World of My Little Pony by Debra L. Birge (2007, Paperback, Revised)

Just like her 1st edition of "World of My Little Pony," Debra has meticulously documented all the ponies that are referred to as the "vintage" or "First Generation (1980's to 90's)" ponies. Debra has 300+ photographs, showing over 600 ponies. There are also extensive pictures of toys, accessories, play sets and other pony items.

What makes Debra's book the definitive pony ID book is the fact that she lists the ponies in chapters according to their characteristics (e.g., unicorns, winged ponies, baby ponies, pegasus ponies, etc.) making it very easy and quick to find your particular pony. The other recently released pony ID book by Summer Hayes lists the ponies by the year they came out and forces the reader to flip through the book until they stumble on the pony they are trying to identify. Although Hayes gives an extensive listing of the accessories that came with each pony, there are no pictures of those accessories. Debra's book is much cheaper also.

Debra has released a statement saying that when Schiffer Publishing asked her to update the first edition, they only allowed her 20 new photographs and 2 weeks to do it, which limited her from totally updating the book the way she would like to. Therefore, the prices remain pretty much the same as in her 1st edition. Furthermore Schiffer did not reprint the book from the original slides, but just scanned pictures of the pages in her earlier book, so the quality of the pictures is not as great as in her first edition. The pictures are still excellent, just not brilliant. Perhaps she needs a new publisher, one that will allow her to do the book the way she would like to.

Any pony collector, deeply serious or just starting, will find this comprehensive resource a "MUST" for their pony library, since no other book on the market covers the topic as extensively as "World of My Little Pony" 2nd edition.