The Chinese forelock pony is curious to me as well. I'm kind of glad to know she does exist and I didn't imagine her, but explaining why she does is really annoying xD. I think it must just be that Hasbro in the US wanted forelocks and Hasbro in Europe didn't care, and the HK ones maybe happened first and then manufacture shifted to China and the European ones (which came out a year later) were therefore all China.

I suspect that's the case.

By the way, the mail order pearly babies are another set of three variations like this:   HK with forelock, China with forelock, and China without forelock.   

Thanks Taffeta!  This is really interesting!

Oh boy where to begin?     

My Hong Kong Cherry Treats is a beautiful white 
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My China Cherry Treats has the nasty brown / yellowing issue. She has a forelock!
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I double-checked these last night, and confirmed that my China one with forelock is the bad one, my Hong Kong is the white one.   With the Sundae Best ponies I have, the China ones seem to be more pure and bright in color, the HK ones not so much, so I was surprised by these two.  Also, I've noticed too that a lot of China ponies don't have forelocks. But it's not the first time I've seen China release both versions -- the European Fancy Pants babies for example. I have a full set of four with and without short forelocks.

The yellow/browning issue looks more like it leaked out of her, like it's smeared on her. It's not a uniform discoloration.  Plasticizer, reacting with the chemicals in the scenting agents would be my guess.   Some ponies seem to be made with plastics that are more prone to leaking than others, or at least are more prone to discoloring.  I think plasticizer leakage can be brought on by environmental conditions (heating up or big changes in temperatures) so that might explain why some have the affliction and some don't.  But it's just a theory -- I'm no chemist!

As for the rest of my Sweetberry ponies, the link to my album is at the bottom, but here's the list.  I need to verify a couple of forelocks because the curly haired ponies forelocks are quite long.... it's sometimes hard to tell if they are forelocks! But here is what I've found:

1.  I'm pretty sure the whole set was released as Hong Kong with forelocks, China with forelocks, and China without forelocks.  Except the unicorn, which I haven't seen any version with forelock. 

2. China with forelocks may have been a US release but I'm pretty sure those without are more European.  My China with forelocks set was bought from a US collector and I believe it was her childhood set.

3. I think China without forelocks are less prone to the browning issue, whether it's their plastic, the scenting agent, both or something else.   My HK ponies are the result of long searches and lucky finds. Usually they aren't this nice!

4.  Most of the ponies have PAT PEND on the hoof, both China and Hong Kong.   I do have at least one that is not PAT PEND, a Boysenberry Pie from Germany (or whatever name she went by).


Cherry Treats - Hong Kong - forelock - not discolored
Cherry Treats - China - forelock - badly discolored
Cranberry Muffins - Hong Kong - forelock - not discolored
Cranberry Muffins - China - forelock? - *slightly* discolored (I used to have a badly discolored one)
Strawberry Surprise - Hong Kong - forelock - not discolored
Strawberry Surprise - China - forelock - slight yellowing
Blueberry Baskets - Hong Kong - forelock - not discolored
Blueberry Baskets - China - forelock - slight yellowing
Raspberry Jam - Hong Kong - forelock - yellowing
Raspberry Jam - China - forelock - discoloration (neck and body) Head is not affected!
Raspberry Jam - China - no forelock - not discolored
Boysenberry Pie - Hong Kong - (no forelock) - bright intense purple!
Boysenberry Pie - China - (no forelock) - dull purple, likely discolored and/or yellowed
Boysenberry Pie - China - (no forelock) - NO PAT PEND! - light purple, not discolored or faded

This last Boysenberry Pie came from Germany. I need to see if there was never any PAT PEND mark or if it was melted off, like I've seen on several German ponies.   I think this pale purple one may be a variant specific to Germany, kind of like pale Speedy  is. But I don't know this for sure. 


ALBUM OF SWEETBERRY PONIES
(C=China, HK=Hong Kong, PP=Pat.Pend, NPP=no Pat Pend, all other notes are about flaws)
https://onedrive.live.com/embed?cid=2BB843F02DEF779C&resid=2BB843F02DEF779C%212050&authkey=AIP90Fy8STYYQyw

@ashlyne - are any of them China Majestys?

I will check when I get home, but I don't think so. I'm usually pretty good at checking the hooves and making note of the China ones or if some say PAT PEND while others don't. 

Post Merge: August 27, 2018, 05:17:49 PM

All my Majesty's are "HONG KONG PAT PEND. "

 

 If ebay would require these two things, I think the search issue would be 99% better. Maybe those that would like to complain, could add this to their message. (Complaints are better heard if a reasonable solution is made with it )

1. Require sellers to select a Character Family (ie My Little Pony). If they have a lot with more than one character family, they should be allowed to select multiple choices.

2. Require sellers to select a decade. Again, in mixed lots, they could make multiple choices. I would prefer they set it up by generations since there is overlap, but it's probably too technical for ebay to care about.   But here's what I'd like to see for choices instead of decades:
~~1st Generation - 1982-1992 (or 1995 to include Dutch ponies and international merchandise?)
~~2nd Generation - 1997-2003
~~3rd Generation - 2003-2011
~~Friendship Is Magic (& Equestria Girls?) - 2010-present

I realize there will be a lot of people who don't know what decade they have, but most things have a stamp on them.  It's not a fool-proof solution, but I think it would go a long way to fix the current issues.

I personally used the category breakdowns all the time in my search notifications.  I left out "my little pony" on purpose because you get sellers that only know them as "ponies". Or "pretty pony".  Or people abbreviate with MLP. Or misspell one of the words (littel being one of them.....this is how I found a Licensing Show Pinkie Pie!).  Or don't use "my" and just use "little pony".  I've seen quite a few auctions that don't include the full My Little Pony phrase, and have found some real treasures with little bidding competition because of it.   

I have used the (-) to filter out the whole Friendship is Magic thing, but man does it get cluttered fast.  You've also got Equestria Girls, Guardians of Harmony, GoH to add to the list, and there are still so many sellers that don't use those key words.  I'm still getting all kinds of party supplies, kids beauty toys, general accessories.... It's just not as precise or clean as the old way, in my opinion.   

Maybe once all the old listings clear out and *IF* ebay requires the seller to specify the decade, things might improve over time.    But for now, current auctions and relisted auctions aren't even being put into a My Little Pony category unless the seller changes it manually. Many of them don't know about the change. So unless you want to miss out on a lot of auctions, you kind of have to include the "not specified" category for both the DECADE and the CHARACTER FAMILY. At least for now.

This may not affect everyone, but it sure throws a big wrench into how I search for ponies.  Big time. 

Edit:  YIKES, I didn't realize the MLP category was gone altogether!  Even worse than I thought!

Off to the left, you can narrow down the TV Movie Characters category by "Character Family" and find My Little Pony in there.  There are other options to narrow it down, such as Brand (Hasbro) and Type (which doesn't help much).   But I checked to see if the Character Family was an optional or mandatory specification when you set up an auction, and it's optional. It's sort of buried in the options you're given. So I would guess there will be a lot of sellers that are going to overlook this and many auctions won't get sorted into that category.   You do have to specify brand when listing, so selecting Hasbro would at least filter out Funko brands.

Searching for "My Little Pony Lot" within the Hasbro brand brings up 2,714 auctions which include all generations.   2,698 are under the My Little Pony Character Family, 1 Care Bears Character Family, and 9 "not specified" Character Family.   So that's still 6 unaccounted for auctions?   

I was hoping this would be a temporary thing, but Transformers went through this, we're probably looking at a permanent thing here. 

EDIT:   If you currently have ebay listings or are automatically renewing listings, your pony auctions may be getting lumped into a very broad category with Star Wars, Disney and other TV Movie Character Toys!   Please help make our searches easier and check your listing options to make sure it gets into the right "Character Family - My Little Pony"  and Decade <3

So the "My Little Pony" and "Pre-1990" section is now gone from the main category listing!    It just seems to go to "TV, Movie & Character Toys", with no further breakdowns of that category. I started to set up a mock ebay listing, and again, nothing past that category. The only place I see the Pre-1990 category is on older listings.

It doesn't just lump all pony generations (G1, G2, G3, FiM, Equestria Girls, etc)   There are thousands of toys in this category, including Star Wars and Disney toys. 

If you'd like to let ebay know what you think, you can do that here.   

If this is a permanent thing, here are some helpful tips.   Let's say you do a search for "Accessories" in this TV Movie Character Toys.   Use the category options to the left to help narrow things down a bit.

Under CHARACTER FAMILY, you can select "My Little Pony"
Under BRAND, you can select "Hasbro"
Under DECADE, you can select "1980s"


This will help, but there are a few problems with this.

First, any current auctions, auctions that are automatically getting listed by sellers who don't know about these changes, and new auctions by sellers who aren't going to bother specifying Character Family and Decade (which are optional, not required when listing) will get filtered out of your search above.     

Under each of these three category options, you can select "not specified" to include those auctions. However you're going to get hundreds of auctions you don't need across all toy lines and decades and companies.   

Some sellers are more specific in their listing titles so you can add things like "Vintage" or "old" to your searches, but as we all know, not every seller gets this detailed or uses the same terminology.