Possible pony variations found?

[Princess Sparkle]

Hi everyone,

As some of you know I have been going through my collection selling off my doubles. In some cases they are both so lovely it's been hard to decide which one should be the double and which one I should keep! But while trying to decide which Mail Order Star hopper to keep I realized they are quite different to each other, not just in the colour of their glittery plastic but also their eye colours are completely different and one's symbol is much larger than the other!  I was wondering if someone knows anything about this and can shed some light on the difference?
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The other weird thing I found was with my Rock'n'Beats pony. This isn't as big a difference but one has really hard shiny plastic similar to my Macau ponies which the other has softer matte plastic.

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Sorry if these are well known variations I've just never seen them before 

[moving to the corral for you love pkw xxx]

[lunar_scythe]

interesting!  And since the sparkle ponies have the same colors in their symbols, the one probably isn't just faded...are they both marked the same on their feet, or is this one of the ponies that was made in both HK and China?

I know there are some variations on the Rock n' Beats, but I don't know if that's a 'known' one or not; is one curly haired, and the other straight haired?

[Princess Sparkle]

I know I thought the same thing about one maybe being discolored, but if you look at their symbols the flying saucers are totally different sizes on each pony? And their eye colour is quite different too. They are both have the same markings on their feet too so I thought it was quite strange. In regards to the rock'n'beat pony both have curly hair 

[MiRaja]

On Starhopper, I'm going to take a guess and say the change between her, especially her eyes, is regarding UV fading.  Your lighter Starhopper has been exposed to some sunlight.    Dainty Dahlia has about the same colored eyes as your darker one, and I know when I sunfaded one of mine, and didn't do a stellar job of covering her eyes, they faded to that exact sort of lavender!  It's a sun sensitive red pigment in the paint, I would guess, given the original color is more of a red-purple.  Reds are fussy colors and pigments, and are usually unstable in any sort of scenario.  Even modern red inks and dyes are not at all as color fast as other colors, and are touchy to UV exposure. 

[Princess Sparkle]

But look at the two Star Hoppers symbols, they are completely different sizes?

[Baby Sugarberry]

The MO Sparkle ponies were offered for a couple years (if I remember correctly), and it's not uncommon to find variations like this due to different factories making the same  pony either concurrently or consecutively.  The darker one looks to also have some UV exposure/damage - excessive light tends to make Sparkle ponies darker/browner than their original.  It could also just be batch difference. I've seen Star Hopper with dark body and light head before. 

[Princess Sparkle]

Oooh thanks baby sugarberry that could definitely make sense. I definitely think they made two stamps with the space ship symbol due to the different sizes and maybe used different bases as well due to the different eye colouring... I remember a few months back a member in the forum posting her Nappers which had totally different coloured bodies, not eye colouring or anything else was different though. It's funny my non mail order star hopper who has yellow hair has the same body as the darker one.

[nhal039]

I love both those sparkle ponies, I would so keep both

[pinkkittywinks]

I'm moving this to the corral for you

Love pkw xxx

[mlp4me]

Yup, that MO head body/mismatch can get pretty hairy at times...
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[Haruna]

What an interesting pair of Star Hoppers you have! I don't think I've ever actually seen one in the lighter green color.

The MO Sparkle ponies were offered for a couple years (if I remember correctly), and it's not uncommon to find variations like this due to different factories making the same  pony either concurrently or consecutively.

Hmmm, that would be my best guess, too. I noticed that a mail order Sky Rocket I got recently has dark plastic. Maybe whatever factory the mail orders were made did dark plastic for a while (or else whatever plastic they used is prone to turning dark over the years).

About Rockin' Beat Half Note, though, I don't really know. Maybe the shinier one has some plasticizer leakage? Is she sticky at all?

[Princess Sparkle]

Yup, that MO head body/mismatch can get pretty hairy at times...
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Oh my god! That is crazy MLP4ME! What a difference between her head and body!

Haruna, she's not sticky at all but I guess it could be leaky plasticizer and maybe at some point someone cleaned her up

[Baby Sugarberry]

I've got a Star Hopper that looks pretty much the same, only reversed.  The head is the lighter part and the body is dark. Pretty crazy, but a good illustration of how slight variations in plastic formulation can age very differently.

Half Note I'd suspect again is just batch difference / variations in plastic - leaching plasticizer doesn't usually make ponies shiny, only no-longer-squishy.

[hathorcat]

Its always cool to find ponies with little differences I wouldnt call it variations (I like to reserve that for nirvana ponies) but I do think both of these cases are less to do with environment changing the pony and more simply to do with release & manufacture time.

When you consider how many times and places and over such an extended period (and 80s factory QA in China!) that these ponies were manufactured this kind of difference from pony to pony is perhaps not that surprising.

I would put the Star Hopper down to the fact they did get a few releases mail order - so manufacture would have perhaps been split over years rather than months (this could even mean different manufacture lines or factories). So you must have releases from two different time frames/manufacture/batches.

Half Note is probably just a simply blend issue on plastic manufacture - this kind of thing can happen within the same batch depending on receipe. So I think thats just one of those things rather than anything more specific.

Congrats on them! They are so cool! (especially the Star Hopper differences).