I am surfing on Ebay and there is a guy selling a dark blue R2 confirmed to be from Hong Kong and he states that it is dark blue and an early bird r2...

i am not an expert so i cannot really tell if he is right or not. What gets me is that in another r2 auction i have a seller who claims to sell a dark blue r2 but it is on a card.

I had read a little bit on the darker blue r2 and i thought that the darker blue was also always early bird but now that i read the description of the carded one, i am left puzzled.

for some reason, in the back of my head, the early birds were made in Taiwan and dark blue....but i must be wrong. can an expert on the subject matter shed some light on this for me?

cheers!

I'd go with
[QUOTE=Wbobafett;18598119]

Well on the luke there is even three coos confirmed for the early bird kit. So Im techinally thinking there is more then one option also on the R2. Also Im not sure on the darkblue color. Especially the dome color can vary in apperience with only the thickness. This is a translucent blue color...the thicker you apply it the darker blue it looks! This can happen in a busy factory all the time!

@the threadstarter:
You can buy which coo you want. You will never know when your figure was produced. The coos just mark the certain steelmolds (or their copys) in which the figures were produced. If this was in 1979 or 1983. you will never know!

Most of the R2 molds werent altered and were used over many years with thousands of figures produced with these. So if you want the earliest R2 you have to buy yourself an early bird kit.

If you just ask for the oldest coo, then you have the option with all HK and MIHK coos. Even Taiwan coos can appear on 12 back cards (regarding the Luke, R2 is not confirmed to my knowledge but possible)[/QUOTE]

You're good AussieMan!! You give the best run-downs of coo's and variants imho!

Keep up the good investigative work my friend.

Hey AJ... Im honered to be quoted all the time.. ...

I was already searching the thread in my head (tried to rember where, when, etc) as I scrolled down and saw you already done so!!

Kudos!

Here is the thread:
http://forum.rebelscum.com/t1072559/#post18598119

And seeing that the poststarter is the same on this ....
Anyway in addition:

Why should there be a different production on the early bird figures then on the later 12 backs/the first carded ones?? The fact is, there is none. Of course these figures were improved through time starting first with DT sabers. But there is simply no change in producing this figures exactly between EB and first MOC.
So Im not saying there cannot be a darkblue R2 in an EB set, but its not a must and its not only in EB, but also on many many cards!


Im also doubting by now that a green crossbow was packed with the EB Chewbacca. If you ask me I never saw an EB set with green crossbow. I have a green crossbow here,a real green one and not the translucent blue ones that are always claimed beeing a green Crossbow.
Im thinking it of beeing a short time period with another batch of plastic. The only fact that seems to be true is that the early crossbows are all heavy translucent, the later ones seem to be less translucent, and then the non translucent ones.
But how should you explain it someone who has 2 or maybe none crossbow?? I have had about 40 Kenner(!) crossbows in my life and have to say: more then 50% were translucent....very less very heavy translucent...and only one was really green!
Does that help?


I personally think that because of the lack of variants on the US figures people always tried to make the early bird figures special. They are special, but only in their sealed baggies IMO.

edit: i just saw that John got his EB set graded!! Maybe he can chimn in??

wbobafett wrote:

Hey AJ... Im honered to be quoted all the time.. ...

I was already searching the thread in my head (tried to rember where, when, etc) as I scrolled down and saw you already done so!!

Kudos!

Here is the thread:
http://forum.rebelscum.com/t1072559/#post18598119

And seeing that the poststarter is the same on this ....
Anyway in addition:

Why should there be a different production on the early bird figures then on the later 12 backs/the first carded ones?? The fact is, there is none. Of course these figures were improved through time starting first with DT sabers. But there is simply no change in producing this figures exactly between EB and first MOC.
So Im not saying there cannot be a darkblue R2 in an EB set, but its not a must and its not only in EB, but also on many many cards!


Im also doubting by now that a green crossbow was packed with the EB Chewbacca. If you ask me I never saw an EB set with green crossbow. I have a green crossbow here,a real green one and not the translucent blue ones that are always claimed beeing a green Crossbow.
Im thinking it of beeing a short time period with another batch of plastic. The only fact that seems to be true is that the early crossbows are all heavy translucent, the later ones seem to be less translucent, and then the non translucent ones.
But how should you explain it someone who has 2 or maybe none crossbow?? I have had about 40 Kenner(!) crossbows in my life and have to say: more then 50% were translucent....very less very heavy translucent...and only one was really green!
Does that help?


I personally think that because of the lack of variants on the US figures people always tried to make the early bird figures special. They are special, but only in their sealed baggies IMO.

edit: i just saw that John got his EB set graded!! Maybe he can chimn in??

if no one really knows what the early birds is composed of, how does the AFA can tell then? they must have some sort of guideline that help them differientiate the early bird from other toys that are very similar yet not being able to be qualified as early bird by the AFA.

i would be highly surprised if someone who got a hold of most of an early bird kit may be able to submit to the AFA to "try" to get and early bird certification even if the figure is loose...

am i making sense?....

I can't find the quote at the moment. But Tom Derby once wrote that AFA described some figures purely due to collectors demand in regards to the green limb chewie & green snake Yoda as long as the discoloration was uniform. So this was not a factual description but basically a label description purchased to satisfy customers wants. As useful as AFA can be NEVER trust everything they do as 100% accurate. I suspect any 'dark blue' R2 may get labelled as 'early bird'.

aussiejames wrote:

I can't find the quote at the moment. But Tom Derby once wrote that AFA described some figures purely due to collectors demand in regards to the green limb chewie & green snake Yoda as long as the discoloration was uniform. So this was not a factual description but basically a label description purchased to satisfy customers wants. As useful as AFA can be NEVER trust everything they do as 100% accurate. I suspect any 'dark blue' R2 may get labelled as 'early bird'.

my question then is why the paint went from dark blue to lighter blue...

was it to save money on the paint?
was it to make it more movie accurate?
or was it just a factory quirk at a specific location?

we ll never know i am afraid since no one really came forward with a full description of an early bird kit... ( as far as i know ) we got some people showing them but not really talking about them much...

as a collector i would be very nervous when buying one of those... you may be well throwing over a 1000$ away since there is no standard of description set in stone for this, some people may try to sell you vintage figures but not really from the early bird kit, there are way around anything nowadays....

my 2 cents...

$1000s are spent on complete early bird kits because of the tray, cardboard/paperwork & sealed specific baggies. Since the Luke can be a DT or standard lightsaber, with at least 2 different leg markings surely this is enough proof that there can be more than 1 possible figure in the EB kits & are NOT unique to the kit either. There is no 'standard' so paying inflated prices for loose figures claiming to be from an early bird set is a waste of money. To answer your 3 questions I'd like to quote an ex Kenner employee ( again I can't find the quote at this time ) but basically factory changes occured for no particular reason & it's futile to try and give an explanation for it 30+ years latter.