Show me your Teeny Weeny/Tiny Ponies, because...

[Taffeta]

...I want to work out what the weird is about where this set is concerned.

I'm really looking at the set of singles (although if you have cute twin pictures to post, please feel free to share them can't have enough teeny tinyness!).

Reason I'm posting this is really because of Little Rattles (aka Little Whiskers). I have seen a lot of these online, on UK card, US card, loose in the UK, loose in the US. They generally have fading pink hair, like this:
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 My childhood pony does not. Here's a good comparison to show what I mean. Childhood pony on the right.
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The hair on my childhood pony is awful, a trait repeated across all our childhood Teeny Weeny ponies bought here from new on UK card in 1992/3. I have seen ones on ebay with lovely hair, but these generally seem to be located in the US. This would fit with other ponies from the year like Singing Pocket etc with coarser hair/non fading pink.

In 1995, when I was contacting Hasbro UK for the first time, Sally, the lady I wrote to, send me two Teeny Weeny ponies as freebies because she happened to have them 'lying around'. When I put them by my childhood ponies, there are variations there too:

Little Giggles
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Little Lullabye/Tabby
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I don't have a similar comparison with Honey Pie but I assume one exists.

I know there are a ton of variations in hair etc this year in production, so it isn't really that odd. I'm just curious to know how widespread the other versions are and such, especially since most of the Little Rattles ponies I see on card and loose in the UK are fading pink, a version I never saw as a kid. I know I got mine for Christmas 1992, so I'm wondering whether the fading pink is earlier/later or whatever reason.

Please, show me your Teeny Weeny Tiny ponies, and I'd be super interested to know especially if you have ones with the horrible hair...

[Ivy]

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Those are all my girls - Little Whiskers is actually mint off card - got her moc but the bubble fell off the card...

[Taffeta]

Thanks Ivy. Yep, yours definitely look to have the better quality of hair than the ones we had as kids here. The teeny twins I have also all have nice hair so I wonder if it was Hasbro UK saving money again at the end of the Teeny Weeny issue...

[Moonbreeze]

Here are mine

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[Taffeta]

Still all pale pink on Little Whiskers/Rattles' hair...interesting (they look so cute, Moon Breeze!)
Really jealous on that nice hair ><.

[Featherwurm]

Here are the ones from my childhood (here in the US):

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A friend of mine refers to them as 'fairy pigs' which seems accurate.

[Taffeta]

LOL xD Fairy Pigs seems to be a good description. My sister and I thought they looked like kitten ponies as kids.

Again, the fading pink hair (and good quality hair). The 2 I had from Hasbro had better quality hair. My Little Giggles from childhood possibly also had this hair before she lived with me, but I'm not sure because I wouldn't have braided her hair as a ten year old if she had had proper curls; I was smart to it by that point.

I know the fading pink Rattles/Whiskers is normal for the UK too because of this:
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Picture loaned me by an ebay seller, and I have seen others on ebay since, ALL of which have had fading pink hair.

Which makes me confused as to why there was a batch with the coarser type of non fading hair. We actually have two of these, and have never had a fading pink hair one in this area that I am aware of...but I'm wondering if they were the ones towards the end of line where the US were no longer selling them so the UK had to produce its own...

[hathorcat]

I honestly dont know if its a set location difference. I have seen each variation over the years and while I would like to say the more uncommon colours have been on UK releases, I would be making that assumption on limited proof. I have only ever seen the darker pink on a Euro style card - which is not much evidence as she does not turn up very often loose, let alone on her card.

Its no doubt an end of run or simply different batch. The ponies would all have been getting made in the same factories after all so if it is country specific its probably the same idea as the pat pend/non pat pend big brothers and princesses. Not intentional and simply because the latter part of production was more likely to see a Euro rather than US release.

[Taffeta]

Thanks, Hathorcat. You've pretty much confirmed what I suspected...that it isn't proveable but is more likely to be a European thing. It is that same year in European release that has the variations on Singing Pocket, DazzleGlow etc with the coarser, darker pink hair, so it would make sense that it's connected to that.

I'm not aware of ever seeing the pale fading pink version here where I live n the Welsh Borders. I think that's key to the timing of the release, because we tended to get things slowly. I know that my Little Rattles came from Woolworths, because her card has a price label on it, but I got her inside the Kitchen and the card was folded to fit inside. I know that was Xmas 1992 which is quite late for this set in global terms, if not in UK terms.

The other loose one we have here technically belongs to my mother, and she came from a car boot sale. She also has the darker hair. Until I got online I assumed the pale version was another insert faux pas, but obviously it wasn't...

[LadyGuinevere]

My youngest sister had Little Rattles, and I *think* her's is the darker pink version like yours, however I'm not in a position to check at the moment. Not sure when we got her, but it was one of the later ones we got, so I think around 1994.

[Taffeta]

It really seems to me that Hasbro used the pale pink ones up until the hair ran out, then utilised a cheaper fibre to continue making the ponies after that point. Not just with Rattles but also with the others from the same kind of time period. The US got the set earlier than Europe did, which would explain why you never see a darker pink maned pony on US card...the US had stopped selling them by the time the darker pink hair ponies were the pick of the day.

It's a theory, anyway, especially if your sister's pony was later, LadyG.

(P.S, you called her Rattles That makes me happy >.>)

[LadyGuinevere]

In all honesty, I could never keep their names straight! My two sisters between them had three of the four, but it was towards the end of my playing with ponies.