By Dean Murray via SWNS
A Star Wars figure has become the world’s most valuable vintage toy.
The 3¾-inch-tall Boba Fett sold for £410k ($525k) in an auction Friday (May 31).
It’s one of only two surviving hand-painted, missile-firing action figures promised to kids but ultimately pulled from the Kenner production line in the 1970s.
The bounty hunter character was widely advertised in 1979 but was shelved after concerns it could kill a child.
Its price more than doubled the record for the most expensive Star Wars action figure sold at auction, held by a rocket-firing Boba Fett that realized £185k ($236k)in June 2022.
The miniature Mandalorian also bested a Barbie to become the most valuable vintage toy sold at auction. In 2010, a one-of-a-kind, 1-carat-diamond-wearing Barbie sold for £236k ($302k).
Joe Maddalena, Executive Vice President of Dallas-based Heritage Auctions, says: “The rocket-firing Boba Fett action figure long ago became such a mythic icon that people worldwide know about it even if they don’t collect anything at all.
“We knew this one had a chance to enter the record books, and it was thrilling to see it become the most valuable toy in the world.”
The auction’s top two lots were Boba Fetts: the other a highly graded, still-sealed action figure released by Kenner in 1979 on what’s referred to as a “21 Back B Star Wars Card,” which realized £67k ($84k).
Other Star Wars items auctioned included a lightsaber built by Anakin Skywalker that Obi-Wan Kenobi handed over to Luke Skywalker. The so-called Skywalker Lightsaber, which Maz Kanata kept until handing it over to Rey in The Force Awakens, realized £49k ($63k).
Also sold was a third draft, and a very different version, of George Lucas’ screenplay for the first installment in his space opera, back when it was still known as The Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Starkiller.
The script, which realized £50k ($58k), is from the collection of Bunny Alsup, the assistant to Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz, and has the signatures of, among others, Lucas, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew and others.
The auction also featured the helmet Pedro Pascal wore in Season 2 of The Mandalorian and during his appearance on The Book of Boba Fett, which realized £31k ($40k).
THE BOBA FETT THAT NEVER WAS
The rocket-firing Boba Fett was intended as a free giveaway, promoted with in-store displays, on other toy packaging and in TV ads.
Thousands sent off four proofs of purchase to receive their gift, however, they would receive in return a Boba Fett with a non-firing rocket molded into the figure.
The figure had been canceled mainly due to rival toy company Mattel experiencing serious problems with their popular Battlestar Galactica toy spaceships, which fired a similar-sized projectile. If accidentally shot into the mouth, the choking potential for children had become clear. Already, there were several choking incidences and one child’s death.
“Projectiles were always touchy subjects,” says former Kenner engineer Jacob Miles III, an original member of the company’s Star Wars team tasked with keeping that rocket safely in Boba Fett’s backpack. “But when Battlestar Galactica had their issues, we immediately just shut it down and destroyed everything. We were concerned about disappointing kids because we had shown that thing (the rocket) taking off. But we had a much bigger concern if we shipped it.”
Heritage Auctions said: “This authenticated figure has been so thoroughly examined that hobby historians can pinpoint where it was made (“Kenner’s 10th floor at the Kroger building” in Cincinnati), how it got out (“it was salvaged from a box of discarded toys deposited there for employees to take home”) and where it eventually landed (with Justin Kerns, revered among Boba Fett-ishists as he once had nine unique survivors from the discarded lot).”
