Pony History- squeaky butts? piggy ponies? Distract me!

[shelti]

I have to tell my History with Piggies here in the US.
Way, way back when German ebay was a hit and miss you needed to contact a seller.
See if they spoke English and if they were willing to accept USD Cash and ship to the US.
There was no pay pal or wire transfers or other form of paying for a sale if you purchased on German ebay other then to send Cash.

So these really cute ponies show up on German ebay, I can't tell you the year because all the emails I kept from that time frame on purchases were linked with an email the belonged to an Internet provider we no longer have.  Love not having email tied up any more with that situation.
There was  Minty, snuzzle, blue bell, the white pony we were calling Sky Dancer at the time because she had blue clouds, I am guessing about 6 ponies in all were listed on German ebay by a member from Austria.
And here is where my story begins:

I contacted the seller to see if they were willing to do all the criteria I needed done to be able to bid.  It turned out the gal was a Stewardess and regularly came to the US or had other Stewardess friends who could bring an item to the US to ship.
 So Good news on that end.
The ponies looked so authentic I just could not believe they could be fakes, the color and shape of the symbols were so real. 
 I contacted the seller several times and ask'd her if she knew the history of the ponies. 
They had been her childhood ponies and she was very adamant that the packaging they came in was authentic My Little Pony packaging. 
She remembered it well even though she no longer had the Cards. 
So I decided to go for it, they were just too authentic looking.

So Long Story short, I managed to win the Little minty pony, the top of my priority at the time and lost out on several others I had bid on. The pony arrives and I fell in love with her cute little chubbyness.
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I contacted a Well known member of the MLP community who maintained a wonderful MLP page
 (which is no longer available) 
It was considered the go to site for identification of HTF and Rare ponies at the time.
I sent pictures and after a couple of days received an email back stating
that she had showed the pictures around to several other Community members and it was agreed that she was a well made fake.
That did not deter me at all, I knew sooner or later the truth would be made know.



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A few weeks after I received my new little "Fake"
 I received a message from the German Seller saying a
 buyer had not paid for two of the ponies from the auctions
and if I wanted them she would sell them to me. 
This was well before ebay had 2nd chance offers.
I jumped on it, I have to say I could not wait to get these two ponies.
We agreed on her having one of her Stewardess friends bring the ponies to the US and ship them from there.
After about 2 weeks I received and email from the girl stating a terrible error had been made.
She forgot to change the address on the package and it still have the previous ebay buyer (who did not Pay) shipping info on it.
 Her friend not knowing there was a mistake sent the packages to the wrong party.
Both of us spent  weeks pleading (by email) for this person to please forward the ponies to me.
Well needless to say they never did.
And they never once bothered to even respond to either one of us.
The Seller was upset with herself but there was really not much we could do.
After two weeks it was agreed that she would ship me Lemon drop as replacement for the two ponies that
were sent to the wrong party.

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She was just as adorable as Minty, albeit a "Fake"

Several of my Pony Friends knew I had these and were looking to help me prove they were Legit.
In 2004 I was contacted by a friend who stated that
Etoilebleue in France had a bunch of them MOC listed for sale in her Sales Album.
They sent me a link and I quickly Contacted her and made arrangements to purchase Snuzzle.

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 My not being a MOC collector I quickly set  her free

I then went back to Bene's sale page and purchased the Brown Haired Minty pony MOC. 
The ponies were selling fast. 
It seems that Etoilebleue has purchased a whole group of these MOC from a Spanish toy seller for a very good price.
I think she started out with 12 MOC Piggies, all different.
I may be wrong though there may have been more.
So  after receiving the pony I posted on the MLP Arena and it was voted on that I should not free her.
So to this day the poor darling is still captured in her Bubble.

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Now I know  Piggies were found all over the place but until more Spanish members joined they were considered Fakes that is until Etoilebleue in France brought the MOC ponies into the Community for sale.
And that is My Piggy Story
 

[Prince Primbrose]

Wow, Shelti, what an amazing history! And thank goodness they aren't considered fakes anymore, huh?

[shelti]

Wow, Shelti, what an amazing history! And thank goodness they aren't considered fakes anymore, huh?

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Even though I received my Little LD in place of the two other piggies that were sent to the wrong person, i still regret to this day I was not able to have snagged them.  The ebay buyers name and the whole incident are very Fresh in my mind even though it was probably 12 years ago.

[Radha]

Shelti,

   That's amazing, thank you so much for sharing!  I'm sorry you lost out on those ponies, but happy that in the end you were proven right 

   I've heard that Mattel keeps a whole Barbie history and sample Barbies- does Hasbro not do the same?  I'm still interested in why the difference in molds- it seems very interesting that some countries had totally different pony shapes.

     

[shelti]

Shelti,

   That's amazing, thank you so much for sharing!  I'm sorry you lost out on those ponies, but happy that in the end you were proven right 

   I've heard that Mattel keeps a whole Barbie history and sample Barbies- does Hasbro not do the same?  I'm still interested in why the difference in molds- it seems very interesting that some countries had totally different pony shapes.

   

It was an epic event for me for sure, shows how exciting my "Life" is   .
No, Hasbro did not keep any licensing or reg records as to which companies had what molds or ponies being released.  I had contacted Hasbro with pictures of the pony and questions about what European market may have produced these.  The answer was "we have no records about release outside the US".  I am not sure if that was true or the person who answered me was just not wanting to bother to check into it, either way, they were no help.

I do know one of our Spanish members was able to obtain a couple of the Original Piggy molds from the Factory in Spain.  She shared pictures at the time, they were so cool to see.  I have pictures saved from the Arena Thread, if I remember the members name and credit them I will post them here in this thread.

Found it, the member was Narah

This was one of the pictures she shared at the Old Arena

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[PinkiePosh]

I came here because I saw Piggy Ponies mentioned and that is how you summon me. They thought they were fakies? I'm so jealous. I want one so bad I just end up crying because I don't have the money.

[shelti]

I came here because I saw Piggy Ponies mentioned and that is how you summon me. They thought they were fakies? I'm so jealous. I want one so bad I just end up crying because I don't have the money.

They do pop up in lots in the UK from time to time
and also on Spain ebay...

Start saving those Piggy Pennies.

[rybett]

Thanks for the Piggy bedtime story Shelt!!  I need a piggy in my herd...   

[Mermaid]

I have a piggy lemon drop that I purchased from a member claiming she was a fakie! I remember thinking she looked so legit that she couldn't have been! I bought my gal for $3 plus shipping. I remember etoilebleues sale! Those were to die for! And I remember going "yes! I knew she was legit!" After it was proven that they were real, the member who sold her to me wanted more money. But it had been like a year! And when I told them no it was drama city!

[LadyGuinevere]

I remember a friend of mine trading for a Snuzzle piggy at on of the Green Park meets back in 2001 or 2002 when we all though it was an amusing fakie. Oh how things change!

Hasbro are rubbish with their records from back then. I'm sure there probably is something out there, even if only financial data, but it may not be easily accessible. Taffeta was able to get a list from Hasbro UK in th 90s of what was sold here, but even that isn't entirely accurate. At the 2008 Fair they said categorically there was no current G2 merch, but were proved wrong by my properly licensed tshirt bought the week before in the UK. The different branches don't appear to communicate.

I agree with kkv that the squeaky butt ponies are likely to have been done without Hasbro's approval.

[TexasGal]

*sneaks in to read and learn*

[Radha]

This has been so cool 

Shelti- thanks for sharing Narah's picture of the mold- what a great piece of MLP history! 

It's interesting that Hasbro doesn't seem to have accounted for collectors the way Barbie has- or at least that is my take on it, by not having close communication between branches or being super-aware of all their merchandise.  Maybe they don't realize how great their products are 

[shelti]

Maybe they don't realize how great their products are 

I would believe that, who would have thought a Pony Doll with brushable hair would take on the World as a collector Item but it sure did

This is from the 2009 Oregon Pony meet at cards4me's place.  Never let Piggies come to pony meets, they just go wild

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[kitkatvintage]

The squeaky butt ponies are from Venezuela. Apparently Bisanti, the toy company who had licensing to produce MLP, made them & sold them as pinata toys after they were no longer making "finished" ponies. Somewhere there is a thread with a video clip of someone actually squeaking a pony. It's pretty awesome!

I was searching for something else, but I happened to find the thread with the Squeaky Butt video. Here it is, for those who have never seen a squeaky pony in person:
http://mlparena.com/index.php/topic,328869.15.html  (on page 2)

[rybett]

Call me nutty, but I found replacement squeakers on e-bay and ordered some.  I'm thinking that it could be popped in a baity girl.  Failing that, squeaky catnip toys will be made!