Half note body colour difference

[ButtercreamDream]

Hi all, I've acquired a second Rockin' Beats Half Note, and she's a different colour than my original.  The lighter one is my original, and is more opaque and shinier.  The darker one is slightly more translucent and matte.

She came with a local lot, but it had several UK ponies in it.

So, is she a UK version?  Is it a batch difference or plasticizer leak?  What do you think?

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[pinkkittywinks]

She does look different!

What are the hoof marks?

Love pkw xxx

[ButtercreamDream]

Both say 84 Hasbro Made in China, so no help there =P

[Leave a Whisper]

Maybe one faded a bit?

[ButtercreamDream]

Maybe one faded a bit?

The plastic itself looks different, but the symbols and hair are the same.  If anything, I think it would be plasticizer leak over fading. 

[Taffeta]

Hi all, I've acquired a second Rockin' Beats Half Note, and she's a different colour than my original.  The lighter one is my original, and is more opaque and shinier.  The darker one is slightly more translucent and matte.

She came with a local lot, but it had several UK ponies in it.

So, is she a UK version?  Is it a batch difference or plasticizer leak?  What do you think?

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I don't think it's plasticizer leak, fading, etc, to be honest. There are variations in this set. It's not a case of "UK/Europe" vs "North America" as they do cross-contaminate, but the whole of the range, pretty much, for this year, has variations in individual ponies.

With the Rockin' Beats, we all talk about Pretty Beat, whose hair is different and so is her body tone. There's also marked variation on Tuneful, though, with body tone and the red/orange of her hair. Half Note also has hair variations (curly/straight or straight/straight) and I am pretty certain I've seen this tone thing before, as well.

This is the one set in the UK sense in my collection for which I 100% can account for the history/provenance of all the ponies, as it's the only set I had all of new as a child.

So here is my Half Note, new from childhood, bought here in the UK:

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I think she looks more like your darker pony, and she has no issues with plastic. She's not changed colour, she's always been this way She also has pink hair that's straight and yellow that curls.

I say it isn't a UK Europe/N. America variation thing, but there are ones that show up more often in each location. To me your paler one is the one that looks odd .

And, as I said, it's not just the Rockin' Beats, but many of the sets from this year that show various production variations as standard.

[drusilla]

i would just keep both 

[NoDivision]

I'd definitely go with plastic breakdown. She looks slightly smaller, too, and shrinkage is something that often occurs when plasticizer breaks down. My own half note is pretty rock hard, too.

[LadyMoondancer]

My guess is different plastic batches at the factory.

[Taffeta]

I'd definitely go with plastic breakdown. She looks slightly smaller, too, and shrinkage is something that often occurs when plasticizer breaks down. My own half note is pretty rock hard, too.

I don't think its plastic breakdown. It's normal for Rockin' Beat Ponies to have more than one body colour, as I mentioned above, as well as variations in the hair. 

While plastic breakdown does happen and it is a real problem, it isn't the explanation for a lot of minor colour differences, especially when dealing with other parts of the world. As LM said, it's a batch difference - but I think it relates, possibly, either to different times of production or different production locations within the same country.

 As mentioned before, 1991-2 had a lot of these kinds of variations (See Pocket Friends ponies and their blue/purple/rough/smooth hair variations, Teeny Weeny Pony Little Rattles/Whiskers and her (at least) three shades of pink hair and symbol variations, Tuneful and her orange/red hair variations, Pretty Beat and Baby Starbow and their hair (and in PB's case, body) variations, multiple body/hair tone variations on Glowing Magic Ponies...it goes on and on. The fact the same questions keep coming up about the same ponies just shows that people aren't aware of the widespread nature of these variations.

There are too many located within this one year of release to explain them all with breakdown of plastic, especially where hair and symbols are also involved, and different markets of release. I think that plastic breakdown is a problem which gets overstated and used far too often to explain genuine differences in production and release.

I don't think any of these variations are necessarily more valuable than the others, but nonetheless they do exist. They also existed back in the 1990s, when plastic breakdown was far less common a problem, which is why I am sure we should be careful about making assumptions in that regard.