Well, the EP Vader arrived today. He is pretty neat. Lots of interesting, extra flashing. He does, in fact, have U and 8 under his feet, as noted on the COA. And, his chest plate appears to be a paint mask error. As the red, over prints the white. Showed this to Bill McBride, and he said, someone got happy with the white paint : ) Funny stuff. Anyways, here is a pic, but the red is certainly "pink".

That's interesting. It for sure is a paint mask. I wonder if the paint mask was changed due to this type of problem. My understanding of a paint mask is it uses certain areas blocked out leaving others exposed to be painted. Could be the paint mask originally had all areas exposed to be painted white then some covered to paint the red going over where the white was in those spots. Who knows, but it is cool no matter how it happened.

EP Jawa arrived today also : )

Congrats on the Jawa, Steve. You're on fire atm with all these additions

Thank you Paul : ) One more coming, but I'll show him later on : )

Great new additions to your focus collection, Steve!

Always very nice to learn more about prototypes while following this thread.

Keep on the good work!

Engineering Pilot C3PO added to page 1 : )

11 down 1 to go....

Didn't you have a Luke piece at one point? :scratch: Just got to get him back. Great addition on the 3po. Does he have any thing distinctive like numbers under the feet? What is the telling sign he is an ep?

Yea, I had a beautiful proto Luke, but got traded for my first shot Stormtrooper. Biggest Thing my 3PO is a test piece is his markings and his "Provenance". I have studied the marks, and meanings. I love that stuff. This guy is leget as he comes from a Production Manager. Pretty neat comparing his marks to others I have seen : )

Steve, maybe I am an idiot.  Are the marks on his chest and abdomen area?  I thought those were reflections.   I can kind of see something there now that I look again.

Edit* I should have looked closer at the first page. The fist photo shows the marks a lot better. I just looked at the one above and quickly glanced at the first page to see what if anything was written.

Now that I know what I am looking at the upper chest has a 20(?) and the ab area has an Abu--N(?) can you say what these mean? I have heard a is aged, but never seen it with other and I thought n was non aged, but maybe wrong in that. The 20 is pretty straightforward that this is speci an 20 of an unknown number right?

Hi Bryan. It appears he has a "28" on his shoulder, an "A1" on his torso, with "ok" next to it. Kind'a hard to read, but I looked pretty closely. I'm pretty sure it says this, and is an Aged test piece. Because of the provenance, that makes sense to me. Never seen an EP with this much writing on it. Odd, but cool piece : )

Neat little update, with business cards, next to my Engineering Pilot 3PO, that it came from.

Great addition to your ever growing focus. Thanks for sharing, Steve.

Those business cards are the icing on the cake.

Marco

Congrats on the latest addition Steve. The cards are a nice bonus
There must be a fair bit of employee paperwork items out there related to pre and early production. Would make an interesting focus in its own right I think.

I still dig this one:

The_Dark_Artist wrote:

I just acquired this Kenner stationery that originally came from a former Kenner Designer/Production Manager. This piece means a great deal to me (thank you Tim). She worked on the vintage Star Wars line during all 3 movies... Thanks for looking : )
-Steve

Thanks guys. I sure appreciate those cards. Neat to have something like that, next to the figure, where it came from. I saw some documents, that described the testing, that were up for auction also. Those would have been neat to get. I have some updates, coming, down the road, that will add to/finish the focus. But for now, a little break. And thank you again : ) for the kind words.

It's cool that even the cards have a story to tell. Change of address, partnership with General Mills, change of title and most likely duties, etc.. Very cool to have these to go with the focus and one of the pieces that was used by this person.

Funny thing, prices keep going up, and out of respect for the family and Dewey, these type pieces are priceless. I keep going back to the history, at Kenner. Prices get bid up, and proto collectors want "rare". I have been part of trying to fulfill a focus, but have started to want to post some "true history" and not base it on rare, or expensive, or value. But, Kenner history. This is just neat. Because of these tested, prototype figures, we got to play with them. There is something special in that.

for guys like use that are making baby steps in the pre or fs ,its
A well document and informationally threat how to approach this items or to get them verified ,thx for sharing and
congrats on the new addition Steve

Maikel

Thank you Maikel : )

Update on page 1 : )

Nice piece Steve. I always thought Ben cut off walrusman's arm not the other way around.

The BEST part about this piece is all the good jokes I keep getting from people : ) ha ha, you are correct sir.

Congrats Steve. With so many arms and hands chopped off in the SW universe it's great you can add another limb to the mix

Photo Samples update on page 1 : )