a hasbro one, but more likely a toy one from somewhere around that time. I'm going to check the UK argos ones as I know one or two have plushes in, I'm not sure if I have those files on the PC or if I'm going to have to dig - but I don't think I can make a match to here.
I'm always sceptical of something until there's a paper trail. I still don't believe in CP Sundance and it took me about 12 years to believe in reverse Gusty. But I don't think we have enough information on this either way to confirm or deny at the moment, just speculate. The fact multiple have been found in various parts of the world is a good thing in it's favour.
Only recently we had the whole discussion about the sundance/pearl hybrid of which there are now four? known examples? For a long while that was also dismissed as a fakie but there are more than one and they've been found in low key situations that indicate they're probably princess hybrid ponies from the end of the line.
We just need more data with this. We need a paper trail of some kind.
Plush Honeycomb was only proven genuine in the eyes of the community when she was found with her paper tags still attached.
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...I need her. OMG.
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Man, I wish I had more pics of mine or that I could remember anything about what kind of bum tag she had, but I just don't. I found her at that fleamarket almost 20 years ago when I was just starting out collecting and didn't really know anything about MLP merchandise. I just knew she was Parasol and thought it was cool she had yarn hair. Never thought she was something possibly interesting. lol! I know I sold her off at one point, but no clue exactly when or to whom. Sorry I can't help with any more of this mystery!
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I think papertrail is a good one to find out if she was official.