Remember those silly plastic toys your folks and grandparents bought for you when you were a kid? Turns out the rare few that didn’t escape their plastic bubble prisons are worth quite a bit of moolah, as shown by this pristine example of a Palitoy Luke Skywalker, sold recently at auction for £2900.
May the force be with you – a vintage Star Wars figure has sold for an out of this world price at a Cumbrian auction house. The 1977 figure of Luke Skywalker sold for £2,900 at Mitchells Vintage and Antique Toy Sale, making it the highest price ever achieved for a toy at the Cockermouth saleroom.
After an intense online bidding war between collectors in Australia, Spain, Malta and the UK, the toy finally sold to a collector in Lancashire. When the auctioneer called the Carlisle-based vendor to tell him the good news, his exact words were “No way!”.
Auctioneer and toy specialist Ewan Duff knew it was likely to sell for a high price because of the unprecedented level of interest before the sale nationally and internationally. The 3.75in action figure was sold to coincide with the release of the film Star Wars, the first instalment of the franchise. The figure came with a light sabre and was in pristine condition within its original bubble and card packaging.
At the sale, another Palitoy Star Wars action figure, a stormtrooper with laser rifle in its original packaging, sold for £420.