Was Second Edition Cherries Jubilee sold in mainland Europe?

[Taffeta]

I think of these sets as "Pony Friends" sets as I see a pattern, they are similar content wise and time wise and the cards are in the same style. Not all of them actually have "Pony Friends" on them though. Those who do are:

Pony Friends  (Swedish set)
Amis Jolis  (French set)
Pony Freunde  (German set)

Maybe the Spanish one too - not sure what "Pony Caricias" translates to? (in any case that is the spanish counterpart)

The German pony you posted is not a part of the Pony Freunde set, it doesn't have "Pony Freunde" on the card (and Bowtie is not included in that set).

The Gypsy / straight hair CJ set is the UK counterpart I think, although it doesn't really have a "set name"....

In that case, if Bow Tie is not part of the Pony Fruende, that segregates the UK 1986 set from the "Pony Friends" concept pretty decisively. Bow Tie is on that set's UK card, and in Germany that's clearly also Mein Kleines Pony, which means that the Pony Freunde set in Germany too must have had a different style of card again?

I tend to think of Pony Friends as an amalgamation of ponies sold in different years (yr 3 CJ, 1986 Hopscotch,) plus some new (white Tootsie/Truly/Cupcake) which are unique to specific lines. But, because these ponies (curly CJ, Hopscotch) are not sold in the same set in the UK, I can't classify them as the same :-/.

It's also quite common for Europe to give pony sets names that Hasbro just couldn't be bothered to give names to in the UK, though. "Groom & Style" is not on the cards either, but it is on the list Hasbro sent me, so that's what I consider to be the official name for that set over here (Hasbro's cards just say My Little Pony, though). The next set on Hasbro's list is just "My Little Pony", though, and the cards also say that, which is why I use that as a set name for them. The third set under that name are Cine Star in France, and the catalogue images I have for 1986/7 call them Movie ponies, but Hasbro still kept them under the name of "My Little Pony".

As far as Hasbro UK seem to be concerned, they're all extensions of the same set titled "My Little Pony", from the FF ponies through to the Movie release - because when they issued the Fact File, all of those pony sets were included in the same section just under the title "My Little Pony".

What date is the set with Cupcake and Truly in, officially? I have scans of Truly's card but they're too small for me to take a date off them. I'm wondering because that's such a UK styled card, but it wasn't sold here - whether this was a set that would have been Pony Friends in the UK, but they decided against, or whether it was purpose designed for export, and never was going to come out here at all.

I always find it interesting that Hopscotch and Snowflake are so universally European, but Gypsy is not (and I'm still not certain about Honeycomb...)

[Miss_Pompon]

In France, CJ was reissued in the "poney ami joli" series but I can't tell you if the pony is different than the 1st edition. We had mainly italian ponies but we also got spain/nc ponies. My italian CJ has curly hair and bolder symbols than my HK one, but none are childhood ponies.
From what I've observed for these past few years, we had:
- only italian: white tootsie
- mainly italian: posey, CJ,
- mainly spanish: snowflake, hopscotch, lickety split, green tootsie
But that's only my observations, I may be wrong.
But you know, in France the first series of earth ponies (no name) was issued in 1985-1986 and the "poney ami joli" series in 1986-1987 so maybe there was only one edition of production in the italian/spain manufactures.
I have to ask one of my friend if she can help.

Edit: we clearly didn' get neither Gypsy nor Honeycomb.

[tootie_tails]

In that case, if Bow Tie is not part of the Pony Fruende, that segregates the UK 1986 set from the "Pony Friends" concept pretty decisively. Bow Tie is on that set's UK card, and in Germany that's clearly also Mein Kleines Pony, which means that the Pony Freunde set in Germany too must have had a different style of card again?

I tend to think of Pony Friends as an amalgamation of ponies sold in different years (yr 3 CJ, 1986 Hopscotch,) plus some new (white Tootsie/Truly/Cupcake) which are unique to specific lines. But, because these ponies (curly CJ, Hopscotch) are not sold in the same set in the UK, I can't classify them as the same :-/.

I should have put it this way - I'm not 100% sure what ponies are included in the German set, but I think I can rule out Bowtie because...(long explanation here).
The German set I'm thinking of, the ponies should have "Pony Freunde" printed on their cards.
I hope the German collectors will add to the information, someone from there must know.
In any case I think we are derailing from the topic now.. I will probably need to set up a website for this, my Pony Friends theories lol. It's too long to post it all here, the comparisons and explanations and such.

[Taffeta]

So long as the mods don't mind, I don't mind, since I posted this thread really to find out all this stuff; to me it is on topic. And yes, please do do a website, and please let me link to it, because I think there needs to be a LOT MORE European centric stuff non-Nirvana out there which isn't coloured by UK perspective (since they're blatantly not the same thing in so many ways, and such).

Tootie_tails, was Honeycomb released in Sweden?

Miss Pom_pom, that is awesome help, thank you It really sounds as though the global invasion of curly CJ is pretty much confirmed, even if the manufacture is different. (Does this include pink hair Italy CJ, btw, or just coral?) I am more and more leaning towards 2nd Edition CJ being uniquely designed for the UK set and modified to match the others accordingly, because all of the others had straight hair - and this wasn't necessary for the other sets, in which ponies existed with curly hair.

Going back to 2nd CJ, part of the reason I'm digging into this is that whilst I do use the "NSS' label online and stuff, I don't really like it. It doesn't really reflect the ponies, either in the 1987 set or the 1986 one. Posey and CJ obviously have darker symbols in the 1986 set, so they get called NSS too, sometimes. I think Posey is quite similar, though I have never deflocked a SS posey to test body tone. CJ, on the other hand, is really not that similar. She has a darker symbol, but she has completely different hair which has obviously been modified to fit the set she's being sold in (as none of them have curls), and doesn't match with the SS, who has curly hair.

It's one of the reasons I'm quite pedantic about set names, too, because when you stop and think about that - that 2nd Edition CJ is not a "NSS" pony variation but an actual unique pony release in her own right, like CP Applejack or Bow Tie, then you stop and consider the Movie set and it's clear that actually, they're also not NSS ponies for the most part. The only one that maybe you could call that is Gusty. There is a Buttons with big symbols, but there's also one with buttons and stars, which is unique to that set and not relating to the SS. Magic Star is in a different pose. Shady is a different body tone (even when deflocked, they don't match), Wind Whistler has bicolour symbols. North Star is a paler shade of pink. They're not "NSS" ponies, so much as a set in their own right.

So to the same end I want to consider the Pony Friends also sets in their own right, if that makes sense? Since the UK set wasn't sold under that name, I don't classify them that way. But the various European sets that were, that's different. And it's part why I want to establish who was sold where, because with that 1986 set, it's the most confusing in terms of what was released in different places and as parts of different sets.

That's why I'm breaking up the UK years from 1985-7 into the sets "Groom & Style", "1986 My Little Pony" and "1987 My Little Pony (Movie)" sets as opposed to "NSS" or "UK Variant" or "Yr 3", none of which really describe what the sets originally were.

[Miss_Pompon]

So after a long conversation with my friend Lolipouxi and with the help of her 10 CJ, we have concluded that there were also 2 editions of CJ for italian and spanish ponies:
- for italian ponies: 1st edition has pink hair, 2nd edition has coral hair (both curly ?)
- for spanish ponies: 1st edition has orange symbols, 2nd edition (incl the one marked spain) has pink symbols
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
Lolipouxi CJ Spain

[Taffeta]

And the variations just keep on coming!

So pink haired seems to be the second edition in Italian pony release in France, then? So, more likely that the Italian one in the Amis Jolis set was pink haired..? (Guessing...?)

Thanks for that, that's really interesting (and an army of CJ O.o I can only imagine )

[Miss_Pompon]

no it's the other way around, pink hair seems to be the first edition and coral the 2nd, so it will be coral for amis jolis (and lolipouxi says hi)

The 10 CJ don't include her south american ones plus she has an army of every early ponies I think. 

[Taffeta]

Ah, sorry, that was me getting them mixed up (that will happen to you when you're trying to type, eat chocolate brownie and chat on skype at the same time). That is the one I had - back when I was collecting Italians I don't remember the pink haired one being known about, and I think she's the harder to find, correct?

Whereas with the HK ones in the UK, the one with straight hair is harder to find. I assumed that was because everyone apparently bought the original, probably because of that wretched picture disc xD and so few kids were interested in her the next year (but there are some about so I guess the ones that missed it got the song tape a bit later and then wanted her >.>)

Hi Lolipouxi Thank you for your help Je vous en remercie And wow, armies of early ponies I wish I had the space. My sister does have a small Posey and a Cotton Candy army, though...

[Gizmo]

These also confused me for years but here is what I can remember at the moment for HK ponies:

Groom & Style (UK - 1985, black eyeliner):
- CP Bowtie
- CP Applejack
- Posey (pink symbols)
- Lickety Split (pink cones)
- Cherries jubilee (curly, light cherries)
- Tootsie

My little Pony (UK - 1986, black eyeliner)
- Hopscotch
- Snowflake
- Gypsy
- Honeycomb
- Posey (magenta flowers)
- Cherries Jubilee (straight hair)

My Little Pony (Euro - 1986, black eyeliner)
- Hopscotch
- Snowflake
- CP Bowtie
- CP Applejack
- Posey (magenta flowers)
- Lickety Split (dark cones)
- Cherries jubilee (dark cherries, curly hair)
- Tootsie (white)

My Little Pony (Scandinavia/Australia - 1986, black eyeliner, glittery symbols):
- Firefly (curly)
- Medley (curly - unconfirmed)
- Surprise
- Heartthrob
- Powder
- Skyflier
- Sparkler
- Gusty (green eyes)
- Moondancer (yellow)
- Glory (unconfirmed)

My Little Pony (UK, 1987 - black eyeliner)
- Magic Star
- Shady
- Gusty
- Buttons
- Wind Whistler
- North Star

My Little Pony Movie/Ciné Stars (Euro, 1987 - brown eyeliner)
- Magic Star
- Shady
- Gusty
- Buttons
- Wind Whistler
- North Star

My little Pony Friends (Scandinavia/Australia - 1987, brown eyeliner)
- Truly
- Cupcake
- Posey (magenta flowers)
- Hopscotch
- Cherries Jubilee (curly hair, dark cherries)
- Shady

[Taffeta]

I don't think the rules are that finite. I just got out my French carded Shady (Cine Star) and her eyeliner is black, like the loose one I had here in the UK as a child

[Gizmo]

Ah that's very interesting! I bought a couple of loose ones from a French person and they all had brown eyeliner so I guess this was a batch thing after all. I was also wondering about this NSS Truly because of her eyes:
http://mlparena.com/index.php/topic,360922.msg1274917.html

I guess it's possible the 1987 MLP Friends set may have had early batches with black eyeliner as well.

[Taffeta]

I don't know enough about Truly to comment on that one. The one I have has no evidence of flocking and black eyeliner, and I have seen others loose like that which have been found at fleamarkets by traders in the past, but I cannot be 100% on any Truly that comes loose to the table without the person being the original owner. It's one of those annoying things I wish Hasbro had done differently - mine has a slightly different eye colour from my SS and her symbol hearts are not quite the same shade, but batch differences can account for a lot.

BUT given that Incognito (Cine Star Shady) has black liner, I don't think it's possible to generalise with any set. Different batches, different countries and a very WIDE distribution makes all things possible. Especially since this is a company who managed to sell ponies with completely nonsense variations at the same time in the same country (BUTTONS!)

The thing is, with Incognito, though, it's not a surplus SS who was never flocked. She's a Movie Star pony created to be a Movie Star Pony and be sold in France as such. She has black eyeliner. So does my Wind Whistler (who fell off her UK card when I got her, so I know her provenance too) and my childhood Shady. I haven't been through the others, although I could check Gusty and be fairly sure of hers because she came from a childhood friend...but to me it seems as though there's no active rule on eyeliner colour except related to batch, and that's true of a lot of sets.

The Pony Friends set was on a UK style card but never sold here, so without a hidden horde of MOC Truly and Cupcake coming to light somewhere, we're a bit foxed to prove any of them as genuine except from collectors who had them as children.

Edit: I just checked my Movie Star Ponies (including both Buttons', both Wind Whistlers and MOC and loose Shady) are black eyeliner ponies except for Magic Star. I bought all here in the UK but aside from the MOC Incognito, the WindWhistler that came off her card and the loose Shady and Gusty, whose childhoods I can track back to the UK, they were all from Car Boot Sales and so I can't vouch 100% for their origin.

[Miss_Pompon]

Ah, sorry, that was me getting them mixed up (that will happen to you when you're trying to type, eat chocolate brownie and chat on skype at the same time). That is the one I had - back when I was collecting Italians I don't remember the pink haired one being known about, and I think she's the harder to find, correct?

Whereas with the HK ones in the UK, the one with straight hair is harder to find. I assumed that was because everyone apparently bought the original, probably because of that wretched picture disc xD and so few kids were interested in her the next year (but there are some about so I guess the ones that missed it got the song tape a bit later and then wanted her >.>)

Hi Lolipouxi Thank you for your help Je vous en remercie And wow, armies of early ponies I wish I had the space. My sister does have a small Posey and a Cotton Candy army, though...

Yes I can picture you multitasking like that

I'd say yes, the pink one is less common because she has 1 pink haired and 3 coral haired, but the sample is too small to really draw conclusions plus since she's a variation maniac, it may be there are more variations in the coral hair so she kept more coral haired. On the other hand, she only owns the reverse symbol pink haired where I have the normal symbol one
Hard to tell anyways.

[Taffeta]

Hasbro production logic...but interesting anyhow. So many differences even within the 'same' pony...