1988:

TWICE AS FANCY PONIES

1988 saw the introduction of a new set of Twice as Fancy Ponies - at least, it gave North America, Australia and parts of Europe a new set. Here in the UK, we got the original six ponies on constant re-release until the end of the year, and never saw any of these new characters at all. (If you sense a note of bitterness in this, well, that's because there is one :-p) The set was sold in the Netherlands, but on English language cards, as seems to have been common with ponies from this year. The versions that appeared in Holland simply had labels in Dutch added to the corner.

Though classically "Twice as Fancy", with their spread out symbols and repetitions on their cheek or nose, these six characters did break one rule of the original set. The group's only unicorn, Buttons, had a single solid colour mane and did not have the unicorn 'streak'. In some ways, 1988 was a break away from these earlier traditions.

From the point of view of North American packaging and promotion, this was also one of the first sets to be pictured 'out of pose' - that is, the artists made no attempt to draw any of them in their actual pose - a key characteristic of earlier North American artwork.

Certain members of this set are fairly sought after - probably on account of their limited global distribution.