Palitoy20 back question.

[Palifan]

Hi all,

I was checking over some of my 20 back reseals today and I came across these two Walrus Man ones I have. These are both complete and original as best I can tell but on closer inspection I notices that the bubble on the one on the right of the picture of them next to each other is taller than the other. Also the stem is shorter and more squared off on this one and I was wondering if anyone else has ever noticed this 20 back with the 2 different styles of bubbles?

One thing of note is that the one with the taller bubble was sold as a bubble seal fail and the bubble is only attached to the left hand side with very little print on the seal to the right where it's unstuck. It did slightly make me wonder about the whole TT scandal although I have seen seals fail before ( I may have even seen this possibly happen on another Walrus Man). The figure does look to be untouched so I've always thought it was just a seal fail but the fact that my other has a different bubble has made me wonder about it.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Ian

 

[Snaketibe]

Hi Ian,

Whilst I am no great expert on the bubbles that came with 20 backs, just by looking at my own collection of reseals, I note that some came with the shorter, squared off style of bubble, whilst others came with a taller stem. I suppose it's perfectly possible that either Palitoy had a running change on the bubbles they used (after all, whilst the 20 back card itself never changed throughout its production run, the Kenner equivalents certainly did and came with various different backs, quite possibly with different bubbles too. And we certainly know that the 12-back Jawa used at least 3 different bubbles throughout its Star Wars carded run), or else that sometimes the 'wrong' bubble was used by the factory workers doing the sealing (perhaps when stock of the correct one ran out).

However, all of the above is conjecture. A better way to answer your question is to look at multiple different sealed Palitoy 20 back Walrus Man MOCs, and for that I turned to Vectis, since they have had a fair few pass through their hands, and they always take good quality photos of exactly the MOC they are selling, usually from the same angle and at a good size. Looking through their past auctions reveals both types of bubble are indeed to be found on sealed examples (and there may of course be more than 2 types of bubble used, since they can only show the MOCs they've sold, of course). Anyway, here are some of those they've sold down the years:

https://www.vectis.co.uk/palitoy-star-wars-walrus-man-3-34-inch-vintage-figure_619629

https://www.vectis.co.uk/palitoy-star-wars-walrus-man-3-34-inch-vintage-figure-mint_612694

https://www.vectis.co.uk/palitoy-star-wars-walrus-man-3-34-inch-figure_517208

https://www.vectis.co.uk/palitoy-star-wars-walrus-man-3-34-inch-vintage-figure_631246

https://www.vectis.co.uk/palitoy-star-wars-walrus-man-3-34-inch-vintage-figure-mint_573648

https://www.vectis.co.uk/palitoy-star-wars-walrus-man-3-34-inch-vintage-figure-mint_583734

https://www.vectis.co.uk/palitoy-star-wars-walrus-man-3-34-inch-vintage-figure_622591

I hope that helps

Jeremy

 

[Palifan]

Top man Jeremy!

Thank you for taking the time to look into this for me and pulling all of those pictures together. Now I'm wondering if any of the other 20 backs follow Walrus Man with their bubble shapes (I'm not asking you to do the legwork as you've done more than enough already).

As this is something of a noticeable variant I'm glad I have an example of both as well as 2 of the 3 Jawa bubble variants (I don't think I'll be getting the VCJ style bubble any time soon).

Maybe this is something new for Mr Palitoy's site also as I know Jason likes to mention any variable out there.

Thanks again, really appreciated and it's good to know there's nothing off with either of my reseals

Ian

 

[Snaketibe]

You're welcome. I was happy to help, plus it also meant I learned something new myself :-D

 

[mr_palitoy]

Nice spot! Have updated the 20 back page and given you a credit on the main page.

Have looked on Vectis, all the other 20 back figures use a single bubble type. Greedo use the square stem bubble seen as the second bubble type on Walrus Man.

https://www.freewebs.com/mrpalitoy/sw20cardback.htm



cheers Jason

 

[Palifan]

Nice spot! Have updated the 20 back page and given you a credit on the main page.

Have looked on Vectis, all the other 20 back figures use a single bubble type. Greedo use the square stem bubble seen as the second bubble type on Walrus Man.

https://www.freewebs.com/mrpalitoy/sw20cardback.htm



cheers Jason

Thanks for the name check Jason and it's odd that walrus Man is the only character with two different styles of bubbles that can be seen at the moment. Maybe some other characters will pop up over time but do you know if Walrus Man was a later release on 20 back or did or the characters get released at the same time?

Ian

 

[mr_palitoy]

Nice spot! Have updated the 20 back page and given you a credit on the main page.

Have looked on Vectis, all the other 20 back figures use a single bubble type. Greedo use the square stem bubble seen as the second bubble type on Walrus Man.

https://www.freewebs.com/mrpalitoy/sw20cardback.htm



cheers Jason

Thanks for the name check Jason and it's odd that walrus Man is the only character with two different styles of bubbles that can be seen at the moment. Maybe some other characters will pop up over time but do you know if Walrus Man was a later release on 20 back or did or the characters get released at the same time?

Ian

I would imagine Walrus Man would have been earlier and used up the longer stemmed bubbles or they were released at the same time and the longer stemmed ones were used on Walrusman until they ran out and then they used the ones they used for Greedo.

cheers Jason