Silver 3po, gold DSD & R2 what is the truth?

After an un resolved discussion on Facebook early vintage group I was wondering if the good people of SWFUK could help clear this up.

I'm on about the existence of silver 3po's and gold R2's and DSD chromed figures. On FB a guy from the new CAS grading company suggested that gold DSD's were a result of aging/ discolouration as he'd been sent a load of golden DSD's that had rusty rivets at the back.

I may be wrong but I find this a little hard to swallow - I own/have owned a silver 3po, gold DSD and R2 all in really good nm+ condition - clean sticker on R2 and all with uniform bright colour which does not appear to have discoloured that way.

I could see how maybe a gold figure could fade to a silver but not really the other way around. Surely if DSD's aged to gold there would be loads of them but they are quite rare. I've always thought therefore it's a paint anomaly.

Anyone got any views/ knowledge on this?

If you google...Gold Death Star droid, a number of RS, TIG and other threads come up, lots of views on it, might be a read for you :wink:

Michael Sith said:

If you google...Gold Death Star droid, a number of RS, TIG and other threads come up, lots of views on it, might be a read for you :wink:

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Cheers Michael perhaps I should have thought of that lol. I'll have a look later see what pops up :wink:

talldroid77 said:

After an un resolved discussion on Facebook early vintage group I was wondering if the good people of SWFUK could help clear this up.

I'm on about the existence of silver 3po's and gold R2's and DSD chromed figures. On FB a guy from the new CAS grading company suggested that gold DSD's were a result of aging/ discolouration as he'd been sent a load of golden DSD's that had rusty rivets at the back.

I may be wrong but I find this a little hard to swallow - I own/have owned a silver 3po, gold DSD and R2 all in really good nm+ condition - clean sticker on R2 and all with uniform bright colour which does not appear to have discoloured that way.

I could see how maybe a gold figure could fade to a silver but not really the other way around. Surely if DSD's aged to gold there would be loads of them but they are quite rare. I've always thought therefore it's a paint anomaly.

Anyone got any views/ knowledge on this?

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Some would say discolouration others will say different paint jobs.

Any pictures of your figures ?

The truth of the gold dome R2 is that the dome was originally applied with a clear varnish, and over the decades this lacquer has darkened and given it the gold appearance.

age with discoloration/degredation

if people pay more for beat up dsd that has gone golden over time thinking they have a variant more fool them...

Yeah I had a look at the various discussions and the overall concencus seems to be that it's a discolouration thing.

I have a DSD that is minty (Unplayed limbs, perfect (golden) chrome and clean rivet) with a uniform golden tint to it that loooks for all the world like it left the factory like that (see pics below). What's made me question discolouration is that with discolouration it's often caused by sunlight and will be more pronounced on areas that have been exposed whereas this is completely uniform.


Looking on the web on discolouration of chrome paint there is a tendency to yellow with modern paints even advertised as 'will not yellow'. Heat and uv seem to be the drivers for this.

The idea that it's a laquor is interesting and sounds plausible I guess.

I have to admit I'm tending towards discolouration but can't see it being sun related or why is it so uniform? Some sort of chemical aging seems more likely. I wouldn't want to 100% rule out a paint **** up at the factory but if I had to put money on it I'd go with discolouration from what I've heard and read so far.

It would still be nice to hear if anyone else has anything to say on the matter or share pics. Anyone with a pic of a gold R2 or DSD from the early 80's please share it :lol: :lol: - my feeling is that will never happen given above discussion.

I think it is importen to have an open mind. I also have a gold death star droid that I found in a childhood collection and I keep him as an variant until I know more about it.

When I see discolouration on figures then most of the time it is not all parts of the figures that is hit with discolouration. I remember chewbacca, stormtrooper, hoth stormtrooper and dengar can be found with discolouration on some of the parts, it is very rare that I see all parts hit with discolouration.

Maybe it is a coo variant where some of them have gone to discolouration because of bad paint on that death star droid or maybe they just used wrong paint on that factory with some of them with that coo :?

Any picture of the coo ? on that gold one ? It could be interesting to see if it is the same coo :? I also have a silver one with the same coo as the gold one I have.

when i was at my nephew back in the days i was 7 years orso so was like 1983. he still owns a lot of figures and back then he spoke of silver colored c3po's already..he did not have 1 but he knew somewhere in the world silver ones existed.


i have a picture as example of the 2 silver c3po i have.

i will try to find out how to post a picture..help apreciated this is my 2nd post

but what i want to say is that there must be original silvercolored c3po's, i think it was to early in 1983 for factory over stock and aftermarket(custom paintjobs on them) or repro

image shows 2 silver collored c3po's

1 LILI LEDY

it has a very nice silver paint . it matches the gold one in patin(to left of it) but it has gold layer under the silver paint. factory job?

the other one is a removable limbs figure . very silver like a mirror!!

padawan1351 said:

when i was at my nephew back in the days i was 7 years orso so was like 1983. he still owns a lot of figures and back then he spoke of silver colored c3po's already..he did not have 1 but he knew somewhere in the world silver ones existed.


i have a picture as example of the 2 silver c3po i have.

i will try to find out how to post a picture..help apreciated this is my 2nd post

but what i want to say is that there must be original silvercolored c3po's, i think it was to early in 1983 for factory over stock and aftermarket(custom paintjobs on them) or repro

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Wow well if that's right it's certainly evidence of production (errors) silver 3po's - unless he tried to polish it or something.

I'd imagine it would be quite easy to mess up a paint mix. When I worked in soft drinks I once discoloured 40,000 litres of lemonade by failing to flush out the pipes from the previous cola mix lol - managed to blag my way out of it with a little help from my friends thankfully :|

Pomse2001 said:

I think it is importen to have an open mind. I also have a gold death star droid that I found in a childhood collection and I keep him as an variant until I know more about it.

When I see discolouration on figures then most of the time it is not all parts of the figures that is hit with discolouration. I remember chewbacca, stormtrooper, hoth stormtrooper and dengar can be found with discolouration on some of the parts, it is very rare that I see all parts hit with discolouration.

Maybe it is a coo variant where some of them have gone to discolouration because of bad paint on that death star droid or maybe they just used wrong paint on that factory with some of them with that coo :?

Any picture of the coo ? on that gold one ? It could be interesting to see if it is the same coo :? I also have a silver one with the same coo as the gold one I have.

Click to expand...

Here's the coo buddy - 3 line Hong Kong. It looks silver in this pic but it's just the light.

I'm convinced they are natural degradation of the original colours combined with variances in the original paint mixtures for the C3POs, not least my childhood C-3PO was gold when brought back in the day, it now displays a distinctly silver colour.

For the DSD and R2, clear lacquers/top coats are notorious for yellowing or degrading, usually as a result of UV Damage. So most of the R2s and DSD are going to be this, there might be a case of the wrong paint being applied in the factory but I couldn't see this getting past the QC to be honest.

ODB said:

I'm convinced they are natural degradation of the original colours combined with variances in the original paint mixtures for the C3POs, not least my childhood C-3PO was gold when brought back in the day, it now displays a distinctly silver colour.

For the DSD and R2, clear lacquers/top coats are notorious for yellowing or degrading, usually as a result of UV Damage. So most of the R2s and DSD are going to be this, there might be a case of the wrong paint being applied in the factory but I couldn't see this getting past the QC to be honest.

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You could well be right geez - for QC it wouldn't be a single figure but a whole batch or at least multiple figures if previous metallic paint had not been cleaned through a painting system for example. As I said above chrome paints themselves it seems can be prone to yellowing even discounting lacquer. You would have thought their would be more of them about though or at least some non-uniformly discoloured (which I've not seen) - perhaps certain paint or lacquer mixes - I believe green chewies are related to a certain coo - maybe the same is true here.

I have a hard time with uv as it would not be uniform- look at the top of yellowed falcons compared to the bottom. If it's discolouration it's got to be a chemical aging perhaps catalysed by environmental factors - maybe heat. Is your 3po uniformly silver?

I might try an experiment with some beater figures in the garden this summer - see what happens after a few months - or maybe bake a figure for a bit - even see if a patch of lacquer could be removed with nail varnish remover or similar to see what's underneath - anyone wishing to have a go themselves are welcome to do so as I don't have any beaters to press lol.

padawan1351 said:

when i was at my nephew back in the days i was 7 years orso so was like 1983. he still owns a lot of figures and back then he spoke of silver colored c3po's already..he did not have 1 but he knew somewhere in the world silver ones existed.


i have a picture as example of the 2 silver c3po i have.

i will try to find out how to post a picture..help apreciated this is my 2nd post

but what i want to say is that there must be original silvercolored c3po's, i think it was to early in 1983 for factory over stock and aftermarket(custom paintjobs on them) or repro

Click to expand...

I am also very sure about that I remember that I had a silver paint c-3po when I was a kid

padawan1351 said:

image shows 2 silver collored c3po's

1 LILI LEDY

it has a very nice silver paint . it matches the gold one in patin(to left of it) but it has gold layer under the silver paint. factory job?

the other one is a removable limbs figure . very silver like a mirror!!

Click to expand...

Nice picture it looks great

ODB said:

I'm convinced they are natural degradation of the original colours combined with variances in the original paint mixtures for the C3POs, not least my childhood C-3PO was gold when brought back in the day, it now displays a distinctly silver colour.

For the DSD and R2, clear lacquers/top coats are notorious for yellowing or degrading, usually as a result of UV Damage. So most of the R2s and DSD are going to be this, there might be a case of the wrong paint being applied in the factory but I couldn't see this getting past the QC to be honest.

Click to expand...

Maybe you are correct about degradation, but some errors did come through qc. Not that I say farmer luke hair variants is an error, but why did they not stop all the none yellow hair farmer luke ? :? why was factories allowed to produce orange hair, brown hair and other hair colors on farmer luke ? :?

talldroid77 said:

Pomse2001 said:

I think it is importen to have an open mind. I also have a gold death star droid that I found in a childhood collection and I keep him as an variant until I know more about it.

When I see discolouration on figures then most of the time it is not all parts of the figures that is hit with discolouration. I remember chewbacca, stormtrooper, hoth stormtrooper and dengar can be found with discolouration on some of the parts, it is very rare that I see all parts hit with discolouration.

Maybe it is a coo variant where some of them have gone to discolouration because of bad paint on that death star droid or maybe they just used wrong paint on that factory with some of them with that coo :?

Any picture of the coo ? on that gold one ? It could be interesting to see if it is the same coo :? I also have a silver one with the same coo as the gold one I have.

Click to expand...

Here's the coo buddy - 3 line Hong Kong. It looks silver in this pic but it's just the light.

IMG_4221.JPG

Click to expand...

Thanks can I get one where I can see more of the hong kong letters ?

Pomse2001 said:

padawan1351 said:

when i was at my nephew back in the days i was 7 years orso so was like 1983. he still owns a lot of figures and back then he spoke of silver colored c3po's already..he did not have 1 but he knew somewhere in the world silver ones existed.


i have a picture as example of the 2 silver c3po i have.

i will try to find out how to post a picture..help apreciated this is my 2nd post

but what i want to say is that there must be original silvercolored c3po's, i think it was to early in 1983 for factory over stock and aftermarket(custom paintjobs on them) or repro

Click to expand...

I am also very sure about that I remember that I had a silver paint c-3po when I was a kid

Click to expand...

Cool another one. I think it's plausible - Luke clearly doesn't have ginger hair yet they produced some figures....