She's a beauty! I love her symbol and her bright green eyes.

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The sparkle ponies' mail order pamphlet itself is dated 1987, so I imagine that would be the very first year they were released. The store-version sparkle ponies came along in 1988, but they were essentially concurrent with the mail orders. I guess you could call that Year 6 and Year 7 respectively, but I don't find the "Year X" categorization system super helpful personally.

MO Sunspot's hoof is dated 84, just like store Sunspot, and CJ and Raincurl and Shoreline and every other pony in that pose. It is meaningless in this regard. She was not "made in 1984" -- she wasn't even a glimmer in Hasbro's eye yet. She was made in 1987. Or possibly 1986 and sat in a warehouse for a couple months, but same difference.

This is a fairly common phenomenon, you're not just seeing things. Certain types of pink paint are known to fade to periwinkle blue, likely because the "red" portion of the colour is much more fragile than the rest. Your instinct that it's sun damage is probably spot on. Other ponies' symbols that you'll sometimes see affected by this are Baby Crumpet, Scoops, TAF Fifi, Peppermint Crunch... even some Peachies can have pale blue hearts after the ravages of time. It's kind of cool imo

Congrats on your new ponies!

All the pinks, all the sparkles! She's so extra and I love her for it

Oh, it's Princess Buzzsaw! In the past, I've thought it looked sort of like a sun motif, but I like the cog idea. Being the princess of delicate clockwork machinery doesn't sound as glamourous as raising the sun, but I bet it's a pretty important skill in a society without hands.

Could Gold Lily's symbol possibly be a coin?

Wow, that's an interesting thought. There were gold coins minted during the reign of Louis XIV called a "lis d'or" (gold lily)... They don't have much resemblance except for the beveled pattern around the edge, but maybe someone at Hasbro is a secret numismatist?

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I don't have a Rainbow Bubbles on hand to compare, but judging from photos online, her pink hair is "Dark Pink 3" (in my own nomenclature). It's a similar shade to Star Dasher, but matte/opaque instead of translucent. This is the pink on Baby Boogie Woogie and Brights Brightly.

Matte hair colors are harder to come by in general... "Truly Outrageous" from The Doll Planet might be close, but don't take my word for it. If you're never going to want to sell her, I'd say do a lovely alt-rehair! It would be a lot easier than sourcing replacement hair, and you could improve upon what she was "born" with.

Of course you can use regular Rit to re-pink pony hair. What do you think people did before 2015? Nylon may be synthetic, but it takes up dye very easily. I've never had re-pinked hair discolor on me, but like the real thing, the color can fade if it's boiled or exposed to strong sunlight.

As an example, here is an Up Up & Away whose mane I re-pinked with basic Rit, while her tail is original and un-dyed.  --
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The color is pretty close IMO and has held up well, even though I did it roughly around the time of the Chicxulub impact. I used tried-and-true powdered Rit in Rose Pink (now called Petal Pink) with a smidge of Sunshine Orange (now Tangerine). You probably could reproduce a similar shade using Dyemore colors, but that runs the added risk of transferring dye to the body of the pony, whereas regular Rit won't easily stain vinyl.

I don't mean to discourage you from reinventing the wheel -- by all means experiment! -- but I did want to speak in defense of a classic technique.

Happy belated birthday! You've already gotten some good advice, and you're sure to get more as you need it -- we're a pretty knowledgeable bunch and love to pitch in with advice.

By and large, G1 and G3 are very similar when it comes to materials and construction, and most restoration procedures will work for both gens. There are a few points of difference that I would like to specifically expand on:

1) Glue! Many G3s, especially in the earlier years, have gobs of hard glue inside to anchor their hair and seal their necks. You probably won't need to open up many of your ponies, but be prepared for a fight if you do. I highly recommend using a steel cuticle pusher or another strong, but fairly blunt, tool to help you pry the head loose. Carefully precise use of an exacto knife, or acetone-soaked floss as a garrote, may be needed for really tough jobs. I don't recommend using heat to try to soften things up for the initial decapitation, as the vinyl may give way before the glue does, but feel free to warm her up when putting her back together. Later-run G3s don't have their heads glued down, so they should be much easier to deal with, although they can still have silly amounts of glue in their hair.

2) Tinsel! Lots of G3s have clear, iridescent tinsel in their hair, and this material behaves differently than the typical metallic G1 tinsel (although both gens do use both types). Metallic tinsel is made of polyester+aluminum, both of which have nicely high melting points and can withstand typical pony de-frizzing methods, but G3 tinsel is polyester+polyethylene. If you've ever gotten a plastic shopping bag too close to the burner on your stove, you've seen what happens to polyethylene film when it's exposed to too much heat. High-heat techniques will make G3 tinsel crazier instead of straightening it, so stick to using low heat (<150F if your hair tool goes that low) and/or use a lot of buffer (water, dimethicone) between the tinsel and the heat source. You might still get some flyaways, but G3s can be relieved of 10-25% of their tinsel without losing any significant sparkle.

3) Discoloration Unfortunately, G3 vinyl isn't as stable as G1. I don't think you'll be doing much sunfading now that the lovely Washington autumn is upon us, but something to keep in mind is that G3s are more sensitive when it comes to UV light, for both good and ill. Not saying you shouldn't try to sunfade your ponies once the sun comes back, but do be careful and check on them daily. Try not to let them get hot or keep them in an enclosed space (no car dashboards) or they may wind up sticky/slimy from accelerated plasticizer leakage. Part of the calculus you have to do with G3s is that they usually aren't "done" degrading -- they haven't yet reached an equilibrium where they're as bad as they're going to get -- so any resto work you do now, you may have to repeat in the future as the plastic continues to age and change. Just something to be aware of.

If you have any other questions, don't feel shy about asking right here in the main forum.