1977 – 1983

Collecting Star Wars action figures

The late 70’s was the perfect timing for me to start collecting as a hobby, as it spanned two notable events in collecting history, The Gretzky rookie, and Star Wars. My OCD kicked in with the release of the Star Wars figures. This was the first time I started collecting and it was these figures that prompted my organizing and attention to keeping them safe and undamaged. Of course I had no idea about future financial worth, but keeping them perfect for my future self was paramount. The collection has many more figures than shown here. The figures are all in flawless condition, as are all the capes, one of the more difficult elements of some of the characters to maintain.

In the top five collectible Star Wars figures is the vinyl-caped Jawa, recent sales in 2020 range from $2,000 – $4,000, with in-package versions for sale between $6,000 and $50,000. This release was pulled from the shelves almost immediately when they decided that the vinyl cape looked and felt cheap, so they commissioned the cloth-caped version. I saw the movie in early July 1977, and the desire for the figures started immediately afterwards, but I had to wait until July ’78 to get my hands on them – their release was a month before my birthday and it was clear that they couldn’t make me wait. Turns out they were right, it was cheap and I bugged my mother to take me to the store to get the cloth version in August.

Included in the collection are numerous other figures, monsters, buildings, the original figure collector case, rare catalogue inserts and many other items from Return of the Jedi and Ralph McQuarrie original concept artwork from Empire Strikes Back.