New Footage from the Palitoy factory Circa 1983

[Clawrence]

Unearthed some new archive footage from the Palitoy factory Circa 1983, unfortunately there's no sound until 0.56 seconds. Enjoy

 

[Snaketibe]

Excellent! Who knew that Darth Vader's TIE Fighter was built by your nan?

 

[Gadders]

Thats great. Thanks for sharing

 

[Stubbs]

Thanks for sharing this I have not seen this clip before.

 

[Clawrence]

One question....Was the Darth Vader's Tie Fighter still being packed in 1983? or has the footage had some earlier clips stitched in? or have i got the wrong date? Looking at the batteries on the work bench do they look more late 70s??

 

[theforceuk]

Insane footage, all those inserts! Thanks for posting.

 

[kabuchi7]

Great footage, thanks for sharing!

 

[Snaketibe]

One question....Was the Darth Vader's Tie Fighter still being packed in 1983? or has the footage had some earlier clips stitched in? or have i got the wrong date? Looking at the batteries on the work bench do they look more late 70s??

The Darth Vader's TIE Fighter had quite a long production run, relatively speaking. The box was updated in later issues to include Bounty Hunter tokens, which certainly didn't exist in its first release for Star Wars. That in itself places it as still being issued (and in a Star Wars box) at least during the ESB toy period, which is of course also confirmed by 1:47 in the video where we see both Slave 1's and DVTF's on the conveyor belt simultaneously .

As for 1983, I cannot see any ROTJ toys in the video, but that doesn't mean they weren't there, or perhaps that the video isn't from early in 1983 before the ROTJ toys were released.

 

[chrisfnx]

Decent video! Thanks for posting

 

[walkie]

One question....Was the Darth Vader's Tie Fighter still being packed in 1983? or has the footage had some earlier clips stitched in? or have i got the wrong date? Looking at the batteries on the work bench do they look more late 70s??

I remember those batteries and I was born in '76 so must have been around in the early 80's

 

[Hod10]

Great footage!

 

[Pomse2001]

Awesome I love that video, thanks for sharing it

 

[edd_jedi]

Really interesting, most of the factory workers look to be in their 50s so are probably no longer with us, but the girl at the end assembling Slave 1's seems to be in her 20s, so possibly still around (although over 60 which is a scary thought!) I wonder what the chances of tracking her down are? After all the guy who put a paper note in a Millennium Falcon was found!

 

[poncho]

Great footage

 

[sith-smith]

That was pretty cool

 

[Clawrence]

Really interesting, most of the factory workers look to be in their 50s so are probably no longer with us, but the girl at the end assembling Slave 1's seems to be in her 20s, so possibly still around (although over 60 which is a scary thought!) I wonder what the chances of tracking her down are? After all the guy who put a paper note in a Millennium Falcon was found!

Wonder if we sent it to Bob Brechin he might be able to remember a name, or show someone who was on production. in 1985 they had 585 staff so might be a big ask.

 

[Clawrence]

Something really cool that I only recently found out is that the company i work for owned the same machines Palitoy used to seal the blisters onto the cards. Unfortunately the machine was sold off early 2000 as we moved production to China, but i do remember it being used as we used it to seal Electrical accessories under the Wellco brand (I designed the packaging). The machines used were from a german brand called ILLIG. Black & decker also used these machines and Palitoy actually visited there plant up north to see the ILLIG's in action and purchased them off the back of the demo. If my memory is correct there were 2 modulars a forming station that created the clamshell (blister) using a vacuum former and metal moulds then the other part would would seal the blister to the card. The cardback has a special coating of heat seal lacquer which when heated glues the card to the card.

 

[poncho]

Interesting clawrence

 

[Clawrence]

My original youtube video was took down due to copyright infringement ...but it can still be viewed here

Central News: 03.06.1983: Palitoy and Star Wars

The boom in science fiction movies, has boosted the sales of Palitoy in Coalville and increased their workforce by double because of the demand for Star Wars toys.

www.macearchive.org

 

[theforceuk]

That machine is probably at Toy Tony's house now @Clawrence !