A couple of years later, a Baby Billie in
this Ember pose came up for sale on ebay in similar
circumstances to my Baby Susie. She was not labelled clearly
as an alternate and was purchased at a similar low price as
a result. She belongs to Lady Guinevere.
Whether this pony found in the UK and the one whose picture
was sent to me from France are the same pony or not is
uncertain. Personally I think it unlikely. The person in
France who had the picture knew that it was a different kind
of Billie, but LadyG's pony was sold unlabelled. This makes
me think they might have been different ponies. LadyG's also
has damage to one eye and a hair trim. Again, if the first
was in the hands of a collector, this kind of damage is
unlikely to have taken place. But there has been no further
contact from the original source, nor do we know whether
they were ever part of the community as a whole. Moreover,
the above image does show light damage to the same eye,
which could easily have taken place in transit.
This means we are unsure whether one, or two, Baby Billies
exist. But if more than one does exist, it gives credence to
the idea these were production samples and that they existed
in small numbers across the countries where the set was
sold.
Like Susie, Baby Billie appeared in Hasbro's trade catalogue
for 1993 in this variant pose. My preferred theories are
that these ponies are either:
a: A promotional baby made for toy fair promotion
purposes. This means there were probably a handful made
for each country. Whether this includes being
photographed for the Hasbro Trade Catalogue is unclear.
b: A sample product when Hasbro were determining
which pose to use for which pony. It is possible they made
samples in both poses before deciding to go with a
different colour.
LadyG's Billie has been to several pony meets and
conventions and has been fully authenticated by many other
collectors. She is also not the only example of an alternate
posed baby from this set - you can find out more about the
other on
Baby
Susie's page.
