Palitoy & Kenner Droid Factories - Sticker Differences?

I recently acquired a yellow base Palitoy Droid Factory, having owned a blue base one since the early 90's. The blue one came from Jim Stevenson and I have little doubt that it is entirely complete and genuine, by which I mean I don't believe any of its parts have been swapped out for their Kenner Droid Factory equivalents. Jim knew his stuff, and whilst he certainly wasn't the cheapest, I never experienced any dodgy dealings from him, and so I have every confidence that the contents of my blue base one are all Palitoy originals.

Fast forward a couple of decades and I now have a Kenner Droid Factory and a yellow base Palitoy one as well, and so can compare them all. The Kenner one of course shares most of its parts with the Palitoy versions. The obvious differences are the boxes (d'uh! ), the plastic bases, and the big sticker for the body of the R2 D2. All of the smaller plastic parts and pieces look identical across the three sets (I'm sure there will be some very minor differences here and there - possibly the moulding numbers stamped on them - but comparing the parts next to one another, it's pretty difficult to tell one from the other). However, one area of uniqueness between my blue base Palitoy and Kenner Droid Factories is in the rest of the stickers supplied to decorate the parts. The Palitoy version has additional stickers not present in the Kenner one to decorate the very differently shaped base, so that's fair enough. However, as far as the stickers to decorate the droid parts are concerned, it's not just the R2 D2 sticker which is different (although to be fair, that is the only one where the image itself is different between the two versions). All the rest of the stickers supplied to decorate the other droid parts look the same across my blue base Palitoy and Kenner versions, except that the blue base Palitoy ones have a dull matt finish, whereas their Kenner equivalents have a shiny glossy finish.

Looking at my newly acquired yellow base one however gives me some concerns. The sticker on the R2 D2 is completely correct and definitely a Palitoy one (apart from the obvious image differences from the Kenner one, it's also dull and matt and looks the same as the one from my blue base version). The stickers on the yellow base are also clearly Palitoy originals and again, are dull and matt. However, the stickers on the rest of the droid parts are raising my suspicions. Unlike my blue base version, the stickers on the other droid parts that came with my yellow base version are shiny and glossy, and clearly did not originate from the same sticker sheet as those applied to the yellow base and R2. They are in fact virtually identical to those on my Kenner Droid Factory droid parts. My concern therefore is obvious; have the droid parts come from the far more plentiful Kenner version and simply been added to the much rarer Palitoy set to make it complete? I wouldn't mind nearly as much if the droid parts had come from a different, possibly later issue Palitoy version, but whilst the plastic pieces themselves might be largely indistinguishable across the Kenner and Palitoy versions, if the stickers are not and my droid parts have been pinched from a Kenner version instead, I will not be happy.

My question therefore (yes, I got to it eventually!), is does anyone know if the Palitoy version of either the blue or yellow base Droid Factory ever came with shiny glossy stickers like the Kenner one, or did they only ever come with the dull matt finish ones? Palitoy were clearly happy enough to make other running changes to the set, switching base colours, so it's not impossible that the stickers may also have changed, but I would like to know if anyone has a definite answer to this please?

Thank you.

They are two entirely different sticker sets. Here is the sticker sheet for the Kenner and then below the one for the Palitoy (Palitoy ones have dried up and come off the sheet a bit but hopefully you can still see how different they are to the Kenner!).





The Palitoy stickers are a mat finish, more papery. The colours are also softer and more subdued than Kenner's gloss finish ones. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the nice images. Those pretty much match what I have on my Kenner and Palitoy blue base ones (although mine are applied to the toys rather than still being on the sheets like your excellent examples). It clearly confirms that the Palitoy ones were different to the Kenner ones for at least some of the time. But do you know if this was always the case, as that is my main concern? I should be clear and say that I am not of course asking if the exact same stickers ever came with Palitoy that also came with Kenner - the number and type of stickers on the sticker sheets were always different of course - but what I am asking is if the type of paper / printing process used to produce the glossy Kenner stickers was ever used to print the Palitoy sticker sheets? In other words, were the Palitoy sticker sheets ever produced on glossy shiny paper or were they only ever made on matt dull paper? Any idea?

Thanks.

Did they ever change the sticker design? Considering the Palitoy Droid Factory had a relatively short life span and was never reissued in a later box I very much doubt it but I couldn't say definitively.

I wager the majority of Droid Factory's in collectors hands have had parts added to make them complete at some point in the items lifespan. It sounds like yours may have some of the plain colour stickers from a Kenner set, but you know, it's a very small deal and I would probably just live with it!

Thanks again for the info. My thoughts are pretty much the same as yours on this. It does look like the stickered droid parts have probably come from a Kenner set, but it's always nice if someone with the definitive knowledge can confirm that sort of thing. If they are from a Kenner one, I hope you're right and that it is a small deal to most collectors, because I have amalgamated my two Palitoy versions to make the best single set I can for my own collection (keeping the dull stickered droid parts), and I am thinking about selling the other set, but of course would need to make a full disclosure about any parts I suspected to be non-Palitoy in origin.