I recently acquired a yellow base Palitoy Droid Factory, having owned a blue base one since the early 90's. The blue one came from Jim Stevenson and I have little doubt that it is entirely complete and genuine, by which I mean I don't believe any of its parts have been swapped out for their Kenner Droid Factory equivalents. Jim knew his stuff, and whilst he certainly wasn't the cheapest, I never experienced any dodgy dealings from him, and so I have every confidence that the contents of my blue base one are all Palitoy originals.
Fast forward a couple of decades and I now have a Kenner Droid Factory and a yellow base Palitoy one as well, and so can compare them all. The Kenner one of course shares most of its parts with the Palitoy versions. The obvious differences are the boxes (d'uh!
), the plastic bases, and the big sticker for the body of the R2 D2. All of the smaller plastic parts and pieces look identical across the three sets (I'm sure there will be some very minor differences here and there - possibly the moulding numbers stamped on them - but comparing the parts next to one another, it's pretty difficult to tell one from the other). However, one area of uniqueness between my blue base Palitoy and Kenner Droid Factories is in the rest of the stickers supplied to decorate the parts. The Palitoy version has additional stickers not present in the Kenner one to decorate the very differently shaped base, so that's fair enough. However, as far as the stickers to decorate the droid parts are concerned, it's not just the R2 D2 sticker which is different (although to be fair, that is the only one where the image itself is different between the two versions). All the rest of the stickers supplied to decorate the other droid parts look the same across my blue base Palitoy and Kenner versions, except that the blue base Palitoy ones have a dull matt finish, whereas their Kenner equivalents have a shiny glossy finish.
Looking at my newly acquired yellow base one however gives me some concerns. The sticker on the R2 D2 is completely correct and definitely a Palitoy one (apart from the obvious image differences from the Kenner one, it's also dull and matt and looks the same as the one from my blue base version). The stickers on the yellow base are also clearly Palitoy originals and again, are dull and matt. However, the stickers on the rest of the droid parts are raising my suspicions. Unlike my blue base version, the stickers on the other droid parts that came with my yellow base version are shiny and glossy, and clearly did not originate from the same sticker sheet as those applied to the yellow base and R2. They are in fact virtually identical to those on my Kenner Droid Factory droid parts. My concern therefore is obvious; have the droid parts come from the far more plentiful Kenner version and simply been added to the much rarer Palitoy set to make it complete? I wouldn't mind nearly as much if the droid parts had come from a different, possibly later issue Palitoy version, but whilst the plastic pieces themselves might be largely indistinguishable across the Kenner and Palitoy versions, if the stickers are not and my droid parts have been pinched from a Kenner version instead, I will not be happy.
My question therefore (yes, I got to it eventually!), is does anyone know if the Palitoy version of either the blue or yellow base Droid Factory ever came with shiny glossy stickers like the Kenner one, or did they only ever come with the dull matt finish ones? Palitoy were clearly happy enough to make other running changes to the set, switching base colours, so it's not impossible that the stickers may also have changed, but I would like to know if anyone has a definite answer to this please?
Thank you.
Fast forward a couple of decades and I now have a Kenner Droid Factory and a yellow base Palitoy one as well, and so can compare them all. The Kenner one of course shares most of its parts with the Palitoy versions. The obvious differences are the boxes (d'uh!
), the plastic bases, and the big sticker for the body of the R2 D2. All of the smaller plastic parts and pieces look identical across the three sets (I'm sure there will be some very minor differences here and there - possibly the moulding numbers stamped on them - but comparing the parts next to one another, it's pretty difficult to tell one from the other). However, one area of uniqueness between my blue base Palitoy and Kenner Droid Factories is in the rest of the stickers supplied to decorate the parts. The Palitoy version has additional stickers not present in the Kenner one to decorate the very differently shaped base, so that's fair enough. However, as far as the stickers to decorate the droid parts are concerned, it's not just the R2 D2 sticker which is different (although to be fair, that is the only one where the image itself is different between the two versions). All the rest of the stickers supplied to decorate the other droid parts look the same across my blue base Palitoy and Kenner versions, except that the blue base Palitoy ones have a dull matt finish, whereas their Kenner equivalents have a shiny glossy finish.Looking at my newly acquired yellow base one however gives me some concerns. The sticker on the R2 D2 is completely correct and definitely a Palitoy one (apart from the obvious image differences from the Kenner one, it's also dull and matt and looks the same as the one from my blue base version). The stickers on the yellow base are also clearly Palitoy originals and again, are dull and matt. However, the stickers on the rest of the droid parts are raising my suspicions. Unlike my blue base version, the stickers on the other droid parts that came with my yellow base version are shiny and glossy, and clearly did not originate from the same sticker sheet as those applied to the yellow base and R2. They are in fact virtually identical to those on my Kenner Droid Factory droid parts. My concern therefore is obvious; have the droid parts come from the far more plentiful Kenner version and simply been added to the much rarer Palitoy set to make it complete? I wouldn't mind nearly as much if the droid parts had come from a different, possibly later issue Palitoy version, but whilst the plastic pieces themselves might be largely indistinguishable across the Kenner and Palitoy versions, if the stickers are not and my droid parts have been pinched from a Kenner version instead, I will not be happy.
My question therefore (yes, I got to it eventually!), is does anyone know if the Palitoy version of either the blue or yellow base Droid Factory ever came with shiny glossy stickers like the Kenner one, or did they only ever come with the dull matt finish ones? Palitoy were clearly happy enough to make other running changes to the set, switching base colours, so it's not impossible that the stickers may also have changed, but I would like to know if anyone has a definite answer to this please?
Thank you.
