Argentina ponies are some of the most diverse and colorful 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, varient range of winger ponies.
[img]http://www.mlparena.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=349172&g2_serialNumber=1&g2_GALLERYSID=d5144edc85d007805c45a44954399110[/img]

What makes them so special?

The Argentina name guarantees a huge range of colors 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.
Adult foot markings:
[img]http://www.mlparena.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=349184&g2_serialNumber=1&g2_GALLERYSID=d5144edc85d007805c45a44954399110[/img]
Baby foot markings:
[img]http://www.mlparena.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=349168&g2_serialNumber=1&g2_GALLERYSID=d5144edc85d007805c45a44954399110[/img]
Here is a typical Argentina eye:
[img]http://www.mlparena.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=349186&g2_serialNumber=1&g2_GALLERYSID=d5144edc85d007805c45a44954399110[/img]

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 colors.

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.
[img]http://www.mlparena.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=349178&g2_serialNumber=2&g2_GALLERYSID=d5144edc85d007805c45a44954399110[/img]

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.

How much do they cost?

Prices do vary a lot with the baby ones being the most affordable, even MOC Argie baby ponies can be purchased for as little as $30 and rarely make more than $70. Adult ponies range from $40 to around $120. Carded or not seems to make little difference to the price as for some time MOC were easier to get hold of than loose.
[img]http://www.mlparena.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=349164&g2_serialNumber=1&g2_GALLERYSID=d5144edc85d007805c45a44954399110[/img][img]http://www.mlparena.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=349166&g2_serialNumber=1&g2_GALLERYSID=d5144edc85d007805c45a44954399110[/img]


Trivia:

* Dream Valley has claimed there is a yellow pony with green hair and butterflies called 'Prettybow' that came with the Pretty Parlour: http://dreamvalley-mlp.com/international_early.html#prettybow. 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.
[img]http://www.mlparena.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=349182&g2_serialNumber=1&g2_GALLERYSID=d5144edc85d007805c45a44954399110[/img]

*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 variants, as in this auction.
[img]http://www.mlparena.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=349170&g2_serialNumber=2&g2_GALLERYSID=d5144edc85d007805c45a44954399110[/img]
[img]http://www.mlparena.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=349174&g2_serialNumber=1&g2_GALLERYSID=d5144edc85d007805c45a44954399110[/img]

*Bootleg G3's have been found in Argentina. Pretty bold to even put the MLP name on the box!
[img]http://www.mlparena.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=349161&g2_serialNumber=2&g2_GALLERYSID=d5144edc85d007805c45a44954399110[/img]

*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".

*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

Useful weblinks:
www.ba-toymuseum.com.ar/

www.angelfire.com/art/...index.html

hometown.aol.com/argos...ntina.html

www.mlparena.com/galle...album1298/



My thanks go to Bob Frassinetti for the interview below, LadyGuinevere and BridgetsMum.

(edit to add water marked pictures love pkw )

There's soooooo many Argie ponies! I would love to see other people post their pics!

Wow, I had no idea there were so many Argies! I really like them.

Yay Argentina ponies! I love my Argie rainbow babies, and Argie Buttons has the most wonderful colors. The Brillitos are also really cool.

They're right... the G3s look cheap.

I think I recall when Argie 'bootleg' ponies appeared on Ponytopia that it was said that they are not knock-offs but actually produced under licence from Hasbro. Hence why they have used the actual MLP logo.

See link below (it says brazil but the info on the web page says South America so I presume these were sold in Argentina aswell...

www.ponytopia.com/2005...brazil.htm

Jemofirongate wrote:

I think I recall when Argie 'bootleg' ponies appeared on Ponytopia that it was said that they are not knock-offs but actually produced under licence from Hasbro. Hence why they have used the actual MLP logo. See link below (it says brazil but the info on the web page says South America so I presume these were sold in Argentina aswell... www.ponytopia.com/2005...brazil.htm

Those are brazilians, and where found only in Brazil and Mexico so far
The argie bootleg ponies are in the shape and size of a normal pony, those are way bigger


I really like the argie ponies, their colors are lovely <3 And it was a great idea to interview an employee of the toy museum!

wow that is such a wonderful information pack on the argi ponies!! and i love the flutterbye ones!!

Wow!! this is a wonderful job, with so much info and great pics.
Would be nice if other members post their pics of the different argies as there are so many different ones.

ok guys and gals you were asking for pictures of other argies for clarification. i will attempt not to confuse anyone..... so here are some pics of mine with a brief expanation of the ponies pictured. i hope i help rather than hinder.




this is my moc confetti. this is a variant of the green and blue confetti seen earlier, there is also another in white as well. this is one of the more unusual collector ponies, you can also gt all the more normal release collector pose ponies as well

there is also an unusual collector variant of melody, lickety split and sweet stuff. i cant remember the others of the top of my head



this is my moc paseo (trotting or as i like to call it posey pose!) armonia
she is a variant of medley and as you can see is hugely different from the usual us/uk release. her card, if you look carefully also has the stickers mentioned earlier over serveral bits of hte card;-the name in the top left corner and the set under the title.



this is the sundance from the brillitos set, these are the argentinian equivalent of the sparkle ponies with a glittery body. Yet again the card is stickered over



these are 2 ponies from the arco iris line, this is like the rainbow ponies in this country although the ponies themselves are not usually rainbow ponies. (some of the set like windy are still rainbow haired although they still barely resemble the normal release) these ponies are the argie buttons mentioned above, and skyflier, i dont know if this is normal for the whole line as i am still waiting on some of them to arrive from argentina but these 2 both have a harder body



this is the green pony from the rock n beat set. there are only 2 in the set, the other being an orange earth pony in shy pose



these are 2 random unicorns one is sparkler who is unfortunately not in great condition, the other is powder. it is important to release that there are many variants even in this. sparkler there are 2 or 3 other variants with a different colour scheme all together. as far as i am aware this is the only powder variant



also in rather poor condition, firefly who is almost entirely 'normal' looking her symbol would have been non glittery.




here are the only helados ponies that i am aware of. they are all lickety split variants. i think of them as vanilla strawberry and chocolate! all three of mine have argentina stamped on their feet as well.




now for the babies.....
above are some moc examples the more common and easier to find drink and et and fancy pants; there are also peek a boo babies which are relatively easy to get hold of. if you are loking for a starting point for collecting argentinian ponies i would suggest these as a good place to start!
there are alsorainbow babies which i do nto have any of but which are slightly harder to find than the above
after this even more difficult to find are the first tooth and the 'baby blossom' pose. the baby blossom pose babies are earlier in the mlp time line than the first tooths. and many of the first tooth babies are remakes of the earlier releases. so here you can see 2 variants of baby confetti.

this is all i can think of at the moment but if anything doesnt make sense let me know and ill edit it is very early here as i write this.
it also doesnt help that i dont have the best collection of argentinians myself! anyway hope ive helped a few people get to grips with all the different sets available
if anyone would like a scan of the back of the cards do not hesitate to ask, there is a really cute thing about how to plait the ponies hair on the back of the adult ones!

Taz x

leaper, awesome job! I learned so much about Argentina ponies.


daggar3 love your Argies! So many unique and pretty ones! May I ask how long you've been collecting and how many ponies you have?


Here are some baby Argie highlights from my collection.

[img]http://www.mlparena.com/gallery2/d/233739-2/DSC04970.jpg?g2_GALLERYSID=d23da47554e7e929a95a153b9631eb60[/img][img]http://www.mlparena.com/gallery2/d/233729-2/DSC03604.jpg?g2_GALLERYSID=d23da47554e7e929a95a153b9631eb60[/img]
[img]http://www.mlparena.com/gallery2/d/233749-2/PICT0008_001.jpg?g2_GALLERYSID=d23da47554e7e929a95a153b9631eb60[/img][img]http://www.mlparena.com/gallery2/d/235257-2/IMG_3906.JPG?g2_GALLERYSID=d23da47554e7e929a95a153b9631eb60[/img]

Some adults
[img]http://www.mlparena.com/gallery2/d/61418-2/IMG_0804.jpg?g2_GALLERYSID=d23da47554e7e929a95a153b9631eb60[/img][img]http://www.mlparena.com/gallery2/d/232988-2/IMG_3750.JPG?g2_GALLERYSID=d23da47554e7e929a95a153b9631eb60[/img]
[img]http://www.mlparena.com/gallery2/d/232994-2/IMG_3757.JPG?g2_GALLERYSID=d23da47554e7e929a95a153b9631eb60[/img][img]http://www.mlparena.com/gallery2/d/233566-2/IMG_3823.JPG?g2_GALLERYSID=d23da47554e7e929a95a153b9631eb60[/img]

wow id kill for those last few in your pics bm especially the tafs! lol ive been collecting nirvana ponies for a year but more seriously within the past few months.

my favourite nirvanas are argentinian ponies because i like the unusual colours and different colour schemes

i dont have many although in total my argies total a small 22

Wow Daggar! that's a impressive collection *drools*

And BM, that baby Ribbs of your is to die for

So cool you guys. I didn't realise how exstensive pnoy collecting could reach! You could collect Ponies forever!

I like these Argentianian Ponies and I read the sentence about how they're cheap as far as Nirvana Ponies go nd I got all excited and then it said $30! Heh, I wasn't expecting that. I geuss I won't even try collecting any Nirvanas. =/

Cool Thread though, I love it!

Very Nice Leaper
Here are pictures of
4 of my adult Argie
Moondancers.
The Pink and Blue were MOC
when purchased, but were released :nervous:
by me
As you can see even a MOC Argie can have marks and spots as in the blue Moondancer.