Ok... I have to ask....

[Ember1]

Tootsietails
My painting time prototype also has cable ties and painted symbols. I dont think all prototypes need to be full factory runs as there were probably many different stages in the pony design and production process. In fact prototypes like painting time and sundance would be considered true prototypes as compared to my red haired tootsie with green symbols  or sunsparkler in my siggy who were most definately factory runs and thought to be an early release or variant. That being said because we dont know a lot about the prototype process its easy to have our doubts

prototype painting time's cable tie in her tail:
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just my two cents but if I believed this pony was in fact not a true prototype I would be sending her back to the seller and getting a refund..  Everything about Sundance matches up to my painting time prototype who has been very well documented by her former owner so in my book she is the real deal.

Here is the link if you want to read up on painting time and her painted proto sisters.
http://www.aikarin.com/mlp/scrapbook/ukprototypes.html

[Taffeta]

That site is a great breakdown of Paintingtime. It irks me that she calls the pony Art Time, though, since it took a lot of hard work and trouble to get the real name out there and the myth of that being a translation from German was debunked when the German Moc appeared and it was something like Klecksi?

I am still trying to figure out what base was used for your PT though, Ember. I think Cherries J and Up Up and Away are legit options for the others but Mama Meadowsweet didn't come out till 2 years after the Schooltime Ponies, and we're assuming the painted ones predate production. Plus, hooves say HK and Mummy M was made in China only. Issue Paintingtime is also China, so we're looking at a 1987/8 pony, really since it is a 1987 pose and after that there aren't really  a lot of HK made ponies here In the UK.

So, intriguing question is, who WAS she, and is there another 'idea'under all that paint?

[shabbychicdee]

gorgeous photos ember1

[tootie_tails]

Ember - as long as you are happy with the purchase evrything is A OK I guess.
Also, for the auction to go that high other people must have wanted her that much too. At least two people were willing to pay that high amount. And looking at the bid list now there is another one at about ~$400. So that also speaks in the favour of Sundance being genuine. I wonder who the other high bidders were and if they are members here. It would be interesting to hear their theories about the pony.

But can I ask what makes you so convinced about Sundance? I mean if you go by the painted symbol and cable tie, then any pony with painted symbols and cable tie could be prototypes.
What is the difference between this Sundance and other ponies with painted symbols and cable ties that makes her the rare prototype and the others just well made customs?

That site is a great breakdown of Paintingtime. It irks me that she calls the pony Art Time, though, since it took a lot of hard work and trouble to get the real name out there and the myth of that being a translation from German was debunked when the German Moc appeared and it was something like Klecksi?

I remember this! Wasn't it from Dream Valley? It was something like this: "She is commonly called Art Time because of her German name Art Zeit..."
And no one could figure out where she got that from, because it was only on there. And the German name is actually Klecksi.

[Ember1]

She was bought in the UK around the same time prototype painting time and her sisters turned up originally which was around 1997 /1998. When I held her i kept thinking how she reminded me of painting time. Their symbols eyes and hair are very similiar. When holding them side by side. Its one of those things that in person you would be able to tell. And to pull out painting time's tail and find the exact same washer was surreal. They both have authentic pony hair. Since the hair used on proto Sundance matches her hong kong counterpart if she was a detailed custom i would have expected her to have a normal metal tail holder which would have been baited from another Sundance. The fact that she has the same plastic washer that my prototype painting time had is the final proof for me.

Now if i didnt have a paintingtime to compare her to i believe i might have thought differently too.

[LadyGuinevere]

No, I was around when Painting Time and the others popped up at a carboot sale as I recall it quite clearly (her first name and the town she lived in), so that can't have been earlier than 2001. I would tentatively put their finding around 2002, but I don't think when they were found means anything either way though, as any G1 ponies would be from earlier than that anyway (since it ended in 1994 in the UK as far as new ponies went). I so wish I had bid on these when I had a chance to do so, but hindsight is a wonderful thing! (plus I was a poor student back then, lol)

I'm not sure I would expect all customs to have a metal tail washer - depends on the state of the donor tail in the first place!

Quick question - in the close ups of the eyes, it looks like only the iris has been painted over. Is there anything that indicates the colour underneath, or is it fully covered?

[Ember1]

I wish you were here in person LG.. Because her eyes look to have been created in entirety all at once. She has DARKER eyeliner than my cp hong kong butterscotch which has off black eyeliner and pupil.. Sundance has jet black pupils and eyeliner.. And when I run my finger over the top of her eyes there is no protruding area for the blue crescent of the iris.. The area of the entire eye is all one flat surface if that makes sense..

Paintingtime also has the same jet black pupil and and jet back eye outline to her eyes.

[Taffeta]

The painted ponies are definitely much later than 1997/8 because at that time I was still helping build a full list online of what was available here and the Schooltime ponies were NOT on DV when I came online in 97/98. I don't remember them being found, so it was probably in my hiatus from the community around when LadyG says.

 I don't pretend I knew every detail of every find back then but since this is the timeframe I was actively involved in opening up UK info to the global market, I am sure I would at least have heard of it. Or if not me, Helen would have and would have asked me, because she was right on the ball with variants and rare stuff; she had Argentinian and Brazilian ponies YEARS before they became a community concern. If it had been in 98, she would've raised it with me .

Paintingtime came from a car boot sale. Ember, if Sundance really did come from here, she must have done so also. 1997/8 is too early for UK pony meets, but it is very possible that the seller might have got it from a car boot sale here, and confused her terms. Car boot sale is a funny phrase.

The thing that bothers me is that you just said finding it in the UK around that time gives it authenticity. Aside from the fact I found probably around a thousand ponies at car boot sales in the 1990s here and none were prototypes, there is a logic to finding prototype Schooltime Ponies here. They are UK ponies and would havebeen first designed somewhere in Europe.

Sundance is NOT a UK pony. She never had even the variations here that the US pony did. Her being found here acts as a minus against her, not a plus.

I don't think it is my place to comment on the authenticity of a pony on here when I have not seen it in person, but we have long since moved beyond the period of collecting where saying something came from the UK is justification for it being unusual. There are now hundreds of UK collectors online and we have a much better knowledge of what was and was not UK related.

There is no reason to think Sundance showing up here adds or takes from her authenticity. There are still people who claim something is Uk when what they actually mean is it looks different from what they are used to seeing. A lot of things never sold here still get tagged UK, and a lot of things which used to be tagged as UK have taken many years of work from collectors to properly catalogue.

In this instance,  no matter how you look at it, any prototype Sundance must have come from the country who invented her; America. That being so, if she was found here, she travelled. This means the UK link is incidental and far less important than her appearance and design.

@Tootie Tails, yes. The misnaming caused a LOT of issues back then, so even seeing it now, this many years on, makes me twitchy

[Ember1]

Taffeta I totally get all of your points.. I just link sundance and painting time because of their similarities and the fact that the were both found in the UK but as for Sundance's origin I do not claim to know the country where Sundance was made and if your thoughts are that she did not originate from the UK than since you are the UK expert here I will go with that thinking. I had heard somewhere that painting time and her sisters showed up late 90's but that information by the looks of it perhaps is not correct.

I just wanted to add that Sundance being found in the UK for me acts as a plus.. Paintingtime and her sister prototypes all originated in the UK as well as other prototypes, errors, variants and oddities that have surfaced over the years and you said yourself the UK was a dumping ground so I don't think its a minus at all that she was found in the UK.
 

[Taffeta]

It is true that the UK has been a dumping ground, but it doen't mean we live in a prototype paradise xD. The oddballs that have shown up here are generally related to specific sets, and all of them postdate Sundance.

As I said before, I won't judge a pony without seeing it in person, and it is possible she travelled here in an excess stock dump of some kind. On the other hand, though, there are no other prototypes of her vintage as far as I know which have been found here, which to me makes the UK link a red herring.

There are loads of ways she could have got here, but where her authenticity is concerned, they don't really matter. I have seen a lot of custom ponies at car boot sales here too, where parents apparently made ponies out of other ponies for their kids. I saw this a few times with the early MLPs that were in the comics here but not sold here. I found a baby Sugarberry once, too, nthat someone made out of another baby pony.

I also have a couple of car boot sale ponies who look like they never had a symbol -but I can't say that, just because I found them here in the UK, there is no way they weren't tampered with.

I am not saying Sundance is one of these altered ponies because I haven't seen her, but I am pointing out that being found at a UK sale doesn't make her more authentic than if she had been found somewhere else. In short, what is more important is what she looks like, NOT where she was apparently found.

[Ember1]

In the end what she looks like is all that really matters.. But just for fun I want to point out there was that gigantic life-size Sundance promo that was exhibited in the UK> I believe drusilla has that now. There may have been more than one of these.. One was spotted in the US as this picture below is posted by someone who had been to an on stage event as a child in the 80s. But the life size sundance that drusilla has I believe was found in the UK in someone's back yard..

http://www.mlptp.net/index.php?threads/post-your-old-g1-brochure-pamphlets-incl-giant-sundance-other-rarities.105673/
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The blackpool illuminations had a sundance and megan in it too..
http://www.mlptp.net/index.php?threads/blackpool-illuminations-photo.42023/

[Taffeta]

.Reading it, it seems Drusilla said she bought it at a yard sale in Dollars, a currency not used in the UK. Its provenance is apparently Ontario, which is Canada...which makes more sense seeing as SS Sundance was sold there . She wasn't sold here.

Nice to see the images though. Nice thread.

Blackpool is a mite different since it used iconic images from 1986 for the display, and the display ran long after MLP ended. Blackpool Illuminations are a popular tourist thing here so I guess it was one theme they used?

Sundance was sold here though, so her depiction is no surprise,

[Ember1]

That makes sense that she's from Canada.. Looks like Giant sundance was a north american entity then.
I just love the blackpool illuminations! They are so beautiful.. Can you tell us more about blackpool?

[Taffeta]

Sadly, it's way North of me so I've never been. Probably someone else might know more. I just know it is famous for its lights xD

[Babydoll]

This thread is so interesting, & she is definitely a mystery!

I would agree that I dont think she is from the UK as all the prototypes I have seen from the UK have had either painted bodies & painted symbols/eyes and the oddities/unfinished prototypes such as Best Friend Babies appear to have factory made body/symbols/eyes (correct me if I'm wrong).  Do we have a list of prototypes found so we can perhaps compare her to them? Speaking of prototypes, did anyone see the prototype Jewellery Baby Diamond & Purple Baby prototype on Ebay last year? Too bad the auction ended early!

Babydoll~