1987:
Flutter Ponies
1987 saw the second release of these delicately beautiful Flutter Ponies. This year, too, they were stronger in every way - colour scheme, comic characterisation and, most importantly, wing fixings. Not that the new "tab" style wing holders meant that the wings were immune from breakages - but having had a tabbed Flutter Pony fall seven feet from a top shelf to the floor without any wing damage, I think it's safe to say that they were a touch sturdier :) Just not up to child's play.
The new style wing holder is easy to distinguish from the original. Early flutter ponies had a "closed in" wing holder, whilst the new additions all had "open" holders in which you could clearly see the base of the wing as it fitted into the slot. It is relatively easy to remove and re-fix wings to ponies with this style of wing holder, making them much easier to restore than traditional style flutters.
FLUTTER PONIES : 1987 first UK Insert.
Along with the four new characters came two re-issues. In the UK, this was categorically Rosedust and Morning Glory. In the North American release, I believe it was Rosedust and Lily. Because of the disparity, I have not included photo-links of the re-released Flutter Ponies on this page. In the UK, Flutter Ponies persisted in having the round puffy stickers well into 1987.
It's also worth noting that some of the first-year only Flutter Ponies were released with the new style of wing holder, implying that the stronger design was brought into production half way through 1986 as Hasbro rethought their design.
All flutter ponies pictured on these pages are from my own collection and all wings are original Hasbro wings - not repros - so you can get the idea of how they really should look in all their glory.
Pretty as the Summer Wing and Windy Wing Ponies were, to me they're not half as beautiful as a winged flutter pony :D