G1 Pony Distribution Questions: Did Canada get US ponies or euro poniess?

[QueenStarglow]

I have bilingual Twinkle Eyed Pony cards from Canada if you'd like an example image. They are really beautiful

[Rainfeather]

I can only say for sure, that we in the Netherlands also had US ponies in the stores. Like for fact. I bought them. I was there

A friend of mine from Romania told me yesterday that people in Romania didn't have ponies. Communism and such. They also didn't have Barbie. They had an own Romanian version of Barbie wich suited the communist vieuws.

[Miss_Pompon]

Macau ponies were only released in Germany.

No, they were also sold in France

Aha! That, i did not know! Were they packaged on French cards? I've only ever seen ones in German packaging...and i find far more in Germany than anywhere else...though ponies have a tendancy to migrate as people do

That's a good question, I think so. I can't imagine (especially in the mid-80's) toys with labels/cards in another language in France.

My childhood Macau CC came with the beauty parlor but the french names were on the tags.

[absol]

I have bilingual Twinkle Eyed Pony cards from Canada if you'd like an example image. They are really beautiful

I'd love to see them! PLMK if they are just for show... or if I can add them to MLW

Post Merge: June 01, 2014, 12:43:53 PM

::quickly taking notes on all of this:: Also, about how far were collectors pose FF ponies distributed do you guys think??

[Clipper]

I can only say for sure, that we in the Netherlands also had US ponies in the stores. Like for fact. I bought them. I was there

A friend of mine from Romania told me yesterday that people in Romania didn't have ponies. Communism and such. They also didn't have Barbie. They had an own Romanian version of Barbie wich suited the communist vieuws.

general release USA ponies were actually sold worldwide..but as stated the distribution was strange.

Mexico, Central and south america got alot of the general hong kong and china releases as well.. it's just we don't see them pop up as often, because the sellers know they aren't worth as much as the other versions.

Alot of the "US" ponies were shipped to other countries back in the day, if they were overstock, and or unsold from the USA and Canada.

As far as I know Canada got all USA ponies except the rama llama was added to MLP line there in year 10 as a mail order, because they had so many extras they figured it would sell faster that way.

[hathorcat]

Unfortunately there was a lot of overlap outside of the US, with different subsidiaries or licensees selling into different markets [or retailers who operated in multiple countries carrying stock over from one market place to another]. This often meant that distribution is not even as specific as saying a certain country got one thing and another didnt because different areas [depending on borders and retailer location] could end up with different releases.

[SeashellnBubbles]

Wish we had examples of South African and India packaging! I have Medley's French/Canadian card as well

[absol]

Wish we had examples of South African and India packaging! I have Medley's French/Canadian card as well

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found some SA packaging! (Ashlyne's pic) http://mylittleponystickergallery.weebly.com/variations-by-country.html

[hathorcat]

Wish we had examples of South African and India packaging! I have Medley's French/Canadian card as well

Someone did once share their childhood backcards from actual SA ponies in Nirvana - I cant remember what thread it was in however but I am sure it can be found with some digging.

As for India, there was a Butterscotch once...years and years ago. I remember seeing one very poor quality scan of her [from the days before digital cameras unfortunately] but thats all I can recall. And I know a member here once purchased a set of them who had been removed from their cards right down to the plastic still wrapped around their hair but I dont think they got the backcards along with the ponies unfortunately. Something will turn up one day I am sure.

[QueenStarglow]

I have bilingual Twinkle Eyed Pony cards from Canada if you'd like an example image. They are really beautiful

I'd love to see them! PLMK if they are just for show... or if I can add them to MLW

Sure thing! You may absolutely add them to MLW. Your website is pretty much my most visited! Happy to help. I had Gingerbread too but sold her. I'll try to dig up pics!

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[LadyMoondancer]

As I sit here thinking about it . . . all the terms really revolve around the US.  "US pony" doesn't mean exclusive to the US, it means sold in the US.   "UK pony" or "international pony" means not sold in the US.

Which sort of makes sense since the US is the "home country" of Hasbro.  (And because most collectors are from the US--especially in the early days of the community, when you could count international members on one hand and everyone flipped out whenever a Mountain Boy hit eBay.)

[hathorcat]

As I sit here thinking about it . . . all the terms really revolve around the US.  "US pony" doesn't mean exclusive to the US, it means sold in the US.   "UK pony" or "international pony" means not sold in the US.

Which sort of makes sense since the US is the "home country" of Hasbro.  (And because most collectors are from the US--especially in the early days of the community, when you could count international members on one hand and everyone flipped out whenever a Mountain Boy hit eBay.)

Its kind of the same way people automatically go "non international" or "international" now - meaning US and then the rest of the world. But often "international" is not cut down to actual countries and is very generalised. As mentioned its hard because its not to say some countries did not carry both US and Euro ponies - *looks at Australia and NZ who imported from both Hasbro UK and Hasbro US concurrently*.

[LadyMoondancer]

Ha ha, now I'm thinking of this Agatha Christie book where a guy tells Hercule Poirot he's sure to get along with this Spanish lady because "they're both foreign."  And he's like "Yeeeah, actually Spain is as foreign to me as it is to you.  Because I'm from Belgium."

I think it would be interesting to have a chart showing which sets were sold in which countries (if there isn't one already).   Then there are the sets that were sold in the UK or wherever but they cut two ponies out of the set . . .

As far as organization on My Little Wiki, "Year 1 through Year 10" is soooo ingrained in the community I don't think it will ever leave and that makes it tricky for foreign releases because most people don't know what "Year" the Flower ponies or whatever came out, so they can't really be integrated like that. 

I mean, I'm sure a couple hardcore collectors do, but I think most of us mentally organize them as "Years 1 through 10, and then all the International ponies."

[hathorcat]

I agree with LadyM; basically we have ingrained in us the "Dream Valley logic". A lot of ponies had multiple releases and a lot of sets were continually released over 2 to 3 years but we only ever really talk about their first releases.

I have the Euro sets on my website listed by their year of release and I know Taffetas awesome site does this as well across all the lines but in the main most collectors go 1 to 10 and then International releases.

[SeashellnBubbles]

There are a few funky releases as well...like blue hearts Dazzleglow and purple haired Tuneful (I think that's her name) she had both a blue hair and a purple hair release...many people believe the purple is International, but i had a friend here in Canada who had one bought for her here. And some of the UK releases of ponies like B. Firefly and B. Surprise were identical except for the non-glitter symbols...we didn't get those at all here in canada.