Clear Plastic Premier Spacemen

[Tinman]

Doc Atomic recently contacted me regarding a couple clear plastic Premier spacemen he purchased, where the seller sold them as "mold purge" figures.  Questioning Doc I learned that clear plastic was often ran through the molds to clear/purge the previous color in preparation for a new color.  As a collector I know the clear Premier figures are fairly rare and his information may explain why; does anyone have record of the clear figures being sold as a set or part of a set?  I still have to go through my archived files but thought I'd put it out there for others to chime in.

[Brian..]

That makes sense: run transparent plastic through a mold to remove all trace of a previous color. A solid color would hide much of the earlier plastic and could lead to contamination for many subsequent pressings. I guess the company wouldn't dream of boxing up these shots to nothing. As waste, they might easily find their way out of the factory for the employees' kids. Fascinating.

[Tinman]

Well I looked through my files and didn't find anything new; "Blast-Off!" shows a clear example on page 103 but had no additional information.

[dratomic]

Brian -- Exactly. Opaque colors aren't really suitable for mold purges, though I HAVE heard of white being used. Which, I don't know, seems kind of risky for the same reasons. But clear was definitely the preferred color for exactly the reasons discussed. 

 

I haven't received the toys yet, so I haven't given them a really close look. But from the photos it seems like the color isn't evenly distributed like you'd find with intentionally translucent colored plastic. I think there's a lot of credence to the idea of them being mold purges. 

[Martian Gil]

Cheers,

here are the three clear shots that I have - the solar guard on the far left shows a good touch of green in his left foot.

If I look right at the others, I can catch shades of green, but I can't catch it in a photo.

[Tinman]

Great looking spacemen MG!

[Martian Gil]

Thanks Tinman!  - this is a fun little group to display.  

I realized that the pic in front of the Sonic was quirky, but maybe doesn't give the best clarity.

 

Here are some individual photos with an extra with them backed with a green mirrored glass.

[JC Carbonel]

Great looking figures !

 

JCC

[Tinplate6]

Wow! Cloaking device.

 

 

[Blaze Atoms]

Great photos! I only have the clear plastic guy with the ray gun, I am jealous!

 

This is the first I'm hearing that the clear plastic variants from this set were made to purge the molds, very interesting stuff. Mine does not have any colors running through it at all though, here's a pic:

 

 

And here's a set I do not own but I grabbed pictures of awhile back that looks awfully similar to yours and provide more examples with colors running through them:

 

\

 

Have you ever seen a clear plastic guy with the rifle? That's the only guy from this set I've not see in clear plastic.

 

This thread may be better placed in the Flash Gordon section since this is a Flash Gordon set,

[Golddalek]

Flash Gordon must have been as popular as 'Star Wars' back in the day.

All that merchandise.

 

[Blaze Atoms]

On 11/8/2016 at 2:28 PM, Tinman said:

As a collector I know the clear Premier figures are fairly rare and his information may explain why; does anyone have record of the clear figures being sold as a set or part of a set?

I have a lot of pictures of sets from this line in the original packaging (I save them basically every time I come across a new one) and I do not have a single such picture that includes a transparent spaceman. Also, I took a closer look at my transparent spaceman holding the ray gun pictured above, and although it's too small to see in the picture, he does actually have a couple of tiny green spots. So while neither of these facts are conclusive, they both at least support the theory that the transparent variants may well have been made to purge the molds and were never actually sold in the original packaging in stores.

 

17 hours ago, Golddalek said:

Flash Gordon must have been as popular as 'Star Wars' back in the day.

All that merchandise.

 

Thinking of it in terms of where the franchises' toy lines were in the 80s, I'd say Buck Rogers would be more like Star Wars compared to Flash Gordon which would be more like Star Trek because Buck Rogers and Star Wars had a lot more toys associated with them than the comparatively sparse toy lines of Flash Gordon and Star Trek. Also, I should have noted for those who may not know that in my picture of the transparent spaceman with the ray gun that I own above there are quite a few toys from other toy lines.