I recently took a gamble and bought an odd purple and black die cast Falcon on eBay because it looked interesting. I figured it was probably just custom painted but after having it in hand I'm not so sure. The paint seems factory applied and is similar in gloss to that of a regular white Falcon and the entire bottom section is molded in a metallic black plastic. Anyone have any clue what it could be? I seriously doubt it's a proto or first shot but whatever it is it has me stumped :scratch:

In my opinion I would have to say it's a damn good custom from my point of view. I don't ever recall seeing a black Falcon when I was a kid or ever for that matter. I would take a good look at the rivits securing the body parts as seeing the level of paint detail in the wheel bays and landing gear. I would have to say the person either did one hell of a mask job or took the ship apart and painted it. And not to mention there is really no wear at all on the black one verses the white one which has minimal wear. Also if you look closely at the 3rd photo you can see what appears to me traces of white around the engine top piece. It still is very cool looking though

That's what I originally thought as well, but it does almost seem factory. The rivets look the same on both and I scratched the bottom of it to see if it was painted instead of molded but it's not. It actually does have a lot of wear it's just hard to see with the paint color and there is no trace of white paint underneath. In fact looking up through the landing gear holes I can see the purple paint on the underside as well.

That is interesting I am sure there should be some mention of diecast varients somewhere maybe it's one made in a different Country that has the Kenner stamp still on it.

It came from a seller in the U.S. who believed it was a "dark variant" and a rare color, but that doesn't make much sense. It also doesn't appear to be a bootleg so I still don't know what to make of it. Maybe it's related to the elusive black Wampa

Not to jump to conclusions, but while doing research looking through Chris Georgoulias' Toy Shop Scrapbook I noticed this ad for a first shot die cast Slave 1 with an orange and black color scheme. http://www.sandcrawler.com/webpages/chrisgscrapbook/index.php?image=page150.jpg
I know the chances are very slim but could there be a connection?

Drop Chris a PM here and hopefully he'll chime in. It's interesting because of the black plastic underside and purple paint in the landing gear holes - and with an orange and black Slave 1 known it's tempting to believe it could be proto-related Could also try contacting the seller and ask if he/she knows more of its history.

I just remembered that Walkie and a few of the others got a book called Gus & Duncan's Prototypes Book they may be able to assist on this one as well.

I contacted the seller but they couldn't provide much information. Their response was "Item was obtained at auction with other Star Wars stuff, thanks."

arohk wrote:

I just remembered that Walkie and a few of the others got a book called Gus & Duncan's Prototypes Book they may be able to assist on this one as well.

I've had a quick look in the die cast section of Gus & Duncan's book, but can't see it, sorry man,
Must say thou, I think it looks great
Cheers Andy

Nico wrote:

arohk wrote:

I just remembered that Walkie and a few of the others got a book called Gus & Duncan's Prototypes Book they may be able to assist on this one as well.

I've had a quick look in the die cast section of Gus & Duncan's book, but can't see it, sorry man,
Must say thou, I think it looks great  
Cheers Andy

Thanks for checking. I assume all the die cast first shots in the book are in production colors, correct?

This is a puzzling one I checked my books as well no luck in any even the SWCA is coming up with nothing.

arohk wrote:

This is a puzzling one I checked my books as well no luck in any even the SWCA is coming up with nothing.

Same here. I was just lucky to stumbled across that toy shop ad. I was beginning to think that maybe it had been colored with a marker, but i don't know how would they have gotten to the inside and done it so evenly.

Pretty interesting piece

I tried some searching and I can't seem to find any useful info either ...

unless it happens to be chocolate filled

Josh_T wrote:

Nico wrote:

arohk wrote:

I just remembered that Walkie and a few of the others got a book called Gus & Duncan's Prototypes Book they may be able to assist on this one as well.

I've had a quick look in the die cast section of Gus & Duncan's book, but can't see it, sorry man,
Must say thou, I think it looks great  
Cheers Andy

Thanks for checking. I assume all the die cast first shots in the book are in production colors, correct?

Josh, to be honest mate there were no die cast Falcons at all in the book, Have you tried what Paul suggested, PM or E-mail Chris.Good luck with the search mate, very interesting