SWTOTW, Week 36, 2019, Part 1/2 See-Threepio (C-3PO) With Removable Limbs

Pomse2001

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See-Threepio (C-3PO) With Removable Limbs:

c-3po.jpeg
 

Snaketibe

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It may have been a pretty easy retool / reissue for Kenner to change this figure to make its limbs removable back in the 80's, but it's hard to deny that it didn't add a ton of play value to the toy! A brilliant yet simple idea, and presumably quite cheap for Kenner to do as well, but it resulted in a really neat figure which could recreate his unfortunate encounter with Dark Helmet's troops back on Bespin ;-)

I do like this figure, but my one big complaint about it is that it was never really gold enough. There may have been some fading in colour over the intervening decades, but I still remember my removable limbs C-3PO back in the 80's looking significantly less gold than my fixed limbs one. That gripe aside, this is a great little figure that even comes with a bag to shove him in when Chewie wants to go backpacking :lol:

I can't say I've ever found a huge amount of visually different variants with this figure. The gold paint does seem to come in a few different shades (again, this may be down to fading), ranging from goldish to practically silver, but the only 'noticeable' sculpting difference (and let's face it, it's not that noticeable!) is that some variants have small circles below their knees (see below).

As for mine, I have three different variants, two with circles, one without. They are all different shades of gold, but photographing them is a nightmare with my camera! Using a flash makes them appear mostly black, and using no flash requires a lot of colour correction in Photoshop to get them looking anywhere near how they actually do. In short, the colour difference (and surface details, for that matter), I have found quite tricky to capture in pictures. I've done my best though and also included both flash and no flash versions.

Tough to Photo - 01.jpg


Tough to Photo - 02.jpg


Tough to Photo - 03.jpg


Tough to Photo - 04.jpg


Tough to Photo - 05.jpg


Tough to Photo - 06.jpg


Tough to Photo - 07.jpg


Tough to Photo - 08.jpg


Tough to Photo - 09.jpg


Tough to Photo - 10.jpg
 

Snaketibe

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Come on guys, I can't be the only person to own one of these. It's not exactly Vlix! :lol:

I'm looking forward to seeing other member's examples, and hopefully even a MOC or two, since I don't have one to share. Can anyone help? :)
 

Pomse2001

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Snaketibe said:
Come on guys, I can't be the only person to own one of these. It's not exactly Vlix! :lol:

I'm looking forward to seeing other member's examples, and hopefully even a MOC or two, since I don't have one to share. Can anyone help? :)

Sorry mate I am so busy at the moment, I will read your post later when I get some more time. The pictures looks fantastic, great collection you have,thanks for sharing it :D
 

Snaketibe

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Pomse2001 said:
Snaketibe said:
Come on guys, I can't be the only person to own one of these. It's not exactly Vlix! :lol:

I'm looking forward to seeing other member's examples, and hopefully even a MOC or two, since I don't have one to share. Can anyone help? :)

Sorry mate I am so busy at the moment, I will read your post later when I get some more time. The pictures looks fantastic, great collection you have,thanks for sharing it :D
Thanks, Lars. Hopefully some other members will be willing to share their figures :)
 

Pomse2001

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Snaketibe said:
Pomse2001 said:
Snaketibe said:
Come on guys, I can't be the only person to own one of these. It's not exactly Vlix! :lol:

I'm looking forward to seeing other member's examples, and hopefully even a MOC or two, since I don't have one to share. Can anyone help? :)

Sorry mate I am so busy at the moment, I will read your post later when I get some more time. The pictures looks fantastic, great collection you have,thanks for sharing it :D
Thanks, Lars. Hopefully some other members will be willing to share their figures :)

I will share mine as soon as I can find some more time, so far it lucks like it is as rare as vlix :lol: maybe we are the only one on the forum that have them or others is maybe also a little busy at the moment :lol:
 

Mini99

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Sorry about the late entry, I've not been about for the last week so much.
Here are my two, a POTF MOC and my one and only baggie.
4D13542C-33CE-4BED-A063-1752B82FBFCD.jpeg

BC5C9367-7B12-4F23-8329-D1792789E955.png
 

Snaketibe

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Mini99 said:
Sorry about the late entry, I've not been about for the last week so much.
Here are my two, a POTF MOC and my one and only baggie.
4D13542C-33CE-4BED-A063-1752B82FBFCD.jpeg
BC5C9367-7B12-4F23-8329-D1792789E955.png
Two super examples! I do love a POTF card and I think the green on C-3PO's makes for one of the best looking ones out there. Also, your baggie looks spotlessly clean and fresh.

Thanks for sharing :)
 

spoons

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Amazing how few 3POs are owned by us :shock:

I can add another baggie, and will own a carded one some day

C3P0 HK baggie.jpg
 

spoons

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Snaketibe said:
spoons said:
Amazing how few 3POs are owned by us :shock:

I can add another baggie, and will own a carded one some day

C3P0 HK baggie.jpg
Another super baggied example! :)

Thanks Jeremy, reckon this 3Po has to be the most common sealed SW figure there is. Back in the day is was a great way of getting a mint loose one, and the reason why so many fake baggies exist with the green text bags. But times have changed.
 

Mini99

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Snaketibe said:
Mini99 said:
Sorry about the late entry, I've not been about for the last week so much.
Here are my two, a POTF MOC and my one and only baggie.
4D13542C-33CE-4BED-A063-1752B82FBFCD.jpeg
BC5C9367-7B12-4F23-8329-D1792789E955.png
Two super examples! I do love a POTF card and I think the green on C-3PO's makes for one of the best looking ones out there. Also, your baggie looks spotlessly clean and fresh.

Thanks for sharing :)
Thanks,
I agree with you totally that the yellow/gold of C3PO on the green background really pops, but I do find the card picture dull, is it just me?

And as Andy mentioned everyone must have one of these C3PO baggies now if they wanted one as they are so readily available and reasonably cheap.
I don't really know how to display it though, it just lies at the back behind some MOCs :eek:
 

Snaketibe

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TheJabbaWookie said:
Snaketibe said:
Come on guys, I can't be the only person to own one of these. It's not exactly Vlix! :lol:

I'm looking forward to seeing other member's examples, and hopefully even a MOC or two, since I don't have one to share. Can anyone help? :)
I'll try and photograph mine tomorrow
Excellent! I look forward to seeing it :)
 

TheJabbaWookie

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I have two loose examples, both no coo. The one on the left is the common Raised Bar No Coo. This example came was bought with its original baggie for both figure and cargo net. The other example is the much rarer Smooth European CoO (so called Lili Ledy European counterpart). Apart from the CoO helping to identify this variant you can also determine it from the copper colour on the end of the limbs where it snaps into the figure. This particular example is unusually gold as most documented examples are much more silver in appearance.

In addition I also have a baggie and a Palitoy ROTJ 45 back.
 

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Pomse2001

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Snaketibe said:
It may have been a pretty easy retool / reissue for Kenner to change this figure to make its limbs removable back in the 80's, but it's hard to deny that it didn't add a ton of play value to the toy! A brilliant yet simple idea, and presumably quite cheap for Kenner to do as well, but it resulted in a really neat figure which could recreate his unfortunate encounter with Dark Helmet's troops back on Bespin ;-)

I do like this figure, but my one big complaint about it is that it was never really gold enough. There may have been some fading in colour over the intervening decades, but I still remember my removable limbs C-3PO back in the 80's looking significantly less gold than my fixed limbs one. That gripe aside, this is a great little figure that even comes with a bag to shove him in when Chewie wants to go backpacking :lol:

I can't say I've ever found a huge amount of visually different variants with this figure. The gold paint does seem to come in a few different shades (again, this may be down to fading), ranging from goldish to practically silver, but the only 'noticeable' sculpting difference (and let's face it, it's not that noticeable!) is that some variants have small circles below their knees (see below).

As for mine, I have three different variants, two with circles, one without. They are all different shades of gold, but photographing them is a nightmare with my camera! Using a flash makes them appear mostly black, and using no flash requires a lot of colour correction in Photoshop to get them looking anywhere near how they actually do. In short, the colour difference (and surface details, for that matter), I have found quite tricky to capture in pictures. I've done my best though and also included both flash and no flash versions.

Tough to Photo - 01.jpg

Tough to Photo - 02.jpg

Tough to Photo - 03.jpg

Tough to Photo - 04.jpg

Tough to Photo - 05.jpg

Tough to Photo - 06.jpg

Tough to Photo - 07.jpg

Tough to Photo - 08.jpg

Tough to Photo - 09.jpg

Tough to Photo - 10.jpg

Now I got some time to read your fantastic post as always :D I agree a brilliant idea that c-3po could remove his arms and legs :D In denmark this C-3PO is the common one, the first one from 1977 is extremly rare in denmark. I would say out of 100 childhood lots you will maybe only find one C-3PO fra 1977 the rest will be this variant with removeable legs and arms. I never saw the first one for sale in the stores in denmark when I was a kid in the good old days. But then again it was first in 1983 I was old enough to play and get star wars toy :lol:

About variants, I know the head can have a totally different coulor than the rest of the body :shock: also the big circles on the belly can be different. There is also varinats of the net, but then again there is also repro fake net.
 

Pomse2001

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Mini99 said:
Sorry about the late entry, I've not been about for the last week so much.
Here are my two, a POTF MOC and my one and only baggie.
4D13542C-33CE-4BED-A063-1752B82FBFCD.jpeg
BC5C9367-7B12-4F23-8329-D1792789E955.png

Wow cool moc and a nice baggie, thanks for sharing them :D
 

Pomse2001

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Location
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spoons said:
Amazing how few 3POs are owned by us :shock:

I can add another baggie, and will own a carded one some day

C3P0 HK baggie.jpg

Thanks andy for sharing your baggie with us, it looks mint 8)
 

Pomse2001

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TheJabbaWookie said:
I have two loose examples, both no coo. The one on the left is the common Raised Bar No Coo. This example came was bought with its original baggie for both figure and cargo net. The other example is the much rarer Smooth European CoO (so called Lili Ledy European counterpart). Apart from the CoO helping to identify this variant you can also determine it from the copper colour on the end of the limbs where it snaps into the figure. This particular example is unusually gold as most documented examples are much more silver in appearance.

In addition I also have a baggie and a Palitoy ROTJ 45 back.

Thanks mate for sharing your collection :D and thanks for the info, it was great reading :D Your collection looks fantastic :wink:
 

TheJabbaWookie

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Pomse2001 said:
TheJabbaWookie said:
I have two loose examples, both no coo. The one on the left is the common Raised Bar No Coo. This example came was bought with its original baggie for both figure and cargo net. The other example is the much rarer Smooth European CoO (so called Lili Ledy European counterpart). Apart from the CoO helping to identify this variant you can also determine it from the copper colour on the end of the limbs where it snaps into the figure. This particular example is unusually gold as most documented examples are much more silver in appearance.

In addition I also have a baggie and a Palitoy ROTJ 45 back.

Thanks mate for sharing your collection :D and thanks for the info, it was great reading :D Your collection looks fantastic :wink:
Thanks Lars. Just wish I had the room to display it
 
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