I’m selling my Star Wars figures. I’ve spent much of today getting them ready for sale, and have indeed already dropped half of them off at the shop.
All told I’ll be selling about 530 figures, as well as two dozen vehicles and figure multipacks. They’re all ‘modern’ figures, which means released after 1995. They’re all mint on card, and in fantastic condition.
I started collecting – as did countless people my age – when Kenner (now owned by Hasbro) relaunched the Star Wars figure line in 1995. I collected fairly seriously until 2003, sporadically until about 2007, and then only infrequently purchased any figures after that.
I have fond memories of weekly runs to Toys’R’Us and Walmart looking for new figures. Those were the early days of the internet so purchases were made in person. The figures were very popular and distribution was good so it wasn’t that difficult to get them all. They were inexpensive as well: my records show in the mid 90s I was paying under $5 for each figure!
As the line got more and more popular a silly amount of figures were released, and the quality continued to improve. Then the prequels came out and it felt like a lot of collectors lost interest overnight! The prequel figures were very high quality, but (for some) the films weren’t, and this killed interest.
I kept collecting, but around the release of Attack Of The Clones a pivotal change in distribution began: online exclusives. For me the joy of the hunt was a big part of collecting, and I had no interest just buying them online (or even worse, preordering). At that point, I stopped being a serious collector.
There’s not a great demand for modern Star Wars, and they’re hard to sell, so I’m happy the same shop that bought my games agreed to buy my collection. I won’t get anywhere near what I paid for them, but regaining the space they took up (10 large plastic tubs!) is worth a lot to me.
To end this post, let’s open one! The above is the most recent figure I bought. It’s a 1998 ‘Clone Emperor’ figure, which I bought brand new in Japan this past January for the princely sum of ¥300 (about $2.10)! I already owned one, so I bought it again just to open.
The package has a gimmick, and forms a ‘3D’ backdrop when it opens. It looks… well terrible. I understand that it’s supposed to replicate a scene from a comic but surely they could have gotten some better art? Also this doesn’t look anything like Palpatine. Maybe he’ll look better with the coat off:
Yeah, still nothing like what I think a clone of Palpatine would look like. But we know now such a future never came to pass, and Sheev’s actual (non-clone) return in Rise of Skywalker was much, much better:
I really love that film 🙂
Anyway the next few posts will likely be Star Wars collection related as well, since I’m not selling everything and I also found a few other strange items worth showing off while sorting…