When you pick up some new My Little Pony toys at the thrift store or a yard sale, it can be quite confusing trying to figure out how much your little pony might be worth and who she is. Even when it comes to some of the greatest collectors, identifying isn’t always something that comes naturally. One of the reasons identifying a My Little Pony is so difficult and time-consuming, is because there are so many of them in existence. Really Hasbro created many lines of My Little Pony over the years, with many different styles and names. Each set of ponies to come out was arranged with names that fit into that particular pony theme.
Ever since Hasbro started to roll out the My Little Pony toy line, many lesser-known companies have tried to compete with colorful pony toys of their own – And these are lovingly referred to in the My Little Pony community as, ‘fakies.’ These fakies came from a variety of companies like Mattel, Lanard, and more. They have even come in cute packaging labeled as “Funny Pony Toy,” among other names. These fakies are often easy to tell from the real ponies. Sometimes a fakie comes along that cannot easily be identified as such.
So how do you tell a real My Little Pony from a fake one? Under the hoof is the place where I start. Make sure your pony says Hasbro under one foot. This is also a good place to start if you are positive that it is a My Little Pony you have. Next I try to find a year. While not necessarily the year the pony came out, the year under the hoof indicates when that pony’s exact pose, or mould, was created.
Now the first thing we want to do with our pony is to indicate whether it is what we call a Generation 1, or a Generation 3. We also shorten the terms to G1, or G3. We won’t worry about G2’s in this guide because there are so few of them, and honestly they were never too popular, although you can use this same method for identification.
If the pony’s hoof indicates that it was made in 2002 or later, it is a G3 pony – The newest line. If your pony came from any time between 1982 and 1992, then you have a first generation, G1 pony! Congratulations, depending on the pony you found, she may be worth quite a bit.
So now that we know what generation our My Little Pony is, we can figure out who she is. For this we will want to start at my favorite search engine Google. A simple search engine command will lead us straight to the identification sites, where we can search for your pony’s identity sorted by year or by color.
If the pony you are trying to identify is a 3rd generation, a G3, then I would use this search engine command: “My Little Pony Identification G3”. This same search command can be done for a G1, by replacing G3 with G1 in the search engine command. I hope you have fun identifying all of your My Little Pony finds, especially if you are an enthusiastic collector like me!
