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

[Ember1]

I dont believe that is the case here. However i did think of the same thing before she arrived.

If i wanted to make a custom of sundance, alternate january birthflower has the right color hair and eyes for a sundance custom but her hair is considerably shorter than CP Sundances hair. It seems extremely unlikely someone would go through the trouble to remove the hair of a rare january birthflower pony which is already the right color for a sundance custom only to replace the hair with authentic pony hair of the same hue just to gain some extra length.

Its one of those things that are easier to tell in person but her similarities to painting time are considerable. I am pretty confidant cp sundance is an actual pre-production prototype.

I am a designer for a living so a lot of the things I have to do for my daily job involve creating prototype mockup versions of what a product is going to look like once factory manufactured. We use the best materials possible with the intent to "win our bosses final approval" to go for production. We go through many many different versions before something gets fully approved

Most of the time I scrap the prototype versions of what I am working on and just chuck them in the garbage. But there are rare instances where I like the prototype version better than the "approved manufactured version" so I take my work home with me and keep it for my portfolio

[LadyMoondancer]

I don't think the alternate Birthflowers were sold in the UK.  I remember the first time alternate Holly turned up on eBay the UK members of the community were as baffled as anyone.

My guess is that she has the base of a US birthflower pony (regardless of whether she is a custom or a prototype--as we've seen other prototype which are apparently painted over "regular" ponies).  She's white, she has factory printed lashes but the pupil and iris have been painted over, and she has blush, which the alternate Birthflowers didn't have but the regular Birthflowers did.

[Ember1]

Hi ladymoondancer. I dont believe elements of her eyes are "painted over"
There is no protusion of the layer of the iris or pupil. The whole eye is all the same flat layer. 
Now there could be a complete eye behind the eye that is there now but i do believe the whole eye was painted all at once.

A normal birthflower could totally have been the base though or a sample factory collectors pose test.

[Lady Starflower]

I don't think the alternate Birthflowers were sold in the UK.  I remember the first time alternate Holly turned up on eBay the UK members of the community were as baffled as anyone.

My guess is that she has the base of a US birthflower pony (regardless of whether she is a custom or a prototype--as we've seen other prototype which are apparently painted over "regular" ponies).  She's white, she has factory printed lashes but the pupil and iris have been painted over, and she has blush, which the alternate Birthflowers didn't have but the regular Birthflowers did.

This is what I believe too. That her base must have been a regular birth flower. And they just did Sundance's eyes and symbols.

[Ember1]

 CP sundance's eyeliner is thicker and it is jet black as apposed to a normal black color of most printed ponies. That is a mint out of box sundance on the left side of the first photo so the eyes of a normal pony don't get mintier than that. You can see that cp sundance has darker black eyes than the mint hong kong sundance. Paintingtime has the same jet black eye appearance as cp sundance.

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[princessluna11706]

Wow, I've really learned a lot reading this thread!  I can't add much to this topic, but I'm leaning towards her being legit, from all the comparisons and points Ember1 made.  I hope she really is, she is so lovely

[Buffy]

She Looks great and it is really hard to tell from photos if she is a prototype or a really good custom.
If it would be mine Pony, I would open her and look inside what is her mane/tail Looks like...

[Taffeta]

Yeah, the alt Birthflowers weren't sold in the UK. The US ones did come here at the end of production, in simple card attached bags or clear bags, but the Alt ones didn't, and the others weren't mainstream sold here/on offer here.

We do only have the seller's word for it that it was found in the UK, though. This is the part of the story that bothers me the most, because the timeline doesn't make sense, so I think that she must have misremembered details of when or where she found it. Memory is a funny thing, so I'm not sure that's relevant to the authenticity discussion.


That other auction picture. I'm not sure about the Baby Diamond, because I have seen completely wrecked ones before and it's not totally clear to me whether that's what's happened with that one. The OTHER..not sure. Suspicious me would say maybe she's just been painted. Pony geek me is still trying to figure out what she might've been a trial for, though...if she is something more than she seems (and I would love it if she was).

Unfortunately we won't ever know because if the auction got closed early, either the seller kept it or someone broke the rules and made a private offer which the seller accepted. The first option = the seller isn't here to discuss it, and the second = whoever did that probably won't be owning up to it any time soon because it is against ebay rules :-/.

@ Buffy - Ember already did do that if you go back a few pages in the thread

[Buffy]

@ Buffy - Ember already did do that if you go back a few pages in the thread

Yeah, Ember told me, that she has open her. I'm sorry, I think I have missed that...

[Lady Starflower]

Does anyone have pics from the Baby Diamond auction? I missed it and I'd love to see them

[pinkkittywinks]

Does anyone have pics from the Baby Diamond auction? I missed it and I'd love to see them

Babydoll posted pictures on page 9 of this thread

Love pkw xxx

[Taffeta]

Looking at that auction picture again, it is possible the purple baby is a painted Baby Katie. Katie's body tone is yellowish originally, and the hair would match. It might be a legit paint up for something productional, or it might not.

I am even less convinced of Baby Diamond being odd, now, because I noticed that the Seaside Baby has Diamond's ring on her leg. It is not impossible that a prototype got sold in package etc, but its more unlikely to me; you'd think that it would get into the public sphere by a person taking it home from the office. And yes, it MIGHT have the accessory, but it just as likely might not.

The lot covers a wide range of years for the UK, so it's difficult to be sure, but if they had the Seaside Baby, and its ring, and that is clearly "normal", then it seems MORE likely that Baby Diamond could just be dirty.

The truth is, though, unless we get more images, we'll never know.

[Buffy]

The purple Baby Looks like a custom of the purple Pony with icecream 3D Symbol(sorry, I'm not good with english names, her german name is Weinträubchen)
*EDIT*
I mean sherbet

[LadyMoondancer]

I think it's very unlikely that a prototype would get sold in package to a store.  Stores ship their toys in (I assume) directly from Hong Kong or China.  Prototypes would be more for use at Hasbro HQ.  So it's hard to see how one would get sold to a toy store.

That said, weren't some of the prototypes used for brochure pictures?  Brochure ponies are often shown with their accessories, so it would be possible that the pony + accessory would stay together despite never being MOC.

Final note:  in the US Hasbro Toyfair catalogs they DO occasionally show prototypes that are MOC.  They always look factory produced, but they might be in a different pose or have a different colored symbol.  Or the pony itself might be the same, but the packaging has the wrong name.  So a MOC prototype isn't completely "out there" (though I've never heard of one reaching a collector), but it's not likely they'd be handpainted in appearance.

[Lady Starflower]

Does anyone have pics from the Baby Diamond auction? I missed it and I'd love to see them

Babydoll posted pictures on page 9 of this thread

Love pkw xxx

Thanks PKW, I missed the edit

My opinion is that the Baby Diamond is just beat up and played with. But that purple baby is quite a mystery!