Earliest Vintage SW Memories

My earliest memory is of playing in the sand pit at primary school with a friend who had brought an xwing and some figures in circa 1978, not sure how many cat turds we unearthed that day happy days

bosk70 said:

My earliest memory is of playing in the sand pit at primary school with a friend who had brought an xwing and some figures in circa 1978, not sure how many cat turds we unearthed that day happy days

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Jabba droppings surely! :lol:

Taffius said:

bosk70 said:

My earliest memory is of playing in the sand pit at primary school with a friend who had brought an xwing and some figures in circa 1978, not sure how many cat turds we unearthed that day happy days

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Jabba droppings surely! :lol:

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most likely naughty jawas back then

I also remember cutting the back of a C3PO mask from a cereal packet around this time and also pencilling on the transfers onto the diorama's cards (letraset) and any other surface in the house

I also seem to recall being really upset back in 1983 just before ROTJ was released because there was a playground rumour circulating around that Han Solo was going to die and the Millennium Falcon was going to blow up! :lol: I don't know how rumours like this spread so much before the internet age, but it turned out that there was an element of truth to this rumour considering what we know about how Harrison Ford, Gary Kurtz and Laurence Kasdan felt about the direction they wanted the character to go. I think George Lucas made the right choice in the end! :wink:

My first memories are of some 'big' boys (they were probably about 7) carrying an AT-AT around to my house. It took 2 of them to carry it in and I thought it was amazing. I was 3 or 4. Also remeber playing with the MF on my third birthday and telling an old man all about it.

This may sound daft but did anyone ever feel frightened at a young age by Star Wars? I remember going to see Jedi (the only film I saw at the cinema as a child) and feeling terrified at the first appearance of Vader. Maybe it was nervous excitement at seeing this on the big screen? Or maybe I'm just a big girls blouse!! :lol:

My very first memory of anything Star Wars was when I was aged 3... a neighbour who was a few years older was playing with a Stormtrooper or Stormtroopers in his sand pit/box. Vague memory but I remember they stood out from Weebles or Playmobil or whatever, very unique I remember thinking. Striking! When I hit 4 and half / 5, I was bought some figures in bulk... Han Hoth, Boba Fett, Leia Organa etc etc. Hooked!! Seeing Jedi at the cinema gave me brain damage. I still suffer with it

My first memory was at school, must of been around 94 and we got to take a toy home each weekend as long as it was returned after. I had no idea what it was, or even the existence of Star Wars but I ended up taking home Vader. No one else wanted it, in the end for weeks I only took that toy then one evening when I should of been asleep I put the tv on. The clank of AT-ATS on Hoth and snow speeders zipping around captured me, I think it was not until I got half way through did I realise what the toy I had been taking home actually was.

25 or so years later I found him in a box, looking at me. Its funny really, out of all of the movies I have watched over the years since childhood SW' seems to reignite ones memories, more so than any other movie. Even after selling off my sporadic collection of original Kenner figures and early 90s stuff, that single bloody Darth Vader has lured me back. :lol:


That reminds me, I need a saber for him :roll:

Scarifpacific said:

.... just a big girls blouse!! :lol:

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:lol:

It all gets a bit muddled together for me now that I'm older. My brother and sister already had a chewbacca and yoda which were handed down to me and I was born in 82.

I can remember playing with chewy and yoda, also walking down Oxford st one Christmas to see the lights and seeing a loose Jedi figure display in the selfridges window so that must have been 86/87, that Christmas I got a Jabba and ewok glider and catapult and then not long after that going to my local toy shop and picking out leia boussh, lando skiff, teebo, and logray and I still remember opening them all sat in the back of our old Peugeot 309 and almost losing landos staff down one of the seats. Not long after that got a weequay and the energizer mini rig and then a Han hoth whilst on a very rainy holiday in Cornwall.


Even back then because my dad collected antiques I managed to get quite a lot of figures and ships going to fairs with him

Amazing how it stays with you

Really enjoy reading through this thread, this is what it's all about. I wish I could remember more specifics, my memory is hazy from 30 odd years ago! One of my earliest and clearest memories is getting the Snowspeeder for Christmas in... must have been 81' or 82' and running around my bedroom in my pyjamas with it with all the lights turned off. I can totally remember the sound and the yellow glow of the lights and being proper chuffed to bits with it. Such a cool toy and I still have it. I also have a memory of opening Hoth figures - Luke and Leia and an AT-AT Driver around the same time. And also a Hoth Wampa and Taun-Taun which I still have. It was all probably the same Christmas and maybe the first Christmas I received Star Wars toys.

One of the reasons I've recently joined this forum is to share and read about memories, and I thought I would start by adding to this thread about first figures memories.

My first introduction to a Star Wars figure was in around 1980, when I was seven years old. A kid down the street showed me an "R5-D4" and must have then told me about the toys. This vague memory is just of being outside, at his house, and seeing the figure. I don't remember playing with it or seeing others. My mom and his mom were friends, and they must have talked about where to get the figures and how much her son enjoyed them.

My next memory is of my mom taking myself and my brother (who would have been around four at the time) to a store called "Coast To Coast", which was a hardware store that also sold toys. We were there to get our first Star Wars figures. I remember a tall wall (tall to the seven year old me, at least) of figures that was very full. My mom bought C-3PO and R2-D2 for me, and Darth Vader and a Snowtrooper for my brother. I'm pretty sure the figures were on Empire Strikes Back cards. I remember cutting up the cardback and saving the little square pictures of the other figures (I guess I was a "collect them all" kid, even at age seven!) making these most likely 30 or 31 back figures, or possibly even ESB 21 back Secret Offer ones. Sometime during this era, I remember seeing the "Secret Figure Offer" cards also at "Coast to Coast", but this could have been on a different trip. I remember being fascinated that there was a secret figure, and wondered for years who it was, as my parents did not mail away for it.

Great memories! Love this thread.

Great thread, wow I have missed that in 2018 thanks for sharing it again

Earliest STAR WARS memory for me, was either 1978 or 1979? I was about six or seven at the time.

A friend at Junior Primary School had quite a few figures (some of them belonged to his older brother). I didn't know what they were (from what film / TV show?), but, I knew I liked them a lot.
We'd play with them - sometimes with great violence - snapping off the heads of Obi-Wan and Tatooine Luke. He'd give them to me after breaking them. I'd take them home and dad would fix them, by inserting a small screw (with the screw head sawn off) into the hole in the neck and then screw the head back on. It worked ... for a while.

My first (paid for) figure was Luke Skywalker: X-Wing Pilot, from K-Mart, in 1979. Would've been about $2.00 back then. I loved that STAR WARS cardback. I'd stare at it for hours, studying the other products in the line (loved Greedo and the Dewback lizard).

That card image of Luke, in his orange flight suit, climbing the yellow ladder, is my favourite STAR WARS memory from the late '70s.

One of my first memories dates back to perhaps 1978, some months after I saw Star Wars at a theatre. I had been totally enthralled by the movie and a cousin my age — who wasn't so much into the movie — got from his parents an amazing SW t-shirt. I distinctly recall it was a nice, soft yellow with the image of awide-stanced stormtrooper pointing his gun to the spectator. The shot was amazing, the fabric's colour was unusual for t-shirts in Mexico at that time and I thought to myself that it was not fair, since I was the one who loved the film. Decades would pass before I wore a SW t-shirt, and that trooper is still burnt in my brain. I think it was my first lesson in life: fairness is just a thin ideal in our minds. : D

I remember watching something on TV about it. I remember us driving through central London and seeing the large display above a cinema. I remember going to see the film, but that was after the previous two memories, I'm sure.

I also remember see my neighbour playing in the back alleyway with some Star Wars figures...which is definitely my first memory of them.

What I can't figure out is if the film related memories came before the toys, or the other way round.

sith-smith said:

I remember watching something on TV about it. I remember us driving through central London and seeing the large display above a cinema. I remember going to see the film, but that was after the previous two memories, I'm sure.

I also remember see my neighbour playing in the back alleyway with some Star Wars figures...which is definitely my first memory of them.

What I can't figure out is if the film related memories came before the toys, or the other way round.

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I definitely remember seeing (and playing with) the figures before seeing the films. I didn't get to see STAR WARS until it premiered on television in 1982 (Australia). I didn't see EMPIRE until it turned up on videotape in 1984. JEDI, is the only one of the trilogy that I did get to see at the cinema (in late 1983).

Apart from the Vader figure (I suspected he was evil, because he was all black), I wasn't completely sure who were the good and who were the bad guys. I thought maybe the Stormtroopers were good - because they were white. I had no idea about any of the cantina aliens - nor Chewbacca.

Robstyley said:

Really enjoy reading through this thread, this is what it's all about. I wish I could remember more specifics, my memory is hazy from 30 odd years ago! One of my earliest and clearest memories is getting the Snowspeeder for Christmas in... must have been 81' or 82' and running around my bedroom in my pyjamas with it with all the lights turned off. I can totally remember the sound and the yellow glow of the lights and being proper chuffed to bits with it. Such a cool toy and I still have it. I also have a memory of opening Hoth figures - Luke and Leia and an AT-AT Driver around the same time. And also a Hoth Wampa and Taun-Taun which I still have. It was all probably the same Christmas and maybe the first Christmas I received Star Wars toys.

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Exactly the same with my Snowspeeder- lights off etc etc. Absolutely loved it- so glad I kept it. I sat on the floor, next to the Christmas tree with my Dad, to put the stickers on and he did his back in. I remember my uncle and teenage cousins had to carry him upstairs and he was in bed with severe lumbago for two weeks. Poor old Dad!