The Power of the Force Anakin Skywalker figure, £9500 at Vectis.
The Vectis (20.83% buyer’s premium) sale in Teesside on April 25-26 made a £268,000 hammer total overall.
As ever, specific detail, variations and condition are everything in the Star Wars figure market where grading* can also play a big part.
Leading the way at Vectis was a The Power of the Force Anakin Skywalker 3¾in figure, described as ‘UKG Graded Y/80% Card 80, Bubble 85 Figure 85’ on an ‘unpunched 92 back card’.
From a 1985 toy line intended to revive sagging Star Wars interest, and including an aluminium character coin, it was estimated at £5000-6000 and took £9500.
Such figures were produced two years after the final film of the first trilogy was released and the brand was struggling commercially as attention turned elsewhere. More Kenner figures related to the original trilogy did not appear again until 1995, under Hasbro ownership.
Another Kenner The Power of the Force offering was a Yak Face figure, this time catalogued as ‘CAS Graded 75+ Card 75, Bubble 85 Figure 90 overall Y 79.1’, on an ‘un-punched 92 back card’. It sold for £8500 on a guide of £5000-6000.
Best performers against estimate included a 1984 Palitoy Star Return of the Jedi tri-logo (three logos on the card, in English, Spanish and French) hybrid Bespin Security Guard (white) described as ‘Mint, within Near Mint bubble’, on a ‘Near Mint un-punched 79 back card’. Pitched at £300-400, it realised £5000.
Palitoy Star Wars Cantina Action Playset, £3600 at Vectis.
An unusual item came in the form of a Palitoy Cantina Action Playset special offer set, rated as ‘Mint unused complete, within Good Plus opened box, includes instructions sealed in bag’.
This originally incorporated a special free four-figure set (more familiar in US and Canadian versions). Those figures were not included in this lot but it still sold for £3600 against a guide of £500-700.
From 1978-85, US toy company Kenner produced Star Wars action figures with more than 300m units sold during the original run. In the UK, the licence was held by Palitoy with the company importing the figures for packaging in Britain on Palitoy-branded cardbacks.
* The most-used toy-grading companies include Action Figure Authority (AFA) and Collector Archive Services (CAS) in the US, and UK Graders (UKG) in the UK.
Sale bounty
A 1983 Kenner figure of Boba Fett, £1600 at Richard Winteron.
Star Wars bounty hunter Boba Fett got his own TV series thanks to The Mandalorian and his standing among action figure collectors is similarly high.
You may find the prototype-only rocket-firing Boba Fett a bit out of reach at $100,000-plus but recent results show an early version can be obtained within four figures.
On March 29 Richard Winterton (22% buyer’s premium) offered Kenner and Palitoy figures which had been kept sealed in original blister packs for 40 years.
Among those sold in Tamworth was a sealed 1983 Kenner figure of Boba Fett tying in with Return Of The Jedi, making £1600 against an estimate of £200-250.
‘Mail-away’ Boba Fett Star Wars figure version sealed in original plain packaging sold for £1200 at Richard Winteron.
Three original ‘Mail-away’ Boba Fett figures, sealed in original plain packaging - designed to have been ordered through the post via a special offer - totalled £3300, with the top seller of the trio, all guided at £150-200, taking £1200.
The collection had been accumulated by a toy salesman who went on to open his own shop. He died in 2022 having asked his daughters to auction his collection so they could benefit from the proceeds.
Among other highlights was a sealed Palitoy figure of Luke Skywalker, also in Return Of The Jedi packaging, which made £1350 (estimate £200-250).
