Chaos Metal Arms

[Daeothar]

No; that's not a Manowar song (although it sounds like one  ).

Yesterday I received a squad of 2nd edition metal Nurgle Space Marines; quite chuffed with them. But in the lot (unbeknownst to me) were included two (identical) metal Chaos Space Marine arms.

At first, I thought they might be recasts of the 2nd ed. plastic Chaos Space Marine arms, so I compared them, but they're actually distinct sculpts from those. I then tried to find them in my old Citadel catalogues, but no joy there. I then turned to The Stuff of Legends; nothing. Then on to Collecting Citadel Miniatures: nope. White Dwarfs and codices? Nada...

I finally gave in and sent the seller a message, asking about them and his answer was that the arms were initially metal, but they were very quickly changed for a plastic sprue.

So; can anyone confirm this story? I've never encountered or even seen such arms before. They're not in any White Dwarf, catalogue or flyer that I own. My guess is that they might have been some studio test bits perhaps?

[voltan]

Though I can't confirm anything on the chaos arms I do remember getting some ordinary marines with metal arms many moons ago.

This memory has not been rated for accuracy or factuality.

[Freddy]

I do not know, but before the days of easily accessible resins, recasters ussed metal too.

[steders]

Though I can't confirm anything on the chaos arms I do remember getting some ordinary marines with metal arms many moons ago.

This memory has not been rated for accuracy or factuality.

Although I can't vouch for mine or Voltans fading crap memory, I'm pretty sure I also received through mail order some marines with separate metal arms and a plastic sprue at the same time.
Again I could be wrong but I think they did mail order deals at christmas time and I got a load of marines one year.

Off course this could be a dream I had which is now pretending to be a memory. No it must be a memory because I distinctly remember they were hand delivered by Sam fox...oh right..

[Wachaza]

They did them with separate metal arms. I can't remember if it was a cost cutting measure or the plastic mould had failed but they did it with a few of the separate arms minis in late second edition.

[area23]

GW did do metal arms to substitute plastics for mailorder at the time. But infact these arms look like done by the same sculptor (Dave Andrews maybe, from memory?)

It looks al legit anyway, if that's your concern.

[Sturgkh]

They're legit.

They only made a left arm in metal as the intent, as far as I know, was to replace the full arm sprue for the few CSM models that didn't need a plastic right arm:
* the two Aspiring Champion models (one with chainsword, one with power fist)
* the CSM w/ missile launcher (the 2nd ed one held the launcher with just the right arm)
* the Plague Marine champion holding up the plague knife/sword in their right arm
* the 2-3 Berzerker champions with chain axes or similar in their right arms

I'm assuming swapping the plastic arms sprue for a metal arm and a random metal shoulder pad probably saved a few cents, otherwise not sure why they went that route. Sometimes such models still ended up with the plastic arms sprue instead of or alongside the metal arm, so they weren't always consistent with it.