Vintage “Star Wars” merch skyrockets in value
This story was produced by our colleagues at the BBC.
It may have all started in a galaxy far, far way — nearly 50 years ago in fact — but buying and selling vintage “Star Wars” merchandise is now a huge and growing market, worth millions of dollars.
At Echo Base Live, the largest vintage “Star Wars” toy fair in the United Kingdom, people like me come to buy back their childhood memories.
“For a summer, me and my friends were just on Tatooine, and it’s just an amazing idyllic childhood,” said one collector. “It takes me back to simpler times. Me and my brother loved it — it was the only thing we really connected with,” another one added.
In 1977, when “Star Wars” burst onto the big screen with a slew of iconic characters like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia, flying to and from planets like Tatooine, it helped launch the modern era of movie merchandising.
Those figures and play sets that once sold for a few dollars can now go for prices that seem out of this world. The total estimated value of “Star Wars” merchandise is in the billions, and, in 2012, it received the Guinness World Record for the most successful film merchandising franchise — a record it still holds.
At the center of the toy fair — in a protective case and specially lit — is the holy grail of “Star Wars” collecting: a prototype figure of the bounty hunter Boba Fett. It’s owned by collector Martin Schofield.
“There’s probably 120 of these in the world. They didn’t release them to the public, because there was a choking hazard. We’d estimate the value of this is anywhere between £100,000-£150,000 (around $130,000-$190,000),” he said.
When “Star Wars” came out in the late ’70s, movie merchandising existed but was nothing like the scale of today. In what turned out to be a lucrative move, the film’s director, George Lucas took a lower fee for the film in order to hold onto the merchandising rights — effectively the right to put “Star Wars” on everything from cereal packets to plastic toys.
Tim Effler, part of the team at the toymaking company Kenner that worked on “Star Wars,” believes the movie was a natural fit for a toy line.
“You had these fantastic vehicles, you had villains and heroes that were easy to execute and present in toy form. And the story was really straightforward and easy to follow for the most part,” he said.
Now, kids like me who first played with the toys in the ’70s and ’80s are grown and old enough to have the cash to buy back the figures they once played with and discarded.
“You’ve paid off your mortgage, your kids have moved out, you’ve got excess money,” said Nick Dykes, a “Star Wars” specialist at the UK Auction House Vectis.
“Demand drives up the prices. So if you’ve got a few people that are all looking for the same thing, if you’ve got that thing, you can charge what you want really within reason,” he added.
The value of “Star Wars” and its merchandising hasn’t been lost on Disney, which now owns the franchise. The company has been busy producing new films and TV projects like the Disney+ series “The Mandalorian.”
These shows are now introducing the next generation of fans to the “Star Wars” universe, the potential vintage collectors of the future.
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