With the festive period still in full swing, on BBC ONE last night there was a special episode of the Antiques Roadshow that featured nothing but toys. There was something for everyone including a vintage offering of Sindy dolls, teddy bears and Lego. Towards the end of the episode Jonathan Ross, recently featured on Toy Shop on Tour, appeared and he showcased his wonderful collection and knowledge of toys.
For us Star Wars fans, the real fun came just over half way through the show when not only was there some vintage Star Wars on offer but also a game. Yay!
In front of host Fiona Bruce there were three Jawas. A loose and complete 3.75 Jawa, with cloth cape, a large-size (12 inch but not quite 12 inch) boxed Jawa in French packaging that was graded at 85% and last but not least a carded vinyl-caped Jawa that was graded at 80%. After a brief history lesson about the history of the figures for the non-Star Wars fans in the crowd the game was this; Fiona Bruce was presented with three values in GBP and she had to guess which one matched which Jawa.
The options were £50, £3,500 and £20,000. After audible gasps from the crowd, they were invited to guess which price matched which Jawa. Some guessed the large-sized figure as it was in French packaging, some guessed the loose cloth Jawa as one person thought it was a double bluff. Fiona Bruce then put her knowledge to the test. She guessed £50 for the loose Jawa as it didn’t have its packaging. She used her experience to work out £3,500 for the large-size boxed Jawa as ‘it couldn’t be part of bigger play sets’ (the expert in residence continued to tell Fiona that the value of the large size figures has begun to increase in recent years and I can personally attest to noticing this. As a child of the 90s, 12-inch Power of the Force 2 figures were my childhood and I adore them. Han Solo being the first Star Wars toy I ever brought and now going back to buy the vintage line, you certainly feel it in the wallet) and finally Fiona guessed £20,000 for the vinyl-cape Jawa due to its rarity of only being produced for one year. 3 of out 3! Not bad at all.
So, well done to Fiona who certainly had the Force with her and you can catch up on Antiques Roadshow on BBC iplayer and also on showing on New Year’s Day on BBC4 is ‘John Williams Film Prom’ at 10.00pm.