Weird c3po figure

Hi purchased this c3po figure with removable limbs and noticed one leg has a hole in the knee and a different shaped and sized foot I've also noticed the arm seems different on one side I have a few and perhaps the limbs have gotten mixed up however the foot is obviously different I'm hoping someone can enlighten me the coo looks barely noticable under the gold colour but it's Hong Kong 1982 lfl this is on the actual leg I'm asking about thank you in advance

no idea but its f'd up looking

The different coloured limbs could easily be down to mixed figures - but the hole and the deformed leg look like a basic factory error - probably a short short

Thanks for the replies it actually doesn't look different colours when in person must be the photo however it definitely looks messed up think I've stumbled across a lili leggy ;-) ha

How odd. Very strange piece that. I would assume the foot is just a reject that got through - an error in the moulding process. It's the hole in the knee that intrigues me. Either someone has been out with the Black & Decker or it's maybe some sort of display piece or prototype, or another moulding error.

It's not a short shot and i don't think it could come out of the mold like that. It looks like its been melted slightly and drilled but no evidence to show that this was done intentionally during production - I expect there would be some sort of markings to indicate testing or QC. So I'd just say some one beat it up a little bit in their garage perhaps with the intention of customising or perhaps they just wanted to trash it.

I looked at the foot it's got a heel on it like a shoe it's definitely not melted as I thought the same when I first seen it but the foot looks like a shoe with a heel and the hole is almost perfect no jagged edge no paint marks or chips anywhere on the figure

Oh ok, maybe I wasnt looking at it right. So part of the foot is missing to make it look like a heel? For some reason it looked like extra plastic.

If so then sounds like Iain was probably right about it being a short shot.

No idea about the hole though. Perhaps more likely a sharp puncture than a drill

I've tried to take more pictures but not sure if they help at all I appreciate everyone's input as it's not often I come across something weird amongst my collection although who knows what I will post in the future as I've another 1000 to go through I keep putting it off too many variants ha

Looks to me like factory error - They properly made hundreds and thousands of C-3PO's - So odd's are a few deformed one slipped through the net.
I won't put in down to being a variant though...

Yeah I agree it's certainly more of a fault/second it's not a variant at all still nice to come across something different to look up

Maybe he's just been down to Anchored and had his knee erased?

Well I think it always cool to have something different

Jez said:

Maybe he's just been down to Anchored and had his knee erased?

Click to expand...

Can't be that, I know for a fact he was going down to Tosche station to pick up some power converters.

Looks like 8D8 has been working on him in Jabbas dungeon

I'd say it is a short shot and while that term gets bandied about quite a bit, this looks like a really good example of it. You can see that the foot is definitely "clubbed" which is a classic indication of this problem because the plastic flows from the hip to the toe so when it's a short shot the foot wouldn't fully form. The knee is interesting because you can see that the sculpted details are missing and the whole area sunk in to the point where it made a hole so it was really lacking in plastic.

Interesting that this didn't get tossed out at the factory. After it was molded, it would have gone to vac-metalizing then onto assembly so that's 2 stages where people handing them could have noticed. These processes all require much manual work, although there is no final QC to catch it. But I guess when you make tens of thousands per day you get numb to it all.

Here's an older RS thread discussing short shots.

http://forum.rebelscum.com/t1120090/

Great piece!! Would be nice to add to that thread. Hint, hint.

-chris