Chinese Majesty...

[Taffeta]

My sister's ponies came down from the loft today, so I have finally got the pony to hand and was able to take photos of her feet for the first time.

Let me tell the story, though.

In 1998, my sister found a Majesty at the car boot sale which she thought looked "different." When she got it home and compared it to her one, she realised it was made in China, not in Hong Kong.

We asked about it online, but the community was really a lot smaller then, and nobody knew anything about it, nor had ever heard of a Chinese Majesty.

At this time I was doing a lot of stuff with Italian Ponies. Naynie was about 11, and she was super proud of the fact she felt she had "discovered" a variation. As a result, she really values that pony (although the pony is not in good condition).

The other day, when the first of her boxes came down, she remembered about Majesty and mentioned it to me again. She asked whether or not I had found anything out in the interim. And, because I've not been 100% on ponies over the past x number of years, the answer is no.

I did a google search for Chinese Majesty this evening and I found a post on the TP from 2009 which mentions someone else finding one in a Dream Castle lot bought on Ebay. Link:
http://www.mlptp.net/index.php?threads/majesty-hong-kong-vs-china.64320/
I don't know if this person is still in the pony community, or on the Arena, because I don't know them at all. BUT I did note that she was in the UK, and that, chances are the DC she bought was also in the UK, because she mentioned it having a hidden dragon.

MLP Wiki just mentions a Chinese one exists, but no details, no pictures.

So, I'm wondering whether anyone, in the time since Elena found her Majesty, and now, has conclusively decided where she came from and why.

Chinese Lemon Drop is easy to explain, because of the re-release of the Show Stable, but I am not sure that the same rule can be applied for Majesty, unless she was at the very end of the line.

Does anyone know anything and how many more have come to light since 1998?

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[Clipper]

I love your topics!

I think I have one made in china as well. I believe the later UK/Euro Releases were all made in China for playset reissues.

[Taffeta]

The problem with that theory is Dream Castle doesn't appear beyond 1986 on Hasbro's list, and I had my DC when it was on clearance - from photos, some time in 1987. My Majesty is from HK. We found hundreds of Majesty when carbooting, but only one made in China as far as I know...

She probably did come with DC but why and how many of them is the mystery. I always wondered if she related to the US mail order, but then she was here...and we din't have MO Majesty here...

Unless they ran out of ponies and had to get a batch done in China...Kiss Curl (1987-8) can be China or HK so maybe it just was at the very end...?

[tootie_tails]

Oh I have one from china and I know her provenence.. she came with the dream castle I bought in a toy store here in sweden back in the 80's.

[Taffeta]

Ah, that's interesting! Do you remember what year?

[tootie_tails]

I don't remember exactly when I bought the castle but probably in 1987, that would be the most likely year, although it could have been in 1986 or possibly 1988... The castle was for sale here over a period of a few years and I bought it in the beginning or middle of that period. But I don't remember what year they started selling it. It should be possible to find it in old adverts though, I'll see if I can find the ones I saved. (there are probably pictures of them online from before though).

[Miss_Pompon]

Mine come from a big lot I bought last year on ebay from a seller in the netherlands (there was also a white HK tootsie in it), but it could have come from anywhere before that 

[Taffeta]

Hm. If the castle was on sale in 1988 in some places that makes sense. Perhaps that is where she comes from. I just would expect to see more in the UK if she was a general release here, but I never did...maybe she travelled o.O.

[Baby Sugarberry]

Don't forget there was a MO Majesty (identical design-wise to the playset version) that was issued with Sprinkles / Lemondrop / Half-Note / Tiddly-Winks.  China ponies tend to appear later on in the production run, so that may be your pony's origin.

[tootie_tails]

I had the feeling this topic has been discussed before and I found a few threads from the old arena.
And yes, in one of them LG says china Majesty is the US MO version:

http://www.mlparena.com/archive/Forums/viewtopic/p=1342917.html

Two random threads on china Majesty:

http://www.mlparena.com/archive/Forums/viewtopic/p=2483999.html
http://www.mlparena.com/archive/Forums/viewtopic/t=265291/postdays=0/postorder=asc/start=0.html

More than one people say theirs are in bad condition and the same goes for mine. I think she is prone to get brown discolouration, more than the hk version... Mine was poor quality from the start though, she had fabric flaws when I got her.

Found another thread, in this one it says "..some may have come from later issues of the castle in Europe?" and "I have a Dream Castle from France that came with China Majesty":

http://www.mlparena.com/archive/Forums//viewtopic/p=1382858.html

[Taffeta]

I think Naynie and I assumed, originally, she was something to do with the later MO release, since MO ponies did turn up here at end of line. BUT, given her condition and such, I think maybe the later castle release is what actually happened. We will probably never know for sure, but at least now I have something I can tell her when she's next here Thanks all - and thanks for those links too, tootie_tails . I appreciate it.

[hathorcat]

I think we may have contradictory sources. I have sales paperwork (from the UK toy dealer catalogues for right into 87/88 when Dream Castle was still being offered to retailers here. Mind you, its Hasbro, right? Who knows...anything goes Right up until the packaging changes were seen and about the same time as the PE hitting shelves.

I have always suspected that is probably where she came from just late run releases of the set. In addition the Dream Castle was being sold around Europe for quite a long time frame (not to mention its special "made in West Germany") after the US would have got their new version so perhaps she is just a long travelling little soul?

[Taffeta]

I don't think it is necessarily a contradiction. The list from Hasbro UK in 95 is not perfect but was drawn from their own kept records of what they had sold at that time. We already know that Hasbro UK sold ponies before 85, but the list I have starts then and the person I corresponded with called that their inception.

Hasbro don't include it on the list beyond 86 but it doesn't mean they didn't still have stock from those years which they offered subsequently. First and foremost the years are calendar years, but ponies did come out in autumn or summer so 1986 probably = 1986/7.

The 1987 insert (1st one) features DC, and that would correlate with 1987/8. I know mine was on clearance at Boots in the Jan sales and the latest that could have been was 1987 because we have pictures of it in the background when my sister was a newborn baby. Logically I had mine for my birthday that year, which would make it discounted stock from 86/7, which tallies with the list. My Majesty is HK.

If stores were having to discount it, maybe Hasbro had surplus and they continued it on the next year to clear it out.

Just theorising, but it seems plausible to me. Except that doesn't settle Chinese Majesty, as I am pretty sure the next playset pony, Fifi, was made in HK.

DC isn't alone with West Germany, either. My Lullabye Nursery box (on sale till 1988 I believe here) also says that, and KissCurl's says Spain, but Baby TW is made in HK and Kiss Curl can be either (but does not appear on lists, etc till DC disappears, in 1988 and reappears on Hasbro lists for 1990, which is when Chinese Lemon Drop happened. Unfortunately my boxes are in the attic so cant check stable and waterfall.

Sooo, in my opinion,  if DC had a post 87 release in Europe, I would say that's the probable source, and ones here travelled, like the Italian ponies that show up here.

Unless we find a box with pony made in China on it, though, it is all guesswork...

[hathorcat]

Unfortunately just because a store was discounting it in one year did not mean they would not have bought new stock of the same item and sold it at full value the following year. It depends on individual stores and buying practices. Heck even now we see Hasbro selling the same item (e.g. giant Celestia) to stores who sell it at full value only 6 months after they were discounting the same thing. As you say, its perfectly possible that DCs, if they were being offered to retailers, were still being sold after your discounted one. Timing could mean that these later ones were later and perhaps even China made.

The west German DC I was referring to was much later in the line - the one with the red pennants (I believe it got a Scandinavian release as well). I dont have any proof anyway but it was certainly late enough to have a China Majesty in it.

[Taffeta]

Hm. You make me want to dig out my DC box, but since other things were W.German made, distinguishing might be hard. It also makes me wonder whether anything about my nursery was different, but then Nursery accessory colours do vary, as do Dance School ones etc...

 And, I didn't mean the SAME stores would be buying it. Obviously they wouldn't. I meant rather that some stores like Boots who were discounting it didn't fulfil their order and so they got offered to other stores or other REGIONS where potential takeup was better ( here was a very poor distributional area).

There is no reason imo to assume a China Majesty was coming out in the UK as early as 87 when China LD didn't appear till 1989, esp when Kiss Curl's original box said HK...and she also had a release around 89/90. Nor is there anything clearcut to assume that because DC was on some material from 87/8 that it was necessarily being sold in the UK at the time Lemon Drop was reissued.Granted, we also can't prove that she wasn't, but China LD and KC are more commonly found here. A proper China release here should have produced a flurry, since Majesty/Castle were promoted so much here. I just don't think there is enough evidence, even if DC was still on shelves in 88, that this was China Majesty's origin.

But, if Scandinavia/Continental Europe had a later release, and you just said yourself that they did, and tootie tails said she bought one there, too,  this seems to be the logical place and time frame for China Majesty. And with a lot of European companies in the UK, ponies travel.