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A long, long time ago, when Skimble was a little girl, a girl at her school had a marvellous toy. It was white and horse-shaped with flowing pink hair and pink birds on its rump, and Skimble saw it and wanted one! So the very next day Skimble's mother took her and her sister shopping, where they found a wall of these marvelous creatures. How could one possibly choose? After minutes of agonising, Skimble finally chose her very first pony - a gorgeous yellow pegacorn with rainbow hair she called Princess. She and Princess had many adventures together - including various misshaps where poor Princess' head was nearly lost forever - and were soon joined by a gorgeous pink Circus Pony and Baby set, some orphaned Baby Ponies and the Vinyl Pony grandmother she called Windwhistler. These ponies were some of Skimble's best toy-friends!

It wasn't until she was seven that Skimble recieved her first My Little Pony, a Hula Hula given to her for her birthday. Hula Hula was gorgeous, and became Majesty the Queen of Ponyland who ruled over fakies and MLP alike, and was soon accompanied by Sea Breeze and Babies Billie and Beach Ball. But other ponies - the ponies who, having no real name of their own, she dubbed 'Lovely Ponies' joined the herd as well - a Lady Pony and Baby set, some more orphaned Baby Ponies, and a ballerina Nursery Baby Pony. Others joined in as well - all sorts of fake Remco-style ponies, ponies with names that have been lost to time, and many a Lanard. More often than not, the My Little Ponies lived in Skimble's bedroom, the mystical Dream Valley, while the fakies lived in the warm Sunshine Valley in the sunroom, and went on lots of adventures at school and on holiday while the MLPs collected dust, and Majesty was brought out once in a while to remind everyone who was boss.

Skimble grew up, of course, but she still played with the fakies occasionally while her collection MLPs stayed on shelves, and while some of the fakies too were given away as she grew older, the very first ponies in her collection stayed, displayed in the dollshouse in the sunroom, and dusted occasionally. She eventually discovered ponies on the internet and ebay, adding to her MLP collection here and there before the year she finally discovered the MLP Arena. A community full of pony collectors! She signed up, and her MLP collection exploded, but she soon realised that fakies were an often unloved part of peoples' collections, invading ebay lots and bags in charity shops - nor was there a great deal of information about them on the internet. Pebblesmore's Safari Tour and Ahrian's Fabulous Fakie Guide were the only real fakie resources on the internet, and neither of these pages knew anything much at all about Skimble's childhood fakies - the ones that looked so much like 1980s MLP.

Skimble made lots of friends on the Arena, though, friends who knew she liked fakies and collected them for her, and many of these fakies were astoundingly like the fakies of her childhood, made from the same poses and bright colours, but with new features like glass-eyes or changed symbols. She loved them, of course, and so her fakie herd expanded as well, but with many of these ponies also coming from ebay lots and markets, and with most MLP collectors caring very little about fakies, it was hard to find information on these. The names confused Skimble as well - why was everyone calling that baby a flutter fakie, it was a SHS baby fakie and supposed to be called a Lady Baby! How come everyone continually got the fakie names wrong?

There was only one thing to do, of course: create an internet resource devoted to that under-loved corner of the MLP fandom, their fakes and imitators - and in particular, the unknown, hard-to-find Australian and European exclusive fakies of the early 1990s!

The MLP Fakie Project:

This journal is the third incarnation of my research into vintage 1990s G1-style fakies and their modern release cousins. The first version was an article posted on the MLP Arena in November 2008, which soon evolved into a gallery still posted there, with annotated photographs featuring each kind of fakie. With so many awesome people assisting the growth of my collection, one photograph per fakie type became obviously limiting, so somewhere to post articles about these fakies was the obvious next step. The MLP Fakie Project journal was created on the 14th of February 2009, and is a continually evolving study into these fakies. Posts are made covering each set or type of fakie, and all best efforts are made to refer to fakies using their own set names or mold/types, and using the language of the fakie community as opposed to Hasbro's MLP molds as referents. Eventually, the scope of this journal will cover pose guides, common fakie questions and answers, and pages devoted to at least an overview of all kinds for fakies. For the meantime, though, this fakie is a resource devoted exclusively to informative posts on the G1-styled fakies. It features information gathered from my memory, boxes and backcards, ebay photos, photos of my own vintage and modern collections, and photos and information submitted by other members of the growing fakie community.

All efforts have been made to credit owners of photos where possible. If you do not wish a photo to be used or if I need to include your name, please either message me through LJ or send me an email!

The My Little Fakie Community:

The MLP Fakie Project was created at a time where many collectors were growing disatisfied with Hasbro's constant release of the same seven ponies (known as Core 7) and looking for other collecting alternatives. At the same time, more collectors of fakies were creating posts in communities like the MLP Arena about their fakies - and other collectors had contacted me to tell me how interested they were in my journal. The time was right for our own community to discuss all things fakie! Our first community started here on LJ, with the my_little_fakie community starting up amongst a group of journalling fakie collectors. This community, however, was limited by the fact that few people seemed interested in signing up for LJ just to post in a fakie community, so some of my best fakie-collecting friends and I decided it was time to expand to a format that would attract many more members:



The My Little Fakie Community message board - often shortened to the MLF - was created on the 10th of April 2009 and went public three days later. It's a message board devoted purely to fakies, with sections for selling and trading, places to brag or post collection pics, and a forum devoted to fakie conversation and research. Other forums do have subsections about and for fakies, but we are the first and only My Little Pony themed community to be devoted entirely to the fakie sub-section of collecting. As of this bio update, we number thirty members already! Any readers of this journal are more than welcome to come over and join on the fakie fun - all you need is a little love of fakieness!

About Skimble:

I'm a 24 year old MLP/Fakie/Sylvanian Families collector, working as an assistant Pick Release Officer/general office minion in the distribution centre/warehouse for an Australian clothing chain. I have nearly 200 fakies and 350 MLP in my collection, and my collecting interests are largely baby ponies, Italian Nirvanas and any vintage fakie I don't yet own! I'm a member of the MLP Arena and a quieter member of most other major English-speaking MLP communities as Skimble, and I'm the founder/administrator of the MLF message board as well as the maintainer of the MLF LJ community here. I also have a journal on Dreamwidth as the_skimblish_one where I chat about everything under the sun as well as posting MLP collection pics, collection lists, and anything I'm currently thinking or doing - even sometimes a little creative writing when I have the time! In addition to the ponies, I live for European heavy metal, enjoy sewing, and love reading and trying to write fantasy. My biggest online love, however, are the fakies!

Credits:

Research projects like this one don't happen without the assistance of many other people. My superb fakie friends in the community deserve a huge round of applause for everything they've done - this journal wouldn't exist without the_shellebelle, vettensponies, evenmoreboring or Emery and missvelika on the MLP Arena/TP. Everyone who's ever posted with a photo or a tidbit of information, either here or at the MLF - thank you so very much, you've just helped to make this project even better than it ever could have been. For everyone who's taken photos for me, or found photos on ebay - thank you. For everyone who signed up at the MLF, for everyone who's ever sold me fakies or hunted down fakies for a community member - a huge hug and thank you from me!

Special mention has to go to knotty_kitty and vettensponies for their volunteer work as tireless moderators on the MLF. The fakie community would not exist without you guys and your constant efforts to make it grow. Thank you so much, everyone mentioned above and everyone I've forgotten to mention but should have, for being the founding mothers of a whole new internet world devoted to our fakies!

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