1) Introduction

Well folks, I’ve been off line for…. Forever, and finally, after a lengthy house move and period of simply being skint, I thought it was time to pull my self back out of the stone age and get back on line.

So I thought the best place to start would be to update my Bespin Luke Limelight. But first, to avoid looking at a whole bunch of figures that look a lot like each other, it’s best to explain the basis of the Country Of Origin families for Bespin Luke, which are the basis of all the variations.

The easiest way to understand this is to basically read Wolff’s (wbobafett) guide to COO families and have an understanding of his theories, at this point I’d like to thank Wolff for all his help over Christmas, without which this would have taken a lot longer to sort out, and the collection wouldn’t include a Poch Luke!!! Cheers Wolff

Wolff’s theory in short, for the most part, molds were produced in pairs and stamped by hand, which produced 2 unique COO stamps for each specific stamp type. If the molds traveled and if they were altered, they remained in pairs and were altered as pairs, resulting in 2 unique ‘altered’ stamps. In the case of figures with stamps on both legs, this in turn means 2 unique versions of each leg stamp, and because of the way figures were produced (knocked from the mold, cut from the sprue, boxed and sent for painting, boxed again and sent for assembly) the assembly of the figures was random, and the huge number in which the figures where produced means that multiple combinations exist, for example: a figure with a COO that is stamped on both legs, would mean 2 unique versions of each leg, which would mean 4 potential COO combinations in total.

Initially it would appear that Bespin Luke’s COO families are quite basic, but the reality is that they are in actual fact quite complicated, the result of which means that a large number of potential variation combinations exist.

There are 3 COO families that exist for Bespin Luke, these are : HONG KONG Large (HK Large), HONK KONG Small (HK Small) and MADE IN HONG KONG (MIHK).

HK Large is simple, there were 2 molds, and the 2 stamp variations are easily identified. The molds never travelled and were never altered. Both the blonde hair, and ginger haired variations can be found with either.

HK Small is also simple, there were 2 molds, and the 2 stamp variations are easily identified, this time though the molds travelled (most likely to Europe) and were altered by being filled and smoothed. The 2 altered variations are easily identified. There are 4 main figures which can be found with the HK Small COO, blonde hair, dark ginger, light ginger an mustard haired versions, all can be found with either. There are 2 that can be found with the altered HK Small, these are the mustard haired and olive haired versions, both can be found with either.

MIHK, now here’s were it gets complicated, here there were 3 molds produced (sometimes happened with more popular figures), the problem is that this stamp was done on both legs. This means that there are 9 potential combinations for each figure with this stamp. There are 2 main variations for this stamp, blonde and brown hair, it is likely that both can be found with all 9 combinations.

What makes this even more complicated is that these molds were altered, not once, but twice! First the molds travelled (most likely to Europe) and were filled and smoothed, what happened next is quite difficult to figure out, because the molds were altered again, from a no COO to a no COO??? Here’s my theory: the smoothed MIHK molds (1st alteration) didn’t travel again, but were duplicated, and the duplicated molds travelled (most likely to China) here they were drilled which produced the raised bar, one thing for certain is, that it was the already altered molds which were drilled, because the smoothed areas are still plainly visible (also the bar isn’t long enough to cover the actual whole HONG KONG). This is why it seams most likely that duplicated molds were drilled and not the original filled molds, as the drilling would have almost certainly disrupted the filling agent, but all appear perfect.

The question is why where the molds drilled, as said before, China was the Country most associated with drilled raised bars, but why do it when there was nothing written there anyway, maybe just common practice, but why not stamp China? Either way the first raised bar figures appeared in Made In China baggies, so maybe they were drilled with intention of stamping China, but for some reason the decision was made not to, maybe just cheaper to write it on the baggie.

Well we’ve drifted a bit! One thing for certain with the MIHK family is that 2 altered version all exist with the full 3 molds, and you don’t really need me to explain that most of the rare versions of Bespin Luke feature these stamps (Ledy, dark boots etc. etc.) that’s right theoretically 9 of each! There are a few unmentioned possible exceptions to this, the blonde Ledy and the Poch Luke both feature the stamps from the MIHK family, how ever, with the small numbers of blonde Ledy’s produced and the randomness of Poch figures, it’s probably unlikely that all 9 exist, or even anyway near, but all the same it should be assumed that more than 1 exist.

The Poch figure with the HK Large also falls into this spectrum, it’s plausible that it exists with both stamps but, again the randomness of Poch makes it equally as plausible that they don’t.

The COO guides are shown below, plain and with the differences identified:

On with the Show

- Note: the company logo’s in the corner for the figures is a rough guide. Distribution in Europe was vast and complicated, so in many cases e.g. China baggie figures say Palitoy, this is because they could be found on Palitoy cards and the most likely source of the baggies, was from the Palitoy factory. Also Ledy figures could also be found in Spain on PBP cards, but only the Ledy logo is shown, like I said, rough guide

First up the HK Large family:

Blonde : HK Large I - Ginger HK Large I - Blonde HK Large II - Ginger HK Large II

HK Small Family:

Blonde HK Small I - Dark Ginger HK Small I - Light Ginger HK Small I - Mustard HK Small I

Blonde HK Small II - Dark Ginger HK Small II - Light Ginger HK Small II - Mustard HK Small II

HK Small Family 'Altered':

Mustard HK Small III - Olive HK Small III - Mustard HK Small IV - Olive HK Small IV

MIHK Family:

Blonde MIHK I.C - Brown MIHK I.C - Brown MIHK II.B - Blonde MIHK II.C

Brown MIHK II.C - Brown MIHK III.A - Brown MIHK III.C - Poch Unpainted Hip MIHK III.B

MIHK Family '1st Alteration':

Caramel Boots MIHK V.A - Caramel Boots MIHK VI.A - Caramel Boots MIHK VI.C - Chocolate Boots MIHK V.B

Chocolate Boots MIHK V.C - Dark Boots Painted Hip MIHK IV.B - Dark Boots Painted Hip MIHK V.A - Dark Boots Unpainted Hip MIHK IV.C

MIHK Family '2nd Alteration (with the exception of the Blonde Ledy)':

Blonde Ledy MIHK V.C - Lili Ledy MIHK VII.B - China Baggie MIHK VII.7 - China Baggie MIHK VIII.B

Lili Ledy MIHK VIII.C - China Baggie MIHK IX.A - Lili Ledy MIHK IX.A - China Baggie MIHK IX.B

Odd Jobs, Errors and Anomolies!

Lili Ledy with overstock head - Factory error unpainted buckle - Short shot unformed hand and lightsaber hilt - Short shot no leg markings of any kind

Brown Mexican bootleg - Green Mexican bootleg (Cheers for those Pat ) - 'Real' Bespin Luke custom thet I made - Finally, my very beaten childhood collection Bespin Luke!

That's 48 figures which puts me about half way there at any guess!!!!

Other bits:

Kenner ESB 31 Back B - Kenner ROTJ 77 Back A - Palitoy ESB30 Back A - Palitoy ESB 45 Back A - Palitoy ROTJ 45 Back C - Lili Ledy overstock parts.

Well that's all folks, hope you enjoyed looking, and as always an questions feel free to ask and I'll try and answer them the best I can.

Thanks again to those who've helped along the, in particular Wolff and Pat