Fairly sure it is a short shot hand. Short shots occur when the injector did not shoot enough plastic into the mold and thus the plastic did not fill the mold entirely. Generally the identifiers for this type of occurance are less defined detail (all the way down to partial coo marking or no coo marking to less defined fingers or other molded detail depending on the piece). If it had been shrinkage we would see the hand defined but it would be smaller than usual yet still fully formed. This is more or less an error and some people actually collect error figures. I like short shot errors better than paint spray mask errors when paint is missing as these are not faked easily. Paint missing can mean it was there but removed so the seller can cash in on the paint not being there.
I didn't know this existed. Incredibly interesting. Thanks.
hellhippie Sith Apprentice
Posts : 1223 Join date : 2015-03-10 Age : 51 Location : right behind you
There is some debate amongst collectors that believe some of the aprons were released in purple, however it is primarily believed all aprons began life as blue and the purple is caused by degradation of the color dye used in the material on some ugnaughts. There are several factories that made them and some used a different material that has stayed blue. You can read more about it here: https://www.imperialgunneryforum.com/t4763-the-tig-fotw-thread-ugnaught
The fact that there are pictures of the tunics changing color from blue to purple is, in my opinion, enough for me to conclude that blue was the intended release color and purple is just fading.
I have 2 ugnaughts from kenner . one was blue and the other purchased as purple , I then catalogued them as such . before anyone gave a crap about keeping their collections out of sunlight (25 years ago ) I had mine in a case on the wall displayed in my then bedroom . needless to say they are both purple now . its a fact . degradation .