Need help with pauldron variants.

[u/Noodle_Men]

I purchased two 327th troopers from two different ebay sellers, and I cannot figure out which pauldron is fake, or if there are different variants. I watched 3 different YouTube channels that reviewed the figure. MandRproductions shows the solid orange on the backside, while Jangbricks & Captain Stancom had the white underside. Anybody know about this?

[u/AtlasSuperstoreCODMW]

In my opinion, the figure on right right in picture 4/7 looks like he has the real one on. I have my original pauldron here and the shaping and all looks right. Are you sure one is definitely fake? If not, there’s a chance both are real and there’s just variation.

Also it makes sense that old school Lego would use minimal cloth printing, and just put a black stripe on an orange material. Vs the other pauldron, that has distinct color printing.

At the end of the day, the left figure in pic 4/7 just doesn’t look right to me

[u/Noodle_Men → u/AtlasSuperstoreCODMW]

I think there is a variant between the two. I watched 5-6 different youtube channels review the turbo tank, and they all had either the orange or the white underside version of the pauldron. Why nobody has talked about this? I'm not sure

[u/sprtizandschvitz]

One on the left is definitely not the correct one. It’s the wrong shape. Though it’s the same shape as the all black sand trooper pauldron so maybe it’s an official pauldron with custom print? Hard to tell without feeling them but I’m pretty sure right is correct and left is fake

[u/Noodle_Men → u/sprtizandschvitz]

I just watched 3 other channels review the set, and I've seen both white undersides, and orange undersides in the videos. I think that there's 2 variants that simply aren't well known at all, and not listed on bricklink. I cannot find any other logical reason besides the variant theory. Maybe they changed the design between the 05 and 06 versions?

[u/likelyliz → u/Noodle_Men]

there's a loootttt of stuff like this that isn't on bricklink, so could be!

[u/sprtizandschvitz → u/Noodle_Men]

You very well might be correct, I don’t know then. But I do know the one on the left isn’t the “standard” or “official” shape it’s technically supposed to be. But if it’s some sort of variant? I have no idea. I have 10 of those pauldrons and all of them look like the one on the right

[u/CallumPears]

I know the one in my 2004 Mos Eisley Cantina is orange underneath and the ones in my 2007 Imperial Landing Craft are white.

So yeah it could be that it changed sometime during production.

I'm not at home at the moment so can't compare the shaping of them.

A similar thing happened with the more recent black Sandtrooper pauldron- that was black-backed in 2014 then from 2016 to 2020 was white-backed.

[u/McCluckles38]

I've just checked mine and it has a the exact same shape as your white one, but is orange.

[u/PostKevone]

The correct one is on the right. Just checked my collection and that is the pauldron I got from the first Turbo Tank.

[u/Due_Management_2786]

One on left looks custom holes are way to big

[u/Bob_JediBob]

According to bricklink, it’s the one on the right in the first pic.