Help and advice needed!

[Jancee]

I'd appreciate some advice from the experts as I'm about to start disposing of a large collection of well loved and much played-with Star Wars items from the 1970s and 1980s. They belonged to our son, who now lives abroad and has given us permission to clear them from the loft.
I'm not sure how much value there is in the collection as it has mostly been so 'loved'. It's also extremely dusty. I've started cleaning the pieces, using warm water and washing up liquid, but this has thrown up a few issues...

A lot of the pieces have stickers - mostly the remains of stickers - and I'm not sure whether it's better to try to preserve them, no matter how tatty they are? And exactly how clean do the figures and ships need to be before I list them somewhere? Some have small marks which I understand (from watching a YouTuber) may be removed by gently cleaning with lighter fluid.

I have some of the original boxes for the vehicles and playsets. But they are in poor condition, squashed and dusty. They are very useful to me - an elderly female non-StarWars enthusiast - as they help show which bits go with which! But is that the extent of their value?

Finally (for now), there's a small pile of other SW stuff - Pez, Chupa Chups, Pepsi, Topps etc. Are they collectable? I was thinking of listing them on Ebay as a job lot... My husband says bin them, but he also said that about the hundred or so figures that we have - and I know he's wrong there!

If anyone here can spare the time to offer some advice, it will be much appreciated.

 

[Cazza]

Hi and welcome- you're in the right place. I'm moving the thread to Valuations. The boxes definitely add value. The biggest value is in the accessories- guns, capes etc.

The first step is to add as many clear pics as you can, then I'm sure people will be able to offer plenty of advice.

 

[Jancee]

Hi and welcome- you're in the right place. I'm moving the thread to Valuations. The boxes definitely add value. The biggest value is in the accessories- guns, capes etc.

The first step is to add as many clear pics as you can, then I'm sure people will be able to offer plenty of advice.

Thanks I'll take some pics when I've sorted it all out. It's a mammoth task!

 

[Darkest_Logic]

Best thing to do is to leave them as they are found. Cleaning the figures can be fine but the ships with stickers need to be left but can clean around them if needed. Mostly all items are worth something so best to keep all bits!. Try to match each figure with their accessories and complete the playsets and post pictures up here and go from there.

 

[Fawns61]

Hi, and welcome. It might be a good idea to try and put them into groups first and put a photo on here of each group as you do it, rather than trying to do it all in one go.
Eg. do a photo of the Pez items, boxed vehicles, playsets, figures etc.

Good luck