1983 in the UK

The only ponies known for sure to have seen a release in the United Kingdom in 1983 are the original set of six ponies, known as the Collector Ponies. These were sold with both flat feet and later Concave Feet. The latter style became the standard for all sets sold subsequently.

How these sets were sold in the UK is still a bit murky, as not much evidence survives. The collector ponies did appear in a production catalogue for the United Kingdom, and anecdotal evidence suggests both versions of the ponies were sold in UK stores on US cards, making them imports. It's certainly true that no surviving 'UK style' cards for the Collector Ponies is known to survive, but this is still an area of investigation.

The year's other big introduction was the first pony playset - the Grooming Parlour. This was the first of three releases of this playset in the United Kingdom, and evidence from the Argos catalogue shows that it was on sale here in late 1983. Interestingly, the Argos catalogue image shows a prototype - although later Argos catalogue inclusions were generally photographed in-house. This implies that this was still very early in production, and the store had no time to debox a set for their own photographs before putting it on sale. Notable in the prototype image is a larger form of the kitten, Twinkles, and the complete absence of Peachy, the Grooming Parlour's original exclusive pony. Instead, the image features one of the Collector Ponies, Butterscotch.

These were truly the prehistoric days of My Little Pony in the United Kingdom. It would not be until 1984 that some kind of clarity (as well as variety!) would begin to emerge.