Question about chrome C-3po

[trick]

I picked him up back in like 2012 for around $190 labeled as new condition. I then realized about 5 years later that his arms were pushed downward instead of being up. I’m not sure if this is normal or tampered with.

[r4canine]

Not in anyway an expert in this sort of stuff but if his arms were upside down it's probably just that someone swapped them round (right arm on left joint etc). All you would need to do to fix it would be to pop the arms off and swap them around but yeah it's more than likely that whoever sold it to you messed with it before you got it since Lego doesn't normally ship arms backwards.

[TWP]

What do you mean? Is it still sealed in the bag? Do you have a picture of the minifig?

[trick]

Yeah he is still sealed.

[Japanbuilder]

Likely you will need to provide pictures so it can be assessed. The chrome, I believe, was painted on, and the arms get in the way of some of it (no coating is provided for the parts covered by the arms) So you may be looking at the part of the body that was not chromed due to the arms being in the way and it is giving you the image that something is "off" or "wrong" with your figure. 

But until it can be visually assessed by others more knowledgable in the subject it is just a guess on my part. 

[Kristof]

You really need to be more comprehensive when asking such question and expecting some meaningful answers. Arms up, arms down... clearly so far noone really decyphered what is the problem you are dealing with. If your figure is still sealed in the original non seethrough polybag and all you are refering to is the rotation of the arms, I don't think you can reason about that very much. You can move the arms even through the sealed bag so it is hardly going to suggest anything about whether the figure inside is legit or not. If the seal looks fine, I would assume it is fine, but heck, noone would know unless you open it :D

[Evil]

If you mean the arms were downwards, as in the arms in the position that a minifig would be in if it was just normally standing, I'd say it's uncertain. I mean if it's a legitimate sealed bag. I mean some chrome minifigs may have just been an error; I really wouldn't consider it a "error" though.  I do lean more towards tampering, though.

[MAB]

Sometimes sellers will push the arms down to the sides of the figure (they are usually slightly forwards) as this makes the figure thinner so that they do not get caught in a mail sorting machine. Even in a bubble envelope, if the arms are poking outwards, they can get caught in rollers in sorting machines. Alternatively, if the envelope was at the bottom of a pile of mail, then the weight of the mail on top could also push the arms downwards if the figure was flat.