It's only a matter of time in the glorious world of Star Wars action figure collecting before you stumble across a factory error figure. Basically a figure that has slipped past the eyes of the quality control guys and ventured out into the World lacking something.
The most common factor error figures seem to be those that lack some area of paint, how ever they come in all sorts of forms, from unpainted areas to extra paint, moulding error's to incorrect limbs, all sorts really. I love it when I come across one, because they are in many ways unique, or at least probably rarer than your average variant. However, over the years I've noticed people don't seem as interested in them as me. As most of the ones I've picked up have been cheap or I've won them on Ebay for next to nothing, as I've, more often than not, been the only bidder.

Anyway, I thought I'd share some of the factory error and curiosity figures with you that I've picked up over the years.
First up, are rather frail looking Chewbacca.


This Chewbacca appears to be the result of a casting error, the body is deformed making him much smaller than the average Chewbacca and a little lop sided. He kind of looks like he really needs to take a piss!

Next up, a figure I've come across several times, an AT-AT Driver, although it's difficult to say who he works for!


As you can see, he's missing the Imperial insignia from his helmet. One of the great things about this figure is that it's in really good condition, as most collectors will know, finding an AT-AT Driver with no paint wear, especially to his hands and shoulders is quite difficult, so it was great to find one so nice and with the error.

Next up, sat right next to the AT-AT Driver is the AT-AT Commander.


As you can probably see, the figure is missing all the paint from the front side of the torso. The back is painted.

Sometimes, factory error can be just tiny little things, barely classing as an error. One that occurs quite often, which often goes unnoticed is the holes in the boots being filled in by too much paint, as seen below on Bossk and General Madine.


Another error that seems to show up quite often is the the lack of an emblem on the Death Squad Commander. Here are two that I've picked up below, one without and one with just half.


Next up is a classic, it's Boba Fett, and any reason to whack another Fett in you collection is always a bonus, especially if its wrong in some way. However the figure it's self does raise a few questions. See what you think.


As you can see the figure is missing not only the green paint from his chest, but the blue paint from his Rocket Pack. Now I've looked very closly at this and there is no way any of this paint loss is due to wear, the problem is the belt, which has clearly taken some wear as seen below. Who knows?


This next one is a classic curiosity figure, Bespin Leia with a scar on her face, it's simply a case of she been nicked with the air brush or something. I love it though because she's probably the only one of her kind on Earth, and I only paid two quid for her on Ebay, and she herself is in very good condition and came complete with an original weapon. Han must have drank a couple of Stella's that night and slapped her about abit!


Next, is a beauty, just because it's a last 17 figure, and with the shortage of last 17 variations out there, it's always nice to be able to put and extra one in your collection. The Imperial Dignitary with an unpainted hand.


Next is a Death Star Droid, simply lacking the black paint from his shoulders, I think the Uzay Death Star Droid had unpainted shoulders, so if anyone has any ideas on how to identify wether this figure is Uzay ( which I sussect it isn't ) your help would be greatly appreciated.

I clicked send instead of preview before I got to the last one!!!

Now if your attention was drawn to this page it was probably because of the words GOLD DEATH STAR DROID, which is what we have here.


Here he is again next to a silver version.


And here he is again next to C-3PO ( for a gold off! )


So what's the story, well we've all heard the talk of C-3PO figure with a silver tint instead of gold, but never a gold DS Droid! If this was a variation then you'd have stumbled across it some where surely!
This is most likely a result of the yellowing process which effects card bubbles and such. Probably the result of being stored in a warm climate, but to be fair I'm not sure, so any imput here from anyone would be greatly appreciated.
The gold tint is over the entire figure and perfectly contasted, no lighter or darker areas. The greatest thing about this figure is it's condition is perfect, it would most likely get a AFA 85 or above, which as you collector know, is BLOODY hard on a DS Droid!
The paint is completely without wear, there is a minor area of paint loss to one eye, but this is not from wear but from the hand of the painter. The chrome work is flawless and incredibly shiny, also all the limbs are stiff to the point of probably never been moved ( the pictures don't give it it's full credit ). It's a beauty without doubt and a lovely little curiosity in my collection.

As always, any feed back on any of the above figure is always going to be appreciated. Hope you enjoyed looking
General Kahn

Interesting errors Kahn. Maybe I should have held onto this guy after all.





Absolutely no sign of the emblems ever being there at all. Just perfect, black paint... I sent it back to the seller to get one with it's emblems as the figure really meant nothing to me without them. If I knew someone out there was into these errors I would have held onto to it and passed it along

half of the figures shown here are not really factory errors!

The chewbacca:

Its impossible to get to exact equally deformed parts of the body (front and back) out of the the molds. So this is crealy an issue that happend afterwards! I did deform figures accidently myself as i was a kid. All you need is a strong radiator

The DSD in gold tint is simply degradation! The "varnish" on top of the chrome simpkly started to yellow!

The ATAT Driver is imo just rubbed on the emblems. Its pretty easy to rub them off and Im sure these happend after freeing him from the card!

The Fett is simply a fake! Someone tried to remove the paint from the torso to creat sth special. this is never ever a result of just heavy use or a factory error!

Same goes for the ATAT Commander. i still can see some paint rests in the depth of the mold!

The filled peg holes are also no real factory error IMO. Where is the error here??? I cannot see it...just press the hole on a peg and the peg hole is free! I wouldnt call this a factory error because nothing was forgotten and nothing is wrong with these figures! It would be different if the plastic is molded wrong in this area. There is also some "filled" PEG holes where the plastic is not molded correctly. These are factiory errors because you cannot put the figure on a stand! But these thin color webs are really not a barricade!

same goes for the gunner: I even can see small rests of the shoulder emblems on the pic!

Kenner quality control wasnt so bad at all! Its one in a million figure that maybe slipped through!

And I can make you 1 million gunners with perfectly removed emblems within 2 hours!

Sellers often rub of half or nearly destroyed emblems to sell them as fac errors! Be aware!

99,9999% of all "errors" happend after beeing removed from card!

Making so called factory errors yourself needs only a few minutes...its easy...and even if its not with intend....kids can also horribly damage figures!

Take the emblems! You can find millions of figures with all emblems completetly gone and the rest of the paint still pretty fine!...so the in charge for quality control was a bling guy??? No way....these are 99.9999% not factory made like this!

I'm not trying to start an argument or piss anyone off - I'm just noting these for what they are: interesting looking figures. However they got into that condition is only up to speculation. If someone has fun collecting these types of things good for them! Everyone doesn't have to agree with all aspects of collecting. Obviously a gunner with no emblems isn't my thing because I sent it back for another. BUT if I knew someone collected things like this I would have passed it along to someone who would enjoy it.

Factory errors or not, they are still fun to look at.

I don't wont to get into an argument either, just thought I'd share a couple of figures with you. As I stated " Curiosity " figures as well as factory errors, as well as clearly stating in the case of Boba Fett, that it raised questions, and also the DS Droid was most likely a result of yellowing.

Either way, as I said at the beginning, I paid very little for all of them, infact I paid less than a fiver for all of them ( including postage costs ) apart from the Imperial Dignitary which I paid 20 quid for and the DS Droid which I also paid 20 quid for, both of which in there condition are worth more than that with or without the errors, or the none errors.

As for the blind quality control guy, Jesus, my bosses Dad used to work for Palitoy, he's got AT-AT, Millennium falcon parts original molds sat in his basement. Trust me I've met him and I've seen them, and if he can get a job at Palitoy a corpse probably could, never mind a blind guy!

Cheers for the input though, as I said any information is welcome, and the next time consider shelling out a small sum, I take a mucher closer look first.
Cheers

Just another random thought, seen as no one seems interested in paying anything for these figures and, as I said I paid considerably less than the price of the real thing for all of them, what would generally be the point in taking the effort to fake a factory error?

Just a thought.

That gold Death Star Droid looks cool and I'd love to have one, but it would probably be very difficult to verify if you've actually found one unless you can see it in person. I see 2 or 3 "gold" ones on Ebay right now, but that's probably just the soft yellow lighting on the room the figure is photographed in combined with the camera flash. So it's not worth bidding on one unless you know for sure it has a gold finish.

On a related note, here's a photo of my silver C-3PO (the one on the right). https://2img.net/r/ihimizer/i/goldsilverc3po.jpg/

I've had it in my collection for awhile now, but I've always wondered if it's legitimately silver or if it's just a faded/discolored gold C-3PO. The silver finish is consistent all over his body as you can see. What's the story behind silver C-3POs anyway? Is it just fading/discoloration that causes this? it's a nice little variant, and I like to pretend it's the silver version seen walking with him aboard the Tantive IV at the beginning of ANH.

Not sure really with the silver C-3PO, I've heard folk talk about one pretty much as long as I've collected figures ( which I don't think is long enough, heehee ). Who knows, most likely a result of fading same as the Yellowing of the DS Droid. I think it looks great though. The DS Droid looks a better gold than any C-3PO I've ever seen.

For all of the 'error' freaks out there - I'm with you:

http://threads.rebelscum.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=vintagedisplay&Number=4054671&Forum=f102&Words=&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Main=3000991&Search=true&where=bodysub&Name=2206&daterange=1&newerval=&newertype=w&olderval=&oldertype=&bodyprev=#Post4054671

Enjoy.

Christian