Boba "Rocket" Fett (1979)
March 9, 2019 8:30 AM   Subscribe

In 2017, an uncovered toy theft ruptured the Star Wars collecting community. Two years later, the collectors—and the convicted—are still looking for a way forward.
posted by Chrysostom (29 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
Meanwhile.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 8:33 AM on March 9, 2019 [5 favorites]


Anytime anyone mentions Star Wars collectibles/toys, I am immediately angered. This is why. My mom just gave the entire set away. Unopened, mint condition.

*grumbles*
posted by Fizz at 8:36 AM on March 9, 2019 [9 favorites]


A friend of mine sold a boxed original SW action figure for close to $100 a couple of years ago; not a main character or even a secondary one, just, like, one of the robots that walks by in the background in one or two scenes. When he told the buyer he'd found it in a plastic shopping bag from the Eaton's store it was (presumably) purchased at, the buyer asked if he could have that, too.

Most of the SW toys which belonged to my brother and I, including the X-Wing and the Millennium Falcon, have been passed along to his son or are still in our parents' basement. None of them are in their boxes and I would imagine they're all varying degrees of pretty beat up, but reading this list makes me think we should dig through them. I know we had that medical droid, and I'm pretty sure we had the Luke and Vader figures with the telescoping lightsabers...
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:48 AM on March 9, 2019 [1 favorite]


I was born in 1973 and can remember A thriving rumour mill about Star Wars. I can definitely recall stories about some kid whose cousin had Boba Fett with a working rocket launcher, lol. Fascinating to know those stories had a basis in fact.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 8:49 AM on March 9, 2019 [2 favorites]


The authors missed an opportunity with their headline, it should have been "Boba Fett? Where?"
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:07 AM on March 9, 2019 [8 favorites]


Meanwhile .
posted by paper chromatographologist at 8:33 AM on March 9


The word “monster” gets thrown around so casually these days...
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:19 AM on March 9, 2019 [1 favorite]


where he became immediately interested in buying, selling, and collecting Lucasian memorabilia.

Signed copies of Newton's Principia?
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 9:42 AM on March 9, 2019 [18 favorites]


I would just like to say in passing that I had one of those 'large head' Hans rolling around in my action figure bin while growing up. I always thought it looked like Josh Rittor from threes company.
posted by es_de_bah at 10:08 AM on March 9, 2019


I never cease to be amazed at how weird people are.
posted by srboisvert at 10:16 AM on March 9, 2019 [3 favorites]


I solved this problem by just throwing the whole figure at my brother during one of our periodic Shogun Warriors / Crossbows & Catapults / slingshot wars. IG-88 was also a favorite, being especially pokey.
posted by ryanshepard at 10:25 AM on March 9, 2019 [4 favorites]


Very reminiscent of this recent FPP about casually taking valuable items from loosely guarded collections. At least this story didn’t end with said items being tossed in a canal or burned.
posted by TedW at 10:33 AM on March 9, 2019 [1 favorite]


So what I'm reading is that the single most expensive item I've ever held in my own hands was a small plastic toy almost 40 years ago, and that I should therefore burn the Earth.

I think I'm reading that right.
posted by loquacious at 10:42 AM on March 9, 2019 [20 favorites]


Glancing at the title, I'd assumed this was the Reddit brat that unwrapped his uncle's collectable figure (also a Boba Fett, I think?)
posted by ovvl at 10:53 AM on March 9, 2019 [1 favorite]


loquacious: but consider the market value of a baby
posted by idiopath at 10:54 AM on March 9, 2019 [2 favorites]


Loq: I had an original Black Lotus which I traded for a couple of completely crap cards, so welcome to the club.
posted by maxwelton at 11:06 AM on March 9, 2019 [5 favorites]


Toys are meant to be played with. Not displayed in original packaging.

Like what you like, I suppose, but everything about the culture of collecting strikes me as backwards.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 11:47 AM on March 9, 2019 [14 favorites]


loquacious: but consider the market value of a baby

I can usually only get a few grand for a fresh one.

Loq: I had an original Black Lotus which I traded for a couple of completely crap cards, so welcome to the club.

Oh, the Boba Fett toy wasn't mine. It belonged to that kid that had all the toys and seemed to end up blowing most of them up. I'm still vaguely pissed that he had the BigTrak and couldn't program the movement controls for shit and ended up destroying the circuit board by running it through mud and water like it was a regular old Tonka toy.

Which may explain why I'm so dramatically passionate about giving people access to creative tools and things. It was my anti-Ayn Rand experience that taught me just because someone has all the toys it doesn't mean they're going to be any good at using them. It's remarkable how many life situations this applies to.
posted by loquacious at 11:51 AM on March 9, 2019 [10 favorites]


Like what you like, I suppose, but everything about the culture of collecting strikes me as backwards.

I lived with an adult supercollector once. He was incredibly annoying. He was the kind of person that would get seasonal jobs at toy stores specifically to get first pick of the short packs / rarities of toys even though he didn't need the job or any job at all. Worse, he'd often buy two or three of a given collectible so he had one to open and play with, one to sell and one to put in a box in the dark, forever.

I once bought a slightly rare R2D2 that made noises from the Episode 1 era simply because I liked it, and I made a point to wait until I got home to open it casually in right front of him. Unannounced. Veeeery slowly and making sure to tear the packaging right up.

It was unsettling how much this viscerally disturbed him. About halfway through opening the box I wasn't sure if he was going to try to start a physical fight or throw a tantrum or both.

Come to think of it, I don't think I've actually bought any kind of pop culture toy since then and living in that house. It kind of ruined it for me.
posted by loquacious at 12:02 PM on March 9, 2019 [17 favorites]


What this guy did was shitty, but people were harassing his kids over collectible theft? Truly, the Internet is terrible.
posted by Anonymous at 12:06 PM on March 9, 2019


So what I'm reading is that the single most expensive item I've ever held in my own hands was a small plastic toy almost 40 years ago, and that I should therefore burn the Earth.

At least you didn't put early seventies hockey cards on your bike frame so your bicycle spokes would make motor-like noises and thereby destroyed hundreds of the highest return investment vehicles of that era.

Vroom vroom!
posted by srboisvert at 12:41 PM on March 9, 2019 [2 favorites]


Fuck Star Wars thieves, thought for a moment this was about my friend who had his home-built R2 replica stolen while he was at the hospital with his very sick kid.
posted by Iteki at 1:05 PM on March 9, 2019 [2 favorites]


I'm going to go ahead and say that while Cunningham looks like a weak person who made terrible choices, I am not overwhelmed by the affluent, famous collector who urged the judge to sentence a man to prison over plastic toys. I've got to say that I think paying restitution, facing death threats, losing his job and losing his friends are enough punishment - a true natural consequence. Like, look, I would be horribly angry if a friend took some of the few sorta valuable things I own, but I'd just want them to be sorry and return them or pay me back. I can't imagine wanting to send someone to jail away from his kids, especially knowing that he was already facing a financially insecure future.
posted by Frowner at 1:48 PM on March 9, 2019 [28 favorites]


All of my Star Wars figures were donated or trashed when my parents moved out of our childhood home - I was out of college in a tiny NYC apartment, it was in that long gap before the prequels came out when I suspect in my head it was more embarrassing to admit your fandom than a personal point of pride - plus they were well played with - so I think I didn't care at the time (or they just weren't on my radar at all). And then I forgot all about them.

The Queens Museum of the Moving Image has a full set of the action figures on display, and seeing them a few years ago really took me back - like coming face to face with old friends. And I really felt a sense of loss. I was pointing to them to my stepkids and saying "I had that one, and that one, and all of those, and I wanted that ship but I only had that one... and I kept asking for that one [the Tauntaun, FWIW] but my parents wouldn't get it for me, so I had to play with it at a friend's house who had it..." And some dudebro standing at the case next to us turned to us and told us, flat out, "There's no way you were old enough to have that one." Which I'm pretty sure was his way of putting me in my place if not outright saying I was lying, but be still my 40-something heart because damn that too-young-looking accidental compliment made me grin like an idiot.

So now when I go back there I wave to them all and I don't feel the loss the same way at all. But I did really love my Hoth Leia with the guns.
posted by Mchelly at 6:35 PM on March 9, 2019 [10 favorites]


Also (sorry I needed to go down my own memory hole first but thanks for listening, I did read TFA)... this was a really fascinating article. I'm honestly kind of shocked that it was only one guy stealing when I saw how loosely displayed everything was there - that's a lot of trust he had in the community, and it seems it was largely warranted.
posted by Mchelly at 6:37 PM on March 9, 2019


I understand the whole collectibles thing, I really do. But the thought of all those toys going unplayed with makes me a bit sad.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:15 PM on March 9, 2019 [2 favorites]


A few years ago I sold all my childhood action figures, I hadn’t even known that my dad had kept them all. I mostly had Action Force/GI Joe figures but came across a tiny gun which I recognised as being from Star Wars. I popped it up on eBay with a starting price of £1.99. Within 20 minutes I’d had two messages from people asking if I’d end the auction early and accept £20. So I hopped on to on of the forums mentioned in the article and the good folks there let me know that I had a rare version of a Bespin Blaster. At some point in the early 80s the factory used the wrong colour of plastic in a batch and they were shipped with some random Action a Force figures instead.
Collectors who were far down the rabbit hole obviously wanted all the variants so this one ended up selling for £55 which was the most any single one of my toys went for apart from this handsome lad.

I like collectors! They paid for a Baltic cruise that year.
posted by gnuhavenpier at 1:40 PM on March 10, 2019


I sold a ton of mox and the like back in the early 2000s for a very nice appreciation, but they'd be worth a lot more now. But I don't regret selling them at all, as they helped pay the rent during a period when I was patching together contract and part time jobs.
posted by tavella at 1:44 PM on March 10, 2019


es_de_bah: "I always thought it looked like Josh Rittor from threes company."

John Ritter.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:05 PM on March 10, 2019


everything about the culture of collecting strikes me as backwards.
It's sadly not even our biggest national embarrassment, but American consumerism in re artificial scarcity definitely ranks.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:21 AM on March 11, 2019 [1 favorite]


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