(Image from My Little Wiki)
(Image from My Little Wiki)
A boxed G2 Sundance
G3 Pony Art (Specifically of the Core 7 Era)
Friendship Is Magic
Generation 4 also had a spin off featuring human characters, being humanizations of the pony characters. Being featured in 4 movies, a spin off show and in the form of human dolls, this spin off is known as Equestria Girls. It is worth noting that this isn't the first time humans have been involved in My Little Pony (In G1 ponies were friends with humans, and they even made human dolls of Megan and Molly), though this doll line was noteable for the humans actually being Human Versions Of The Ponies. The humans are also stylized to have all sorts of unrealistic skin colors, matching the pony fur colors very literally. These human dolls could have pink or blue or purple skin, for example. It is suspected that this was Hasbro's attempt on capitalizing further on the market of girls who like human dolls like Monster High.
G4 also has a subgeneration called G4.5, or officially referred to as Pony Life. Pony life was considered a subgeneration as the style of both the toys and the Pony Life spin off were significantly different from previous g4 things, featuring a more chibi style with smaller bodys and big facial features for exagerated expressions.
My Little Pony G5 has begun!
(Sources for the information in the history section: 1 2 3 and my general knowledge from being in the MLP collecting fandom).
Here is a list of terms commonly used in the My Little Pony Collectors Fandom: Some may be more obvious than others but please keep in mind I want this guide to be beginner friendly ^^
Here is a list of different Nirvana Types and the ponies that are considered Nirvanas. Please note that while all the Nirvana Ponies are international exclusives, that does NOT make every international exclusive a nirvana pony! It is a VERY specific list of VERY specific G1 ponies. I have seen some seriously nasty fights break out before when someone started using the term to refer to a G4 pony that was not a Nirvana at all but they were being very defensive about being corrected over it lol. Please remember that these collectors terms do have very specific meanings sometimes and no one is trying to be mean by clarifying things about them, you can use whatever words you want but those words do have real definitions so use them correctly if you can!
Here is a list of Prototype Ponies if you are interested in looking at what some of these look like!
Here is a list of different poses, sorted by generation.
You may also see people discussing specific things when they are describing flaws on Bait-y ponies or restoration techniques, such as smooze, repinking, age spots, ect. I am not going to go over all of these things here and instead redirect you to my "Resources and Tutorials" page, which has information on restoration tutorials. If you want to learn about identifying certain flaws or restoration techniques specifically, check out the MLP Preservation Project!
Can you tell which generation is which from a glance?
A Generation 1 adult and baby pony
Generation 1 Ponies look the most like "realistic" horses when you compare their sculpted features to the more cartoony stylized gens. They have "realistically" defined snouts and symbols on both sides of their flanks. These symbols can often have a large amount of things in them: As an example later generation 4 Applejack has 3 symbols on her cutiemark, but generation 1 Applejack has 7 apples on her cutiemark. Their eyes are all painted a similar way, with solid black lines, a small line of color near the bottom of the pupil, and two eyelashes above and below the eye. Their heads should NOT turn unless the glue on their necks is loose or they are a basic fun pony. Their copyright information is written on the bottom of their foot, and the year will be listed between 1982 and 1992. The company listed Should say Hasbro (though there are a few exceptions like some Nirvanas produced by different companies or if they are a Basic Fun pony. Basic fun ponies will also have later years written on their hooves). The average G1 My Little Pony is around 5 inches tall for the adults, though the babies are usally around 2 to 3 inches tall. Their cheeks may have blush on them, if it isn't faded.
A Generation 2 Pony (Tipsy Tulip)
A Generation 3 adult and baby pony
Generation 3 ponies have generally realistic proportions, with the sculpting on their faces being very defined. In fact, the proportions of the G3 ponies are all very consistent, as they created one "master" sculpt of the G3 Pony Model and then changed that model's pose to create the different poses. They tend to have magnets in their hoofs, with a heart on the side of their hoof indicating which side the magnet is on. The magnet or hoof will have the My Little Pony logo, and the copyright information will say Hasbro, with the year being from 2002 to 2009. The eyes are similar to the g1 style of eyes, though there can be muliple different colors in their irises or symbols in the highlights in their eyes. They have three eyelashes on the top of their eyes and two eyelashes on the bottom of their eyes. They can have matte, solid color bodies but many may have slightly glittery, shimmery bodies like the ones in the photo to the left. The earlier ponies do not have turning heads, but at some point in the middle of the generation Hasbro switched to make the heads turn. Many G3 ponies have shiny tinsel in their hair. They are around 4.5 to 5 inches tall, and the babies are around 3.5 inches tall. The babies also have slightly bigger proportion eyes.
A Generation 3.5 pony (Pinkie Pie)
A Generation 4 pony (Lily Blossom)
Generation 4 Ponies have very tiny round snouts and big round ears. There is not a lot of pose variance in this generation compared to other generations, so most of them will look pretty similar in pose to the pony on the left. They have turning heads. Their eye styles can vary, so unlike the other gens you can't count the eyelashes to tell that it's a g4 pony lol. Most g4s are very small compared to other generations, with most of the standard brushables standing at around 3 to 3.5 inches.They will have the My Little Pony logo on their foot, a copyright from Hasbro and the year between 2010 and 2021.
Generation 4.5 Ponies, like g3.5, are much more styled than the typical g4 pony. They have bigger (almost boxy shaped? Idk how to describe it) heads and big, expressive eyes. They usually have open smiling mouths and very pointy ears. They have molded hoof details. Their heads can turn with a ball joint mechanism inside (and some have more articulation than that.) Their copyright information should read Hasbro with the year being in between 2019 and 2021. (Unfortunately I cannot measure them as I do not have any at the moment, will possibly update this in the future.)
A Generation 5 pony (Pipp Petals)
Generation 5 Ponies are similar to generation 4 with their proportions and small snouts, though their legs are a little skinnier and their necks are a little teensy bit longer. Their facial features tend to be more stylized, These ponies will have painted on eyebrows. They will also have molded hoof details. Their height will actually vary depending on the character, though the one that I have is around 3 and a half inches. Their heads will also turn on a ball joint mechanism. The copyrgiht information should read Hasbro and any year after 2021.
Basic Fun Reproduction Ponies (Often refered to as either just "Basic fun ponies" or "Reproduction/Repro Ponies") are high quality reproductions of the original 80s MLP toys, only made in recent years starting in 2008 and continuing to this day. Do not worry- Basic Fun has the official My Little Pony license so these are Official Ponies, not Bootlegs or fakies. They are very faithful recreations in the style and designs, with the main differences being a sturdier, more durable and hard plastic compared to the squishy soft plastic of the original vintage toys. They are also a teensy bit smaller than the original toys, but it must only be by a few milimeters because I don't think you would notice unless you had both an original and a reproduction pony in your hand and you were looking very very closely. Obviously it's very cool to have an original vintage pony, but Basic Fun is a great alternative for if you don't want to go through the trouble of searching for old vintage toys, many of them can be found at local stores like Target or readily availible online. Also the reproductions may be cheaper if the pony in question that you're looking for is a little rarer. Customizers may also enjoy Basic Fun as you can customize a pony without feeling bad for hurting a vintage toy (Though the harder plastic will make it a little more difficult to work with). They have also done cool things such as create never before sold prototype ponies, who had concept art and early production prototypes but never made it to the market in the 80s (check out my video on The Celestial Ponies). These ponies will look very similar to the G1 ponies otherwise, with the company on the bottom of her foot still reading Hasbro, any year after 2008, and it may also have the My Little Pony brand or Basic Fun listed. (It is worth noting basic fun has also remade some g3 ponies as well).
A comparison between a Basic Fun pony (Left) and a Vintage G1 pony (Right) of the same pose and color.
Two Twinkle Eye ponies
Twinkle Eyed Ponies Are G1 ponies who had little gemstones embedded in their eyes in place of their pupils. These Gems had an iridecent shiny coating, that over time may have been rubbed off. In the example picture, Ginderbread (the pony on the left) has eyes that have had their shiny coating mostly rubbed off, While Quackers (The pony on the right) Still has most of her shiny coating over her eyes. If you want to know more about either replacing the gems in their eyes, creating Twinkle Eye Pony customs, or how to create a new shiny coating on the eyes, please visit the "Resources and Tutorials" tab.
Beddy Bye Eye Ponies, often abbreviated as "BBE", are ponies who have doll eyes embedded in their heads. The eyes have long eyelashes (though these could be damaged over time) and they will open and close depending on how the pony is tilted and positioned. If you look inside the head you will see that the heads have a molded eye socket for the eye to rest in. Sometimes the eye can be somewhat dislocated out of place in the eye socket, giving some little BBE babies wonky eyes (I am unsure if this is able to be fixed but these ponies are still very cute and beautiful to me.) Many of these ponies can have Serious Rust issues, giving their eyes a scary red look, but this can be often be fixed (Please see my "resources and tutorials" tab). It's worth noting that many collectors dislike or even hate the Beddy Bye Eye ponies due to finding their eyes scary, especially if they're rusty. I am the opposite. I am BBE's biggest defender, have collected every single one they ever made, and I will continue to preach that they're fucking cute god damn it. But I also understand why people think they're creepy lol I thought that before I got one.
A Beddy Bye Eye Pony (Baby Gusty)
Flutter Ponies Are ponies with translucent wings, or a notch on their back where the wings once were. These wings are very fragile and are prone to breaking, so it is rare to find a flutter pony with her original wings still in tact. The wings would "flutter" once you pressed a notch on their back, and they could even be removed. These ponies are also slightly smaller than the standard g1 pony, with more slender legs and a rounder face. They may have designs printed on their faces as well. If you are interested in making custom flutter wings or buying replacement wings for your flutter pony, please see the "resources and tutorials" tab.
Windy Wing Ponies and Summer Wing Ponies are two almost identical types of ponies who have butterfly wings made out of a somewhat transparent film plastic. The shapes of the wings can vary slightly depending on the pony. Unlike the flutter pony wings, the windy/summer wing ponies cannot have their wings removed by normal means. Also, while the flutter pony's wings were of a plastic that would break if it were bent, the type of plastic used in the summer/windy wings is more flexible and won't break (though it can have creases and bends in it if handled too rough). Many of the summer and windy wing ponies have small symbol designs on their cheeks. These ponies are also much smaller than youd expect, standing at around 3 and a half inches. The ones I have gotten also have noteably long tails, though I an unsure if this is just the case with the ponies I have or if all of them have this.
A Windy Wing Pony (Sun Glider)
A comparison between a So Soft pony and her Non So Soft Counterpart
So Soft Ponies, often abbreviated to "SS", are ponies with fuzzy flocking on them. They are extremely soft to the touch as the flocking is very plush. There are some ponies that have both So Soft and Non So Soft versions, but also some ponies that are exclusively availible as So Soft versions. It's worth noting that if handled roughly, the flocking can be damaged. A so soft pony may be missing parts of her flocking, especially on the corners of areas like ears, hooves, wings, on muzzles, ect. Also, sometimes flocking can be damaged by other substances, or the glue on the flocking can become discolored. Sometimes collectors will "deflock" a pony and remove all the flocking so that they can have a pony without any flocking (Flocked ponies tend to have very bright colors underneath so that they can show up well under flocking). Personally I hate deflocking, especially when a pony's flocking is not damaged at all, but it's your toy and you can do whatever you want. It is necessary sometimes if the flocking is extremely damaged, for example. I encourage you not to deflock a pony if the flocking isn't too damaged though, as it can be difficult to reflock and I am not aware of any flocking that has the same soft texture as the originals.
Sea Ponies are ponies shaped like little seahorses. There are both adult and baby seaponies, with the adults originally having come in a sea shell stand, while each of the babies came with a little float in the shape of a fish or marine animal. However, it is harder to find these ponies with their original shells or floats. The adults have little metal weights at the bottom of them to let them float upright. All of the sea ponies have small holes near the backs of their heads, as they were originally bath toys and the holes were to allow for water to drain out. Since these ponies were bath toys, they are especially prone to mold if water was not drained properly, as well as rust in the adult ones because of the metal weights in their tails.
A baby seapony and fish float
Sweetheart Sisters are ponies with a unique and pretty appearance. They have long slender necks and legs, and smaller faces. They all have lovely longer hair. Some sweetheart sisters have earrings, or a hole in their ear where an earring once was (If you want to replace a missing earring in a Sweetheart sister, please look at the "resources and tutorials" page). Some may also have eyeshadow. They are slightly taller than your typical G1 Pony. They also have more eyelashes than a standard G1 pony does.
Dream Beauties are a rare My Little Pony "Spin Off" of sorts, Hasbro's take on making more realistic and detailed looking pony toys. In fact, compared to every other My Little Pony toy, Dream Beauties have the most realistic proportions and style, with tons of fine details in the sculpting to define the horse's shape. Additionally, they come in many colors with many different types of designs on them, many of the designs being across their whole body. Similar to the Sweetheart Sisters, dream beauties have eyeshadow and a lot of eyelashes. Many dream beauties shared some of the same gimmicks as normal G1 ponies, such as the "Brush n grow" gimmick or the "Sparkle Pony" style. There were also dream beauties with wings and realistically sculpted feather details on the entire thing.
There are many different types of Nirvana Ponies that had unique features or body types (such as the Piggy Ponies) But I'm not going over literally every single pony type in this section, only the ones you might see the most talked about. The main Nirvana I want to cover here is the Takara Ponies, also known as the Osharena Ponies Or translated as the "Stylish Ponies". In 1985, Hasbro gave Takara the rights to the My Little Pony License so that they could create My Little Pony Toys for a Japanese audience. However, Japan's line of ponies were very different from the other My Little Ponies, as they were stylized more like anthro Ponies who could be dressed up in different outfits. Each character has unique hair colors and textures, cute little black eyes on the sides of their head, and a big white round nose. Their arms, head, nose, and legs are poseable. They also had baby versions in a sitting pose. These ponies are extremely rare and hard to find, and not as well documented as other My Little Pony toys, making them a little obscure but very cool.
A "retro" pony (Twilight Sparkle)
(Official Amazon listing image)
Retro Ponies Are ponies made within recent years by Hasbro in an attempt to mimic the "retro style". They are "inspired by the 80s design", though noteably they don't match the style 100%. It is hard for me to put into words how it differs, perhaps the faces look to me like they're sculpted more like a g3 pony, or maybe it's the eyes and their placement. One common error I've seen with a lot of these toys is that the eyes may be printed in the wrong place so they look a little wonky. Regardless of all that, these ponies attempt to create retro style designs. Their plastic is notably more hard than a vintage pony. Some of these ponies can have unique, "crossover" designs with different franchises or brands (I have a twister one but I know theres also dnd ones and stuff like that).
I am not going to describe every single other toy type, I mostly just wanted to cover the ones you might see most so you can have a basic understanding of the different toy types people might describe when talking about ponies. If you want to learn about even more toy types like Sparkle Ponies, Brush N Grow Ponies, ect, go here.
Mcdonald's Ponies Are My Little Pony toys that were sold alongside Mcdonald's happy meals. Each generation has had at least one promotion with Mcdonald's, and the toys will vary from Generation to Generation. In fact, my little pony g1 Mcdonald's toys were (along with transformers) the First Ever Gendered Mcdonald's toys (The first time that they let the customer pick if they wanted a toy more tailored towards girls or boys). The G1 Mcdonald's toys were little charms (and they are somewhat rare considering that they were only sold for a limited time in St. Louis, where Mcdonald's was testing the Gendered Marketing). Most of the other generations of Mcdonald's toys sold the toys as miniature versions of ponies, some having a surprising amount of detail (Like the g2 ponies having gem eyes or the g3 ponies sometimes having extra designs and mimicing the g3 poses). The toys typically will have molded hair on either their manes or tails. For example, The G3 Mcdonald's pony I have pictured right has real hair for her mane but a molded tail (Though some may be the opposite, with real tails but molded manes). They will have "Mcdonald's" mentioned in the copyright information printed on them as well.
A Mcdonald's G3 Pony (In front of her Standard Brushable G3 Counterpart)
A Ponyville figurine (Royal Bouquet)
The G3 Ponyville Ponies are a series of mini pony figurines with sculpted manes and tails. They have rounder faces, almost being similar to how the heads would look in the 3.5 era. They are very small, standing at only around 2 or so inches tall. Most of the ponyville figurines were sold in miniature Ponyville playsets or with small accessories that the Ponyville Ponies could fit into. Some of the later releases had removeable hair. Some of the ponies tended to have unique themes or poses. These figurines released from around 2006 to 2010.
Baby G3.5 Ponies are a little different compared to your typical pony babies, which usually were just ponies of a smaller cuter variety. They have harder plastics and do not have the same hair that typical ponies do. While typical doll hair is usually made with nylon, polypropylene, saran or similar materials, The baby 3.5 ponies have a softer material that feels more like yarn or embroidery thread or sometime similar to that. The babies have turning heads, bows that are sewn into holes that are in the plastic on the head by the pony's ear, lots of eyelashes, and diapers that have the pony's cutiemark printed on them. The main poses are sitting up (such as the pose shown on the right) or crawling. They are around 3 inches big (if sitting up). They will have "Hasrbo" and the My Little Pony logo on them, with the year listed being 2008 or 2009.
A baby G3.5 Pony (Rainbow Dash)
A styling g4 pony compared to a standard g4 pony
Styling Ponies are ponies from G3 onward that are a larger "jumbo" size compared to the normal ponies of that generation. However, their hair, body plastics and designs tend to be pretty similar to the standard ponies other than the size. The ponies were sold so kids could have an easier time styling their long hair. Since multiple generations have styling ponies, if you are interested in looking into any specific toys from those generations you should do some more generation specific research, as things such as the height will vary.
G3 So Soft Ponies are different from the G1 so soft ponies, as instead of being flocked g3 ponies, they are more like stuffed animals with soft fabric bodies but a hard plastic pony head sewn onto it. They are similar in concept to baby dolls, as the characters they made were all baby ponies. Most of them were meant to be normal stuffed animals, but some were meant to be bath toys with a waterproof fabric being used in their bodies. They were often sewn to have clothes like pajamas, skirts, diapers with their cutiemarks on them, and similar things. They also may have come with special accessories like binkies, baby walkers, ect. They also made G3.5 so softs with the stuffed animal bodies and plastic heads, only the heads are styled to look like the g3.5 babies.
An Equestria Girls Doll (Pinkie Pie)
Equestria Girls Dolls Are humanoid g4 My Little Pony dolls, attempting to be similar to other humanoid doll lines such as Monster High. Each doll is a humanization of a pony design. The dolls have colorful skin tones, most of which are unrealistic for humans to actually have (pink, blue, purple, ect). They also have pony ears sticking out of the top of their heads instead of human ears. The dolls have poseable legs, arms, and heads. The plastic on the arms is a little more flexible than the plastic used in the rest of the body. The designs have lipstick and often other makeup on their faces. They typically have lots of accessories and can come in different outfits. They are around 9 inches tall. They will have the copyright information on their back, with the company reading Hasbro, the year in between 2013 to 2016, and a logo reading "EG"
Blind Bag Toys Is a general term used to describe miniature pony figures that come in mystery "Blind Bags". The idea is that each bag has a mystery toy in it and you won't know which one is inside until you open it. Some of the characters were rarer than others, encouraging people to collect many of them. Several generations have blind bags, though they are prominently from g3 onwards. Blind bag ponies tend to be very small (Usually no bigger than 2 inches). They tended to come in a few limited poses (such as poses modeled around the main characters) and with most of the characters being recolors of these poses. The paint work on these blind bag toys can vary, and some "rare" variants may have stuff like translucent bodies or glitter.
A variety of different Blind Bag Toys
