Uzay AT AT Driver Protoype on the bay

[Dark Sith Lord]

Hi guys just spotted this on the bay

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Star- ... 336fe31307

I hope that nobody minds me outing this!

What do you guys think?

[aussiejames]

UKG are WRONG. It's not the first time a grading company have made a mistake (won't be the last)

As mentioned above this is mere leftover limbs on sprues. A ton of these along with AtAt Driver torsos and limbs were brought back from Turkey years ago in a large lot that included a ton of carded figures as well. I've even seen AFA graded AtAt Driver limbs/torso set that was listed as "prototype" but they are not. Still a good find though. I have the Vader limbs, AtAt Driver limbs and torso so I can tell you that what you got is good.

[Dark Sith Lord]

Really James? Never known a grading make a mistake of that sort. Interesting!

[Caswellbot]

I'm no expert on uzay but if this a mistake has either the seller or ukg been notified?

[aussiejames]

I find it frustrating that neither the seller or UKG couldn't do a simple google search for 'Uzay prototype' & find half a dozen threads at least showing the heritage of these pieces which date back to the mold find. These left over unpainted parts/sprues are just that- left over production parts. Absolutely nothing to do with pre production/prototypes

[Caswellbot]

Being fair, Ive just found these threads in next to no time:

http://forum.rebelscum.com/t988590/

http://forum.rebelscum.com/t926053/


Looks like AJ is right. I may contact Steve at UKG and let him know. I expect he would want to find out about this.

[momike]

I don't know much about these things. It just looks like an unpainted figure to me! I would say its more pre production than prototype.

[Caswellbot]

hey Mike, the links I posted make note that these are often made up of factory overstock pieces and are not preproduction in nature.

[Dark Sith Lord]

Being fair, Ive just found these threads in next to no time:

http://forum.rebelscum.com/t988590/

http://forum.rebelscum.com/t926053/


Looks like AJ is right. I may contact Steve at UKG and let him know. I expect he would want to find out about this.

Good Idea Chris! I am sure he be very interested in this?

[momike]

Hey Chris hope you had a good one mate

Like I said I dont know much about them I did read some of the links but it burns my head out reading all that stuff! What I ment by pre production was its not been assembled/painted so it's not the finished article so to speak.

Correct me here if I am wrong guys but prototypes are a Kenner thing are they not almost like a trial run before production begins? I am rite in saying uzay was never licensed by Kenner so there is no way to authenticate its provenance is there? Am i wrong in thinking uzay are glorified bootlegs?

[Caswellbot]

Hey Mike I did indeed mate. I hope you did too.

The way I see it is that preproduction refers to stages of design, tooling and trialling which occured prior to a piece being finalised and ready to go into mainstream production. From what I understand in this case the piece may have been made up from unpainted factory overstock pieces. This would indicate that they werent part of that design / preproduction phase and rather just surplus unassembled parts.

Chris.

[ukgraders]

Hi everyone I have just been chatting with Chris about this via email.
Basically we went with proto for this as we hadnt thought of either "factory overstock" or "pre-production" for the label at the time but now it has been pointed out I will get in touch with the guy who sent it(as he sends us quite a bit)and see if we cant change it on the label to something more suited like Pre-Production.
Cheers guys and have a Happy New Year BTW

[Dark Sith Lord]

Has this sold to anyone on here?

[aussiejames]

It's impressive to see Ukgraders being proactive. Personally I still think using the term pre production is incorrect (misleading at best). If anything they are post production:
[QUOTE=ChrisGeorgoulias;15182503]I can't imagine much prototype stuff out there for Uzay figures because, after all, the whole toy line is copied from Kenner. There's not much to develop and redefine so you can basically skip the prototype phase. You make up something and crank it out.

That the molds were still in existence and actually purchased is about as miraculous as it gets. The leg and arm sets or AT-AT Drivers you see on ebay aren't really prototypes. They're just unused items that were stored in the factory and were found when the molds turned up. Factory leftovers that never were turned into figures to be sold.

-chris[/QUOTE]
unpainted overstock, nothing more. Just like the Lili Ledy overstock parts. Left overs found in a closed down factory.

[aussiejames]

I'm glad to see a change in the grading label: http://www.adverts.ie/action-figures/vi ... re/1199417

vs unpainted/unglued AFA