They do exist. I own a few of them, but my knowledge is limited, mostly by choice because it's an "eh" from me.

They have a sparkle sticker on the front that says that they are "the first 50" of the run, but the ones that I have did not come with anything in the way of a CoA, and are not numbered individually- the sticker only confirms that it came from that first batch. I'd take pictures but they are packed away. Here is an example:

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


I own Heather Winds, Gardenia Glow and Sweet Breeze (the last one being Magic Marigold of that half, then the second half release later the same year are Alphabittle, Bunches-O-Fun, Fair Weather and Twilight Twinkle) that were all from 2005, but I only have them by chance. I didn't care what the stickers meant when I bought them, and I have no intention on seeking them out.

So, the following is strictly my own observaion:
The flagship line that year was Butterfly Island. The follow-up lines included the Birthstone Toys R Us exclusives, Valentines, Baby Ponies, "Dress Up Daywear", "Pony and Me", "Pony on the Go", "Super-Long Hair", the Spring and Winter lines; all of which have very distinctly designed art on their packaging. The previously specified eight of 2005 are not labeled with a line and only displayed the name of the pony, thus it seems most sources have dubbed these "Perfectly Pony". Apparently this is according to Hasbro's promotional materials due to the lack of any solid collection affiliation on the packaging for that year. The accessory packs would fall into that category due to the same basic art and no distinct gimmicks with the ponies themselves.

I mention the above because it seems that the "First 50" was NOT consistent. Other than the ones I know of from 2003 and the ones listed from 2005, I don't have a clue which ones are "First 50" since it seems that this was not something Hasbro cared to do for every pony package released. Apparently some affiliated with the Butterfly Island packaging were stickered with "First 50", but nothing in the way of the Winter, Spring, none of the store exclusives, none of the accessory packs, etc etc. However, we have evidence to show that Denim Blue from the flagship line Friendship Ball was stickered with "the first 50", so it was not exclusive to the ponies have no line affiliation:
visitors can't see pics , please register or login


When they started this gimmick in 2003 the point was to promote charity auctions for playground equipment, so 50 of each of the first released ponies of G3 were sold over eBay.  According to Strawberry Reef, the 2003 collection included Kimono, Wysteria, Sweetberry, Rainbow Dash, Sunny Daze, and Pinkie Pie, but I can't find what poses would have been used.

These 300 pieces did not have the sparkle stickers like the one above of the ones that I have, but had a CoA and a numbered (foil?) sticker stuck on the bottom or back:
http://www.strawberryreef.com/images/Ponies/P/PinkiePieFirst50cert.jpg
http://www.strawberryreef.com/images/Ponies/P/PinkiePieFirst50.jpg
As far as I know, 2003 was the only time that they had the CoA. We can presume that the rest of the "First 50" had this slapped on the front:
http://www.strawberryreef.com/images/First50b.jpg

I have no idea how those "First 50" after 2003 came into circulation, either. I can't find any solid confirmation, but Strawberry Reef states that it was all the same eBay seller "WorldinAdvance", which is not an active handle on eBay currently so I am not sure how true that info is.

I hope this was helpful.

*NO INTERACTION WITH FANDOM
  ~It's fantastic people are enthusiastic about the show! And an occasional nod is fantastic but no more letting fandom dictate
   characters and the overall tone of the show!

This is something that I have to disagree with in spades.

Granted, it's a double-edged sword and I can see why it's frustrating from some perspectives, but I think it's over-all good when the fandom is included. It brings the product "home" and makes it much more relatable and more "real" to the fans.

In fact, it was genius of them with G4 to turn it into Slice of Life. They have been able to cleverly hide references to popular fan theories and that is the kind of thing that keeps them engaged. It means that they did their job but the fans sold their product for them- they talked about it and made it relevant. Seriously, any marketing, writing and producing team would be set if they were in that position- the fans made it easy, and it worked then in the favor of the fans that the studio was so open to make the world something that the fans could help create.

While the end result of that can sometimes be a bit awkward, you may actually see more of this coming around in the future, not only here with MLP G4. The idea of "community interaction" has been popularized by Youtubers with their small fan bases, and now there are more syndicated premium TV channel content that are following that example because it makes it more human, more relatable, and, therefore, more profitable.

Being that this was the first time (that I am aware of, anyway- I could be wrong, but this is a prominent example at the least) that any sort of community interaction between the studio's team and the fans happened, it obviously needs a lot more in the way of planning and management to avoid such heavy tonal shifts between episodes, but it is a process that has the potential to be perfected when your producing team is on the right page with each other while keeping that eagerness to please on a leash.

At the least, I do hope that G4 has been a good learning process and any subsequent generations will do it better. This is all one large contributing factor to the fandom being so engrossed in it, and if it's taken away, then it wouldn't have the same magic to such a diverse set of people. The fans would peter off and it wouldn't have the staying power that G4 has gained, and that may have had a negative impact on anything else from here on out.

Fun fact: This community interaction is something that Hasbro should pay attention to. This is the face-forward reason to show the studio why it's important for character diversity, and that would translate well to the toys. They are missing out on a lot of $$$$ because the toy line was made of such light materials that shipping the toys costs more than manufacturing them (such as, seeing repeats of the mane 6 in "The Movie" playset packs).

tl;dr: I'd continue this as a marketing strategy for my own generation, myself.

I am not sure what you mean by the neck not being sealed. I've never encountered a G4 brushable that hasn't had the neckplug that blocks getting into the body cavity, unless it's the newer ones- I do not have any experience with beheading the new style ponies.

Either way, all ponies are pretty much the same where you can hold their head in boiling water to soften the head/neck  of the pony where it won't need much in the way of easing. You can do the same with a blow dryer. In my experience, you need to have that soft or else it will have a high potential of breaking the neckplug nub off. I've also found that soaking in Oxyclean may also fade the paint if the mixture is too strong.

The yellow rosette is either from the 2nd release of the Show Stable or from «Home Sweet Home» (3rd release of Show stable). It is just like the show stable but in different colors. The 4th release of this playset is «Megan’s place» with yet other colors.

If you look at Chrissytree’s accessories page you’ll be able to identify all weird and rare MLP accessories.

The face sticker is the US 1st release style on the yellow plastic that no one has yet to confirm is a US release. The only thing that comes close is the Euro release of the Show Stable which seems odd considering where I got this one piece from, and I want to make sure before I mislabel it. No other US releases fit.

I left a similar message over on MLPMerch (as they just announced that they are going to have G1, G2 and G3 added in there) because it seems that there are all of these competing sites with lists but there is nothing special between them  ._.

It's actually quite overwhelming that not a whole lot of websites carry much in the way of perks to actually use them since I'm making my own lists of stuff that I need to complete my collection. At the end of the day, I stick to the same pool of websites because they are easy(ish) to navigate- but I dislike wiki and blog-style sites because they are not all that easy to search. They exist therefore I will use them.

But, I spend all of my time making, updating and organizing lists. All websites are not anything special unless they fulfill my need to have a comprehensive accessory check-off list that I can turn public when I want. Otherwise, it's great that websites want to be a pony database, but I probably won't fully use it unless they bring something else to the table that helps me as a collector.

I hope that this information is useful to you...

Post approximately 303 times.
visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Dollyhair colours rarely are a perfect match in my experience to vintage G1's.

Just this.

If you are going to hair it's just better to reroot the entire color, in my experience.