Why do Nirvanas actually exist?

[shimmlight]

I was thinking about Nirvanas today, and I started to wonder about why they actually exist! Why did certain countries make the ponies themselves rather than having them imported? Was it to do with finance or was it done for like, "exclusive collector" type reasons? Or something else? And why do the designs often look very different depending on the country? It doesn't happen with the later generations and I'm just curious 

[pinkkittywinks]

Hasbro sold the licence for MLP to the various toy manufacturers throughout Europe and South America.

I doubt it was to make exclusive ponies, I think it was more to do with import and export in the 1980's.

I believe that the difference in designs and colours is down to cultural, taste and fashion differences

Love pkw xxx

[shimmlight]

Hasbro sold the licence for MLP to the various toy manufacturers throughout Europe and South America.

I doubt it was to make exclusive ponies, I think it was more to do with import and export in the 1980's.

I believe that the difference in designs and colours is down to cultural, taste and fashion differences

Love pkw xxx

Ah okay that makes a lot of sense! Thanks x

[Rainfeather]

Hasbro sold the licence for MLP to the various toy manufacturers throughout Europe and South America.

I doubt it was to make exclusive ponies, I think it was more to do with import and export in the 1980's.

I believe that the difference in designs and colours is down to cultural, taste and fashion differences

Love pkw xxx

I feel otherwise, I think the difference in designs is also 'money' and bad communication. Cherries jubilee with cherries upside down? Someone over there received the design but didn't get they were cherries.
Moneywise they seem to be made as cheap as possible in poorer countries... sold with bad hair or even no hair and in simple plastic bags. Badly painted symbols, same mold or symbol used over and over again, wrinkled plastic...
Did Hasbro know this? Did Hasbro give them the freedom to do so? Did Hasbro not care because the money was also made? Didn't Hasbro have the resources to check these factories work regurarly (Flying was expensive, no internet like nowadays) ? Did the factories misuse the license to make cheap ponies to make some quick bucks? I don't know.
But I don't think the design are cultural. They clearly got some kind of orders for the symbols and poses etc... something just went wrong. Luckely. Because I love those weirdo's. 

[Dulci]

Import / export - it was cheaper for factories to make ponies in-country on the Hasbro license than for Hasbro to have to ship them out from China.  (Which is a complete flip from nowadays.)  As for differences, I'm not sure but I don't think that it was too big a deal as long as Hasbro did get their cut.

The stipulation was that you were not to sell out of your home country.  This is actually why Greeks are so rare - they were found in the Netherlands and a few other places and then the factory "mysteriously" burned down.

[pinkkittywinks]

Hasbro sold the licence for MLP to the various toy manufacturers throughout Europe and South America.

I doubt it was to make exclusive ponies, I think it was more to do with import and export in the 1980's.

I believe that the difference in designs and colours is down to cultural, taste and fashion differences

Love pkw xxx

I feel otherwise, I think the difference in designs is also 'money' and bad communication. Cherries jubilee with cherries upside down? Someone over there received the design but didn't get they were cherries.
Moneywise they seem to be made as cheap as possible in poorer countries... sold with bad hair or even no hair and in simple plastic bags. Badly painted symbols, same mold or symbol used over and over again, wrinkled plastic...
Did Hasbro know this? Did Hasbro give them the freedom to do so? Did Hasbro not care because the money was also made? Didn't Hasbro have the resources to check these factories work regurarly (Flying was expensive, no internet like nowadays) ? Did the factories misuse the license to make cheap ponies to make some quick bucks? I don't know.
But I don't think the design are cultural. They clearly got some kind of orders for the symbols and poses etc... something just went wrong. Luckely. Because I love those weirdo's. 

What you say may well have some truth in it. Many of the South American countries are much poorer and so quality will have been less.

 I do believe that culture plays it's part, especially with the Greek ponies.

The Easter ponies are a great example of this. Easter is bigger than Christmas at Easter time children get a special big gift. The Easter ponies symbols are completely intertwined with Greek culture. Another example is that the Greek baby ponies were sold nameless because in Greek tradition you don't name your child until it is christened when it's a year old.

Love pkw xxx

[wizzer218]

It does have to do with culture too I agree .....some places never had unicorns because of their beliefs 

[Rainfeather]

The easter thing I can understand.
But the no unicorns? Tell me more! Which countries do you mean? Interesting!

Side question; why were the last ponies only sold in the Netherlands? (why did g2 only continue in Europe)?

[Bibinettepony]

I also do think some ponies were accorded to the culture and PKW gives good example of the Greek ones and Wizzer for the unicorns.

The french ponies are also an example, we had some special variations and I am sure they were made for the 'taste" of colors of French people 

and thanks to all this!! We have now wonderful Nirvanas 

[pinkkittywinks]

There have always been less unicorns released. I have heard of parents chopping horns off!

I know for a fact no unicorn ponies were made in Brazil this is why moonstone is a Pegasus and Milky-way is an earth pony.

Culture is also shown in the back card stories, marketing, inter pony relationships in comics/books and the names of the ponies. These all vary from country to country. Italy is an excellent example: Bubbles is male along with a few others! We know this from the gender of the names they were given.The ponies are also aunts and nieces rather than mothers and babies in the stories. The ponies were also packaged and sold differently. Interestingly many of the variants are shown in art work, marketing photographs and on name cards/pamphlets.

Fakies also sneak in here. There are the dance and prance pose fakies which were made in Argentina using a hasbro mould. There are also the squeaky butt ponies (sold in bags with no hair) these were made by bisanti who made MLP under licence in Venezuela, but they made these fakies too. It could be they were made after the licence ran out and they still had the moulds, there are a few different thoughts on this.

There are many oddities floating about and we don't really have any explanation. We do know for a fact that many factories using hand finishes on their ponies, such as stamping the eyes and symbols on and even hand painting eye lashes on. This accounts for some quirks, but not all.

Love pkw xxx

[shimmlight]

This is all very interesting, they make so much more sense to me now why do German and Dutch ponies not count as proper Nirvanas though? Or do they?

[pinkkittywinks]

Rainfeather - G2's are not my strong point at all and that's a good question about the Netherlands! May be the Netherlands was the last good strong hold for MLP at the time.

Shimmlight - they are a grey area as far as nirvana is concerned. They are actually exclusive ponies as they are made in Hong Kong/China for specific distribution in those countries. Kind of like the mountain boys were UK exclusives. They German and Dutch ponies got put under the nirvana umbrella when the term nirvana was coined as at the time very little was understood about them and they were significantly hard to find to warrant the term nirvana. However we know different now

Love pkw xxx

[achab1984]

This is very interesting, I never thought about some of them.

[shimmlight]

Rainfeather - G2's are not my strong point at all and that's a good question about the Netherlands! May be the Netherlands was the last good strong hold for MLP at the time.

Shimmlight - they are a grey area as far as nirvana is concerned. They are actually exclusive ponies as they are made in Hong Kong/China for specific distribution in those countries. Kind of like the mountain boys were UK exclusives. They German and Dutch ponies got put under the nirvana umbrella when the term nirvana was coined as at the time very little was understood about them and they were significantly hard to find to warrant the term nirvana. However we know different now

Love pkw xxx

Ah okay that makes sense now too! Thanks 

[pinkkittywinks]

I'm glad we've been able to clear a few things up for you

Love pkw xxx