There has been a good deal of chat over the past few months about some mega tough Palitoy cards. Namely, 41bk Dengar and a few of the first 12 characters on 30bk cards.
Some contributors claim to own or have owned these, although are unable or unwilling to post pictures. That's their call and I don't want to discuss the rights or wrongs of this.
But why are these figures and cardbacks so rare? Why do virtually no used cardbacks turn up, let alone carded figures?
Han Solo on a 30bk shows up as a used cardback every now and again, but nowhere near as often as Luke X-wing on a 30bk does. Luke X-wing was released later in the line than Han, and there are many MOC examples of LXW 20bks, so you could assume they made plenty and even had some overstock. You could say the same for Leia and Ben as Han.
Other 30bk cardbacks just never show up - DSC, Chewie, Han, Leia and Ben are known and cardbacks have been sold publicly. The other 7 of the 12bk characters and 7 of the 20bks (excluding LXW) just NEVER show up even as damaged cardbacks in childhood collections.
So...
Were they never generally released - perhaps only released to a handful of retailers? Major Department stores maybe? Just a certain geographic area? Were they factory samples - prototypes almost? They simply can't (IMO) have been on full open general release.
My Han cardback has a toyshop sticker on it, so definitely wasn't a sample and was sold in a shop.
Is the alternative that other figures (the ones we do see as cardbacks or mocs) were released in such massive numbers that anything released as a limited run (the 30bks above, or 41bk Dengar) just doesn't stand a chance of surviving, statistically?
Any thoughts?
Some contributors claim to own or have owned these, although are unable or unwilling to post pictures. That's their call and I don't want to discuss the rights or wrongs of this.
But why are these figures and cardbacks so rare? Why do virtually no used cardbacks turn up, let alone carded figures?
Han Solo on a 30bk shows up as a used cardback every now and again, but nowhere near as often as Luke X-wing on a 30bk does. Luke X-wing was released later in the line than Han, and there are many MOC examples of LXW 20bks, so you could assume they made plenty and even had some overstock. You could say the same for Leia and Ben as Han.
Other 30bk cardbacks just never show up - DSC, Chewie, Han, Leia and Ben are known and cardbacks have been sold publicly. The other 7 of the 12bk characters and 7 of the 20bks (excluding LXW) just NEVER show up even as damaged cardbacks in childhood collections.
So...
Were they never generally released - perhaps only released to a handful of retailers? Major Department stores maybe? Just a certain geographic area? Were they factory samples - prototypes almost? They simply can't (IMO) have been on full open general release.
My Han cardback has a toyshop sticker on it, so definitely wasn't a sample and was sold in a shop.
Is the alternative that other figures (the ones we do see as cardbacks or mocs) were released in such massive numbers that anything released as a limited run (the 30bks above, or 41bk Dengar) just doesn't stand a chance of surviving, statistically?
Any thoughts?