Translucent Weapons

[CorranHorn]

I recently got a Bespin blaster whose plastic is far more translucent than I've ever seen before. I'm aware that some of the early 21 figures came with weapons that had a translucent flare along the edges, most notably Chewbacca's bowcaster, but I've not heard anything about a weapon whose translucence goes deep. And until doing research on the topic I had not heard of any ESB-era weapons having the translucent flare, but apparently it was the case with 31-back figures.

But now I have this Bespin blaster who is translucent for the majority of it's bottom half and a pinch up top. I don't believe it to be a repro as it does not have any of the telltale signs of a repro, when away from a concentrated light source it matches the color of other blasters, it is molded accordingly, and the drop sound is ok.

So I'm curious to know what I have here, is this a blaster that just had a bad piece of plastic during the molding process 25 years ago? Is this something more commonly found than I'm aware of?

Here's a comparison pic with a regular Bespin blaster, the translucent one is on top.



Any insight would be appreciated, thanks!

[aka DaBigKahuna]

Jason,

Sorry, I do not have anything to contribute to this, I tried a quick search over at Scum and could not find anything on the topic.

Best Regards,


DBK

[CorranHorn]

Thanks for checking DBK, the scum forums were one of the places I looked and that's where I found the reference to the translucent flare showing up on weapons from 31-back figures. The mystery remains open....

[CorranHorn]

I thought I'd bump this guy up since we've seen more people posting as of late in the Vintage section. Any help would be keen guys, thanks!

[Jesse James]

I've got similar weapons.  I have an almost completely translucent Stormie rifle Jason, and a Jawa gun.  They aren't repro's as far as I can tell either, showing none of the signs, so I'm guessing they're just a different mix on the plastic used in the production process.

[CanadianCollector]

I've got similar weapons.  I have an almost completely translucent Stormie rifle Jason, and a Jawa gun.  They aren't repro's as far as I can tell either, showing none of the signs, so I'm guessing they're just a different mix on the plastic used in the production process.

Ditto. 

-Mike
www.womprat.com

[Darth_Anton]

I would guess a different plastic mix as well. In looking through my blasters to place the right colors with the right figures, I noticed various shades of the blue/black ones and would only speculate that varients like yours could have been easily manufactured.

[DSJ™]

I have a Bespin blaster the same as yours and the tip of the barrel is a bit translucent plus I have 2 Jawa guns and a Imperial Blaster just like Jesse's. Lots of translucent in that sucker.

I'm with everyone else on this being a different mix of plastic.

[CorranHorn]

Thanks for the replies all. I have been leaning towards a different mix of plastic as well, I'm just wondering at this point how prevalent deep tranluscency in the weapons are. Are we talking something that can be pinpointed to a certain timeframe or even a certain country of origin? Could be intriguing to know if anyone has looked at this further.

[Angry Ewok]

I, too, have near transparent blasters - and was always suspicious as to wether or not it was a fake. Good to know I'm not the only one who has a few.

[jokabofe]

A few of my vintage figures have weapons that are translucent... about 20% are so translucent, they are invisible.