Petite Ponies
The first thing I want to say is that I am NOT an expert on the Petite Ponies, nor do I really collect them unless one comes up and I'm in the right mood to buy it :)~
Therefore THE best resource for Petite Pony research can be found at the Royal Fortress's Petite Pony Guide.
As a brief overview, however, Petite Ponies were a weird experiment by Hasbro into the world of 'Honey I Shrunk The Ponies!'. About the size of a Mummy Charm, but with a horseshoe hoofprint, these little characters were first discovered in the Pony Comic by two of the Newborn ponies, and would make spasmodic appearances as time went on.
Hasbro made various playsets to go with these little guys, including a Royal Castle, a Carousel and various shops and houses. For some unknown reason, however, only the ponies sold with these playsets were ever given names. All the subsequent sets of Petite Ponies were not given their own identities.
Poor mites :)
Above are the array of ponies sold with playsets. Please note that one (Misty) is absent because I just don't have her. Please also note that there exist versions of each of these with MOULDED tails. However ALL playsets sold in the UK came with the rooted tail versions shown above, even though Topper was given in the comic as an Earth Pony. Princess Moondust and Kingsley had different names in the US edition. I know Princess Moondust was Magic Star...but I'm not sure on Kingsley.
And here is a selection of the other Petites on offer. Please note there were also Glow & Show Petites, but I don't have any of them, and SunSparkle petites, as well as the Petite Pony Parade:
FIVE of the TEN PARADE ponies, with moulded tails. The ponies were sold as a set of 10)
The Mummy Charm is included for comparison.
Many of these sets seem hard to find second hand - the Ponytail Petites are the exception, as they seem to be the most common of the Petite Pony sets.
PACKAGING VARIATIONS
The way in which petite ponies were packaged seems to have varied across countries and continents. As before, I can't claim to have an exhaustive knowledge of Petites or their accoutrements, but there are some significant differences in how these ponies were released in different places.
NORTH AMERICAN PACKAGING STYLE (AND UK?)
|
 PONYTAIL PONIES |
 SUNSPARKLE PONIES |
The above packaging style is the one that I am most familiar with, which strikes me on reflection as a bit odd. This appears to be the chosen form of packing used in North America, but the middle set of petites (the Ponytail ones) were bought new here in the UK from a store in London. It seems that in this regard at least, the UK followed the UK packaging model (though it is unclear how many sets were sold here). The playset boxes were also American styled, although the ponies inside were often different from what was advertised on the box.
All petites were sold in sets of 5 except the Pretty Pony Parade, which was a single set of ten. There were three sets of Ponytail Petites, and as I mentioned before, they are the most common petite ponies.
Continental Europe seemed to have a different style of packaging, at least for the Ponytail set:
 PONYTAIL PETITES (DUTCH/BELGIAN CARD) |
 PONYTAIL PETITES (SPANISH CARD) |
The Spanish card also featured an odd looking horseshoe point on the back. I have no idea whether there were any special offers in Spain that this might relate to (anyone know?)
1 HORSESHOE POINT
(Spanish Petite Pony Card)
I do not know whether both forms of packaging featured in the UK, or whether we only had the North American style.
