It's been awhile since I've done much of an update on this blog, so in honor of the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, here are some pics from my Star Wars collection. Included here are a bunch of my original, vintage figures, including the original Early Bird Luke figure, with the double extending light saber. Because of the nature of the thin plastic on the second extending section of the light saber, alot of these pieces tended to break off. Luckily mine is intact. The first releases of Obi-Wan and Vader also had the same double telescoping light saber function, and I have those as well. Unfortunately, however, the entire length of those lightsabers are now gone (along with Kenobi's cape.) I also have the Early Bird versions of Leia, R2 and Chewie. Chewie's missing his crossbow and Leia her original blaster. In case you were wondering just what the Early Bird figures were, when Kenner got the license to produce Star Wars toys, they weren't initially thinking action figures. With the films massive popularity they realized an action figure line was going to be a neccesity. But with almost a year needed to produce a line, they saw that they would not be able to get product into the stores by Christmas. So, without any figures yet ready, they came up with the ingenious idea to put out a certificate package to be in the shops for Christmas that could be redeemed by mail for a set of four figures that would be sent out in the early months of 1978. Besides the mail-in certificate for the initial four figures, the 'empty box' as it's come to be known, came with a picture display stand with drawings of the main characters and a flat black board with the character names that the figures could be placed on, as well as a Star Wars club membership card and color Star Wars stickers.
Below is an audio clip, also from 1978 of me reading some descriptions of the action figures from the back of one of the cards. I should be 10 years old on this bit of analog tape. I remember recording this and a few other things on an old Radio Shack portable tape deck, which is now long gone. Click on the link to hear it.
Justin's 1978 Star Wars Ad
The bottom set of pics are of the very rare 1995 Power Of The Force Boba Fett with only one of his hands having a painted dot on the back. As you can see in the close-up pic of his left hand, there's an unpainted sculpted circle. I only found out about this variation (at one time worth around $200 MOC) after the fact. When the Power of the Force figures came out in 1995, I bought two of each character. I'd open one and keep the other on the card. Naturally I wound up opening the rare one, unknowingly. As a loose figure, it's only worth around $25.
It's been awhile since I've done much of an update on this blog, so in honor of the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, here are some pics from my Star Wars collection. Included here are a bunch of my original, vintage figures, including the original Early Bird Luke figure, with the double extending light saber. Because of the nature of the thin plastic on the second extending section of the light saber, alot of these pieces tended to break off. Luckily mine is intact. The first releases of Obi-Wan and Vader also had the same double telescoping light saber function, and I have those as well. Unfortunately, however, the entire length of those lightsabers are now gone (along with Kenobi's cape.) I also have the Early Bird versions of Leia, R2 and Chewie. Chewie's missing his crossbow and Leia her original blaster. In case you were wondering just what the Early Bird figures were, when Kenner got the license to produce Star Wars toys, they weren't initially thinking action figures. With the films massive popularity they realized an action figure line was going to be a neccesity. But with almost a year needed to produce a line, they saw that they would not be able to get product into the stores by Christmas. So, without any figures yet ready, they came up with the ingenious idea to put out a certificate package to be in the shops for Christmas that could be redeemed by mail for a set of four figures that would be sent out in the early months of 1978. Besides the mail-in certificate for the initial four figures, the 'empty box' as it's come to be known, came with a picture display stand with drawings of the main characters and a flat black board with the character names that the figures could be placed on, as well as a Star Wars club membership card and color Star Wars stickers.
Below is an audio clip, also from 1978 of me reading some descriptions of the action figures from the back of one of the cards. I should be 10 years old on this bit of analog tape. I remember recording this and a few other things on an old Radio Shack portable tape deck, which is now long gone. Click on the link to hear it.
Justin's 1978 Star Wars Ad
The bottom set of pics are of the very rare 1995 Power Of The Force Boba Fett with only one of his hands having a painted dot on the back. As you can see in the close-up pic of his left hand, there's an unpainted sculpted circle. I only found out about this variation (at one time worth around $200 MOC) after the fact. When the Power of the Force figures came out in 1995, I bought two of each character. I'd open one and keep the other on the card. Naturally I wound up opening the rare one, unknowingly. As a loose figure, it's only worth around $25.
