Are dutchies and UK ponies...

[teacher316]

considered nirvana? I was just wondering...

[NoDivision]

I beleive the nirvana forum says dutchies belong in either category, but UK releases are not considered nirvana because thay are still hong king/china made and are standard releases

[kittybethy]

Dutchies, yes, for real.

[hokuspokus]

I beleive the nirvana forum says dutchies belong in either category, but UK releases are not considered nirvana because thay are still hong king/china made and are standard releases

I think so too UK was released elsewhere in Europe but Dutch ponies were only sold in Holland.

[teacher316]

thanks everyone!

[partypony566]

Dutchies yes, UKs no

[hathorcat]

Nirvana defines itself [thanks to the lovely LadyG] as "the first generation of ponies that were made in foreign countries, along with rare variations and prototypes from Hong Kong/China." That latter part [rare variations] is what covers many Dutch and Germany ponies and what takes them into Nirvana - although they do probably fall into a little grey area [along with ponies like the Alt Birthflowers] which means they could be classed as regular release ponies. However, for the vast majority of UK ponies they are not nirvana - the exception to this would be the UK Happy Tails and Princess variants which because they are rare variations are nirvana!

[Vintergatan]

I personally think it´s misleading to call Euro ponies "UK ponies", this confused the hell out of me when I first started collecting because most of my herd is Euro ponies but none of them were ever bought in the UK
So yeah, since they were regularly released all over Europe, they´re not considered nirvana ^^

[hathorcat]

I personally think it´s misleading to call Euro ponies "UK ponies", this confused the hell out of me when I first started collecting because most of my herd is Euro ponies but none of them were ever bought in the UK
So yeah, since they were regularly released all over Europe, they´re not considered nirvana ^^

Personally I am terrible for the "UK" definition...I am in the UK, I call them UK ponies and even I feel it annoying sometimes with the ponies which were released wider in Europe....BUT I honestly dont do it as an insult in any way its just a handy catch-all as most of these ponies were distributed and supplied by Hasbro UK...even though they were sold elsewhere therefore the "UK" part of it does make some sense! I always think it must be likewise over the other side of the pond where we call ponies "US line"....poor Canada!

[Vintergatan]

Hahaha that is so true. guess it´s so hard to be PC in pony-world ^^ Although I wan't aware that Hasbro UK was in charge of imports and distribution! Calling them UK now makes more sense indeed, thanks for the info.

[hathorcat]

Hahaha that is so true. guess it´s so hard to be PC in pony-world ^^ Although I wan't aware that Hasbro UK was in charge of imports and distribution! Calling them UK now makes more sense indeed, thanks for the info.

I think it worked that way because a lot of countries didnt have HB subsidiaries - so the UK HB almost acted as a supplier - if you look at the back of most of many of what we call "UK/Euro" ponies you ll see HB UK as the supplying company....for example on NSS Cupcakes backcard it says "Hasbro Industries UK (Ltd)" even though she certainly was never sold in the UK! Just goes to show whether 1983 or 2012 Hasbro like to confuse!

[BabyIceCrystal]

Personally I am terrible for the "UK" definition...I am in the UK, I call them UK ponies and even I feel it annoying sometimes with the ponies which were released wider in Europe....BUT I honestly dont do it as an insult in any way its just a handy catch-all as most of these ponies were distributed and supplied by Hasbro UK...even though they were sold elsewhere therefore the "UK" part of it does make some sense! I always think it must be likewise over the other side of the pond where we call ponies "US line"....poor Canada!

I think the incorrect divisions between  "US", "UK, and "Nirvana" also has a lot to do with the very early years of pony collecting on the internet. Most of the community was US collectors back then because that's who had the most access to the internet. So the information we had on ponies was naturally skewed in that direction and they were thought of as the regular editions of ponies. Apparently the UK had tighter restrictions on the internet in the early days or something like that and as a result there were very few UK people making their ponies available. There was practically no one from anywhere else. Thus all "UK" ponies were anything that came from Europe and even ones we now know to be common were highly prized and thought to be rare. Nirvanas were so named because they were thought beyond rare into the almost impossible to own. Most Nirvana ponies back then were OOAK in the community and there were only a small handful. Also remember this was before digital cameras were common. Those of us who had them used scanners to capture an image of a pony and the rest of the community worked off of description alone so variations were often missed. I think those early classifications just stuck.

And thanks for recognizing Canada hathorcat! Even today we still get lumped in with the US whenever anyone describes distribution despite the fact we don't get many of the US issues. We miss anything that's store exclusive (except TRU) like Target or Dollar General, just like the "international" people, yet we don't get anything that's classified as "international" either. For example, we miss out on both Dollymix AND Blind Bags. It leaves us with nothing to trade but the ponies considered common everywhere in the world.

[Jemofirongate]

Given the origin of the word Nirvana meaning the ultimate state of inner peace and "stillness of mind after the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion have been finally extinguished" (Wikipedia) I would argue that any pony that is highly desirable could be considered nirvana once its acquisition has finally been achieved. In this context, Punzie could be considered Nirvana for some! .

Nirvana as applied to foreign variants, I think the proper definition would be 'any G1 pony manufactured under licence by a local toy manufacturer in the country of release' eg, this would include MLP manufactured by local toy companies in Italy, Greece, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Mexico etc

Ponies which are limited release, eg some of those released in the UK, Australia, Germany, Holland, Scandinavia etc are not true variants in the sense that they are bona fide Hasbro products manufactured in their factories in China and Hong Kong, they just happen to have been only available in certain countries.

To apply this analogy to G4, Starswirl is an exclusive/limited release. A blue Rarity, manufactured by 'Acme' toy company in Spain under licence from Hasbro for distribution to the Spanish market would be a Nirvana Rarity

Make sense?

Jem

[hyenacub]

Interesting discussion!  I also often wondered what classified a Nirvana.  Blue Rarity?  How odd!