Ponies you thought existed, but don't

[Taffeta]

I don't think I've heard about a Finnish exclusive flutter pony before. I wonder if Flutter Ponies were even sold in Finland.

I don't think they were. This is the page from my notebook (compiled in 1997-8, around the time I began online trading and met Helen, who had some of the variants mentioned which she brought from the US to show me) with the info on the flutter pony. I remember being sceptical at the time, and I think it may have been one of the many invented scams or rumours that went around at that time period. I suspect flutters weren't sold in Finland, but I'd need a Finnish person to say for sure...

http://www.etherella.com/scrapbook2/lists1.jpg

It's crossed out, as we dispelled the rumour as false, but you can still read it - "Tiny Wings".  Some of the others on the list are now identified and authenticated as ponies from Nirvana origins or other country releases, but some of them remain a question mark and some, like the flutter, myths...

The yellow "Pretty Bow" (Argentine Flutterbye I believe) is also on there under the name Muddled Cascade, which probably means the Cascade connection was being banded about when I wrote it.

It would be really awesome to be able to go back and reread some of the online chats about oddballs from 17 years ago...

I found my DV folder, but it seems as though I got rid of most of the European pages. Probably because they weren't any use to me - I needed the US information much more, and my printouts date from May 98.

I did notice she's using an old photo of my UK Adult Sea Ponies without credit though...and she still insists that blue heart Dazzleglow wasn't sold in the US.

[Mermaid]

Not me, but last year coming back from pony fair I got into a conversation with the hotel clerk about one of her childhood ponies, and for the life of me I can't figure out who she was talking about.  She said it was a white pony with a rainbow symbol and a rainbow mane.  She almost has to be thinking of Raincurl, but I showed her a picture and she said that wasn't it, because "it had all the colors of the rainbow in it."

I had a friend who explained a pint like this! It turned out to be baby star bow! But she swore it was an adult, went digging in her basement and there she was! Baby star bow!

[Lilja]

I don't think they were. This is the page from my notebook (compiled in 1997-8, around the time I began online trading and met Helen, who had some of the variants mentioned which she brought from the US to show me) with the info on the flutter pony. I remember being sceptical at the time, and I think it may have been one of the many invented scams or rumours that went around at that time period. I suspect flutters weren't sold in Finland, but I'd need a Finnish person to say for sure...

http://www.etherella.com/scrapbook2/lists1.jpg

It's crossed out, as we dispelled the rumour as false, but you can still read it - "Tiny Wings".  Some of the others on the list are now identified and authenticated as ponies from Nirvana origins or other country releases, but some of them remain a question mark and some, like the flutter, myths...

Very cool! It's a shame if someone made up variants with the intent of scamming other collectors, but I'm still fascinated by these imaginary ponies that someone at some point believed existed. Does it say that "Tiny Wings" has white wings as well?

I managed to find an earlier version of Dream Valley from 1999. There are no images, but I can see what you mean about the misinformation: https://web.archive.org/web/19990501021146/http://www.cybercomm.net/~mglmlp/dreamvalley/international_early.html (And while BBE Baby Lemon Drop is mentioned here as well, it doesn't say that she was a Finnish variant. That part must've been added later.)

I had a friend who explained a pint like this! It turned out to be baby star bow! But she swore it was an adult, went digging in her basement and there she was! Baby star bow!

In a way that could make sense. The pony might have seemed bigger to her as a child because she herself was smaller back then.

[LadyMoondancer]

I had a pony ID site for a short time and people would email me with all kinds of crazy claims about ponies "they had" or "had seen" as a child.  I had one person insist that they'd owned a red-haired Tootsie as a kid and when I politely asked for a photo, they sent me the brochure picture of Tootsie, photoshopped to have red hair, LOL.

With Prettybow, my guess is someone from Germany saw a picture of her when she was listed as "unknown pony" (she's really an Argentinan Flutterbye), "misremembered" that they'd had her a kid with the Pretty Parlor, and emailed Kim Shriner.   Who put up the info because, hey, that didn't seem any stranger than anything else cropping up.

It's easy to remember things wrong.  I got rid of my childhood ponies and when I started re-collecting I could have sworn Baby Lickety-Split was in Baby Fifi's pose and that BBE Baby Heart Throb had winged hearts.

[Lilja]

With Prettybow, my guess is someone from Germany saw a picture of her when she was listed as "unknown pony" (she's really an Argentinan Flutterbye), "misremembered" that they'd had her a kid with the Pretty Parlor, and emailed Kim Shriner.   Who put up the info because, hey, that didn't seem any stranger than anything else cropping up.

It's easy to remember things wrong.  I got rid of my childhood ponies and when I started re-collecting I could have sworn Baby Lickety-Split was in Baby Fifi's pose and that BBE Baby Heart Throb had winged hearts.

Sounds like a plausible explanation. I guess "Prettybow" was just a nickname that eventually became mistaken for an official name, or someone made it up with the intent to dupe collectors. It does sound like a real MLP name, just not one that would have been used for the german market.

Baby Lickety-Split was shown in the FT-walking pose in the box art and the insert (she would have matched her mother well if she was made like that), and Baby Heart Throb had wings on her hearts in pretty much every depiction of her except the actual toy, so I can see where those misconceptions come from.

[Taffeta]

My favourite Hasbro head-slap moment is still the fact SS Buttons has buttons and stars on her card symbol, but on the pony, there's just three buttons. However, fast forward a year or so to when Hasbro in Europe are hurriedly producing ponies that came out for the movie, and you find Buttons' card with three large buttons symbol. And yet Buttons the Movie Star Pony in MOST locations had buttons and stars for symbol.

(For some reason the UK also had her with 3 big buttons, too. I have given up generally asking why these things happened, to be honest truth is often stranger than fiction with some of these things...)

I believed in a proper original style Movie Star Lofty, Ribbon and Paradise. Heck, I have a PHOTO of Paradise. But it's a proto photo. And that was where the dream ended...

I never bothered about poses on cards too much. A lot of the UK ones are not pose accurate, so I never thought about it at all until I realised how pose-accurate a lot of the US issue ones are.

[LadyMoondancer]

Baby Lickety-Split was shown in the FT-walking pose in the box art and the insert (she would have matched her mother well if she was made like that), and Baby Heart Throb had wings on her hearts in pretty much every depiction of her except the actual toy, so I can see where those misconceptions come from.

You're spot on, I'm sure that's why I thought they were like that "for real".  Even after I sold my ponies I kept the backcards.  I was a big backcard fan.  FT Baby Lickety-Split is still cute, but I wish BBE Baby Heart Throb really did have the winged hearts.

[kestral_kitsune]

I could have sworn that I had a dark colored AppleJack in the collector's pose, like skin color was a deep mahogany color with the correct hair color and symbols. It was always kept in my dad's army trunk cause thats where my ponies ended up when I wasn't playing with them . but I don't think she actually exists and I'm thinking of a different toy. and also thought my blue/green-she's in storage or was lost-lickety spit was a fake but I remember being upset that my pony didn't match the show

[Faerie-StarV]

Not me, but last year coming back from pony fair I got into a conversation with the hotel clerk about one of her childhood ponies, and for the life of me I can't figure out who she was talking about.  She said it was a white pony with a rainbow symbol and a rainbow mane.  She almost has to be thinking of Raincurl, but I showed her a picture and she said that wasn't it, because "it had all the colors of the rainbow in it."

Huh, almost sounds like the mystery pony from Rescue at Midnight Castle, except she wasn't released as a toy o_O

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There was a Porcelain figurine of her and she was called First Born. http://mylittlewiki.org/wiki/First_Born