A long time ago, in a Canadian Sears store far, far away, somebody bought a seven-pack of “Star Wars” figures and left them in the box.
To a child in 1980, it might have seemed a cruel waste of Boba Fett, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker figures.
To an adult today, it looks like an act of Warren Buffett-like clairvoyance.
Purchased for a few Canadian dollars 35 years ago, the pristine box set sold for a staggering $32,500 on Friday — part of a high-end auction that saw a collection of 600 “Star Wars” toys sold for $505,202.
Similarly astounding sums fetched by other vintage “Star Wars” toys at the Sotheby’s auction in New York — including $25,000 for a rare, unopened Luke Skywalker figure with a double telescoping lightsaber — will likely prompt howls of anguish from grown-ups who treated their own “Star Wars” toys with less respect.
But would-be speculators looking to profit on the latest batch of toys and other branded goods tied to this week’s release of the latest “Star Wars” movie, “The Force Awakens,” should think again, according to experts, who say investing in today’s “Star Wars” tchotchkes is a fool’s game.
While prices for the original “Star Wars” action figures “have never gone down,” times have changed, according to Tom Tombusch, editor of “Tomart’s Price Guide to Star Wars Collectibles.” Toymakers today make “tons and tons” of the hottest toys, he said.
Rare versions of toys, such as the Canadian Sears-only seven-pack that fetched a sky-high price on Friday, offer one potential opportunity, he said. Kmart, for example, has the exclusive rights to the $24.99 “Kylo Ren” action figure on a special base, while Target has an $80 version of the remote-control BB-8 droid that has become this Christmas’ must-have toy.
But the values of action figures and other toys associated with the second trilogy of “Star Wars” films from the 1990s and early 2000s have never really appreciated, Tombusch said. Those toys were overproduced and hurt by their association with movies that remain unloved.
Without knowing the future production of the latest toys, or whether the new “Star Wars” movie will have the same grip on this generation’s children that they did on the parents now driving the prices of vintage collectibles into the stratosphere, it’s hard to predict whether there will be the combination of scarce supply and widespread appeal that makes them valuable in the future, he said.
“It’s too early to tell,” Tombusch said. “The only certainty is that Disney is going to make a lot of money, and they’re going to milk it until it’s dry.”
Foreign “Star Wars” memorabilia, such as foreign-language movie posters or overseas market toys, were once hard to obtain and therefore potentially more valuable, but items can now “easily be ordered online from anywhere in the world,” said James Gallo of Toy Heaven, who did the valuation for the Sotheby’s auction.
“I always tell people never to buy memorabilia for its investment potential, whether it’s new or old,” Gallo said. “You should only buy it if it’s something that gives you pleasure. Most of the ‘Star Wars’ stuff that’s advertised as ‘exclusive’ is mass-produced.”
The original action figures are so valuable in part because “nobody was thinking about saving them” when they first came out, he added. “They were just toys.”
Travis Stein, purchasing manager for Brian’s Toys, a Wisconsin-based business that specializes in “Star Wars” toys, said serious collectors today typically buy two versions of every item: “one to take out of the box and play with and one to hold onto and keep pristine.”
Such careful custodianship — mocked in a recent “Saturday Night Live” skit that poked fun at adult “Star Wars” collectors — makes the future scarcity that would drive prices up unlikely, he said.
“Star Wars”-branded consumer goods, such as Chewbacca Coffee-Mate spiced latte creamer and CoverGirl’s limited-edition collection of nail polish, mascara and lipstick, likely also represent thin pickings, the experts said. While 1980s boxes of C-3PO’s cereal are occasionally offered on eBay, collectors interested in the latest General Mills “Star Wars” cereal will already have stocked up, they said.
“If you eat the cereal and keep the flattened box, you might get $15 or $20” in 10-15 years, Tombusch said. “That’s an OK return, I guess, but only if you eat the cereal first.”
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