Variation in Foot elite or factory production variable?

[JaffleMan]

I bought my 3rd Foot Elite the other day (my second one to open) and when unpackaging him i noticed he was tied differently, the twist ties were longer and made a funny wrap around his arms with two twist ties joining together at the back. I just put it down to the fact I was just imagining things and just assumed they were packaged the same way and that I'd forgotten about the strange arm ties.

I like to equip ordinary footsoldiers with the extra weapons the Elite's have so I put both axes from the two figures on one footsoldier and noticed something strange. The silver on one of the two axes was really shiny, and I mean really shiny almost like chrome whilst the other's paint was just a dull grey. I compared all the weapons and had one full shiny set and one non-shiny set.

This shiny variant was not just on the weapons but also on the figures themselves on the buckle on the cape. The buckle on the shiny variant was also painted larger.

The figure with the shiny weapons had a large white stamp on the foot which read B4082.

The non-shiny weapon variant had a tiny black stamp which read A4104.

There are a lot of differences between the two which I will list:


B4082 (shiny weapons)

1. Stamp on foot is large and white.
2. Silver colour on weapons and buckle is shiny.
3. Has harder cape than the one on A4104, can be bent back on horizontal level.
4. Crimson on legs is painted. Legs are made of flesh coloured plastic. You can see the plastic from the foot holes.
5. Packaged with smaller ties.
6. Foot symbol on belt is “fat” (not much gap between 3 points)
7. Arm attack action clicks when pulled to far without any restraint.
8. Screws on back are the regular type.

A4104 (dull coloured weapons)

1. Stamp on foot is small and black.
2. Silver colour on weapons and buckle is a flat colour.
3. Cape is really rubbery as opposed to the hard cape on the other one, when bent out of shape simply flops back.
4. Legs are moulded in crimson plastic thus the feet are not painted as the plastic is that colour.
5. Packaged in larger ties that entwine with each other.
6. Foot symbol on belt is “sharp” (plenty of room between 3 points)
7. Arm attack can click when pulled to far but there is some restraint which stops you from pulling it too far, something to do with internal mechanisms.
8. Screws on back are blue tinted.

These are all the differences I found on inspection and it’s too many to be just a production change. My theory is there are to factory’s being “Factory A” and “Factory B” (in accordance with foot stamps) and both are producing figures differently and will mean there will be differences between every figure depending on what factory they were produced in. Just a little something I thought some people would find of interest.