The MLP Arena
Pony Talk => Pony Corral => Topic started by: crystaldrake on February 28, 2013, 02:25:38 PM
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When I was young, I remember Starshine to have a soft plastic body and rainbow hair. Now that my daughter and I are restoring ponies, most of the Starshine ponies we have are made of a slightly harder plastic that says white and the bodies actually appear to be slightly larger? The hoof marks all show the same year stamp of 1983.
So, now I am trying to figure out if these are are just basic USA (Hong Kong made) variants of Starshine... Or if they are something more or special (well, all ponies are special.... but you know what I mean. Lol!). There are differences in shape, symbol (color and size), eye color, and hair colors. Hoof prints all show as Hong Kong and 1983.
STARSHINE # 1: Smaller body, softer plastic, symbol is golden yellow with slight glint (symbol is different in size and color), body is tan/purplish (maybe aged white). Blue eyes. Hair is normal rainbow colors. (Note: She also has age/cancer spots).
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STARSHINE #2: Larger body, bright white, symbol is gold glitter. Eyes are turquoise blue. Hair is normal rainbow colors.
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STARSHINE #3: Larger body, bright white, symbol is gold glitter. Eyes are turquoise blue. Hair is pastel rainbow colors.
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I'm not an expert, but I'll take a stab at one. XD
I think Starshine #1 looks sunburnt. That, or extremely discolored through age. I would guess that her symbol appears yellow because of glitter loss/rusting.
And I think #3 may have faded hair. I'm only guessing that because her hair is so evenly faded in all the colors. Have you tried deheading her and checking the hair inside the pony? Also, is she missing her blush, or am I imagining things?
And #2 is such a beautiful white!! That's all I can say about her! XD
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yes you can't sunfade the first one but you can the second and third, top is prone to cancer and sunburn (or reaction from the sun) and the other prone to pin dot mold which is the easiest to get rid of, does the top have brighter pink in her mane?
i always thought it to be a country thing like uk v usa but its just a year thing or one is mo, i think some of the rainbows were Mail order. when i had mine softer body one she came with a different version of parasol (all hong kong btw) :)
yeah i love how white those harder body ones come up
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They're most likely just factory variations. Not every factory used exactly the same plastic formula, some shrank more than others (thus the size differences) and some sunburn (like your #1 there, definitely sunburn.)
#3's hair color is most likely sun damage (which would account for the lack of blush as well).
I'm not sure if the first set of Rainbow Ponies ever made it to mail-order, I know the second set did though.
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You need to think about the sheer terrifying number of Starshines which were produced over the years of her release. She was released in year 2 and year 3, she was released in just about every country where the US rainbow ponies turned up. We are talking hundreds of thousands of the same pony if not a higher figure produced in different batches over not just months but a couple of years. Add in 80's quality control and manufacture in a third party factory 8000 miles from Hasbro before the days of emails and internet. And in some ways its amazing they got so many ponies to be so similar never mind minor variations!
Your Starshines are lovely but I do agree with Baby Sugarberry that the differences are a combination of original manufacture and of course then the couple of decades in which each pony has lived a different life, exposed to different conditions and atmospheres.
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Thank you so much. :) I am trying to learn and its a slow process.
When I was young, I collected all the MLP from their first initial releases and so that was fairly easy to track and understand because I knew their histories. Basically, my mother would buy the ponies for me as soon as each one was released in the store. So, I literally owned all of the original ponies from the time they showed up at the store or were available for mail order (approximately the first 250 that came out). The only real variations(?) that I ever noticed growing up was the light blue vs. the secondary darker blue rendition of Bow Tie, and some of the first and second year re-releases of the original set (they sold them, then they disappeared for a bit, and then suddenly reappeared with very slight modifications or shade differences).
However, now I am trying to restore ponies and am receiving all these funky things from different global locations! Lol! So, its been a wonderful and fantastic experience, but can be a bit challenging when trying to make heads and tails of some of the mold differences, variances in color, etc. and then combine that with the craziness that seems to have afflicted some of these poor pony's lives.... ;) Fun stuff! :P
Post Merge: March 04, 2013, 03:55:43 PM
yes you can't sunfade the first one but you can the second and third, top is prone to cancer and sunburn (or reaction from the sun) and the other prone to pin dot mold which is the easiest to get rid of, does the top have brighter pink in her mane?
i always thought it to be a country thing like uk v usa but its just a year thing or one is mo, i think some of the rainbows were Mail order. when i had mine softer body one she came with a different version of parasol (all hong kong btw) :)
yeah i love how white those harder body ones come up
From my youth, the original release was the softer/smaller body here in the Southeast USA (Florida). The harder plastic ones must have been released later on or in a different area. Their white is quite brilliant and definitely has held up better.
The top one (# 1) has a darker pinkish red color. Surprisingly, her mane and tail are have a better feel and better overall color. Her body sucks, but the hair seems to have survived and is close to the original color look/feel that I remember. The hair fibers of the other two seem a bit thicker in feeling... its a very slight difference.
My initial impression of the one with the pastel or faded hair color (i.e. # 3) was that somebody tried to bleach her, but I tried an experiment with scrap hair and couldn't duplicate the results? So, I concluded (prior to posting) that the fading effect was either some method that I was unfamiliar with (or) factory coloration. I have never tried sun bleaching, so I am not sure how strong the effects would be? Yes, she is also completely missing cheek blush.... literally appears that *all* of her cheek color is gone.
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Missing blush might be accounted for any number of ways, from improper cleaning, to getting none at the factory by mistake, to total sun fading. The sun is incredibly powerful, and over enough time quite capable of bleaching out blush entirely, especially since it's red based, the least stable of the pigments.
As far as I know sun damage is the only thing that alters pony hair color like that. Seashell's hair color is prone to changing from green to a more aqua hue, and of course the notorious "fading pink" is a prime example.
Amazing that you remember all that from your youth! I wish I had half as good a memory about my own ponies, I'm pretty sure I don't even recall all the ones I had. :blush:
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Its the best thing about being a collector sometimes..thinking back to the ponies you had and then finding out about all the other amazing ponies which could be found the world over and as kids in the 80s we had no idea about!
Have fun!
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The softness of a pony can just be an age factor and nothing more. The more they age depending on the environment they have been in the plastic begins to degrade and the pony will become harder.
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The softness of a pony can just be an age factor and nothing more. The more they age depending on the environment they have been in the plastic begins to degrade and the pony will become harder.
Yes ^ this
The plasticiser leaking from the plastic obviously reduces the flexibility and softness of the plastic causing the plastic to become hard. While I am not 100% on this, I believe this also causes the plastic to contract slightly hence the change in size we see sometimes.
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There appears to be two different plastic types... For example....
Softer Bodies: Moondancer, Gusty, Glory, Her Majesty
Harder Bodies: Sundance, Pony Bride
The harder bodies seem to be more resilient to aging and keep a truer white color. The softer bodies tend to easily get alot of discoloration and age spots. They really do feel like two different kinds of plastic being used and have different qualities..... ????
Again, I am still learning, so this is just what I have observed to date.
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Here's another possibility-
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The Rainbow ponies (and the original Earth ponies) were reissued a while back. Mine are still in the box, so I'm not sure about all the differences besides brighter colors, but I recall some of the members opening them when they were released and commenting on how much harder the plastic was. Maybe someone with open ones would be able to say more.
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Here's another possibility-
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The Rainbow ponies (and the original Earth ponies) were reissued a while back. Mine are still in the box, so I'm not sure about all the differences besides brighter colors, but I recall some of the members opening them when they were released and commenting on how much harder the plastic was. Maybe someone with open ones would be able to say more.
If you're talking the 25th anniversary, yes they seem harder. I have a Minty from that set and her body didn't seem quite as soft as I'd imagined it to be, even harder than some G3s.
As for if it's original release then age can have something to do with it.
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There appears to be two different plastic types... For example....
Softer Bodies: Moondancer, Gusty, Glory, Her Majesty
Harder Bodies: Sundance, Pony Bride
The harder bodies seem to be more resilient to aging and keep a truer white color. The softer bodies tend to easily get alot of discoloration and age spots. They really do feel like two different kinds of plastic being used and have different qualities..... ????
Again, I am still learning, so this is just what I have observed to date.
I am not sure if its as straight a cut as that unfortunately. I have a Sundance army - some soft, some hard, some in between, some a beautiful white and some in various degrees of cream.
I certainly agree that there is a difference in some of the later released ponies [perhaps from year 4/5 onwards] which are white as they seem less prone to breaking down. Perhaps its as simple as different factories producing different sets?
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Here's another possibility-
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The Rainbow ponies (and the original Earth ponies) were reissued a while back. Mine are still in the box, so I'm not sure about all the differences besides brighter colors, but I recall some of the members opening them when they were released and commenting on how much harder the plastic was. Maybe someone with open ones would be able to say more.
Those don't look like the rereleases to me. Those really do look quite a bit different from the originals. It can be hard to see the differences in pics though when you can't compare them side by side. However, there is a way to rule out the rereleases for sure. Check the hooves. The rereleases say "2007" on their feet. Since the OP said they all say "1983", these aren't the rereleases.
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Here's another possibility-
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
The Rainbow ponies (and the original Earth ponies) were reissued a while back. Mine are still in the box, so I'm not sure about all the differences besides brighter colors, but I recall some of the members opening them when they were released and commenting on how much harder the plastic was. Maybe someone with open ones would be able to say more.
Those don't look like the rereleases to me. Those really do look quite a bit different from the originals. It can be hard to see the differences in pics though when you can't compare them side by side. However, there is a way to rule out the rereleases for sure. Check the hooves. The rereleases say "2007" on their feet. Since the OP said they all say "1983", these aren't the rereleases.
Yup that is a dead giveaway.
Some of it could be due to environmental conditions. Depending upon where and how a pony was stored can totally affect how fast it's plasticizers might have leached out. Also like Cat said it depend on the factory, as well as batches of plastic used. From my years in the sign industry and art, I know some colors are harder to produce and keep the color consistent as well as color fastness. So that again is going to affect how the same pony can look different from year to year of it's production run.
Be glad they are not china, with that you have loss of detail and crazing to worry about along with color.
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Those don't look like the rereleases to me. Those really do look quite a bit different from the originals. It can be hard to see the differences in pics though when you can't compare them side by side. However, there is a way to rule out the rereleases for sure. Check the hooves. The rereleases say "2007" on their feet. Since the OP said they all say "1983", these aren't the rereleases.
Good to know that the date stamp is different and thanks for the info! I haven't found any of these second hand yet, but that'll sure be a help in the coming 'sale-ing' season. I do know about the difficulty in mixing materials, and strange things do happen. Although none of my ponies have ever gotten harder from ageing, (just super sticky and occasionally the reground materials show)-- my unopened Sweetberry pony Cherry Treats has been leeching/ forming/developing brown goo inside the bubble on her card and on her body for several years now. >_<
Being that she's an original, then that really is one killer of a white Starshine and grats on finding her!
As for being glad they're not from China for quality-sake... very true, but at the moment I think I'm more glad they're not from North Korea. ;)
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Those aren't rerelases--way too much hair! ;)
Regarding hair colors, some Rainbow ponies did have two versions, one with the first color in their mane being a medium rose, others with it being more a dark pink. I've seen it with Parasol and Starshine, can't remember which others have that variation.
It might be related to the fact that some Year 2 Rainbow ponies were rereleased in Year 3?
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Good point LadyM. All the first set of Rainbow ponies were released in 2 different versions but "versions" is very loose because both versions were available everywhere the set was released, were all store issue and were available in the first year of release. This is probably just down to different batches orders over the course of the year - i.e. a second/later run on the set.
1) "hot pink" [heart-throb] streak with painted symbol covered in glitter - came on the UK/Euro portrait orientated cards
2) "hot pink" [heart-throb] streak with painted symbol covered in glitter - came on the US landscape orientated cards
3) "dark pink" [mummy apple delight] streak with glitter only symbol - came on the UK/Euro landscape orientated cards
4) "dark pink" [mummy apple delight] streak with glitter only symbol - came on the US landscape orientated cards