Spotlight on Argentina Ponies by leaper
Argentina ponies are some of the most diverse and colourful ponies ever produced. They were produced throughout the 1980s in the Argentina factory, Top Toys, under license from Hasbro.
A lot of Argentina ponies have quite soft bodies while others are harder and more solid, they have lovely shiny and smooth hair. They came on cards that rarely had the ponies name on it, but rather a generic card for most adults or babies. They also often come in alternate colours to the Hong Kong/China, variant range of winger ponies. Below is an image of Alitas pony Whirly.
What makes them so special?
The Argentina name guarantees a huge range of colours and poses and until a few years ago they were very hard to come by, but with the good prices they were fetching many sellers from Argentina went searching for ponies to sell mainly on eBay. Now the supply is better, prices have dropped, though some are still very hard to find.
How do you identify an Argentina pony?
The babies and wingers are generally stamped Argentina, but only a few of the adult ponies have the country stamp and are more of a mystery. Usually the adults have a two digit date stamp on one foot, with the name Hasbro on the same foot and nothing on the other feet.
What ponies are there?
There are hundreds of ponies, probably the biggest range of any country. Sets include collector poses, Paseo (trotting) poses, unicorns and pegasi, wingers, first tooth, sparkle, dance and prance and many more. There were also a few individual ponies, such as the Wedding Pony and the Christmas pony. The adults seem to come in the biggest variety but there are lots of baby ponies too, for example the Arco Iris range which feature a rainbow as a symbol and come in three colours.
Although some ponies are recognisable as their counterpart, they usually differ either in symbol or colouring, for example the Glory that comes in a peachy orange colour, or the Christmas pony that has a different symbol to Merry Treats. Twinkle Eyed ponies were sold in Argentina, but they were made without the feature that made them so special in the US and other countries. Some Argentina ponies are even barely related to US ponies, like the yellow baby Fancy Pants pony that has maple leaves on nappy. There are too many Argentina ponies to list them all!
There are also some ponies that appear in more than one set, for example Flutterbye (by symbol) Here are nine versions of Argie Flutterbye but there are even more than the ones pictured. They cover a number of different sets.
Where were they sold?
Argentina and some surrounding South America countries.
How were they sold?
They were sold similar to how many US ponies were sold, on cards with plastic bubbles. Argentina cards tend to not hold up very well and can often damage the pony on the card. As a result, this means it is often a good idea to remove them. There were a few ponies sold in boxes, like the Wedding Pony and the Dance and Prance ponies.
In many cases (especially babies), the backcard does not correspond to the set the pony belongs to. Sometimes this is remedied by a sticker over part of the card.
Trivia:
*Dream Valley has claimed there is a yellow pony with green hair and butterflies called 'Prettybow' that came with the Pretty Parlour. However, she is not a German pony at all, but instead one of the many Argentina Flutterbye variants! She did not come with a parlour, and there is no cat named 'Sterne.'
Thanks to StrawberryFair17 for her picture donation to the Nirvana Gallery.
There is a range of so called bootleg Argie ponies for sale. These are stamped Hasbro, Argentina 84 but it is not known if they were even produced as long ago as that, let alone if they are genuine. Top Toys has been known to use old toy moulds and redesign the product when they could not renew their license to reproduce certain toy lines. They have also done this with a line of action figures. Sometimes these redesigned toys are called variant.
Bootleg G3's have been found in Argentina. Pretty bold to even put the MLP name on the box!
There is some speculation that some ponies have been re-carded particularly the baby ones as their cards can often look not only different to the original card, but also are quite poorly done, and the pony inside can seem somewhat "second hand".
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One of the many stories about Argentina ponies suggests that the employees of the pony making factory were allowed to dabble in the pony making, thus maybe explaining why there are so many "one off" ponies
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My thanks go to Bob Frassinetti for the interview, LadyGuinevere and BridgetsMum.
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The Nirvana Spotlights were kindly written and donated to the MLParena by members. Please respect the Nirvana Spotlights and the MLParena and do not take pictures or information for use on eBay, personal sales or webpages.
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A big thank you got Shelti who saved each of the spotlights. This spotlight was first published on May 19, 2006.