The first Barbie arabian horse

One of the newest acquisitions in my collection is the horse that started the line of the most popular mold among Barbie horses - it is the famous arabian Prancer.

My Prancer after renovation

I am extremely happy that this horse joined my herd. It arrived at the beginning of September 2023. Unfortunately, the unboxing video was lost along with my camera memory card, which I accidentally left in an easily accessible place when leaving the room for a moment. After returning, it turned out that there were only remains of it - my new dog - Amica - became interested in it.

Remains of my memory card

But let's get back to the horse. Maybe first a little about this model. Prancer, as I wrote earlier, appeared on the market in 1983 and was available both in the USA and in Europe. It is associated with the Barbie Loving You doll, which appears both on its packaging and in a TV ad (below)

Prancer packagings

EU version (source)

USA (source)

Back side (źródło)

Prancer in Barbie catalogues:

Prancer in Barbie 1984 catalogue (source)

Prancer and Dallas in 1987 catalogue (źródło)

Differences between versions - European version to USA:

- no signature and quite general form without details - although there are apparently known cases of a signed version with details - apparently very few

- more shading on the head - however, this is not a rule, as there are examples with less

- hair color - the preserved European versions often have visible pink highlights against the background of gray-white hair, in the US version the highlights are usually barely visible - or not at all - while the second color resembles various shades of warm blonde rather than cool gray or white.

Below are examples of strong head shading in the European version:

źródło

Hard yellowed Prancer (source: ebay.com)

(source: ebay.com)

Prancer and Barbie Loving You

Of course, this was not a rule, there were copies with less shading.

In the US version, as I already mentioned, there were different shades of hair, below are examples found on the Internet:

In the photos below you can see a Prancer belonging to Baltazar, whose collection of toys you can admire, among others, on Instagram. In the first photo - especially in the tail - you can see pink highlights - but I guess that there are fewer of them and they are much less visible than in the EU version. Perhaps this is due to the same factor as in the case of the Prince - the dye does not stand the test of time well. This is the first photo where I see pink highlights in Prancer's hair in the US version. If you look closely, pink strands are also visible in the mane. In the next photo you can still see them in the tail, in the mane they are practically invisible.

Barbie Loving You and Prancer:

Prancer's instructions

Notice the eyes and mane of this horse. The eyes are painted black with a white blick - there are no fancy, colorful paintings here - it should look quite natural. The mane is also of a rather natural length, unlike in newer models. It must be admitted that the addition of pink highlights is the first small step towards some fantasy. The first Barbie horses - the articulated Dancer, the first static one, palomino - Dallas, and his black version - Midnight and Dixie - all had natural lengths and colors of their manes, as well as the same black and white eye painting.

In the last photos you can clearly see Prancer's equipment - it was a pink women's side saddle, a bridle with reins, a ribbon for decorating the tail, a comb and a brush, as well as a set of stickers - nowadays it may not be anything extraordinary, but in the 80s colorful stickers were fashionable and desirable.

The bridle also caught my attention - it looks like the noseband was made of different, but very similar, fabrics. In the case of the reins, it is clearly visible that various decorative ribbons were used. If I am not mistaken, it seems that in the US version the jacquard pattern contained red and the pattern extended beyond the ribbon on which it was sewn. In the EU version, the pattern was the same width as the ribbon and was limited to the colors green and pink. This version closely resembles the Prince's bridle.

The bridle in this photo comes from the Prince's equipment, the saddle is most likely from Prancer

My Prancer

Let's get back to my Prancer, here is how he was looking as he came to me.

I must say, that I got a quite nice specimen - the plastic is only slightly yellowed in places, and I didn't find any scratches. The hair looks to be at its original length. I don't think the mane was that curly in the original, although these curls remind me of my Dixie - but I think they don't suit Prancer at all. The twist of the tail indicates that someone has worked on the hair.

The only equipment it came with is a saddle. Made of thick but relatively flexible plastic, very solid.

Ok, so now that I've removed the saddle, it's time to see what the horse looks like without it.

I have to share my impressions about this model. The plastic is thick, solid, with a shiny, smooth surface. What disappointed me and scared me a bit at the beginning was the lack of signatures and the rather general form - looking at the already mentioned Dixie or Blinky - I expected a lot of details in this form - but here there are no signatures or any carvings - not even hairs on the coronets.

Curls on the mane

This form, as you can see in the photos above, looks relatively even - the eyes and nostrils are more or less at the same level. I don't know why - my Prancer has holes in his ears - I don't know if this is an original feature, or maybe someone made these holes - although it doesn't look like.

The horse turned 40 this year, so it is already old, its painting has visible abrasions, although considering its age, I think its condition is really very good - considering that it is not a model, but a toy, which was used.

Holes in the ears

Damages in legs painting

Is it realy white?

For some time I was wondering whether it was really white or whether it needed some whitening. Finally, I came up with the idea to put my Prince next to him.

As you can see, Prancer is as white as the bleached Prince, although in these photos Prancer is still before washing. The last two photos are interesting - the horse standing from the wall looks slightly yellow in the photos - note that I changed their places on purpose.

Washing

So I came to the conclusion that the horse is white and does not require additional whitening. I could start washing it - this process is recorded on the video. After washing, I tried to straighten his hair - washing itself did not affect the fine curls in any way, so I had to use a hair dryer.

Painting renovation

The next stage was painting renovation, which meant adding a matching shade of paint - I didn't have any major problems with it. I don't really like this strong shading of the head, but looking at the traces of the original paint on the head of my copy - I had no choice. I decided to recreate the painting in accordance with the original one. I'm not a master at shading with paint, I did it as best as I could. As a result, the mask on the head turned out quite dark and large. Maybe I got too far away too much, but oh well. There was no major problem with the hooves and legs.

Bridle, reins and decorations

My Prancer did not have a bridle, in the original his and the Prince's bridles were practically the same - they only differed in the colors of the decorations on the reins. I managed to find an interesting ribbon in a haberdashery, which I used to decorate the reins. The bridle itself is made of the same material and in the same way as the Prince's

I wouldn't be myself if I didn't add something to this outfit - instead of a simple bow for the tail, I created a decoration on a wire with a bow and roses, as well as small decorations for the mane and tail.