My Vintage Collection
February 2020
Dave
Dave
Its probably safe to say that I am a bit of a collector… To be totally honest, between figures, collectables, books, artwork and computer games and the films themselves I am probably getting close to 1,000 individual ‘things’ in my collection. I did use to use an Excel spreadsheet to keep track, but I haven’t updated that for a while now.
However, despite having such a large collection (well, relatively large), it has, almost exclusively, been lacking ‘Vintage’ pieces. So, what do I mean by that? What is Vintage and why does it matter? Well, Vintage refers to figures and vehicles that the Kenner toy company produced and sold from 1978 to 1985. During this time over 100 figures were released. This were the first successful release of a toy line to coincide with the release of a movie. During this period alone over 300million figures were sold! |
Click on the link here to view our video of Dave describing his vintage collection passion
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So why don’t I have much from this time? As a child I did have some, a few vehicles and figures. But as I grew older ‘toys’ became less of a thing and I moved on. My mum convinced me to donate pretty much all of my collection to my nephews when I was about 15-16 and that was it.
About 15-20 years ago I began to ‘collect’ I was about 25-30 and had some degree of disposable income so started looking around. It was before the real explosion of the internet so my choices were limited in what I could find: local toy shops, a very small number of online retailers, junk shops and that was about it. And the vintage pieces I saw were normally pretty beat up (so didn’t interest me) or immaculate (and therefore too expensive). So I avoided vintage and focussed more on 1990s pieces which tended to be better ‘value’ for relatively good condition. Since then my collection has grown to include the 2000s and 2010s, but I have never really revisited the vintage era.
However, with the ending of the ‘Saga’ recently with the release of The Rise of Skywalker, I have started looking back, perhaps because the new trilogy has not really ‘satisfied’ me and maybe I am craving that time when I was a child and the original movies were released.
About 15-20 years ago I began to ‘collect’ I was about 25-30 and had some degree of disposable income so started looking around. It was before the real explosion of the internet so my choices were limited in what I could find: local toy shops, a very small number of online retailers, junk shops and that was about it. And the vintage pieces I saw were normally pretty beat up (so didn’t interest me) or immaculate (and therefore too expensive). So I avoided vintage and focussed more on 1990s pieces which tended to be better ‘value’ for relatively good condition. Since then my collection has grown to include the 2000s and 2010s, but I have never really revisited the vintage era.
However, with the ending of the ‘Saga’ recently with the release of The Rise of Skywalker, I have started looking back, perhaps because the new trilogy has not really ‘satisfied’ me and maybe I am craving that time when I was a child and the original movies were released.
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As I said previously, I did have a couple of vintage pieces, an original 1982 AT-ST, a 4-LOM figure, Ree-Yees a rather beat up Admiral Ackbar, a Klatuu who is a little worn, an Imperial Guard, Luke in flight gear and a Weequay from Jabba’s palace/sail barge. And, other than Ackbar, Luke and Klatuu, they are in fairly good condition. But, to expand my collection I really needed a better insight to what is available and what things cost.
Ebay is possibly a good place to look, especially at ‘sold’ items to see what is being sold and how much things sell for. But there are so many sellers on there and the quality can be patchy so I would suggest using Ebay mainly as a guide. That’s not to say that there are not some bargains on there, especially when someone has mislabelled something or an auction ends at a strange time. |
However, Facebook has become my ‘hunting ground’. Mainly because there are a number of excellent groups across the network, who are more than prepared to share knowledge of what things cost and what constitutes a ‘good deal’. I am now a member of a few groups and it has allowed me to begin investing in my vintage range with a little more confidence in what I am buying and how much I am paying.
At this point I would like to make a particular shout out to Scott McNair and Neil Livesey for their support and also for the Facebook groups Oodles Market Place and Oodles Armoury, who have provided an excellent introduction to this area of the collector market.
And I have now started to expand my range. Recent figures additions to my collection are complete (with weapons/helmets/cloaks):
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I have also managed to get some vintage mini-rigs. This was a range released by Kenner in the early 1980s. They never appeared in the movies and the intention was to provide children with a lower-cost method of getting vehicles, so were ‘invented’ by Kenner rather than by Lucasfilm. They are all relatively small and held just one figure and despite not appearing in the movies there is plenty of love in the collector market for these items.
The pieces I have managed to get are all complete and include all their stickers:
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Finally, I have managed to expand my movie vehicles collection with the addition of a 100% complete vintage Y-Wing (including working electrics) and an almost complete B-Wing, all this piece is lacking are the right and left wing-cannons and the electric sounds are a little ‘dodgy’. These two ships have been particular favourites of mine, so to be able to get them is, for me, a special occasion.
I recently recorded a video of this part of my collection and you can follow this link here to view on YouTube. Thanks for reading the article, hopefully it will inspire other collectors to look for vintage pieces, I know I am now even more fired up to find more! May the Force be with you |
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