Miscolored Red Classic Space Helmet

[SpacePolice89]

I own a red Classic Space helmet with a streak of black coming from the top center and going down all the way along the side. It looks the same on the inside. I know that they used solid pre colored red plastic pellets back then so it can unlikely be black dye. Some other areas on the helmet have small spots of black as well and it is clearly visible that the black has mixed with the red plastic. Could it be oil from the molding machine? Do you have any ideas or similar pieces?

  

[Feuer Zug]

Most likely it is from the moulding machine. It could be the first helmet run with the color red after a batch of black helmets. Might have been a little black left in the injector nozzle.

[SpacePolice89]

7 minutes ago, Feuer Zug said:

Most likely it is from the moulding machine. It could be the first helmet run with the color red after a batch of black helmets. Might have been a little black left in the injector nozzle.

Yes, that is most likely the explanation but it must be quite rare because I have a lot of old Classic Space helmets and have never seen it before (or on other late 70s/early 80s pieces).

[Stereo]

I don't think this kind of mix is supposed to pass Quality Control, I've only had 2-3 pieces that showed any sign of it, all from the 80s or older.  Except for one case of Anakin Skywalker who must be from around 2000.  I uploaded a picture of him to Rebrickable; green streak in his left leg.  It does look pretty cool though. I believe this is black, most obvious one I have for photos - another is white+light gray and just looks discoloured.

Edited Friday at 07:30 PM by Stereo

[SpacePolice89]

45 minutes ago, Stereo said:

I don't think this kind of mix is supposed to pass Quality Control, I've only had 2-3 pieces that showed any sign of it, all from the 80s or older.  Except for one case of Anakin Skywalker who must be from around 2000.  I uploaded a picture of him to Rebrickable; green streak in his left leg.  It does look pretty cool though. I believe this is black, most obvious one I have for photos - another is white+light gray and just looks discoloured.

Very interesting. Before this I have only seen it on the red helmet. Thanks for sharing this information.

[anothergol]

8 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

Yes, that is most likely the explanation but it must be quite rare because I have a lot of old Classic Space helmets and have never seen it before (or on other late 70s/early 80s pieces).

well it's only rare because Lego is supposed to trash those parts

but they're a normal part of the process

litterally here someone's trash is someone else's gold lol

[SpacePolice89]

8 hours ago, anothergol said:

well it's only rare because Lego is supposed to trash those parts

but they're a normal part of the process

litterally here someone's trash is someone else's gold lol

I wonder if such parts are worth more than normal ones (like stamps with errors are worth more)?

[MAB]

Price depends on whether the mistake is interesting or not. Injection errors are definitely better than printing errors. And even with printing errors it depends if they enhance a piece. Since tge early 2010s when LEGO started production in China, 100000s of misprinted parts have been available. I remember one BL seller with a few thousand of each of their misprinted parts.

[Stereo]

I wound up getting a bunch of misprint/short shot parts in one bulk lot, which makes me suspect the previous owner was collecting them back in the day:

Mis-aligned to the point you see the print from the next brick over, and double-printed, did you know they still print the white outline onto white classic space bricks? Yeah.

I don't know how someone found and kept the short shot that's only a single stud.  The bricks are old enough to have been injected from the side, so probably early 80s.