Glitter or frosting??

Has anyone heard of this!? Talking to a seller about a possible moc rotj obi wan kenobi. He has sent pics, figure is mint, seal great, bubble cracked at the bottom by the feet, bubble is your usual rotj yellow! However the legs had what looks like white specks and dots on them! I enquired what it was and he replied that 'the legs look like they are covered in glitter, it was like that when I purchased it and must have been done in the factory!! Now has anyone ever heard of a glitter legged obi wan!! Or could it be frosting and if so would you buy it and try to get rid of that later somehow?!

Alltooeasy said:

Has anyone heard of this!? Talking to a seller about a possible moc rotj obi wan kenobi. He has sent pics, figure is mint, seal great, bubble cracked at the bottom by the feet, bubble is your usual rotj yellow! However the legs had what looks like white specks and dots on them! I enquired what it was and he replied that 'the legs look like they are covered in glitter, it was like that when I purchased it and must have been done in the factory!! Now has anyone ever heard of a glitter legged obi wan!! Or could it be frosting and if so would you buy it and try to get rid of that later somehow?!

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Yeah sounds like frosting due to plastic degradation, I can't see the factory ever adding glitter to it for any reason, if he's saying it looks like glitter than i'm guessing the frosting is quite bad.

Personally myself I stay away from anything that has frosting, but apparently it's a quick fix if you sit it in sunlight for a little bit which gets rid of it, but if this is a permanent fix or not i'm not sure.

Thanks for the advice! Pics attached for further help!

Definitely plastic degradation.

Oh really? thanks for you help! Would you advise buying it and trying to get rid of it somehow? or would you say you can never get rid of it? How does this happen to the figures an how do you avoid it? Many thanks

It would not stop me buying a figure that I really wanted.
I have had a few figures over the years with frosting, that have all been fixed by leaving in the sun for a few hours.
I have personally never had frosting come back, but have read that it can.

I'm not sure there's a great deal you can do about, especially since he's still in the bubble. As mentioned by Subzero when the figures have the frosted like coating you can remove it (temporarily or otherwise) via exposure to a warm lamp or sunlight. It might work in this case, you'd have to try it to be sure. On loose figures you can clean them to make it less obvious.

I've seen degradation take a few forms on figures. It often looks like liver spots in the plastic (light brown spots in the Rebel Commander, light grey spot on Boba Fett are a couple of examples I've seen). As far as I'm aware it will eventually happen to all these plastics with time. But depending on how it's been stored over the last 40 odd years may have accelerated it. Also, batches of plastic vary through production, possible contamination during manufacture could make it worse in some figures.

Bottom line is, if you want a better looking figure, hold out for one. If you look after and store your collection properly it will slow down these processes, but you can't stop it ultimately.

From what iv'e seen so far iv'e noticed it's usually brown coloured plastics that get the degradation in the form of liver spots, like with Kenobi and Jawa figures, but I haven't seen this on other colours yet I don't think.

I have a feeling certain colours like brown in the plastics might contain different types of chemicals that speed up the degradation faster than other colours, like with the B-Wing Pilot iv'e also seen a lot more of those with frosting compared to other figures.

Don't know if i'm wrong about this or not?

I have a Luke farmboy moc and it has a real dark spot on his head (brown/black). I am not sure what the cause of this is, it looks different from the frosting effect. It seems to be slowly getting bigger over time.

subzero said:

From what iv'e seen so far iv'e noticed it's usually brown coloured plastics that get the degradation in the form of liver spots, like with Kenobi and Jawa figures, but I haven't seen this on other colours yet I don't think.

I have a feeling certain colours like brown in the plastics might contain different types of chemicals that speed up the degradation faster than other colours, like with the B-Wing Pilot iv'e also seen a lot more of those with frosting compared to other figures.

Don't know if i'm wrong about this or not?

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Funny you should say that, all my figures that have had frosting are grey.

Their is a thread on this forum some where, basically 5 minutes under a lamp gets rid of this. I did it to my 12 Back Vader and really badly frosted Death Squad Commander. I did mine in direct sunlight for about 20 minutes, I wouldn't recommend that though. Probably 3 years ago and none of the frosting has returned yet.

Mini99 said:

subzero said:

From what iv'e seen so far iv'e noticed it's usually brown coloured plastics that get the degradation in the form of liver spots, like with Kenobi and Jawa figures, but I haven't seen this on other colours yet I don't think.

I have a feeling certain colours like brown in the plastics might contain different types of chemicals that speed up the degradation faster than other colours, like with the B-Wing Pilot iv'e also seen a lot more of those with frosting compared to other figures.

Don't know if i'm wrong about this or not?

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Funny you should say that, all my figures that have had frosting are grey.

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From what i'm aware of it takes different chemicals to create different colours, so yes maybe the colours like grey, red and brown contain harsher chemicals.

This thread may help.

http://www.starwarsforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30582&hilit=Frosted+figure

Cheers for all your comments! I didn't get it in the end due to the frosting! Got my eye on another if anyone can help confirm it's a legit piece and not a tt or anything I've got pics?