Hello-
Newly sign up here; actually, this is the only reason why I am on the site as I had a hard time finding people who are in the know-how of prototypes and manufacturing errors of MLP merchandise. Reddit didn't helped much, and I even wrote to MLP merch wiki to ask them and waiting their response.
In the main time, pretty much exactly what it says it on the title, I found an Applejack brushable that appears to be light yellow-ish white in a local second hand shopping site and ordered it, and when it arrived on my hand photos stay corrected- It really was very light in color compared to the orange Applejack supposed to be, as the closest color you can say it is, is yellow. (Example photos provided.) If I have to be exact, I would call it "Pearl colored".
Some people on reddit insisted it must be because of sun damage, or even being put thru a UV chamber- But I found both theories very unlikely, as the toy is colored very evenly; as if this is the color of the plastic that was put into the mold.
It's very obviously one of the "Explore Equestria Pearlized Singles Wave 3 G4 Brushables" Applejack toys, recognizable by the shininess and glitter that was mixed into the core material.
Another observation about the oddities with the colors is that fact that apples on the cutie mark are orange instead of red, but that is a bit hard to tell from the photos because of the gloss. If you ask me, the color diffidence of both the mold and the cutie mark may be caused by the same reason, like they forgotten or willingly not put red dye in the material or they simply run out of it. But the weird thing is that her eyes seem to be in the correct shade of green and the code on the hoof seem to not have a color alteration, which has red or red-ish pink in it.
So my question is; is this a prototype or a manufacturing error?
Other ponies on the example photos as color reference to show it is not editing or lighting.