Vintage or Repro Admiral Ackbar Staff?

I just purchased this Admiral Ackbar Staff with the figure itself on a well known FB group here in the UK. The staff was listed as original, but in hand I'm not so sure.

Could some of the experts here chime in? I looked up TIG and it looks closest to a V2, but when I place it in water, it does not float.

Are all original versions of the Ackbar Staff supposed to float? It is also quite flexible and will bend slightly. I want to be sure before I contact the seller to ask for a refund.

Many thanks guys!

(Edit) I've been testing it some more and it appears to float when I place it in water, but sink if I drop it in the water or push it down.

All known original Admiral Ackbar staffs should float. If it's a sinker it's Repro.

This one appears to float only when gently placed on the water. If I push it, it will sink. It also feels that it might snap if I bend it too much. I haven't come across a vintage weapon that will seem to snap in the same way.

Sorry, but this is 100% repro. The Hong Kong staff has sharper edges to the rings, as shown on TIG and also below:


Yours looks exactly like the repro staff shown on TIG and other known repros sold on eBay, and that is precisely what I am convinced it is.

If it was sold to you as an original, ask for your money back.

Thanks for the replies guys. Yes, I'm leaning heavily towards it being repro now. Does the V2 original have round injection mold marks in it? Again, the one I have has none present. I'm guessing that an original would bend, but not snap, but a repro would bend and then snap?

The round and oval cross-section Taiwan staffs have round injection mold marks, but the Hong Kong version (what your staff is a repro of) does not. Instead it has a rough injection mark on its flat end, like yours appears to have. Sadly though of course, that doesn't make yours real. Yours has rounded ring edges when they should be sharp. Yours has an unnatural wave / bend along its length which the originals don't (originals can warp, but they slightly 'banana', i.e. bend only one way. I've never seen one bend first one way then another along its length like yours, certainly not without stress marks showing on the plastic at any rate, which yours does not appear to have). Yours sinks in water when it should float. Yours is also the wrong type of plastic, judging from the photo.

As for bending, originals do bend if you apply slight pressure, but I'm not going to answer your question about whether it would snap as I am not about to break an original weapon. I'm sure you understand.

Sorry, I wish for your sake that it wasn't, but yours is unquestionably a repro. I wish you every success in getting your money back (just point the seller to the page on TIG to see what a real one should look like if they give you any hassle).

Good luck.

Thanks Snaketibe. I have been in touch with the seller and he seems to be understanding and willing to put it right. We'll wait and see. I am giving him the benefit of the doubt in that he thought that he had the genuine item and listed it as such. Luckily, I didn't spend too much money on the figure and staff (only wanted it for the genuine staff to complete the loose figure of Ackbar i already had, of course). That repro is certainly one of the more difficult ones to distinguish from the originals! But thanks to TIG and you guys on the forum for helping me to confirm it as a repro!

OK, apologies if you actually don't care which staff version goes with your figure (some collectors simply want a vintage original weapon and don't really care which 'V' number it is, which is entirely fair enough). However, if that is something you'd prefer to get 'right' (and I wouldn't blame you if you didn't), then to the very best of my knowledge, the staff type you have a repro of comes with the 'Hong Kong' COO Ackbars, which have the red painted forearms and white molded upper arms, and a 'tan' moulded torso. If however you have a 'Taiwan' COO Ackbar, which have red molded forearms and white painted upper arms, and a painted torso (which can be anything from yellow, to peach, to olive in colour), then the staff should be the other type, which comes with either a circular or oval cross section, as shown below:

Got a replacement Ackbar Staff from the seller today. Looks like it's a version1 Taiwan type. I think it's genuine and it floats without any issues. It seems to have one less injection mark on the side, but the texture looks like an original. I'm not aware that there are repro versions of the version 1, but of course I could be mistaken. Thoughts?





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BikerScout74 said:

Got a replacement Ackbar Staff from the seller today. Looks like it's a version1 Taiwan type. I think it's genuine and it floats without any issues. It seems to have one less injection mark on the side, but the texture looks like an original. I'm not aware that there are repro versions of the version 1, but of course I could be mistaken. Thoughts?

WP_20190715_18_35_29_Pro.jpg

WP_20190715_18_36_59_Pro.jpg

WP_20190715_18_36_59_Pro.jpg

WP_20190715_18_29_22_Pro.jpg

Click to expand...

From the photos, it looks fine to me.

Thanks Snaketibe!