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Every once in a while I get the odd Star Wars figure and it makes me take out a bunch of figures to take me back to the old days when these were my collecting focus. (I got Vizam, the sailbarge gunner) And I take out a VTSC Biker Scout - yellow chest. I take out a few more, a few more yellow chests and others with white chests but very yellow abdomen sections.

*sigh* I hate this discoloration crap. I'm sure Ackbar hasn't got long left of being white.
 
I'm really only still in it for background characters so that's all I'm looking at. And those are increasingly sparse. Not even sure why I'm bothering at all anymore. I can't display my Star Wars stuff. My entire vehicle collection is in the attic. My figures are all heaped on top of eachother in a makeshift storage unit.
 
That sucks. I plan on displaying all my stuff in the man-cave when we move this summer. Just got the BIG Hoth AT-AT from my brother still in the box. This thing is beast! My 4 year old loves playing with it.
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Also just got Darth Plagueis. Loved the audio book.
 
a-dev said:
Every once in a while I get the odd Star Wars figure and it makes me take out a bunch of figures to take me back to the old days when these were my collecting focus. (I got Vizam, the sailbarge gunner) And I take out a VTSC Biker Scout - yellow chest. I take out a few more, a few more yellow chests and others with white chests but very yellow abdomen sections.

*sigh* I hate this discoloration crap. I'm sure Ackbar hasn't got long left of being white.
Click to expand...
Really? I don't think any of my recent white troops from the last 6 or 7 years have any discolouring of that kind going on.

I'm the same as you guys right now, I've just got everything in storage till I can practically have it all displayed nicely.
 
It surprised me aswell. I didn't think it had been that long since I last went through the ol' Star Wars figures. But sure enough yellow chests. Oddly enough the softer plastic of the arms was still white. I would have thought if anything would turn yellow it'd be the softer plastic. I thought wrong.

Disappointing though. Its annoying that you just can't stop this crap from happening. Even my Hot Toys figures aren't immune, namely my T-1000s - all their outfits have faded over time. Its not just direct sunlight you have to worry about, its the type of artificial light you're using aswell. You need LED bulbs, not the typical incandescent or halogen bulbs. I dunno if that had any bearing on the rapid discolouration of my biker scouts though, they were hidden away. :dunno

God help my vehicles up in the attic with the temperatures they must experience up there.
 
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If anything is fading because of typical incandescent or fluorescent room lighting, then it has a serious manufacturing defect. If you were to run a test where you placed an object directly under the unshielded bulb, that's a different story entirely. But most installations use shades or encasements of some kind which drastically reduce or completely eliminate the amount of UV light coming from those sources.

Poor UV stabilization is just the beginning, some of these products are simply produced with materials that will degrade, including yellowing, over time regardless of exposure to light. Plenty of people know about paper goods and plastics yellowing with exposure to air only, or from being in proximity of something else to react with. Plus temperature, humidity or lack thereof. The bottom line is that the issues are entirely to blame on cheap manufacturing and a manufacturer that just didn't care at all about the quality of their goods.

Hot Toys are nice, but I have enough of them to know that they don't give a rat's a55 about the longevity and robustness of their products.

My toy collection ranges from 1960's to just weeks ago.
 
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a-dev said:
It surprised me aswell. I didn't think it had been that long since I last went through the ol' Star Wars figures. But sure enough yellow chests. Oddly enough the softer plastic of the arms was still white. I would have thought if anything would turn yellow it'd be the softer plastic. I thought wrong.

Disappointing though. Its annoying that you just can't stop this crap from happening. Even my Hot Toys figures aren't immune, namely my T-1000s - all their outfits have faded over time. Its not just direct sunlight you have to worry about, its the type of artificial light you're using aswell. You need LED bulbs, not the typical incandescent or halogen bulbs. I dunno if that had any bearing on the rapid discolouration of my biker scouts though, they were hidden away. :dunno

God help my vehicles up in the attic.
Click to expand...

Thats so odd A-Dev, do other collectors in your area have issues like this? I've been collecting toys for over 30 years (basically my life :lol ) and I've got a couple that have yellowed, from the very early 80s, but I always attributed that to the fact that they saw alot of outdoor action, puddles, snow, sand, hot summers, etc...
Literally everything I own post 85 looks brand new, but they've never been around smolke, heat, cold, nothing, just inside at constant temps with no direct sunlight. On the HT fading issue, I did a trade for a Anakin that had a crumbling pleather vest and his outer robe had faded to a blue grey, and I always wondered what would have caused that as I have never had something like that happen to anything I have.
 
Well, I don't know any other collectors in my area. My conditions aren't the worst but they wouldn't be the best either. My toys aren't in sealed cases, they're all exposed to the air and to dust. I keep them out of direct sunlight and have my blinds down all the time in the toyroom. And other than that its just the damn light bulb that I have at the moment - it was an incandescent but I switched to Halogen before reading that that is no better. What I need is an LED room light. I'll get that but its already too late for my HT T-1000s. They don't look horribly faded but they don't look as nice as they otherwise could which is annoying.
 
pixelpiper said:
If anything is fading because of typical incandescent or fluorescent room lighting, then it has a serious manufacturing defect. If you were to run a test where you placed an object directly under the unshielded bulb, that's a different story entirely. But most installations use shades or encasements of some kind which drastically reduce or completely eliminate the amount of UV light coming from those sources.

Poor UV stabilization is just the beginning, some of these products are simply produced with materials that will degrade, including yellowing, over time regardless of exposure to light. Plenty of people know about paper goods and plastics yellowing with exposure to air only, or from being in proximity of something else to react with. Plus temperature, humidity or lack thereof. The bottom line is that the issues are entirely to blame on cheap manufacturing and a manufacturer that just didn't care at all about the quality of their goods.

Hot Toys are nice, but I have enough of them to know that they don't give a rat's a55 about the longevity and robustness of their products.

My toy collection ranges from 1960's to just weeks ago.
Click to expand...
Good points there mate.

If this is of any help to anyone, I've done this with ALL my 4" SW & 6" comic book figures; I've wrapped every single one of them in tissue paper, so they can be stored stacked on top of each other - whether in a tub or box, for long periods. As PP said, some products react simply by being in close proximity to one another.

Also, I have one Ikea Detolf at the moment, with a few HT figures in it. During the day - although not directly exposed & the room getting minimal light anyway, I have a white sheet draped over it to keep any sunlight off, & uncover it once the sun goes down. I also use low wattage globes in my room, so I think I'll be fine with my little set up.
 
I dunno, that's an awful lot of hassle - individually wrapping every single Star Wars figure. I'm not sure I care that much. Particularly as from time to time I'd be taking figures out to look at them and then to have to painstakingly re-wrap them again or else see it all turn into a big mess of tissue paper all over the place. I dunno.

edit - maybe I'll do that with just my white trooper figures. For what its worth at this point since so many of them are yellow now anyway.
 
Yeah totally dude, feel free to use it to suit your set up.

I've done it that way, because they're remaining in storage till I move to a new place - whenever that is.

Till then, the things I want out - stay out. :)
 
I don't know if I'll ever have my SW stuff on display again. I increasingly feel like I should be getting away from the whole hobby rather than throwing myself back into the ol' Star Wars dioramas even if I one day have the space and the shelves.

This is why I question why I'm still buying any SW stuff at all. But then when I do get a figure or two and I take out a bunch of them it reminds me of younger times seeing my friend's vintage collection - which seemed so huge and varied at the time - but now by 2014 Hasbro have released so many figures that my collection dwarfs what he had and is so much more varied with obscure characters and every Imperial under the sun. I love getting figures from ROTJ in particular.

It has really died off at the moment with Hasbro, bugger all coming out from the OT lately, however, one has to appreciate what they've done up to this point. They made Willrow Hood.
 
I hear ya on that bro. I had an entire room for Star Wars before my youngest was born. Floor to ceiling with displayed loose figures on shelve, carded figures covering the walls, and ships dangling from the ceiling. Not to mention the floor was littered with boxes of stuff I didn't have room to display. I wasn't asked but saw the need to downsize my collection to change it to her nursery. It caused me to refocus my collection on just the choice pieces I wanted to display and allowed me to sell about 75% of my collection that I realized I did not need.

The money quickly went to starting my 1/6 collection.

Now I only focus my 4 inch collection on a select few characters across all six movies.

I have a feeling when the new trilogy comes out I will have a hard time trying to resist becoming a slave to buying all the new stuff.
 
You know, you can also get like a hundred sandwich bags from the dollar store for... A dollar. It's a lot of work, but worth it even if decide to sell your collection. Don't get me wrong, I understand the urge to just put them in a bin!
 
My suggestion (tissue paper) is tedious - unless you only want to do a few here & there, but it's the best way to go if you want to store figures loose in tubs / boxes or whatever. The paper not only stops the paint rubbing & allows the toys to 'breathe', but acts like a natural buffer or 'filter' for paint, plastic or rubber fumes / reactions or what have you.

I've found it to be really effective - all my loose vintage Kenner SW figures that are boxed up are wrapped this way. Unless someone else has some varying info on this, I'll stand by it. :duff

Sealable plastic bags apparently speed up the reactive process sometimes, if I'm not mistaken..
 
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