Would Love to Make a Book...

[Starflash]

I have lots of time on my hands and I know the mlp community is in a need of a MLP International Nirvana Book. Is someone working on this cause its been years since I last heard about this book being in the making and I can pull one together in a year year and a half if I don't take in anymore commissions, but I would need the MLP Community's help in getting pics together. I just don't want to step on anyones toes if this book is being already produced...
any thoughts or ideas Cause I love Ponies and I want t make a book one day.

I know there is MLPWiki that is very helpful too but I'd like a check book
 
you know how big a dictionary is Id like it to be like that

[cola]

I thought the MLP G1 Collector's guide and the Schiffer books had some of this info? (not all of it) I don't own any of them to confirm. It has been quite some time since they released as well, surely they could use an update too.

Regardless of those, I'm all for a book, books rule History in the making surely, good luck!

[Starflash]

Thank you Cola
I was thinking of naming my book
The Unofficial Mega G1 Check List Guide of G1 Ponies

I like alphabetical order.... I was thinking of doing it by country.

[DreamvalleyMLP]

A dictionary sized book full of amazing pictures of nicely styled ponies would be awesome! I bought the G1 MLP Collectors' Inventory a long time ago and basically just enjoy flipping through the pages looking at the images. I don't bother with the price guide because it's a bit off and frankly, it can change over time. But that book was a valiant first attempt at cataloguing them all.

An updated catalog (i.e. better quality images) inspired by Summer Hayes' G1 Inventory would be a great addition to what's out there imo.

This is just an opinion: I'm not sure about listing them alphabetically or by country. Those are already specific identifying elements that a (newer) collector may not know about; just keeping them by set would be easier I think. I hope that makes sense

[Starflash]

DreamvalleyMLP & cola
I also posted this in the MLPTP to get everyone's opinion and it turns out that a book is in the making and I do not want to step on toes if someone is making a Nirvana Book. Hoping it is Summer Hayes who is making the book. I love her books.


Can I make a Free check list in Google Docs... there wont be pics, but there will be a description of the each pony. I will put the ponies in there category that they come in but alphabetically is what i meant and list it alphabetically by country in Nirvana. The USA Run will be listed - I don't know first or last or is that stepping on toes also?

[Taffeta]

So, some things that jumped out at me.

International and Nirvana ponies are not the same thing. The Wiki is the best of the mainstream sites for G1, but it is still very inaccurate. All the mainstream sites do is cram the ponies not sold in the US into the US timeline or into separate sections all lumped together. This is not actually international pony information - this is US pony information with additional bits. If your source material is Wiki/Strawberry Reef/MLPMerch then you will just be adding to the problem of misinformation.

...As someone who's spent 20+ years working on UK and European pony information, I still spend way too much of my time debunking myths spread by the mainstream sites and by well-meaning collectors who don't have access to original source material about ponies outside the US.

Overlapping international and Nirvana is also massively problematic.

Most of the initiatives to write about international MLP I've seen so far are really written about US and Non-US ponies for a US collecting audience, not actually about international pony releases, nor really inclusive for pony collectors not in the US.

Spoiler

For example, the group known as "Non So Soft" ponies are lumped together only because they are regular versions of a set sold in the US in 1985. But the ponies in this group were sold in 1986 and 1987, they were sold in at least 2 different sets and in different regions - not all in the same place. There are even variations between set releases depending on where you live. The "non so soft" makes sense to a US collector, because So Softs are the norm. But in countries So Soft ponies weren't sold, this way of grouping them is fundamentally unhelpful. We need to know when they were sold and in what set, not what set they resembled in the US line, or when the US line was sold.

Please don't take this personally as it is not personal in the least - I would say the same thing to anyone who raised the idea you did. There's a lot of work going on behind the scenes to try and fix international pony information already. Maybe when that's complete, a list might be useful - but let's fix the information first.

If you do decide to go ahead with your list in some form, however, 70% of the ponies in the US run were sold in the UK, and all of the ponies the US had were sold in at least one other country. Separating ponies out because they were sold in the US forces international collectors to look in multiple places to find ponies they might have bought on the same day in their home town, rather than understanding that most ponies are not US ponies at all. I personally hate seeing my childhood ponies categorised as 'US ponies' because I bought them here in the UK and played with them as a UK kid just the same :/

[Starflash]

let me recap so i can understand this better... your saying that the there is an international pony and a nirvana pony but no USA run right? USA is the same as UK Run and that would be International pony? I don't want to Overlap Nirvana so what countries where Nirvana? or did it not go by country?

No Worries I don't take it personally... but I do understand how frustrating it can be for me to say that it is the "USA Run" when that is clearly false information fed to me by the net. Guess I can't believe everything on the web lol. I'm sorry for being so naive. is there another website that has accurate information. I'd love to make this check list. but I still don't quite understand how I would make it now. is the "USA Run" part of the international run or what is the international ponies? if Wiki is not correct
is there a UK Site?

[DreamvalleyMLP]

Isn't "Nirvana Pony" plain and simply referring to a super rare pony?

It can be super rare because of its country of production (e.g Applejack, Made In France),
or because of a design goof (e.g Reverse Gusty),
or because it was a region exclusive without automatically counting all region exclusives as nirvana (e.g Nachtlicht, because she was exclusive to Germany and because there are two versions of her symbol)

[Taffeta]

@DreamValleyMLP - mostly, yes, but ponies like Nachtlicht etc are not really true Nirvana ponies. What I was really getting at was that people still overlay Nirvana with international, so you see Gypsy, Thundercloud etc called Nirvana ponies. When that happens, the mainstream international releases get overshadowed or forgotten. In general Nirvana ponies are those made in places other than mainstream production, whether by Hasbro or under licence, and goofs, prototypes or variants like the princesses. The fact some of those were mainstream release in certain European countries is where the lines get a bit blurred, but I wouldn't count Nachtlicht and Regentropfen now we know where they fit (they were also sold in Austria, both of mine were from there).

@Starflash, thank you for being so receptive and understanding. Some people believe only US sources and US writers are equipped to write about ponies in other countries. Those of us who have done the work on international ponies are not often consulted by writers based in the US. The only person I know who is writing a book who has actually contacted people who work on international pony info is based in Europe. I live in dread of someone publishing a book based on the non-information on the mainstream sites, because it will make myth debunking even harder.

So to answer your question, no the US line is not the same as the UK line. It is the same as the Canadian line, so technically it's a North American release. There are about 70% of ponies in the US that overlap with the UK. This is true between the US and a lot of countries, but it's not always the same 70%. In the early years especially, the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy all did their own things. So did Nordic countries. Even within Nordic countries there are variations. Some ponies overlap and some don't. Mountain Boys were sold in the UK, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and probably Malaysia and Singapore. But they weren't sold in France, Spain, Germany or Finland. White Tootsie was sold in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands (and in France, made in Italy)...but she wasn't sold in the UK, despite some ID sites calling her UK White Tootsie even now.

I think for a checklist, more than US/non-US we need calendar years listing all the ponies sold in that year in any country. But how you format that, how you incorporate different set names, different release formats, and so on, is a bit more of a challenge.

[cola]

I agree with Taffeta's sentiments, about how ponies have been organized before and how they should be organized going forward. I like the release by year/by calendar proposal, it makes a lot of sense to format the list by country this way.

I think it would be good to source information from other collectors within these individual countries too, although that might be more difficult with the language barrier. Taffeta is a very good start with information I would want to see someone like Yisela Alvarez Trentini (from Retrogeek Crafts/Toys) as an example, or maybe some of her restoration clients who have their own stories about My Little Pony.

I don't think it's stepping on anyone's toes to make your own document or list of this sort of information- having more perspectives does help keep information being shared. I think that's why Taffeta's point really hits home for me, having someone who is familiar with the material makes a big difference with the knowledge shared. I still appreciate the US sources of course, but I know that they aren't always correct either.

It's okay to be wrong too, it's good to have the chance to grow and learn new things. I'm always on the hunt for more pony information, and I often find myself learning something new or being corrected.
 
I do have something slightly off topic, but I think might be helpful. There was an interview with Darío Mondrik, the son of Top Toys' founder, where he went into more depth about how Top Toys produced it's ponies. Although, maybe not definitive, it is a step towards more accurate sourced information rather than rumors or theories. He claims a lot of the designs where within the guidelines sent by Hasbro, although they still had a lot of freedom when it came to making the ponies. I would like to see more information like that, sources who have a direct experience with the toy line in the country it was produced. In my theory, the people who have seen the toys in store, or have flyers for the toys, will have more accurate information.

Interview Link, From Trujillo's Collector Store, on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5wYwxtgWjU

I suppose to someone unfamiliar with the topic, the year a pony comes out is superfluous to the actual toy. I think for collectors; it gives us more about what we love, a look into the culture and nuance of the toy line. That's probably why I have so much to say right now I love weird nerdy details like that. It's interesting to me.

[Starflash]

Sounds like a lot of work But Since I'm in the middle of making the Ultimate checklist for myself I might as well make it for everyone else. I know I'm going by year now and then organizing the country as I go. so a little example would be

"The Unofficial Mega G1 Check List Guide of G1 Ponies"

My Pretty Pony (I'll state the countries it ran in here[Canada/French/UK/USA]??? [Edit Turns out it came out in France too]
1981

• Brown Spot [list in Alphabetical order]
• No Spot
• Peach Colored

so on so forth to
1988 year 7
Baby Fancy Pants [State the Countries again]

• List of Ponies and Items

First Tooth Pony (Mi Pequeno Pony Bebe Primer Diente)[Just say there released in 1988 for a sec](Argentina)

• Baby Confetti ([Tic Tac Toe Pose] Green Body, pink Mane & Tail White forelock, Pink lavender eyes, Red/Green Confetti)
• White & Red Toothpaste (dentífrica)
• White Toothbrush
• Sippy Cup with Red Heart
• Ribbon?
• Pink Bear Brush

How does that look Very rough copy look like? so its a mega timeline for all the ponies. or does it need pics Too?
Also
@cola the youtube video had alot of info in it Thank you!!!
I'm now curious if this pic shows the date of the make of the pony?

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


It says 1984 for an Argentinian Rockin' Beat Pony Green MOC on eBay. I figured it was the date it was made??? but Ponies in Argentina didn't start till 1986 so I'm confused? [/list][/list]

@Taffeta thank you for all the info too!!

[Taffeta]

Thanks cola I'm glad it's being understood that I'm really just trying to iron out any risk of issues and misinformation.

Back when pony info was pretty new, I had quite a few variants (we didn't call them Nirvana then) included on my site, but I really didn't know a lot about them and as soon as people with more valid information started appearing, I took them down, because I didn't want to be telling the story incorrectly.

Starflash, the 'years' system 'year 1, year 2, year 3' etc was invented by Dream Valley back when the only pony information available was from the US. It doesn't work for international ponies and every site or resource that uses it ends up getting things wrong. Wiki and MLPMerch already disagree on what to call 1993 and 1994, or how they split up, but even in the US, Hasbro released ponies in catalogue years. It's true that they spread the distribution through the year (there is one US insert that details that very helpfully in fact) but the catalogues to stores are all done by calendar year. I've been trying for a long time to get people to let go of Dream Valley's structure, because it's the biggest reason things online are wrong.

DV is actually the reason a lot of misinformation began, because there were incorrect details on the site for years that did not get removed quickly enough. We've been trying to counteract that ever since.

This is why I talk about calendar year.

I think for Nirvana, by country makes sense. For everything more 'mainstream', it doesn't. The tricky part is working out where mainstream ends and Nirvana begins. It's why I wouldn't include Nachtlicht and Regentropfen in a Nirvana list now, because in reality they were mainstream Made in Hong Kong rainbow ponies, from a set of six, sold in 1988 in Germany, Austria and quite probably Switzerland as well. They were identified as Nirvana by a community that at the time lacked many voices from German speaking countries, but that's not the case anymore, so I think it's ok to update them to mainstream - Europe (German speaking) and just include them in 1988 with all the other 1988 sets.

At least, that is what I am doing with my website revamp. I want to see the regular store sold HK and China versions of ponies at least put into a mainstream release irrespective of whether they were sold in the US. So instead of having to look for an international section, the Mountain Boys are just included in 1987 with the third set of So Softs and second set flutters.

On the question about the year, it may well be the mould year based on the hoof date, but I genuinely don't know with Argentinian ponies. I know that not all pony cards in the mainstream are dated correct to that pony's release, but I also know some Nirvana cards are correctly dated...

This is just my personal twitch, but I would separate out Nirvana ponies made under licence (like Top Toys, Estrela, Funskool etc) from Nirvana ponies made by Hasbro (Italian, Spanish/NC, French etc). The second lot are borderline mainstream as they were standard release in a lot of places, whereas the under licence ponies were generally only in the country that licensed them. There is a difference, but one of the main reasons I got out of variants was knowing how and where to draw that line.

[Starflash]

@Taffeta, I Think I am Understanding this better.... Don't label years "Year 1, year 2 and so on so forth.
Don't mesh Nirvana & International ponies in the same calendar year as "Mainstream Ponies.
Do "Mainstream Ponies," "Nirvana Ponies", & "International Ponies" by there own Calendar year... Correct OR wrong???
"Mainstream ponies" are Made in China and Hong Kong... Correct? Nachtlicht and Regentropfen are "Mainstream Ponies" Cause of the Hong Kong on the Hoof.
Nirvana ponies go by country... Correct? I'm getting an idea that they are the Rarer ponies and also Have the Hoof labeled what country they are from, Is that also correct?
I'm having a hard time figuring out what is an "International pony". I see how they get blurred together So who is an example of an international pony then? Gypsy & Mountain boys are international correct?

Am I getting it?

[Taffeta]

International ponies are basically mainstream ponies. The problem is people think only of ponies sold in the US as being mainstream, when actually that's not the case. I think people may have different interpretations of this but for me 'mainstream' is anything produced directly by Hasbro and sold in stores (or in North America, via Mail Order) between 1982 and 1995.

Additional to that I think roughly being made in Hong Kong or China is a good rule of thumb for mainstream, rather than where it was sold. Mountain Boys are mainstream because they are made in Hong Kong. There are also a few Thai Mountain Boys, they would be Nirvana. If that makes sense?

There are a few exceptions, like the fancy pants babies made in Thailand are mainstream for the US release, thus not Nirvana.

The big problem comes working out what to do with Italian, Spanish/NC and French ponies sold in European countries as they were basically mainstream there...

You mentioned Gypsy, too

Gypsy was sold in the UK, probably Hungary, and maybe a couple of other places, but not widely across Europe. I would consider her mainstream because she was on sale in stores like any other pony in 1986, just not available in the US.

Versions of Gypsy's set were sold across Europe but most of them included Earth ponies only, Gypsy and Honeycomb's release was more limited in comparison. But I would still consider them mainstream because they were promoted and sold through the same catalogues and advertising as the first set of Twinkle Eye Ponies and flutters, both of which are sets widely available in other countries.

Really though, if you want to write a list, you need basically to know what sets ponies were in and what year they were sold. You don't need to try and separate out exactly where they were sold unless you really want to - it's a collector's list rather than an ID guide, right?

So Gypsy and her set (Honeycomb, Hopscotch, Snowflake, straight haired Cherries Jubilee, Magenta tulip Posey) were sold in 1986. You would just include them under 1986.

And then on to the next set

With respect to International. The way the term is used online means "not in the US". But for those of us who live outside the US, our ponies weren't all the same and thus to us ponies sold in the US but not here are 'international' ponies. I'd honestly avoid the term altogether as it's not really useful.

Just stick to mainstream (ie sold in stores, predominately HK and China), maybe Mail Order as a separate category within Mainstream, and then Nirvana as its own category. And yes, under calendar years rather than "Year 1" etc.

[Starflash]

@Taffeta Yes this makes sense!!! I'm getting it Now!!! 
OK Recap

No name of year Like Year 1 so on so forth.
Go by Calendar year
Have a Calendar year set for Mainstream ponies (Hasbro Made - China & Hong Kong feet) 1982 - 1995
Mail Order will have there own section under (Mainstream) in Calendar years
Nirvana gets there own Section under (Mainstream - Mail Orders) in Calendar years...

This is great info! Thank you!

Should I include pics or discriptions of ponies?

you said earlier...

...As someone who's spent 20+ years working on UK and European pony information, I still spend way too much of my time debunking myths spread by the mainstream sites and by well-meaning collectors who don't have access to original source material about ponies outside the US.

does this mean you have a website I can look at