The Palitoy Droid Factory! OK, for me personally it may be my least favourite of the Palitoy playsets, but even so, I still love the thing! I had one as a kid and loved it then too! What's not to love about being able to make a 3-legged R2-D2?! Plus you could make a whole host of other droids of various kinds too
For anyone wanting a more in-depth comparison between the Palitoy and Kenner versions of the Droid Factory, I recommend checking out the previous TOTW thread on the Droid Factory here:
https://www.starwarsforum.co.uk/threads/swtotw-week-13-2019-part-1-2-droid-factory.38871/
However, since this new thread is dedicated to just the Palitoy version, let's just show that one here!
One thing I've always found interesting about the Palitoy Droid Factory is that it's the only vintage Star Wars toy with a partial name plate on the packaging. Eventually of course, both Kenner and Palitoy dispensed with the name plates on all of their toy packaging apart from the carded figures (which kept them to the end of the run), however the Palitoy Droid Factory is the only one with the job half-done; it's missing the oval surround around the name:
View attachment 192453
Secondly, the Palitoy Droid Factory plastic base comes in two completely different colours, despite its packaging not changing. A few other toys also changed colour during their production runs, but their packaging usually changed at the same time, e.g. the TIE Fighter comes in both white and blue versions, but its packaging changed at the same time. The white TIE Fighter is never found in Jedi packaging and the blue one is never found in Star Wars or Empire packaging.
However, the Palitoy Droid Factory base came in both canary yellow and blue versions, despite the box never changing and only ever showing the blue one. When you bought a Palitoy Droid Factory, you had no idea which version you were getting until you opened the box! Incidentally, my childhood Palitoy Droid Factory was a yellow one, and because I never bought a second one (well, why would I? ;-)), it wasn't until adulthood that I learned to my considerable surprise that the blue version also existed! Prior to that, I'd simply assumed the blue one shown on the box was a misleading con, and I was even quite cross and disappointed about it as a child as I wanted it to be blue to match the one on the box, which I thought looked much better! :lol:
Lastly, for those that don't know, the 3-legged R2-D2 which came with these sets has a sticker which is a mirror image of the regular carded 2-legged R2-D2's sticker. God knows how the error occurred, but it does at least help identify some fake stickers for the 3-legged version once you know about it!
Also, the Palitoy and Kenner versions of the stickers are not the same, making each set's version of the 3-legged R2-D2 unique.