g1 Bully ponies

[Merion 783]

I managed to identify my very first (and, sadly, long lost) piece of official pony merch and I'm very curious about that particular toy line!

There's very little info on them on My Little Wiki:

These PVC figures are stamped BULLY, W. GERMANY, EUROPE and ©1987, HASBRO.

Bully also made pencil sharpeners and snow globes featuring these figures.

Does any of you G1 fans know anything more about them?

First of all - how many figures were there in the set? I only know each pony came in two variations - Unicorn and Earth Pony. There are very few photos of these figures on the internet and it's the three ponies shown above that usually pop up in Google image search. But my lost pony had a different cutie mark, so I'm guessing there were more ponies available.

Secondly, I know they were manufactured in Germany by a company named Bully (which later changed the name to Bullyland) and distributed in Central Europe back in the early 90's. Did they ever make it outside of Europe? Were they available in other regions of Europe?

And finally, what's with the designs?! I don't recognize any of the ponies in the picture... Do they have any official names or are they just random, nameless recolors? All of the Bully ponies had obscure black cutie marks (my lost figure had a single pawprint for a cutie mark) that looked like very simpified versions of actual cutie marks we know and love.

Bully used to manufacture (and still does to this day, look it up!) lots of licensed PVC figurines. Disney, Muppets, Smurfs, you name it. And I remember they were all very accurate and well-manufactured, each character was easily recognizable. They were more like collectible items than regular 'ol toys... But the Bully ponies look like bootlegs to me, even though they have a Hasbro stamp on them. What happened there?

Does anybody have any ideas?

[Leave a Whisper 703]

Those are cute! I've never seen them before.